Christmas time always makes me reflect on years and things past. Deeply reflect. I put on It’s A Wonderful Life and memories of some forgotten past part of my life seem to flood to the surface. It’s funny how at a certain part of your life 30 years ago you made a decision to turn left instead of right and from that point you see how your life ended up different. Sometimes I will ponder what might have happened if I had turned right instead. I think I must have the world’s best imagination because I personally would rather close my eyes and watch what is going on inside my head than watch any silly distraction in the exterior physical world. Inside my head it’s like some sort of 70mm Imax movie. Words really cannot do it justice. Anyhoos, my imagination gets going and I ponder what my life might be like now if I had gone down a different fork in the road.
Where would I be right now? Married in New York with a medical practice? An officer in the US Navy? A cattle farmer in Wyoming? CEO of an import business in San Francisco? Who knows? What I do know is a long time ago a vice-principal in my high school sat me down for an hour long talk. He could not figure out why I was skipping school so much. (I hated high school so much I cannot describe it, so incredibly, incredibly boring, I could not wait to get real world, hands on experience.) He looked at my aptitude and IQ scores and told me why would anyone with a 142 IQ skip school? What could I say to him? He just could not understand. He told me my C averages told him another story. He said you will be running things one day, you will be employing the other students at the school. He told me one thing I will never forget and it turned out 100% true. A students make the grades, B students make the friends and C students make the money. Mr. Sharp, I will never forget you wherever you are now.
At 17 years old and one month I made a decision that I always ponder what might my life be like today if I had chosen the other road. I was not getting along with my parents at all. My mother especially. What I wanted was almost always the exact opposite of what they wanted for me. One weekend about one month before my 17th birthday my mother told me to pack my bags like I was going away on a weekend trip. She said the hospital was going to do some tests on me over the weekend. We get to the hospital and I knew something was up after 20 minutes. 2 big guys in white coats came to get me and they said they were there to escort me. Huh? Escort? WTF?? So I get on the elevator with them and they push the 11th floor. The elevator opens up and I am looking at some kind of glass enclosed entry way (basically a large glass cage) with a locked door at the end. The nurse on duty buzzed me and the 2 orderlies in. It was at that point I was starting to understand where I was and where my mother had me sent. Can you guess? Yah, it was a nut ward!
A psych unit in polite terms. They had old people there and young people too. I think the youngest was 11 years old. There was a huge community room there with couches and a tv. After getting assigned a room I came out and sat down in the community room. I was pissed!! My own parents locked me up in a nut ward?? And I knew it was like 90% my mother and maybe 10% my dad. I’m thinking “Oh? I am the nut case? Right!” My mother was the one a few years back that had taken a butcher knife and threatened to kill my father in an intense fight, I will never get that out of my head but here I am locked up in a nut ward 1 month shy of my 17th birthday.
The nut ward I will go into later but suffice to say there were some real, real loonies at that place. I mean real, disturbed whack jobs. Long story short, the kids my age told me that no one gets out in less than 7 or 8 months. WHAT??? Well, they are going to see a new record set in early release if they keep their eye on me I told them. Ain’t no way I am going to be locked up here for 8 months. No way!!
BTW, my parents had me seeing a shrink for about 2 months before I got locked up. I’d go to his office once a week for about an hour and just talk with him about what’s going on. The shrink was cool, even admitted to me that he also smoked weed. Well, my shrink came to see me after a couple days inside the unit. He said he did not expect any 8 month program. He told me mainly it was for observation and not to worry. Well, after a month or so he could tell there was nothing wrong with me. I did not jump up on the TV like this other guy and yell out “I LOVE TO EAT DEAD BABIES”. I’m serious. Yup!
This place also conducted electro-shock “therapy” back when it was legal. Don’t know what EST is? Look it up on Google. It’s when they Frankenstein your brain with zillions of volts of electricity to “cure” you. Seriously! The guy I knew there before his “therapy” was never the same when he finished his “therapy”. He did not recognize me or remember my name. His brain was fried. And it was legal!!
After a month my shrink had a talk with me. He said all was ok with me. But he asked me dead seriously if I wanted to go back to my parents, especially to my mother. He told me that if I wanted to he could file emancipation papers for me with the state and then I could be set free on my own, be able to get a job, rent an apartment, do anything an adult could. He said to think about it and let him know when he returned.
So, here I am at 17 years and a couple weeks and I had the biggest decision in my life in front of me. Do I stay or do I go? What would you do? I thought long and hard about it. On one hand I wanted to, on the other I knew I had just one more year to stick out and I would be 18 and free. I chose to turn down the emancipation papers and return for one more year with my parents. Since then I have always wondered what my life would have turned out like if I had emancipated at 17 and moved out on my own. It’s hard to answer. I did move back in with my parents for one final year and had more and more fights with my mother. My dad, rest his soul, I believe did understand for the most part this burning freedom thing inside me. I learned later in life that he probably would have cut loose himself too but stayed together with my mother more or less for the sake of the family.
One year later after being released from the nut ward I did cut the cord and flew away. I remember my mother saying at the dinner table the night before I left not to worry to my brother and sisters, I would be back very soon. She was wrong, I never returned. I raised my wings and flew away to my future.
Emerson, Lake and Palmer – Lucky Man
L
Somewhere In Texas
“Something is about to happen. Something very wonderful.”
This post was composed under the magical influence of Lucky Man by Emerson, Lake and Palmer