Day 73 of 365-Pt.2: I wanna see what you can do…

Holding a forgotten dream in my hand that is suddenly tangible, has been more then just slightly overwhelming. It’s bittersweet. And disturbing. We’d recorded A.N.R. during some of the darkest days of my life, and looking back I honestly think the project was about the only thing keeping me going at the time. I was feeding off a single emotion then. Rage. It was about all I was feeling. Simple fundamental necessities like food, sleep, and social interaction had become nugatory. The ex had just pulled her little Houdini act, and vanished off into oblivion with her new boy candy. I on the other hand was standing alone, nothing more then a boy myself, holding a broken heart in one hand and an eight month old little girl in the other. She’d walked out on us, and I’d never felt so lost, aimless, and inundated. Before or since. It was actually something she had said the last time we ever talked face to face that had kept me going. We were standing on the steps of the court house, and she’d insisted that if “he” and I were both drowning, and she could only save one of us, she would save me. I found that rather profound. I had to giggle. Like in that moment I finally snapped. The proverbial straw that had broken the camels back, as it were. She said she would save me, and yet there I was. Drowning. And she didn’t jump in and save me. Instead she made me take a paternity test. Not to prove I was Dezi’s father, but to prove that I wasn’t. How’s that for hypocrisy?
As eager as she was in what I have to assume was her conquest of breaking me, she only fueled the fire more. The test came back 99.999999. And that is when she vanished. Bailed without her daughter, without me, without even a goodbye or even reconciling the four digit debt I had cosigned on. I don’t even think she paid her lawyer. She just walked away. Nearly two years passed before she popped up again in Meeker, Colorado. I can at least say that by then I’d woken up. The days in between….
As much as I liked being a part of that band, and as much as I wish I could say that when Dezi’s mom had bailed out, I did the right thing. I can’t. I do not miss nor admire who I was or how I dealt with the situation. I was young, selfish, and I was hurt. It was an ignorant stand point. One I’m not the least bit proud of. Rather then doing what I should have, focusing on my little girl, I instead went into self destruction mod. In my head, my daughters mom had just walked out on us, and all I cared about was how badly she’d hurt me. How fucking selfish is that? I was an ignorant little prick. I didn’t center myself on my daughter. I didn’t focus on the one thing that made my life amount to a damn. Instead, to keep my mind off of her and all her hallow lies, cheating, empty promises, and tommyrot, I instead buried myself in work.
Super dad? Hardly. Between the two jobs I was holding down at the time, I was pulling in about 60 hours a week. After she bailed, it jumped up to about 90 hours, give or take twenty. Add the band putting on shows nearly every weekend, after hours shindigs, and me tipping cans left and right, like they were the answer to fuzzing clarity, and recording the album to top it off. It all boiled down to me bailing out on my daughter as much as her mom had. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t eat. And I didn’t care.
So why would I say finishing the album has been bittersweet and disturbing? A.N.R. is a vision made real. It is something I invested countless dollars and hours into. It will also always be a pronounced reminder of the worst hours of my life. My most selfish. My most self destructive. And my most cowardly. I am very proud of the envisage we produced. But I am equally ashamed of the journey I coursed to accomplish it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg3glZaWqTY

Friday, March 12th. 2010

Taken on: March 12, 2010

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Sets appears in: • 365 - pt.2

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