Like most people, I learn and grow a little bit each day. Sometimes I grow professionally by overcoming a crucial obstacle at work. Sometimes I grow personally by making better decisions day in and day out. Sometimes, though, something happens in my life that ends up defining who I am for years to come - essentially becoming a major milestone, a turning point, if you will.
These changes were not always apparent from the get-go, but at twenty-six years old, I can look into my past and analyze what events truly defined my life. Here are some of the most influential events of my life thus far.
1994: My First Computer, Ten Years Late
As a child I knew that I wanted to grow up to be a pilot. Flying was the coolest thing to my six-year-old self, and I was even more stoked to learn that a pilot's license could be obtained at just ten-years of age. In 1991 this young dream was put on hold when I discovered my first-major obsession (outside of Ghostbusters and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, of course): video games. With a Super Nintendo arriving in my home in mid-October, I immediately became obsessed with games, which slowly-but-surely grew into a general obsession with technology.
Come 1994, my dad was handed off a Commodore 64 personal computer - a hugely-popular computer ten years prior - right around 1984. I found the ancient technology extremely entertaining - the computer itself basic, but loaded with two disk drives, countless accessory cables, and hundreds upon hundreds of 5.25" floppy disks full of programs and source code. Thanks to the disk drives I was able to easily tinker with the computer all I wanted, and it did not take long for me to begin learning the basics of BASIC - the introductory programming language that any programmer born before 1985 might have cut his or her teeth.
I was immediately hooked, and began writing all sorts of programs. Most were simple text-based utilities and the occasional word scramble, but I did write at least one or two basic text-based games.
The Commodore 64 finally began to sputter out a couple of years later, but by 1996 I was hooked: programming was extremely fascinating to me and it would be my future.
1998: Hey Now, I'm An All-Star
From my birth in 1984 to my fourteenth birthday in 1998, I was basically exposed to whatever music my parents played around the house. This meant very little radio and lots of 1970's and 1980's rock, country, and a few international hits. Steely Dan, Reeba McEntire, Santana, the Eagles, The Allman Brothers Band - the music was no doubt awesome, but it was not my own. Truth be told, I really did not see the point of listening to music - it seemed like a massive waste of time (especially compared to video games!).
In 1998 I took a trip with some friends for a weekend of camping and canoeing in Indiana. Local radio filled the car during the two-hour car ride, and believe it or not I was quite annoyed by having to listen to this "pop music." Something sparked on the way home, however - I found a song I liked. I honestly cannot remember what song it was, but it was certainly something post-grunge on 92.5. Come 1999, going into high school, I made a habit of listening to 92.5 for more songs I might have liked. As it turned out, I liked nearly all of them.
Smash Mouth's "All-Star" stuck out as my first favorite song. It belonged to me, not my parents. Oh, and that "Hey Leonardo (She Likes Me For Me)" song was pretty good too. So for my next birthday in 1999 my parents bought a portable CD player and Smash Mouth's Astro Lounge and Blessid Union of Soul's Walking Off the Buzz. My first two CDs. I had my own music and my own tastes, and I loved every minute of it.
In early 2000 I would discover the wonderful world of Napster and push our dial-up connection to its limit while building a music library that I still fill with music to this day (albeit in a much-more legal fasion). The very first song I downloaded over the Internet? Meredith Brook's "Bitch."
2001: The Meltdown Melts Down
My first high school English teacher, Mr. Weisbrod, was a tremendous influence on my teenage self. Going into high school I was nearly goddamn illiterate: I hated reading books and I hated writing even more. Come the 1999 - 2000 school year at Otsego High, however, Mr. W taught me to love writing - namely by encouraging what little writing I did do and introducing me to a wide breadth of writing potential - from creative short stories and novellas to more technical and opinionated styles such as film and music reviews. I absolutely loved writing by the end of the year, and my entire first summer in high school was spent in front of a computer and a keyboard.
From this writing, "Meltdown" was ultimately born - my most ambitious fiction machine - and thankfully, was almost immediately shot down by Mr. W.
I anticipated the day near the end of my sophomore year when I would give Mr. W. what little portion of Meltdown I had "finished." After roughly a week of anticipation, his criticism felt like a big, fat, red "F" was stamped across my work of genius. His criticism was not quite this dramatic, but for the first time in my life, someone took my work of earnest love and said "it isn't good enough." While I was quite crushed at the time, I ultimately learned to take this kind of criticism constructively. My junior year of high school was spent revising my masterpiece, writing new short stories, cranking out several creative essays, and doing my best to improve my craft. I was on my way to a future full of writing, and that is exactly where I landed in college.
I ultimately minored in creative writing at Bowling Green State University thanks to these awesome two years of high school.
2003: Scan, Scan, Scan, Sit, Sit, Sit
My first job was at Meijer #156 in Bowling Green, Ohio. I hesitated to get a job for most of my high school career - I did not want to be away from home for hours a day. As a junior in high school, however, I finally interviewed at Meijer and started working a 6:00pm to 11:00pm shift four nights a week.
Right before graduating high school in 2003, I applied to be a cashier (I was 18, woo!), although I immediately came to hate the job. The hours were far longer than the five-hour shifts I was used to as a bagger, I had to deal directly with cranky customers, and I was not able to move around the store to see my friends (Brittany, Ashley, Jamie, Chad!). A lot of responsibility came with being a cashier, but so did a higher wage, so I did my best to spend the hot, sticky summer of 2003 being a competent cashier.
Three months into the job, just weeks away from starting college, I finally decided to look for other work - cashiering at the big, unfriendly, corporate Meijer was just not for me. Surprisingly, then, my first post-Meijer job interview came from inside Meijer: the Systems Department. I was competing with three other guys for this position. I knew nothing of the department, but I knew they worked heavily on the technical side of the store, so I hoped my interests in computers and technology would be a boon. Sure enough it was.
The Systems Department was the most significant career change of my life - even to this day. I went from working a job I truly hated to one that let me sit in a chair, file paperwork, tinker with technology, and most importantly, learn all about the store and the company. No longer did I cashier from 6:00am to 2:00pm everyday and merely speak "Hello" and "Have a nice day" - I was moving on foot all about the store, helping customers (which I truly enjoyed), fixing front-end POS issues, and most importantly, meeting a lot of great, diverse people.
I spent four of my six-year Meijer career in Systems and I do not regret any of it.
2003: Paradise By the Dashboard Light
A lot of major events happened in my life in 2003 - girls entered and exited stage left, I grew professionally (see above), but most-important was my very first college class: English 111, instructed by the delectably ditsy Ms. Fouts. This young, graduate-level teacher was insanely attractive to my young, freshmen eyes. While it was Ms. Fouts that caught my eye at first, it was not her who would be leaving a lasting impression on me.
In this class, on day one, I sat next to my first true college friend - a slightly oddball stranger by the name of "Erin" (I would later correct this to "Aryn" - duh!). We talked, we laughed, and we even had a few things in common... le gasp! How could this be? Was I interested in a girl just a week into college? Why yes, yes I was.
Long-time readers of Critically Correct might remember that my first semester of college was spent without Lacey in my life. At the time she was in Florida for some special schooling - airline attendant or whatever they are called nowadays - and I wanted nothing to do with her "new" life. I was honestly expecting to make zero friends in my first months of college, but lo and behold, I found myself immediately attracted to this new friend of mine and definitely made a point to see her on a regular basis.
If I had not taken English 111 as my first class at 11:30am on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of each week, would I have met Aryn? How much would my life have been different throughout college without her? As I will get to shortly, the difference is black and white.
Anyway, I had my first new friend in college and my first new girl interest since Lacey, but...
2004: Reading "Love You" Instead of "Luv U"
Lacey was back! In early 2004 I learned that she was already back from her training in Florida and had applied, scheduled, and started taking classes at BGSU. The first love of my life was within my reach, right? At first, no, but as it turned out, Lacey and I eventually started talking almost as if we were never apart. All those "let's just be friends for now" moments and flirty-but-confusing nights out with her in high school turned into "girlfriend" real fast. We became a couple and my life was perfect.
For a full year I was living the college dream: I had a great job, decent classes, lots of drinking to do, great friends in every part of my life, and the perfect girl - I was goddamn invincible and I loved every moment of it. At age 21 my life had peaked thus far, and I fully embraced everything about this moment in my life. Long after Lacey and I broke up, I did not look back on this period of my life as wasted time, but as an experience that defined my early college years - an experience worth remembering.
Thank you, Lacey.
2006: As Free As A Bird Now
As I am sure everyone is aware, I was not taking my break-up with Lacey in 2005 very well at first, and by the end of 2006 I was honestly dragging my misery out longer than I should have (hey, healing a broken heart takes time). I was struggling with my college classes, I was unsure of my graduation date, my Systems job at Meijer was becoming a nuisance, and there were no girls in my life - were the best days of my college career behind me?
To top all this off, my long-time interests, writing and video games, were nowhere near interesting to me - was this the onset of depression? Suffice to say, the first-half of 2006 was a miserable time for me.
All that changed in the fall, however, when the most important video game of the last ten years entered my life: Guitar Hero II. At a time when I was straying from just about everything that I loved, it was my first love - video games - that brought me back to reality (the irony of playing plastic instruments to this end does not escape me). No longer was my breakup with Lacey, my increasingly-crappy job, or my problems with school owning my time. I had no time to mope, I just fucking jammed.
While I could have certainly spent this same time learning to play a real guitar, I was in desperate need of instant satisfaction and a quick distraction, which is what GHII gave me. Ruining my fingers to the likes of "Carry On Wayward Son," "Sweet Child 'O Mine," and of course "Free Bird," gave me enough of a distraction from my troubles to actually step back and analyze where I was heading in my life.
I was definitely not heading where I wanted, so I quickly got myself back on track: I instantly stopped talking to Lacey, I changed jobs within Meijer (grocery pricing, of course), and decided on a track of classes to finish my career at BGSU.
All this because of one video game? Well, yeah, actually.
2006: Swoosh-Swoosh Goes the Girl With the Long Hair
As 2006 came to a close and I kicked my life back into high gear (see above), I also stumbled upon an interesting new girl interest. I knew her only as the girl with loud, "swooshy" pants and awesomely-long hair that passed by me from time to time in the student union. She was the first girl to catch my eye in a post-Lacey world, and I knew that meant something special.
At first I treated this relationship with a stranger as I might have in high school: get lost in the moment, dream of the possibilities, but never approach her for an actual conversation. I was quite surprised, then, to find out that this mystery girl (who I nicknamed "Jenny," by the way) hung out in the same circle of friends as Aryn. I had a connection to her!
Of course, by this time I was also a bit distanced from Aryn due to our genuinely-separate lives, but I went ahead and wormed my way into her circle of friends simply to meet this new girl. "Jenny" quickly turned into "Colleen," who quickly turned into a friend for nightly hang-outs.
In the following years I was acclimated to campus life through Colleen - campus food, dorm living, and of course, frequent trips to McDonald's. We certainly had our ups and downs as friends, but we eventually came together as a couple and remained so for years to come.
This relationship proved to be the most tumultuous of my life. Colleen and I did just about everything imaginable together and dammit, we were in love. There were good times, bad times, and everything in between - quite honestly, my time with Colleen was far better than my time with Lacey, and I absolutely look back on the end of my college career with Colleen as some of the best years of my life up to that point.
For those awesome memories, Colleen, I thank you.
2011: The Trifecta: Mission Accomplished
The latest major change in my life happened just recently and comprises not one, but three major events. While these events were recent, I am positive that the changes in my life over the past three months will be the defining moments of my young adulthood.
First, I decided I did not like my job in Findlay and scored a fantastic consulting position in downtown Perrysburg. Let me emphasize that: downtown Perrysburg - the history, scenic, and highly-livable downtown Perrysburg. The job itself is great, too - the perfect small-business-size environment and web development work that I love doing.
Second, with a new job came a new place to live, and I am now living near downtown Perrysburg. Leaving college meant having to very likely move away from home for my career. Perrysburg is the perfect compromise between living the comfortable, well-off life that I wanted and being near home to visit my family. Unlike my time in Findlay, I intend to be in Perrysburg for a long time to come.
Finally, what started eight years ago has come full-circle. One of my oldest friends, Aryn, is back in my life. Even better, we both share similar well-off lifestyles that let us get out and do things that is rather befitting of our career successes. Does this sounds rather patronizing towards my other friends? Absolutely, but I do not intend it to be as such; rather, I simply enjoy doing different things with different people, and Aryn has been great in introducing me to a variety of opportunities I did not have before.
Remember what I said about my English 111 class in 2003 - what if I never took that class? Would Aryn and I have met? Would I have been introduced to Colleen? Would I have eventually met Aryn now and rekindled a fantastic friendship? I do not think any of this would have happened if my first semester of college happened any other way, and this list might have been half as long. I owe a shitton to Aryn.
In many ways, everything about the past few months represent second chances: a better job, the perfect place to live, and a great friend that I care about very much. I have let many second chances come and go over the years, but not this time. Today, in 2011, I am embracing every opportunity I get, and I once again feel damn-near invincible. I would like to look back on these moments in 2011 as the ones that set me on a very positive course into the rest of my adult life.
I love change. Change creates new opportunities, inspires creativity, and opens new paths that I might have never considered. I believe all the events I talked about above have brought major change to my life, and I can look back on every one of them with extremely fond memories.
B3 out.
