Camp Nanowrimo 2021 - The Boy With The Thorn In His Side - EXCERPT
My childhood was annoyingly, frustratingly average. Loving even. No harsh realities ever smacked me in the face. I never knew what it was to go hungry. I never wondered where my parents were or if they loved me. In fact there were more times I would push them away so I could run off and do something they didn’t approve of than anything else. It was a great way to grow up for any kid but maybe not so much for a writer. And certainly not for a writer whose life took so many drastic turns and went down roads there was really no reason to go down other than it was where the shiny things were and I was easily distracted. Am easily distracted. Bird!
From my first memories of being a kid though my ninth birthday I can’t say anything of note really happened. Fantastically elaborate Christmases and run of the mill family reunions were almost routine. My parents remained steadfast in their involvement in my life, as well as with my sisters. We were a well adjusted family from all angles - and not in the way you hear about over foreboding music at the beginning of a Netflix documentary about a family found dead at the hands of the patriarch, throats slit and bodies sliced to ribbons by the broken glass of picture frames that once held family photos from vacations to Disney and Wisconsin Dells. We were legitimately happy.
And I was apparently going to do everything I could to fuck that up.
It wasn’t on purpose. No one ever becomes an addict or alcoholic because it sounds like a super fun time. You know why? Because it’s fucking not. And I’m not talking about the more colloquial uses of those words like you might hear at a college kegger or from a few moms getting wine drunk at two in the afternoon on a random Tuesday after they drop Makenzie and Ryleigh or Rylee or, God help us all, yet another Madison at the babysitter’s. I mean taking bumps of blow off the pipe of a urinal at the now defunct Excalibur nightclub in Chicago while the random girl you found on the dance floor guards the door or orders you yet another Grey Goose and Red Bull. It wouldn’t be the first drug of the night, nor the first drink, nor the last girl. That’s a true story. That’s not bragging. And if you think it is there’s nothing I can say to make you less of an asshole.