Living on Purpose

Well, it's 20-til-1, and I should be in bed as I have an 8 am class (yuck), but I've been meaning to write this blog all day, and just haven't.

I'm not as religious as I used to be (or should I say I'm not religious in the same way that I was), but the idea of "living on purpose" that gets passed around Christian circles has something to be said for it.  Christian or not, we are here only once, and we'd better make the best of it. "Living on purpose" to me means having a goal, a vision, a desire, whatever, for life, and going for it. Instead of letting the day happen to you, you happen to the day. I can stand by that.

Over the last several years, I've done a lot of "analyzing" when it comes to my family. Probably to the point, a lot of the time, of "What if..." and beating myself up with every answer I came to. I told my dad several times, even before shit hit the fan, I felt my brother and I were his biggest mistakes. He said he felt otherwise, which ok fine, but I never changed my mind.

For those of you who don't know my dad, or anything about him, he's had these huge dreams of having a successful recording studio, and being a musician, blah blah blah all his life. He started building an in-home studio when I was 7, and it's been growing ever since. He tried going back to school for music, and other such business. Without going into all the negative that he heaped on me to be able to do that, the point is, it was obviously what he wanted. His studio was professional grade, and quite massive (and why I have a ton of debt now, and got sued by a credit card company).

However, instead of packing up his 12-string guitar and heading out to California upon college graduation, what'd he do? He got married to my mother, at 23, and went to go work as a teacher. After that he was a manager in a building supply store before hurting himself on the job when I was...I think 9. Soon after my mom got sick, and when I was 14 she died, so my dad spent a chunk of his life being a caretaker, and nothing else. Then he FINALLY decided to pursue his dreams, but yet, his time has passed. No matter how he treated me, his time is come and gone, sadly.

It goes even further back than that. Looking at my grandparents, and their story, I realize my existence is an even bigger mistake. My grandpa probably never should've never married my grandma. I'm not slamming on either of them, but the stories my dad told of how bad their marriage was, and the fact my grandpa did run around on my grandma, eventually getting another woman pregnant, says a lot to me. It doesn't mean I look down on my grandpa. I don't...if nothing else it's not my place to judge. But, he's now been with the 'other woman' for 40 years. That says something...a lot of somethings.

So seeing all of this I've come to one conclusion: my existence is nothing but a mistake. Mistake after mistake was made, until I wound up being born. And no, not mistake as in "whoops guess who's pregnant...SURPRISE!" No,my parents were trying for a baby. But my dad never should've been trying for a baby with my mom. My dad should've been trying to record an album in LA, and make his big break. But then, you could say my grandpa never should've married my grandma in the first place. that changes 2 generations of the York-Bruton-White-Wilson families. But, that's not how it happened. The writing's on the wall, and here I am.

So what am I supposed to do with this idea, even if it is just in my own head? I know what a lot of people will say: "God doesn't make mistakes." In the idea of God, fate, destiny, whateveryousodesiretocalltheforcesthatgoverntheworld, yes, you may very well be right. As accidental as my existence seems to me, in a much bigger sense, there could be nothing mistake about me being here. But in my narrow scope of things, it's a mistake. One big, giant fuck up. Lives were ruined so I could exist. And that brings me back to my question: what do I do about it?

The answer really is this simple: Live on purpose. And I don't just put the religious twist on it. It's about going out, and really LIVING. I'm here now, and if people had to screw up so it would happen, then I WON'T be the screw up. I WON'T screw it up for myself. Sure, we make mistakes, but that's different than ruining my life, and not going for that which I want out of life. I wouldn't be honoring where I came from, if I did any less. No matter what the relationship with my dad was, if he was going to screw up his life, to have me, then I'd better make the best of this. Which is why I came to France, and blew money on going to Stuttgart, and why I've spent money on silly crap rather than being practical, or why I walk around this city as much as I can, and enjoy being a hop skip and a jump from Deutschland. I've decided that I WILL for sure, live on purpose. I'm going to break the chain my family started, and make it better for at least a generation or 2. ;)

<3Eri