Birth of a despot

As some of you know, and maybe even a few of you care, 40 some odd years ago yesterday, I was brought into this world kicking and screaming by the wolf that raised me. I was clearly there at the end of the process, but my memory is a bit hazy about the actual details. I have been able to piece together a couple of them, and will just make up the rest.

I was "delivered" into the world by a fellow named Dr. Smith, the man who was to give me the first, and perhaps only slap (this one on the ass) that I didn't deserve. The many slaps after that first one, I for the most part, brought upon myself. Three major things stand out about the circumstances of my birth. One is that I was born with a club foot, meaning that my right foot instead of being parallel to my left foot/leg was pretty much perpendicular to it. This required without my knowledge at least two surgeries to fix (maybe three but the details of those are lost to history), and I still have the scars to prove it.  These surgeries were mostly successful, and by that I mean I can walk with only a slight hitch in my giddy up, and don't have to use a cane or anything. Though a cane at my current age might actually be a godsend. During the time of these surgeries I was in the process of learning to walk, and I learned to amble whilst I was wearing a cast. I guess it may have slowed me down from running out into traffic, but it might be the reason for the aforementioned hitch. I have been told, since I have no recollection of the event, that I somehow managed to kick one of the casts off my leg during this process. Some might say that was my first act of rebellion in a lifetime full of them.

Secondly, I was born two weeks late. I contend that this is likely the best decision I ever made, the fact that I didn't really make it or that if I did it was before I could form coherent thoughts also may say quite a bit about me. My theory is that at some level I realized that I had it made in the womb. After all, I had a bum wheel, and realized that the whole walking thing was both going to be more difficult for me than others, and that it is, at its core, a shitty way of getting around in the world.  I also believe that I realized that being carried around everywhere I went was a grand idea, and in addition to that I was having food delivered to me at my command. Sort of like a very early version of UberEats without needing a cell phone. Granted the menu was pretty limited, but what did I care? I didn't know at the time what type of food I disliked (fried chicken, green peppers to name a couple).

Thirdly, (and this directly relates to number two) is that I weighed a whopping 10 pounds, 7 ounces when I was birthed. I was a fat baby that turned into a fat child, and then a fat teenager, and finally a fat adult. I made early attempts to blame the wolf that raised me for this, as she is a stout woman, and I also blamed my metabolism which allows me to walk past a donut and gain five pounds (eating it would add another 3), but the real truth is that I am just a fat, lazy cunt that doesn't like to exercise, and likes to eat like a horse. However, being tubby coupled with a bit of a funny walk, did lead to me being bullied a lot at school. My early years were not exactly pleasant because of it, and in today's millennial world I could probably sue the school back into the stone age. Fat kids get bullied a lot, and the only real solution is not become a former fat kid, a solution that is easier said than done. Being chubby and bullied also leads to a retardation of one's social skills. The ability to make friends (even with other social misfits) is stunted, and usually you just end up reading a literal shit ton of books. This is how I handled being a fat kid.

The town in which I was born is M____, T*.  It was, at the time, a town of about 7800 people, and it was a shithole then and is a shithole now. Sadly, it was the "big" town in the county in which I was born, raised, and educated, that should give you a clue as to the wilderness it which I spent my formative years. Socially awkward, economically challenged, and physically stout is no way to go through life. Formative year birthday parties did not include 15 of my closest friends (since I had like only 2 friends), a clown, or a cake. They were not ignored, but weren't exactly an occasion. They were just a day in the life, not a school day, so I got to be unbullied, but that was a small mercy for the isolation of having no actual friends living within miles of me.

The other problem I faced became apparent to me only years later, that problem was the wolf that raised me had decided to have the progeny of an absolute asshole. The man that nature would have me call Father (but not Dad, that's a big difference) was a drunken dickhead, which I guess proves the theory that the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. I didn't like him, and I don't mourn his death which happened several years ago. The world, such as it is, is a better place now that he is no longer around.  For reasons passing understanding the wolf that raised me stayed married to this dickhead until his demise. Perhaps she took the whole "death till we part" thing a bit more literally than the rest of it, or perhaps she thought he had a trust fund stashed somewhere that would make her wealthy when he croaked (he didn't), or maybe she stayed together "for the children", and by the time we were grown just lack the intestinal fortitude to leave him, or maybe she had to stay with him because his salary, small as it was, was the only way to keep my fat ass fed. I've never asked her, and I doubt that I ever will, mainly because I do not think she would tell me the truth (another inherited trait).

Much like an actual wolf cub, as a child of a fractured household I was able to sense that fracture, and had to eventually pick a side. Children (in my opinion, I don't have any of the little buggers myself) are like animals in the way they can sense discord, and cake. I had an unique ability to figure out when "mommy and daddy" (terms I did not use) were fighting, and an equally unique ability to find cake. The shit show of my parent's marriage led me to the considered, and firmly held belief that "staying for the kids" is a sure fire way to fuck up your children. They will be forced to pick a side in the uncivil war raging in front of them, and either side they pick will be wrong. It isn't a Morton's  Fork or a Hobson's choice, it is merely a dilemma that has no right answer.  However, I recognize that this is a very personal opinion of mine, and I try (not always with success) to not foist that opinion upon other people. It is difficult because this is, in fact, a core opinion of mine, and I have precious few core opinions. Lacking both children, and a wife (had one, lost one) I understand that I might not be the best "life coach."

I also share a birthday with a fellow named Eric Blair, whom we all know better as George Orwell. My claim to fame, which doesn't really exist, will always pale in comparison. I have repeatedly said that the literary father of this blog is Dostoevsky, after all that is where my nom de plume is taken from.  However, recently I have become slightly disabused of this notion, and am beginning to wonder if perhaps this blog has two other "fathers" or at least kindly uncles. Those being Orwell, and Baudelaire. A bit of a stretch, and probably a bit of an insult to those two lovely fellows, but as one ages (which is what birthdays do to you) one evolves at least in theory. I don't think I will ever lose the love of Dostoevsky that I had as a youth, and Ivan Karamazov remains a "hero" of mine, but as time passes (and that's what time does, pass) the clarion call of Dostoevsky becomes harder and harder to hear. Maybe literary influences are like other relationships over a period of years you grown apart from them, or maybe I am just giving myself way too much credit, which is the more likely of those two scenarios. 

Therefore, as the years pass and you realize like Lt. Colonel Nicholson in "The Bridge on the River Kwai" that you are nearer the end than the beginning, you begin to look back at your life and wonder if your being here made any real difference at all. That if your existence had never been actualized would the world in general be one jot better or worse. Then you begin to wonder that even with your existence coming into being (which is, in fact, the case) has it made the world better or worse? Have you affected anybodies life in anyway. You like to hope that you have, you may, if you are not an actual villain, hope you've affected many people in nothing but positive ways, and that you are universally loved. That latter bit is unlikely, but it is a pleasant enough thing to hope for, even if it is pretty much impossible to achieve.  

Of course the circumstances of one's birth, and the short (or long) straw that life gives you need not be dispositive of your life. After all, at some point you get the option to throw off the shackles that childhood placed upon you and start becoming the person you want yourself to be. Sometimes that may require running back to the wolf that raised you and asking lots of tough questions, or sometimes it might mean cutting the cord from that period of your life, and reinventing yourself as something other that the sum of the parts life handed you. Becoming your own version of Frankenstein's monster is always an option, just be careful in the cutting.