2007-03-07 - 12:38 p.m.
This is me opening up…
So… this is probably going to be the longest entry I have done yet… where do I start… well you guys may think that you understand the goings on in my head… but there are plenty of factors and past happenings that effect my actions and behavior… some of you may know these, most of you don’t… after reading this you will all have a little insight to my actions and behaviors and why I am the way I am.
Let me start from the beginning… my mom and dad met in high school and got married when they were 18 and 20, respectively… obviously they were real young and “in love”… within the first year they were together, they moved to Oklahoma to be near my uncle (dad’s bro)… that is where aj was born… then my uncle, probably on drugs, died via a gun shot wound to the forehead… the police report stated that it was a suicide because his gf said they were having problems… my dad has thought otherwise ever since… after that, my dad got bad into drugs… my mom’s parents tried to help by getting him a job at the post office back in dsm… this is when barney was born… they lived in a house on lay street (near mike her’s house) and my dad was still doing drugs and my mom was taking care of the kids… this is when I was born…
My dad continued working at the post office and we moved to a house on e 38th court before I turned one… my house… just a little bit of background info…
My early year memories are vague and probably packed into the deep dark depths of my mind… there are a few big moments that I remember… when I was young… I don’t know how young… my dad was drunk… he had me and aj at a bar I think he was playing pool and they allowed children at the time… anyways my mom wanted him to come home because barney had a fever… he was pissed… he drove aj and I home like a bat out of hell and ended up hitting one of those road blockers that have the blinking lights on them… when we got home aj and I went to our rooms and my mom and dad argued… if you haven’t heard deaf people yell… it sound like people just trying to be annoying… not saying anything comprehensible… just yammering and yelling… I remember crying myself to sleep because I was worried… worried about my mom… worried about the marriage… worried about everything… then in the morning I saw the aftermath… there was a giant hole in the wall… my mom was sleeping soundly when we got up to take the one block trek to school…
shortly after that…there was another incident… my dad was drunk… he had a gun… almost everyone in my family… both sides were there… they all told him… no don’t go… he went anyways… he went out onto his motorcycle and that was the last time I saw him that day… from what I gather he drove his bike into a curb about a block away… his shin was shattered and he had to get pins and screws in his leg… he was also on some kind of drug because he broke the leather straps that they had on him in the hospital… twice…
the third time is the charm… right?? well, this time I was in the car with my brothers and aj’s gf at the time, and we were told to wait in the car while my mom went inside to talk to my dad… after a while… we went to the door and that is when I saw my dad with a knife… he had my mom pinned up against the wall… then he stabbed… the only thing he hit was the wall… thank god… after that, I again cried myself to sleep and the next morning I had to get ready for school… my mom was up… she said we didn’t have to go to school that day because my dad was in jail… come to find out… the cops came that night and arrested my dad… the pulled 5 blunts full of marijuana off of him and searched his room downstairs… they found crack, cocaine, and heroin… this is when we moved… not to a different home, but to a battered woman’s shelter…
I lived in the shelter for a while… it sucked… each family had their own room that was smaller than pietenpol’s dorm rooms… and the doors were always unlocked, so the other kids stole our things all the time… there was a limit on the food you could eat and when you could eat it… the worst part was that we were picked up for school by a bus… rode the bus about 15 minutes and then dropped off… every day we waited for the bus in the special ed room and every day we saw my dad sitting in his car on the adjacent street… I always wanted to go talk to him and see how he was doing or what he was doing… but I couldn’t … I needed a father figure in my life… my grandpa was the only one… but he lived 45 minutes away and his visits were limited…
Eventually we went home and my mother and father separated… by this time I was in third grade… my dad lived with his friend and my mom lived in the house with the boys… my dad went deeper and deeper into the drugs and pushed and pushed my mom away… then… she snapped… she ended up going to a hospital for mental problems and my brothers and I went to go live with our grandma… this was for one to three months… I think...
She got out and they got divorced 3 years later because she still loved him… what an idiot… after all that shit she still held on… my dad was granted joint custody and my mom was the primary custodian… we would visit my dad on Mondays, which we had been doing for a while… we didn’t mind that he lived with his friend…we were just happy to see him…
Before my parents were divorced, when I was in fifth grade, my dad had a new friend coming around… it was a woman and she had three kids… when we went to my dad’s friend’s house, he asked me what I thought about my dad dating anna… I said that they weren’t dating, they were just friends… that was naive of me to think… so the cat was out of the bag and my brothers and I didn’t take it well… we now had to compete for his attention… he had a new family in the works… I remember one time anna’s youngest daughter, Jenni told me that my dad was her dad and not mine… that pissed me off… I kicked her ass and threw her off of the trampoline we were so festively jumping on earlier… he was my dad… mine…
Eventually my dad moved out of his friend’s house and rented a duplex with his new gf… this made things worse… he no longer lived a block away from school… he was now 20 minutes away… we saw him every Monday… then every other Monday… then maybe twice a month if we were lucky… we would see him on holidays and even then we felt like we had to compete for his love…
as we were going to the duplex we became closer and closer to her kids… Justin was the trouble maker, shanna was the rebellious hippy type… and jenni was the black sheep… by the time my dad moved into the duplex, Justin had coaxed me into smoking cigarettes and drinking… I was in 5th grade… then when I was in 6th grade, at the duplex, he coaxed me into smoking pot… it was the perfect escape from all of my problems… when I was high… I didn’t care about any of my problems… I was just relaxed and care-free…
I continued smoking pot and drinking, unbeknownst to my friends… and even though I was relaxed and “care-free”… I still cared about one thing… being loved by my dad… he barely ever showed it… he was like a step-dad to me and not a father… this caused me to compete even more… but after a while I noticed that my efforts were futile and just tried to fit into his new family… my mother was jealous of this new family and she would constantly bug me for information about this new family and if I liked being over there better than being at home… why the hell would you subject a kid to such interrogation??? That is one of the stupidest things my mom has ever done… it pushed me away from her…
So I had to seek refuge in something worthwhile… something that would get my father’s attention… so I focused on school work and tried to get good grades… maybe all of you think that it comes natural to me…or that I am smart… but I did study… I was driven… and had a purpose now… I would make everyone pay attention to how well I did…
This didn’t work out as well as I had hoped… barney was on a downhill slope and he ended up getting all of the attention… my accomplishments were cast aside… I was praised by teachers… who gives a fuck… I didn’t… I wanted to be praised by my dad and mom…
So graduation time comes… yeah… big jump huh??? Well the events in between were go to school get good grades… hang out with friends… get high… in any order repeating… anyways… graduation time comes… and my parents finally tell me with tears in their eyes that they are proud… that is what I had worked for… but what I didn’t realize is that the person I am today was created by the road to that point… not the point in time in and of itself…
How does this explain my actions and behaviors??? Well, it was pointed out to me that I am competitive… and it is true… that is the way I am because of my past… I had to compete for attention and affection… I had to compete against my brothers and my step family… I guess I let the competitiveness get to me and make me do things and say things I shouldn’t…
I am also successful in school because of my past… I had to have something to put me above the rest… my competitiveness is also a factor in my success… I always wanted to see my name atop the class list… I got some sense of accomplishment… I loved it…
I find that I try to make people laugh and try to be the center of attention… I think it is because I am covering up the sadness and tears of all those years… I don’t like to see people sad or down… so I try to make them smile or laugh… I feel like I am doing something worth while if I have made someone’s day… because when someone makes my day it means the world to me…
I know that some of you have been through a lot more… and you are probably thinking… at least you have a dad… well after thinking about it… I think that having a jerk for a father sucks… but I cannot say that it sucks more than not having one at all… this is just my experience with fathers…
I have all of my friends because of my exposure to the asian culture… because of alex… at first he was a part of a group of three… chris, alex and tim… the CAT tribe… then in eighth grade he went to paris… he came back talking about asian pride… that sort of tore the group apart… me and tim were not asian… we were sort of offended… but I kept hanging out with alex because he lived close, we had common interests, and home sucked… I went to alex’s house almost every day from about 5th grade to senior year… and when this asian pride thing came up… I just kind of went along for the ride… I hung out with alex’s new asian friends and I became their friend… they brought me into their circle of friends so easily… I didn’t have to be asian… I didn’t have to be good at sports (jocks)… all I had to do was be me… I found out that in the group I had started to hang out with (breakers) there were some of the most loyal guys…
Through alex, I found out about UB… and you all know how UB changes lives, so I won’t go into it… but UB is where I met all of my closest friends…. You guys… and it is where I met my future wife… the love of my life…
Nowadays the situation with my dad is worsened… I just found out that he is responsible for paying for my college education (33.3333%) for all of the four years I have been enrolled at Central… I have not talked to him since a couple weeks before Thanksgiving and am in the process of pursuing legal action against him… his wife yelled at me… and as I say “hell hath no fury like a Kayser scorned”… as far as I am considered he is not my dad… he is of course the paternal contributor to my gene pool… but that doesn’t make him a dad…
So anyways… that is my story… parts suck… parts are awesome… I hope this gives you guys more of an insight to how my mind works and why I do the things I do… or why I treat people the way I do… if I have ever offended you or made you feel like crap… I am sorry… if I do in the future… don’t be afraid to let me know because friends, brothers, and a fiancé are all I have now… thanks for reading my novel… later guys and gals…
Kayser
“If you ain’t first, your last” Talledega nights
