The First Chapter:

Here is the first, most up to date chapter of my story. I wrote it over two years ago and have been editing it as I have found time. It is more of an introduction than a first chapter, but it is the beginning. Enjoy.

Everything’s better with music. You put on the headphones as the world around you drowns out helping you know everything is going to turn out all right. It’s okay to smile. You sit and watch the people, hurrying to and fro…Pictures being taken, hugs being shared, people sleeping on one another’s shoulder’s waiting for another plane. And with every person, every piece of luggage, every hand being held, there is a story different from any other story ever told on the face of the earth. Each person, each struggle, each pain, each triumph all collide in the public arena. But like I said, you put on your headphones and the world seems better.

I’m nothing special, not a genius or a model or some kind of amazing athlete. Just a guy with some words that get put together in my head and form sentences, some which are good and some which a little line shows up on my computer screen when I type them telling me they’re not even sentences. I’m just a guy, my name isn’t as important as who I am and what I want to do. For all you know, I could be your next-door neighbor, the person sitting next to you in a cubicle, your classmate. The point is I could be anyone, and yet the world would never be the same had I never existed, had my story never been shared, had my life never touched another or another had never touched my life.

This moment, I’m sitting waiting for a plane. This moment is the start of the rest of my life; an adventure that I’ve dreamed of, of a life that I missed out on. In order for you to know the hope and uncertainty that lies ahead, a picture of the disaster behind needs to be taken. I’d like to believe that there’s always hope in uncertainty. It’s not like I know what’s going to happen, but I know what could happen. I know what has happened and I know it can’t get much worse than that. The advantage of hitting bottom is that it’s only up. You can only fall back down to where you were. It can never get worse than the worst. So that means, short of death, which could be considered better than the disaster behind, the uncertainty ahead contains hope.

I was born a normal kid. Simply put, I was average. Average cuteness, average height (I’m lying here. I’m short, smaller than average height. The advantage is that this is a book and you can only judge me by the picture in the about the author section and I’ve instructed the photographer to make me look average height.), average weight, all average. The only thing that wasn’t average about me, other than my height and possibly my hairline, was my family. They are what I call screwed up, messed up beyond all recognition. For a long time I considered myself not to have a family, or at least not a family that I’d publicly admit to having. That has really changed throughout the years, though. In fact I find my family getting bigger, not in the sense that all my siblings or parents for that matter are popping out kids, but in the sense that I find myself adding to my family because of the relationships I’ve built with others.

You know, one thing that seems to always happen when you’re waiting is you seeing someone who looks like they’re running from something to somewhere. I don’t know who they are, but they have a look in their eye. Its sad mixture of hurt, fear, and hope. They look around in wonder, knowing that there just might be something better just over the hill or on the landing strip of some other city airport. I know that look pretty well because I’m the one wearing it now. That hurt in the eyes is the past experiences. The fear is leaving the past behind because its all that you know. The hope is that you might just find a new life off that landing strip of some other city’s airport.

I have that restlessness in my spirit, like if this plane doesn’t come soon, I may never make it out of Chi-town, that’s Chicago if you’re wondering, and if this interview doesn’t go well, I’ve just wasted my not biological grandpa’s inheritance money on some dream that didn’t pan out. I’m entering my mid 20’s in a couple of weeks, graduating college and heading to Oregon or Colorado. I don’t know which, although by the end of the book you’ll actually know. A couple of years ago, I dropped out of high school. A couple days before that I came home to find I had been kicked out of my mom’s house. As a child I was abandoned by my dad, bounced around homes, watched my older brother almost commit suicide, and almost made an attempt on my own life. Yet with all that considered here I am, sitting in an airport waiting to leave for a job interview. I’m a couple of month’s from my bachelor’s degree and Brand New carrys away the time for me as the ticker scrolls by telling me my flight information while I wait to leave Chicago.