
little audhd plural puppy that draws stuff.
ΘΔ dog. disabled and depressed.
it might be cold comfort, but-
i like to think: if any part of him at all regretted the life he lived, that part would be pleased to know that when his friends from before it all think him, they picture the glasses and the moose.
Thank you for sharing this. As someone who grew up in a very proud military family, you have squared a lot of difficult emotions I've had for a long time.
Christ, Dave, this is gut-wrenching!! I hope that in writing this you can find some sense of… idk what really. Peace? Closure? Happiness in the happiness he brought you, and in the cold comfort of that weight in your heart, of knowing that he existed and what he meant to you. And fwiw, I’m glad you’ve had a chance to live your own life, to make art and fuck things up, because if you hadn’t, I would never have been able to talk to you (I hesitate to say “meet” you because we’re online, but hopefully you get what I mean) and that would be a real shame!
Thank you for writing about it. The person who haunts me died by suicide after serving in Afghanistan. I actually did sign up to escape an abusive husband, but got sent home from training due to asthma. It's hard to explain to people who weren't teenagers at the time how weird it all was.
Thanks for sharing this. "The hurt of losing someone becomes part of loving them" is a beautiful sentiment and hopefully something I'll remember to hang onto for a very long time.
crying a little, whew. it was a hell of a time to approach adulthood. I was a few years ahead, the war wasn't being called a war yet (Operation Desert Shield, so noble!) but if you lived in a rural town that Path Out was just common knowledge, often family tradition (mine was navy), you didn't need recruiters pushing it at you. considered it myself a few times, despite hating everything it represented even in "peacetime." turns out it wasn't an option for me anyway since my dominant hand has permanent injuries, but the what-ifs were still there as more and more people I'd gone to school with went, and sometimes didn't come back.
I wonder how much the internet has helped, for the rural generation after us. whether easier access to a broader range of ideas outweighs easier delivery of jingo and populism. certainly seems like things are better for the queer kids at least, but I haven't been looking as closely at the poverty-to-military pipeline in recent years. probably should.
i'm nineteen, and sometimes i think "is this it? have i peaked? am i too old to be good - no, to be great?"
and i look at the people around me in college - people who either don't know themselves, or seem to know themselves better than i thought possible - and think "will i ever be as good as them?"
and i look at the people around me outside college - people twice my age, people who have lived a life filled with richness i didn't imagine possible - and think "will i ever be as good as them?"
"is there hope for me in the future?"
and reading your writing, i'm suddenly shocked. to hear someone talk about the peak of my life so far - the oldest age i've ever reached - indeed, the most mature i've ever been - as "they haven't even lived yet"? i'm still trying to comprehend it - this sense that there is some life for me in the future. that my existence hasn't already, in some way, been decided for me as a child or in college. that i'll be able to do more and see more and live more than i ever thought possible. it's a dizzying thought!
i'm so scared for my future. i'm studying computer science in a decade filled with layoffs and unemployment and economic crisis. i'm trying to support myself so i can live my own life in the future. and, on top of the pressure and the student debt... i'm surrounded by people who seem to be more competent, more skilled, and just plain better than i am! so many of my friends have been into programming and computers for longer than i have and are more skilled at it. they do and talk about things i didn't even know existed. and i think... "am i sunk because i didn't spend my time learning about programming? do i have the time to do this in the future?"
so thank you so much, for talking about how being nineteen isn't the end of one's life. how there's time to learn and live and love after it. how, after living for nineteen more years, one can look back and think they've still barely started!
i want to live for nineteen more years! i want to make music and find love and meet people who love and respect me! i want to meet the people i looked up to growing up and speak to them on equal footing! and i want to tour the world and see the many places in it! there's a whole life out there of things i can experience, and i want to see and do as much as i can!
and hopefully, like you said - hopefully - i won't be in as much of a rush to do it. hopefully i'll be able to take my time and trust that i have years and years of life to experience. i'm only nineteen, after all. i haven't even lived yet.
You have so much time! I know you've probably heard that your major doesn't necessarily determine the path of the rest of your career, and that sounds impossible, but it's so true. You'll use what you're learning no matter what you wind up doing, and I do believe in throwing yourself into it as completely as you can, but you might be surprised looking back in ten years at the complete left turn you took at some point. And know there is still time to do new stuff after that.
And being surrounded by people who are better than you is the BEST place to be. The best part of college is learning from and collaborating with other students, and if you were miles ahead of everyone else, I'd tell you to find a new school. Take in as much as you can from them, if you're never the smartest one in the room then you've always got a chance to grow. And making friends with people who you know will do great things? Incredible connections, you have no idea how well that might pay off someday.
I wish you the best of luck! And if I could tell my 19 year old self anything, I'd say: appreciate your hairline while you have it, jerk! and moisturize your face EVERY MORNING, put some SPF on there for me!!
this was really good to read, thank u so so much for sharing your thoughts and memories <3