Sak

My Top 10

01.04.10 14:52
Section: Sak
Filed Under: Copyright - Sak, Observations

Toward the end of a period, a year or a decade, a number of articles typically appear that list the Top Ten Whatever. As a culture we review our recent history by such means; little reminders of what we saw happening during our lives over that certain period of time. Many of these things we witnessed together—the tragedy of 9.11.01, the first black president, the beginning of a war, or the iPhone. Some of them we experienced directly, as perhaps we knew someone in one of the towers who died back in September of 2001, or are someone serving in Afghanistan, or happen to be the owner of an iPhone. Since none of those applied to me, other than being witness to them during the past decade, I couldn’t help but wonder, as I do, what were the most significant events in my life, as an individual, during the last ten years. I pondered over what events shaped my life, for better or for worse. So I made a list.

These events aren’t in any chronological order. In many cases I’m not listing a specific event that occurred on a particular day, but something which evolved over the course of the decade to become a reality. Interestingly, I found that they were all fairly significant events to me. Still, I can’t help but wonder about other events that happened along the way that may be more life altering experiences than what I’ve listed here, but only because I’m as yet unaware of the change that they’ve brought about in my life; making a new friend or drifting apart from another; a rainy day or a calm warm one; a dream; a good book. Those count too. My ordering is an attempt at significance, though I’m sure my accuracy is lacking. At the moment of writing this, I may have mustered some feeling for one over another, but in a week or a month I may feel differently. So take my list as merely a thought experiment; a wandering mind.

Lawsuit

A friend once mentioned that you’re not an adult until you’ve been sued. In my case it was an insurance scam. Even though I was the name on the law suit, it was the plaintiff’s attempt to get more money out of an insurance company for an accident that I caused. The end result was only a few thousand dollars more for the plaintiff than what was originally offered by the insurance company at the time of the accident, and separation from a long time friend. Yay, I’m all grow’d up now.

Dinner Through a Straw

An idiotic decision to try and beat a yellow light on my bicycle left me kissing the intersection. Kisses being what they are, both painful and pleasant all at once, this one was missing the pleasure element. My hands were down in the handlebar drops, and I didn’t get them up quickly enough to break my fall, so my face took the brunt of the concrete. I fractured my jaw and busted out my front teeth, which gave me the joy of having my face wired shut for six weeks and sucking on meals through a straw.

The End of the Party

At the end of the dot-com boom I landed a job that paid me 5k a month but only provided work for four hours a day. It was all about playing with money, selling an idea, and we never really made a fully functional product, no matter how much I wanted to get behind the idea and actually create something. I ate out for every meal, at one point spending $400 on a single dinner for myself and four friends. During that ten month heyday, I also periodically gave lumps of cash to a close friend to keep him working on his art and out of debt.

Worst Man

I was the best man at my oldest and closest friend’s wedding. His bride-to-be hated me, and I delivered a drunken but honest toast at the reception. Though I don’t remember precisely what I said because I was making it up as I went, it went a little like this:

When I first met C he couldn’t do anything right; always getting in trouble for being late, or unprepared. Here’s to the future.

I was hated even more for that speech by the wife, and my friend was the only one in the entire room who understood what I meant. He now has a lovely family, with an amazingly beautiful son. Here’s to their decade, and the next.

Pills

Suffering near suicidal anxiety and depression, I finally gave in. Of course, that was only after several years of holding onto a notion that I can achieve stability again naturally, and subjecting myself to a number of therapy techniques—including psychology, New-Age women who shake my stomach while making rumbling sounds and rubbing crystal bowls, playing with special rocks, massage, meditation, smashing plastic bats into pillows. Granted, I didn’t try everything but my propensity to disbelieve made it that much more difficult, so I finally decided to try medication. My sensitivity to drugs brought uncomfortable results on the first couple of attempts, but I’ve since found a regimen that seems to be working. The book Poets on Prozac was a big help in the decision to commit to the pills.

204 miles

In 11 hours in the saddle, or 14 hours total including meal breaks, I rode my bicycle 204 miles in a single day from Seattle, WA, to Portland, OR and raised roughly five thousand dollars for cancer research. I discovered a massive emotional gap on that day, and rode through it. That gap still exists, though I’ve not figured out how to traverse it again without riding a bicycle 204 miles. Or maybe I have, and my ride now is far greater than 204 miles and doesn’t involve my bicycle.

One Love

I met a woman of incredible beauty and integrity, and moved to another city to be with her. My own failings, however, brought a feverish six month relationship to a close with a train ride back to Seattle and two broken hearts. My justification is stupid and cliché, so I won’t bore you with it, but five years later, and a week doesn’t go by that I don’t think about how things could have been. Solitude, as uncomfortable as it is, became a choice instead of a circumstance. I just hope I manage to get my shit figured out before too long.

Descent Into Self

Staying in ones room for four or five days straight at a time, doing nothing but reading, studying, and writing brings about a certain madness. I developed an immense depression and anxiety at watching the outside world whirling around in its definition of “success” as I slipped farther into its definition of “failure.” I was alarmed to discover that trying to truly find ones individuality is far more disturbing and rewarding than simply rebelling against some social norm, popular culture, or whatever.

Cancer

A 3cm mass in my cecum caused a bit of uncomfortable blockage, and had to be removed, along with about a third of my large intestine. Somewhere in the middle of six months of chemo-therapy, a moment was had that would alter my perception. There was a point during the experience where I sat in my bed, after a treatment, trying to keep from throwing up, and I found myself focusing inward. I felt as though I was somehow aware of every cell in my body, and the space between them was the space outside and around me. I was at once apart and whole; a feeling of absolute completeness and yet separate from everything. I’ve never been able to get back to that sensation since.

A Life vs. A Living

I’ve always had difficulty with regular jobs. Not from caring too little, but from caring too much, even about the most mundane, bullshit job. Yeah, I’ll sweep that floor like no one ever has, discovering all sorts of new ways to move the broom to produce the best possible results. During this decade, however, I left my last job working for a living, and with the help of a few very dear loved ones I’ve embarked on my life.

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