My Explanation of the Details

Okay, so here's what happened.

On Thanksgiving, I had to work 11 hours, from 8am to 7pm. My entire family were set to leave for Iowa to visit my stepdad's family for the holiday and they weren't going to be back until late the next night. So, when I came home to find an empty house, I reasoned that they all had left, and I spent the rest of the night woefully sad and alone. I took a shower, went into the office and spent the rest of the night listening to music at insanely loud volumes and watching movies.

The next night, I was in my bedroom when my stepdad walked in and asked, "Hey Andrew -- have you seen your mom?" I looked at him, confused, and asked, "No... Wasn't she with you...?" He replied, "No -- she stayed home to be with you, so you wouldn't be alone on Thanksgiving." I said, "That's odd, because I've been home alone the past two days. I haven't seen her since Wednesday morning, when I left for work." For a couple seconds, we just stared at each other and we came to the same conclusion at the same time: she spent Thanksgiving with her boyfriend.

She didn't get home that night until around one in the morning.

For the next two days, I was so pissed at her that I couldn't even stand the sight of her. I completely ignored her and disregarded her, trying my hardest to not even look in her direction. On Sunday afternoon, she finally confronted me in the garage while she was waxing her new car. She asked, "What's your deal, Andrew?" I asked, "Excuse me?" Again, she asked, "What's your deal? Why are you ignoring me?" I replied, "You know -- I really don't want to get into it, because I know I'm going to say something I'm going to regret." She said, "Spill it. What's your problem with me?" I took a deep breath, and as calmly as I could, explained, "Well, I'm pretty upset that you would leave me home alone on Thanksgiving and not even call to see how work was, or if I was having a good day. I'm even more upset that you would lie to your entire family, then abandon them." Upon hearing that, she took a few steps forward, got right in my face, pointed her finger at me and barked, "I WAS home -- YOU'RE the liar!" And, that's when I... snapped.

Let me first explain that I have years and years of bitterness and resentment toward my mother built up inside me. The amount of pain and heartache she's caused my entire family and me hasn't eased with time, and God hasn't fully taken it away just yet -- it's just been sitting inside me, becoming more and more potent. So when she got in my face and dared to accuse me of lying, everything I've ever wanted to say to her came pouring it, like an artesian well.

I shouted, "I can't BELIEVE that you would ditch your entire family just so you could go out and do whatever you happened with some other guy. I can't BELIEVE you would be so callous, so heartless and so soulless to want to have nothing to do with your husband, your youngest daughter, your only son or your granddaughter! I can't BELIEVE you would be so selfish! I can't BELIEVE it!" Over and over, she kept telling me, "I WAS home! You're a liar!" I finally said, "Mom, YOU'RE the liar. I was home that entire night and YOU weren't. I spent Thanksgiving alone, fighting every urge to find some whiskey and drink myself to sleep."

That's when she said the most hurtful and heartless thing I couldn't even imagine someone saying to a total stranger. She very coolly shifted her stance, squinted her eyes at me and retorted, "Well. It's not MY fault that you're nothing but a loser alcoholic -- just like your loser, nothing of a dad."

Now, I'll admit, even though I had already snapped before, that comment sent me into a spiraling anger that bordered along madness and insanity. I completely lost control of myself.

I called her every foul name I could think of and used every profanity that came to mind, shouted and screamed, pounded the table. What's peculiar about this entire situation, is that I've never gotten angry about anything; I get frustrated all the time, at times I get upset, but I've never been passionately angry about anything. I was always wondered what it would be like if I were to, one day, blow up at someone. On Sunday, I got my answer -- it was an absolutely terrifying experience. I was shouting as loud as I could, my voice scraping and becoming more and more hoarse, my face was hot and deep red, I even slammed my fist repeatedly on the countertop. At one point, I slammed my fist down as hard as I could while shouting that I actually thought I had broken my hand. A jolt of pain went through me and my entire arm went numb. When that happened, it was like I had an out of body experience -- I saw myself for what I had become. I saw the spit drooling down my chin, the redness of my face, my swollen fist.

After my tirade, she very coldly said to me, "You are no longer my son. I'm disowning you. I never want to see you or hear from you again. Get out of my sight, get out of my house and don't ever bother coming back."

Annnnd, so now I'm living in Saint Charles with my friends, the Nashes. I have no idea where my life will be taking me from here.

My New Home

Well, it's official -- I'm moving into my fourth new home and for the fifth time in 2009. I started in DeKalb, moved home to Yorkville, got kicked out and moved back to Sycamore, then back to Yorkville after only a couple of days, got kicked out again on Sunday and am now in Saint Charles -- a beautiful, beautiful city that, ironically, I've always to raise a family in. Could this be the start of something...?

There's obviously a lot of details I'm leaving out here, but I promise I will try to fill you all in with the details in the days to come.

Please pray for an opportunity to open up soon, so I will not become a burden on my new hosts.

So Long, DeKalb

As promised, I am updating my blog to fill you in on some things you have probably missed unless you are intimately acquainted with me...

. . . .

The most drastic change is my new surroundings. Well, maybe not "new" so much as it is "familiar;" I moved home, last week, to Yorkville, Illinois. Glorious, glorious Yorkville. Everyone knows I lost my job back in January, and it may come as no surprise that I endured the entirety of my six month unemployment benefits period without finding a job. Sure I sent out well over 150 resumes in those six months and only interviewed with three companies, but I just couldn't manage to land a position.

I think, when you're unemployed for six months and have no prospects, it's time to start packing and head home.

A few friends disagreed -- they thought I should stay in DeKalb and "stick it out." Well, that's a nice sentiment and I do appreciate their desire for me to stay around so that we can continue our friendships in a more geographically desirable situation, but I think that "sticking it out" in DeKalb would have ultimately been wildly irresponsible on a few levels:

1) I have a passionate dislike for DeKalb. Sorry, but it's true. Northern Illinois University is a wonderful school and a great campus, but the rest of DeKalb is a hodgepodge mosaic of down and outers, stragglers, rednecks, yuppies and other scary, scary people. The town is run down and has no real cultural hotspot besides The House Cafe (which, I will admit, is fantastic) and a series of bars. I've been wanting to leave DeKalb from the moment I got there. There's absolutely nothing for me there. To have stayed would have been to perpetuate my misery.

2) My understanding is that the unemployment benefits period expires after six months. Two weeks from today will mark the sixth month that I've been unemployed and so, to my understanding, I will stop receiving handouts from the government then. It would be foolish for me to stay in DeKalb when I can't pay my rent nor any of my bills.

3) If I'm going to achieve any of my goals (namely, moving to Ireland, traveling, buying a house, opening up my used bookstore), I'm going to need to save up money. Unfortunately, I cannot think of a career in DeKalb that will enable me to do that whilst paying the outrageous amount for rent I was being charged. Furthermore, living in Yorkville puts me closer to the places where work will be easier to find (Aurora, Naperville, Oswego, Chicago). Living at home, where I have no rent or utilities, will enable me to save exponentially more money than I would have been able to save on my own.

4) It's time to do something different. Retreating to homebase will allow me to gather my thoughts, calm down, get perspective, reorganize, recast my visions and more focus to follow through.

So it is "So long, DeKalb!" Don't hear me wrong -- as excited as I am to be out of that place, it is going to be a strange experience moving home. First and foremost, I am going to miss some of the people I am leaving behind. Inasmuch as I am, in a way, "leaving them behind," I want them all to know that I'm not abandoning nor forsaking my relationships. Just because I live in Yorkville doesn't mean we're not friends anymore. Right? I will have some fond memories of DeKalb, though those memories won't have anything to do with the town itself -- my memories will be of the people that helped me get through the past few years.

And now that I'm home, I will have all the time in the world to reflect on those memories. I've been living here in Yorkville for about five days now.

Things are okay.

Things are decent.

Things are what they are.

I knew going into this that this wasn't going to be a bed of roses, or a walk in the park, or a walk through a bed of roses. I knew that moving back to my chaotic, dysfunctional home would be a challenge -- I knew it would be a dogfight keeping myself motivated to face another day. I am going to need God's grace to be able to make it here. I understand that.

I am hopeful that by strangely looking forward, I will make it through this.