This thing called ‘failing’

This is a piece of writing I did in one of my classes. My students had to write an illustration essay and so I wrote one as well. You might be familiar with bits of it as I took them from some of our e-mails. I hope you like it. If not fuck you err I mean well you know. PS if you want a good one look up this link
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=fuck&searchmode=none


Rumptz



In all my life falling down has been a necessity to move me beyond that which I had accepted as normal. But I have never let it keep me down, not since that day I came told I had to repeat the third grade because I could not read and write well. On that day I was kept down and I stayed down for a long time. Then one day my Italian Grandmother filled me with spirit, she had pointed out that she was not educated but she was not stupid as well, “So, you cannot read now! You go lock yourself in the bathroom and read out load every day!” As crazy as it seems, and although it did take several years before I could realize it, I did just that and I have never let embarrassment or failure get in my way. I have looked at falling down as the impetus dare I say a necessity to get me out of the rut I had dug myself into. And even when the horse that is life kicks you in the teeth for the thousandth time, as my Grandmother was inclined to pint out it would, you needed to pick yourself up for by picking yourself up you are winning not losing. Or as Mary Pickford so eloquently said “This thing called ‘failing’ is not falling down but staying down.” In some ways I would say I need to fail so that I can move on with my life.

The second failure I had in life was with the battle of the bulge. I guess that I have, in my lifetime, gained and lost well over 400 pounds! I have not always been large, in fact in my youth I as of slight frame, But some time after failing third grade I turned to food for a comfort for that and the shock of a turbulent family life. The rush that a Snickers bar gives was just the thing needed to take away the pain of failing and the tumultuous family life I had, in part as a result of failing. And with my mountains of pain I needed heaps of chocolate to abate the suffering. I ate and suffered and ate until I was quite obese at a young age. As a child it is acceptable to be friends with a fat kid but as a teen being fat was tantamount to being dead of having a face full of pimples! So in the guise of becoming more popular I began a several year transformation joining any team I could at my high school. And although I achieved popularity, not for being an athlete but for my oddness, I did lose the weight and kept it off until I graduated from college. After graduation from college I made a series of misfortunate and extremely stressful career choices, which led me back to food as comfort, and I in 1999 had ballooned up to 285 pounds. After totally failing to maintain my weight I had decided to pick myself up and began an extreme diet. I lost 110 pounds in 6 months. But it is a daily battle that and some days I still fail to keep the weight off. I keep failing but I keep picking myself up and fight to keep the weight off.

The third failure that I have fought and won has been that of addiction. I swear I could be addicted to chalk if it gave a buzz of any kind. As I had mentioned my first addiction was to food. But that was only the start, for compared the delight that a snickers bar give a bag of marijuana is a mountain of joy! As a child of the 70s I was raised in a culture predominated by drugs, for it was the drug milieu, the zeitgeist of imbibing freely and I was a chief adherent. I started smoking marijuana for the joy and to numb the pain of life, and because it was in a sense a tradition amongst siblings. I used to get up at 6am to do my paper route and then smoke. Then I would hang out with the juniors and smoke with them at school. If I had any money left I would go buy a bag after school and smoke some more. My life was one big fat joint and I did not know what sobriety was. I decided at the tender age of 15 that I was an addict and had to stop. Then alcohol began to be a problem for me at this time. I had started buying beer on a regular basis at around 13. The problem is that drinking is socially acceptable. You see there was at least some social pressure for me to stop smoking marijuana but since alcohol was acceptable I was just being a boy. And then I move on to harder stuff, I finished High School in 1985 the year that crack became big in Detroit. This was not the time in my life to abuse this drug although I would use it frequently. I did not have enough money to really abuse it. It was all so new back then that no one saw it as a big issue was. I was just smoking coke. Over the years experiences became too sordid to retell here but they involved, speed, coke, and LSD (acid) I had many more episodes of drug addiction thought my life. Finally I became addicted to crack, not that is a source of pride. I had graduated from college and started a job at Enterprise Rent A Car (ERAC). It was supposed to be a management-training program but I was renting cars day and night and cleaning the rental cars in my suit and tie! It was a horrid and difficult life and so I turned to the most horrid addiction of my life, crack. I smoked more crack than I made in a week of work, which was a lot! I would smoke crack all night long and go to work with no sleep. I was addicted like I had never been before. I finally had enough of my ERAC life and decided to go back to graduate school in philosophy. Stopping work made me want to quite the drugs but it was a long battle to quit. Finally I had had enough of it and stopped all drugs and drinking as well, for it was my gateway into drugs. You see drinking impairs judgment and that meant doing drugs to me. So I went completely clean and sober for 7 or 9 years. And because I do drink now I still have battles with my addictions. But I still win I do not let my addictions keep me down I pick myself up and fight.

Finally the last failure that I have had but not stayed down for is work. I grew up with out a father. No, I did not but my father’s time and energy were spent primarily at work. Now I hardly can blame the man who achieved so much from so little for being obsessed with work and success but I decided at an early age that wealth was not worth that much of a sacrifice. As I had mentioned hen I tried to do the things my father did while at Enterprise Rent A Car it ate up my soul and I turned to drugs. Having failed and feeling like a corporate whore I returned to school to peruse a master’s degree in Philosophy. I decided to go back to work in the construction field, so I could get into the Peace Corps, in the middle of my masters. After working for about a year I got into the Peace Corps and found that it was full snakes. The odium and contempt that my fellow Peace Corps held from me culminated in a story passed on to me by a new Volunteer. When I told whim where I was a volunteer, he calumniated to me a story of a volunteer from that place who did noting but spent time with his wife and child. I had to mention that his asperity was cast at none other than me. He capitulated but I explained that there was not need for after being there for two years I began to find the opprobrium with which I was held to be comical. Currently I am faced again with egregious enormity. It all started with my big fat belly! I went to the Dr. office and when I got I the scale I weighed in at 210! Then the nurse took my blood pressure 140/90! I new some dramatic action was in order. I had recently renewed my family’s membership to the Pacific Island Club (PIC), and as PIC had no exercise equipment I decided to go back to swimming. But by doing so I enraged many members in my department. The hatred had all come to a boiling point when I went to work Friday January 26th, 2007. I had some meetings to attend; I do not have class on Fridays. Well one of the meetings was about the Faculty Senate Election, in the meeting I was told by one of the Faculty Senators that I need to stop talking about going swimming because it infuriates some of my colleague / office mates. Another topic I am not to discuss is my devotion to my children. I guess they get mad when I say unreasonable things like “ I cannot do _____ because I have to pick up my kids and help them with their homework.” or “ I am sorry I cannot attend that meeting because I have to exercise in the morning” or “I love going to PIC (The Pacific Island Club) with my family” Such statements are unbecoming of a professional. I guess I should hide my tan as well. I might consider coming to work in a Burka with my mouth taped, so as not to inflame any tension in my office. In the end I did not give up I persevered and continued doing the things I love. I had some serious falls but I still kept at it I would not let others hold me down, my time for that was over in the 3rd grade!

Although falling down is painful and it calls for dramatic changes in your life it has been what I needed to move on in my life. If it were not for my alleged colleagues pushing me to not swim and be with my family I might realize how important those things were from me. Had I not been completely addicted to crack, I would not have seen the need form me to make such a complete and utter change in my personality. If I had not been morbidly obese I would have never gotten the strength to change my diet and lifestyle. Granted I still have much work to do in the battle of all of these problems. I am far from a perfect father I try but I fail. I far from in balance between my work life and my family / personal life the scales go askew in new directions each time. I still have days that I drink too much and know it. I am constantly in a battle to reach a normal weight for myself as well but love the wrong types of food. In the end I fail but I do not let my failures keep me down I just get up and try better the next time.