What can I do?

My son was sick today. He had to stay home. It used to be that I was the one to stay home with him on sick days. Now, with me being so far away, that possibility is impossible. So to my great surprise, he tells me his mom let him stay with her "boyfriend" until she got back from work. This left me with a strange feeling. I do not even know the guy, but he was babysitting my son.

I knew this type of thing would occur eventually. It was only a matter of time. There is a big difference between thinking something may be and actually hearing it. There is really no difference between my girlfriend and this guy. I just have a problem with the fact that my son is with someone that I haven't even met.

The first cigarette

I wasn't always a smoker. Many of my friends began the habit sometime during High School. I was that kid that told them it wasn't right. The night of my Senior Prom I spent a small chunk of time in a conversation that I really don't remember. The other party, an intriguing young lady that seemed free spirited and sure of herself, held a cigarette between her thin fingers as if it was second nature. For the first time, I felt that smoking could actually be sexy. I never saw that girl again. I have long forgotten her face and her voice.

Several months passed and my second encounter with the conflicting ideas of danger and beauty invaded me. She was the one. Hard as I tried, I did not have the will to get her out of my mind. I spent countless hours with her and yet, never told her how I felt. Curiosity was burning inside her, and I would do anything for an extra moment by her side. "It's just one cigarette", I thought. She lit first and the sight of her lips touching the tip of the cigarette sent a rush of excitement all over me. As I began to inhale smoke for the first time, the feelings of euphoria and pleasure became overwhelming. "Was I hooked on smoking or was it all because of her?"

Her mother did not like me

I knew something had to be wrong from the first day I met that lady. I mean; moms were usually almost as in love with me as their daughters were. I was a good guy. I had a good future ahead of me. I had the tall, dark, and handsome thing going for me (which I still do, by the way). For most moms, I was a pretty good catch. But this lady had something on her mind. Something about her didn't quite add up.

She believed nobody was good enough for her daughter. Looking back on this fact… I should have done something about this as soon as I noticed it. But being the "seemingly normal" nice guy I was, I tried hard to be liked. This was obviously a stupid choice. The more I tried, the less it worked. I felt like a complete idiot trying day after day to be on this lady's good side and every single effort resulted in failure.

She made the mistake of telling someone that I was just a student with no job, and I'm sure she fell for the classic stereotypes of the long hair and the earrings. She saw danger. She saw the musician. She only saw part of me. Unfortunately for her, as fate would have it, the comments reached me. I was judged by my appearance and by the moment I was living. If she knew the impact that this had caused me… she might have acted differently.

It took years for her to finally like me (a little). That fact that her grandson had a great dad made her respect me for the first time. I believe now that the stupid one was her. She never showed admiration for any of my many other good qualities before. She was so selfish! Only when she saw me as a self-sacrificing father figure to her grandson did she see me as a decent person.

My life changed at 22

I was a student. I had it all planned out. My plan was to not have a plan. I figured I would stay in college for as long as I could. I was protected from the regular world as long as I lived in the brilliantly sheltered student life. After my studies, I had the chance to keep the sheltered alter-reality lifestyle of a University professor if I wanted… and that sounded very nice. It was all clear… I knew what I wanted and was on my way there. Until that one day.

My life changed the day I was woken by a small piece of plastic with a bar on it. I had achieved something I was not exactly ready to achieve. I was going to be a father. Believe me; I felt my world had turned upside down. Was I ready for this?

I felt the need to do so many things. The first thing we thought… "We have to get married… I mean that's the right thing to do, right?" So that's what we did. I was going to get married and I was going to have a child. I was jumping head first into the unknown world of the average Joe. I was changing my plan. My life had just changed in an instant and I was only 22.

Frustrations

I am usually aware of the reasons behind most of my choices, but some of them have had consequences that last much longer than I expected. For years, I tried to make two worlds coexist. On one hand, I did what I thought I wanted. On the other, I did what I thought I was supposed to. Thinking about it now, I really should've chosen one or the other. My mistake was to force these to coexist.

I am an artist. While this is perfectly acceptable, it is not always normal. Regular jobs are too boring and restricted. Artistic jobs are not always economically manageable. So what to do? My answer was to have a normal life, with the normal job and all the other normal things. That didn't really work out the way I expected. Depressed nights took a toll on me. Wasted days on worthless work frustrated me. I tired body and a tormented mind became hard to live with.

I had a recording studio. It was cool. I worked from home, I worked my own hours, and I had fun doing it. Money? I had very little. My studio became my personal little world, just outside the harsh reality of the rest of my life. I managed to pay my bills on time and that was responsible enough. I was married at that time and I'm sure my ex-wife tried hard to understand my needs. She made great sacrifices to support my needs and in return I made the sacrifice of trying to be as normal as possible for her. On the outside, it seemed to work out. On the inside, I was going crazy.

In short, this arrangement slowly took its toll on me, my marriage, and my family. After a while, it became practically intolerable. I had to leave something behind. I was not aware, at the time, of the monster I had created. For each one of these lives to exist, the other had to be present. I had a studio because I had a home. Once I had to leave the home, my studio became I pile of expensive equipment in a corner of my parents house. In one decision I had managed to lose both. I sometimes wonder why I created such a codependence and the answer is usually very difficult to explain.

My life was turned upside down once again, yet I felt relief. I would have to start everything all over again and I did not really care. Was I tired of playing seemingly normal? Would I manage to be myself for the first time?