Expression of Birthday Thankfulness

I feel like people may feel more inclined to read a blog post written on my birthday, so I think I need to make this one count.

It’s 6:25am as I start writing this, and 9:25am where it counts. In Boston, it’s currently sunny and in the 40’s. That’s just warm enough that you’re body temperature feels comfortably regulated as you head out into the world in your late fall/early winter clothing, but a wall of cool air still kisses your cheeks as you walk down the city’s beautiful streets. In Methuen, the schools are in full swing. The first batch of morning specials are approaching in the middle schools and the high schoolers are beginning to come awake after a sluggish first period and making their teachers’ lives a living hell.

Yep, life is pretty much the same on the east coast as it was when I left it. In fact, I’m fairly certain it’s exactly the same. Why wouldn’t it be?

I’ve been gone a little over four months now – 137 days, to be exact. This is the longest stretch of time I’ve ever been away from home. How does that feel? It feels (and tastes) like salty droplets falling down my cheeks.

But the tears are the good kind. A year ago at this time I was confused, depressed, and frustrated. Now I’m confident and focused on what I want to achieve for myself. As of Monday, I’ll officially be a full-time employee of one of Hollywood’s big studios. Things are finally being sorted out. Things are finally happening.

I could never have gone from Point A – a frustrated and miserable college graduate six months removed – to where I am without the same people making me feel oh-so-special today. I had given up on the idea that I had potential. They didn’t. Better yet, they reminded me over and over again that they thought so. Eventually, my stubborn and hard-headed brain believed what they had to say. Eventually I decided to believe in myself again, and I have them/you to thank for it.

A month ago I texted one of my former soccer players to check in, as I often do with most of them to see how they’re doing in high school or just starting college. I told him about the new job I had recently started. I told him how my boss was notoriously difficult and how hard it would be to master – even survive – working for him. His response was indicative of the role so many of you play in my life: “If anyone can do it, it’s you.”

In short, you all humble me completely and absolutely. I’d be nothing without you and everything I will be is because of you.

Life goes on without me back home, but because of you my life goes on here and it’s stronger than it’s ever been before.

I can never thank you enough for that gift.

So I Write: The End of My First Blogging Year

One year ago, I sat in front of my dilapidated laptop at my large oak desk  in my childhood bedroom and stared out my dirty back window. The window overlooks the pool which had always been the jewel of the Servideo family – the venue of Fourth of July barbecues, graduation parties, and other miscellaneous events. Fourteen months earlier, I’d recorded one of those cookouts on America’s birthday with my cheap little video camera. In one long, Tarantino-eqsue shot at twilight, I captured everything going on at the party from the front of the house to the pool area: one group playing basketball in the street, my little cousins playing horseshoes on the side of the house, a collection of people stuffing their faces with the food that continues to fly off the grill in the backyard, uncles, aunts, my grandmother, and parents sitting around the fire by the pool and cracking the jokes that befit their characters perfectly, and finally my brother, sister, and our friends playing cards at the patio tables. It’s everyone I could ever hope to spend my time with. It’s everyone I love. It’s my American Dream. The camera cuts to an hour or so later when the stars are out and the Tiki torches are lit. The little kids and big kids alike are lighting their sparklers and waving their glowing wands in the air. To punctuate the moment, a chorus of people begin to cheer, “Happy Fourth of July! Happy Fourth of July!” God bless America.

Sitting in front of my laptop at my desk in my room looking out my back window, I see this zenith of my life playing out as if it’s that perfect summer day all over again. But it isn’t. It’s late September and the red leaves on the giant tree that towers over the pool has already begun to shed. Mom is in San Jose tending to her sick mother, Dad has been living in Malden for seven months, Zach has just finished his first full year of living on his own in Somerville, and Steph is at college in Westfield. I am very much alone. One year earlier, the diaspora had begun. When the summer of 2008 finished, the Servideo’s said goodbye to the classic nuclear family that had existed in its current capacity for 18 years. Zach moved out, Steph started college, and I went back to Boston to finish college. Four months later, I went to Los Angeles for my first stint in Hollywood. One month after that, Dad moved out. The poor dog – talk about abandonment issues!

Sitting in front of my laptop at my desk in my room looking out my back window, I see the 2008 barbecue fade away and give way to another scene of a nondescript date. It’s not a one-time occurrence but a situation in which my family frequently found itself late on Sunday afternoons throughout the summer months. If you’ve read me in the past you may have seen it before:

There’s a raft floating in the pool, and Zach is laying on it. His leisure consists of both tanning and drinking an iced beverage of some alcoholic variety. Sitting on fold-out chairs beside the pool are my mother and Steph. They both have their eyes closed, but they aren’t sleeping. They’re just peaceful. To their right, under the shady cover of a giant spruce that was no taller than my infant self when we first moved into the house, my father cooks on the grill. The grill is covered with a feast that includes pork ribs and steak tips and salmon and balsamic-glazed asparagus. It will feed us all after a long day in the sun. Beside the grill, a radio broadcasts the airwaves of one of Boston’s several classic rock stations. Perhaps The Eagles’ “Take It Easy” is playing. That would certainly fit. All the while observing this situation, I slowly sway back-and-f0rth on a swing on the opposite end of the pool area. The swing has an umbrella to block the sun and seats three. No one regularly uses the swing besides me, however, and when I’m on it alone, I’m able to lay across it on my back, using my feet against the swing’s legs to push myself back-and-forth, back-and-forth. A book rests on my chest, though I don’t read it. If I was really in the mood to read, I would sneak off to the Tenney Castle in the center of town or to Barnes & Noble just over the border in Salem like I have since I’ve been able to drive. There’s no reason to read for entertainment purposes because the conversation amongst my family is more entertaining than anything Vonnegut or Goethe or Dostoevsky has to offer at the moment. Why would I want to leave when I can clearly see this is a moment worth clinging to for as long as I can? While my brother is floating and my mother and sister are tanning and my father is grilling, I’m swaying back-and-forth and staring up at a beautiful blue sky. There isn’t a cloud in sight.

Sitting in front of my laptop at my desk in my room doo doo doo looking out my back window, this scene too fades and gives way to nothing but pain. I cry a little. It’s okay because no one is around to see it. I’m alone. I try to think of something worth devoting my time to. It feels like I’ve exhausted the internet’s potential for distraction. A sliver of an idea hits me. If I, a man who has told people he is or is going to be a writer for several years now, wants to do anything useful with all this emotion, he sure as hell better write about it. Maybe a book will be an outlet. Maybe chronicling this experience could be useful to someone else who sees fit to read about it. One chapter in, several times over, the naivete disappears and I realize anything I write will be driveling, sentimental garbage.

Sitting in front of my laptop at my desk in my room looking out my back window, I don’t know what to do next. If only I could hit a fast forward button and see the good moments that lay ahead. I could see everything that would reveal this lowly moment for the small blip on my life’s radar that it is and marvel at the beautiful moments not too far up the road.

Like taking time out of my day as a substitute teacher to visit my friend’s third grade class, seeing their excited faces when I walk in the room, and hearing them call beg “Mr. Smiley” to read them a story like I’m stuck in a cliche movie.

Like watching my team of resilient teenagers spit in the face of a 6-2 second half deficit and score to make it 6-3, then 6-4, then 6-5…and looking each one in the eyes after the game and seeing strong men spawned out of a group of broken boys who had suffered through a 1-17 fall season only months before.

Like sleeping under a ledge in the middle of the Grand Canyon, where no sound can be heard but the sound of the wind against the mountain side, and feeling like a mighty king who just might be able to conquer this daunting world despite the odds and logic against it.

But I can’t see the future. All I can see is whatever lies beyond the windowpane of my back window from behind my desk in front of my computer in the same bedroom I’ve slept in for 22 years, and until all that other good stuff reveals itself to remind me I have a life worth a damn, there’s really nothing I can do about anything.

So I write, and since this is the twenty-first and not the nineteenth century, I write a blog.

In case you were wondering why.

Something Around the Corner

I’ve always loved late August. To hell with the first 15-20 days of the month, but the rest of it has always felt special. Maybe it’s because school was always right around the corner. Usually by late July, I had had enough of summer vacation. There was nothing to look forward to except the dog days, and the departure from the school year had lost its luster. On top of that, I actually enjoyed school. How could you not? That was where your friends were everyday. The work itself wasn’t difficult. In fact, I’d even get a sick pleasure from getting schoolwork done when I was younger. I was excited to go back to school in those last days of August, eager to dominate a math worksheet on dividing fractions or pre-algebra.

Maybe late August was special to me because soccer was starting up. Especially in high school, when double-session tryouts were held on those dreaded, humid New England summer days, it was the start of the three happiest months of my year. I’m fairly confident that when I’m an old man, some of my fondest memories will be of those high school soccer seasons, from the freshman team to the varsity level, playing with the teams and friends I did. Soccer’s arrival meant fall’s arrival, my favorite month. When you grow up in New England, it’s hard not to fall in love with autumn, and though the calendar said it didn’t begin until September 21st, in my mind it always started a month earlier.

Something in the air always told me change was around the corner at this time of year, whether it was going back to college or starting my varsity soccer career in the next week. For three summers at the tail end of high school and the beginning of college, I pumped gas at a gas station down the street. It was a sweet under-the-table job, providing both cash in my pocket and relaxation on those warm nights when business was slow and I could sit outside with whatever Vonnegut book I was throwing myself into at the time. I had the luxury of simply cocking my head to the right in the later hours to see the western sky light up on those nights from the sun setting. Each year, I was amazed at how much more beautiful the view was in the waning days of August than any other time of the year. Maybe it was the particular location of the gas station that made the event more spectacular; I don’t know. Whatever the reason, I even felt so compelled as to snap a picture with my ancient picture phone.

The low resolution doesn’t exactly do it justice. The clouds painted on a spectrum from tangerine to violet admittedly made me scribble down my own literary descriptions in a notebook or two back in those days. They’re tucked away in a shoebox under my bed back home now.

My corny tendencies aside, this view always symbolized a season of change to me with the welcomed approaching commitments of soccer and school associated with this time of year. While I can’t enjoy the view anymore while pumping gas for $10 an hour, I like to think there’s another change coming my way as September nears and August makes its annual bold and beautiful exit. Preferably, that change puts money in my pocket and gets me out of a coffee shop for 5 hours of my day.

Then again, there won’t exactly be a changing season here. Does Los Angeles even have fall?

My First Vlog and Most Recent Frustration

This and That

I’m not exactly sure why the pretty blonde girl who works at my neighborhood coffee shop is so cold with me, but she is. I spend a lot of time here (time I treat as precious because I feel soon I’ll be employed and no longer able to waste my day on my computer in a coffee shop). I see the girl being friendly with a lot of other customers, but when it comes time to interact with me, she acts like my penis can give her polio.

Maybe I’m not enough of a regular for her. I’ve only been coming for a month, although frequently. One afternoon I heard her talking to an older man who sounded like typical L.A. crazy to me, boring her with stories about where he’s lived and everything he’s done with himself over the years in this industry and that – the kind of crap people in this town spew constantly to try to validate themselves. She certainly didn’t seem interested in what he had to say, so I decided to use that as a launching pad for what I hoped would be my first real conversation with the pretty girl I saw almost every day.

I went up and ordered a coffee after the man left the counter. “Do you want to hear my life story too?” I asked with a smile.

Her face was expressionless. “What?”

“I heard that guy telling you his life story. Do you get that a lot?”

“Oh,” she answered unflinchingly. “I haven’t seen him in a while. He was just catching me up.”

She’d made her point with her lack of enthusiasm toward my attempt at conversation. She certainly wasn’t picking up on my foolish tone. I ordered my coffee and walked away. Since then, I don’t try to engage her. You could say I’m playing hard-to-get, but that would imply I actually have a chance. It’s not like she’s a knockout anyway. I mean, she’s attractive, but she doesn’t make me imagine every second of our potential relationship like most beautiful women do when they cross my path. Not to mention I’m more of a brunette guy.

Pretty blonde coffee shop girl is part of a trend I’ve noticed since moving to Los Angeles: the fish aren’t biting. When I do see a knockout, she doesn’t even look my way. What little mojo I have is dependent on eye contact, and they’re giving me none. I can’t work with that. Hell, I can’t work with something, let alone nothing.

I was finally thrown a bone by one lass (I mean that expression figuratively, not sexually) when I was out for a run a couple weeks ago. Jogging on Santa Monica Boulevard, I heard a car horn beep a few times. I turned to my right and noticed an older (3os), heavy-set Latina driving a rundown car cranking her head in my direction. I paid it no mind and continued running. A block later, I heard more vigorous beeping. Since there was traffic, when I turned to my right again, the same Latina and her car were still even with me, and she was smiling and waving wildly at me.

I’m not that desperate. Yet.

My neighborhood has character, to say the least. If you travel to any destination within five or six blocks, you’re sure to see a Hasidic Jew in a big hat with a thick beard or a cracked-out celebrity lookalike (today I saw Cracked-Out Zoe Saldana and Cracked-Out Dennis Quaid) or a good, old-fashioned transvestite or all of the above. I do, after all, live only a few blocks from an L.A. juncture affectionately known as Tranny Corner.

Tranny Corner has a Del Taco selling 39 cent tacos. The bottom of the barrel in this city is turning tricks at the Corner so you can afford 39 cent tacos. I’m still looking for a job. Am I heading down that path?

I’m rambling. What am I talking about? I’m distracted and I’m creatively stifled. I miss home. I want to be an irresponsible high school kid with no worries for just one day. I want one more summer Sunday gently swaying back-and-forth on the love seat swing by the pool, looking up at the blue sky with a book on my chest that I may or may not get around to reading. I want my brother to be in the pool, floating on a raft and working on his tan; I was once able to convince a classmate that he and I were half-brothers with different fathers, and he was actually a quarter black. I want my mom and sister laying out in beach chairs catching their bit of sun, my sister putting forth maximum adolescent effort not to become anything like her mother but moving closer and closer to the opposite result. I want my dad on the grill cooking a disgusting amount of meat for dinner – steak tips, BBQ chicken, kielbasa, and Italian sausage – but forgetting to prepare an accompanying side like rice or vegetables.

In my mind on the love seat swing, I’m very happy. I can’t picture anything better than this moment. I consider the possibility that it’ll be a distant memory very soon when my brother has moved out of the house and I’ve moved to Los Angeles after college, as seems inevitable for a film major. This possibility terrifies me and makes me enjoy the moment even more. You don’t want to let something so precious slip away easily. Lock onto it. Draw the picture in your head in painstaking detail. Don’t leave out one of Dad’s fart jokes, one of Mom’s nagging complaints, one of Zach’s obnoxious cackling laughs, or one of Steph’s textbook responses of teenage indifference. Capture their shining traits and their flaws. Close your eyes and lock in the memory as a smile purses your lips.

On second thought, don’t make this a thing of the past. This kind of joy needs to be caged and prolonged for as long as we can basque in its glow. You can’t let go of something so wonderful, no matter what your dreams may be or where they may take you. You want to move to the other side of the country and give this up? No way. You wouldn’t stand a chance in Los Angeles, especially after climbing down from this mountain peak.

The Month Extraordinary

You might not believe it, but Mr. Sentimental himself almost went the entire day without realizing it’s been exactly one month since he left home. For weeks I’ve thought, “Man, when August 5 rolls around, I’m going to write one hell of a blog reflecting on my first full month in the great wide open.”

Reflect reflect reflect. Almost all the posts I write are reflective lately. I reflect on my life more than a mirror reflects on a self-conscious forty-year-old man’s receding hair line.

Zing?

…because he’s always checking himself in the mirror.

What’s there to say about the last month that hasn’t already been said throughout the most consistent period of my blogging life? My thoughts and experiences of the last 31 days have already been documented thoroughly, and there’s really nothing for me to say on an arbitrary anniversary that only seems significant because I’m a sentimental sap who has a moment of silence every time he kills a roll of toilet paper.

Zing again? Man, I’m on fire.

I will, for the sake of justifying my decision to move West, list all the things I’ve accomplished in the last month:

1. I traveled throughout the country.

2. I joined a soccer team.

3. I had two job interviews – two more than I had in 14 months while living at home following graduation. (I had one interview in February, but it was for an internship.)

If I was still back at home, I couldn’t have had these results. There would have been pretty good substitutes like seeing the Tenney Castle or the Public Garden instead of the entire country, or I would have continued to play pickup soccer games on Sunday nights with the kids I coached and the men I grew up playing with since we were kids ourselves.

I wouldn’t have made any headway on the job front, though. My ultimate reason for coming to Los Angeles is validated by the fact that I’ve made more progress in just a few weeks than I did in Boston in over a year, even if I am still unemployed.

As a sacrifice I spend my days playing the waiting game, alone and wishing I was running errands with Steph and Dan on 28 or taking Nico to a park where the slightest bit of attention from another dog causes him to cower in fear, or on the weekend nights when I have little to do besides go to a movie, I imagine the fun I’d be having in the Somerville apartment with Zach and Mark and Mike and Megan, whether it was just us hanging out watching TV or gathering with a larger group of beautiful Methuenites and Bostonians  for a party on the back porch.

With that jumbled mess of emotions stated, how can I sum up how I feel after one month? I miss everyone and everything associated to being home – from the annoying old lady who walks her dog and stands in front of my house every morning, afternoon, and evening to my daily Dunkin Donuts iced coffee – but I know I need to be here. It’s a frustrating slap in the face that I can’t have both things I want in the same package, but I guess that’s Life.

Really? You’re going to play the “That’s life” card?

Yes, that’s all I have for now. Maybe I’ll be more profound on the one year anniversary.

What You Do, Where You’re From, And Who You Are

What You Do

If you live to be 70 years old, you will have existed on this earth for 2,207,529,000 seconds. Take a few of those seconds right now to think of all the things you can do with that time. You could read books. You could write books. You could drive across country. You could see every country in the world. You could sleep. You could sleep with other people. You could watch a never-ending supply of movies. You could make a movie. You could teach. You could learn. You could go out of your way to be kind to people. You could go out of your way to be mean to people. You could sit in a room and think about life and what could be done with it. You could go out in the world and do all those things worth doing.

And there’s obviously more – a lot more. Life should never be boring because there will always be something more or different to do. If you play soccer, you can set your sights on playing more frequently at a higher level. You could also stop playing the game altogether and begin to coach instead. One thing is certain: whatever it is you decide to do will be one of the most important factors in shaping who you are.

As an obnoxious little shit in middle school, what I did didn’t shape me into a little angel by any means. I was constantly thrown out of class for doing the most moronic things. My mom still tells the story of when my Spanish teacher called to complain I was licking glass by the classroom door. In fifth grade, I thought I’d achieved the highest level of comedy when I frequently disrupted the class by blowing on my arm to make fart sounds. The thing I realized in high school is because I did those things, I was an idiot, immature, and obnoxious kid. I knew I could be better if I stopped to think about what I was doing, but I didn’t think and let myself become defined by the stupid things I did. Since then, I’ve always tried to think about every choice I’ve made before I made it to determine whether or not it was right for me to do. We all possess the ability to do the right thing in anything we do because we’re human beings with consciences. What we decide should either be morally right or fit the character we want for ourselves.

In that way, we’re all self-made. We’re all in control of who we become because we’re in control of what we do on the way to becoming that person. It’s why I have no patience for mean or immoral people, and neither should you. I don’t care how rarely Daddy hugged you when you were little; nothing ever decreased your faculties to distinguish right from wrong. You willingly walked the path to becoming Johnny Douchebag.

But I don’t want to be negative. In fact, that’s the exact opposite type of person I want to be. Sure, there are times when I rant on Lebron James to a “hater” extent or throw a pity party for what I see as the bad fortune that has befallen me since college, but when I take the time to recognize the situation and the options I have to choose from, I choose the positive route (at least now I do).

We are who we pretend to be, therefore we must be careful of who we pretend to be. Last fall when I was convinced my life would never be anything but meaningless and miserable (and I really was), I decided to donate my time to coaching soccer for free instead of working some random job to make the money I so desperately needed. When I was several months into an unambitious stint as a substitute teacher with no career prospects on the horizon, I chose to move across country with what little I had to try to make something – anything! – of myself. In the moments I made those decisions I was light years from being a positive and proactive person, but by doing those things I became that type of person, and I believe I made the right choice.

Where You’re From

If you look at a map displaying Massachusetts’ shape, you’ll first notice its most distinguishable feature, Cape Cod – the claw-for-a-hand to our crazy old man of a state. Less distinguishable lies a city-known-as-a-town along its northern border. For hundreds of miles, from the western part of the state just below Vermont to this point south of New Hampshire, this border is as straight as an NRA meeting. However, in this specific city-known-as-a-town, the border suddenly slants north. Because of this, the city-known-as-the-town of Methuen is abstractly shaped like a butterfly, with wings representing its eastern and western halves, respectively. If you didn’t know any better you would think it would tear itself from the earth and fly away to somewhere new like New Hampshire or Maine or Canada. But you do know better.

I’ve called the butterfly my home my entire life. To be more specific, the western wing was home. It was home even for the four years when I was away at college, too. It was where my family was. It was where my friends were or were returning to once their college stints were finished. It was where I knew every street and shortcut like I know when I need to eat or use the bathroom. Methuen is ingrained in me just like any primal urge. Whether I like it or not (and I do), my upbringing in Methuen has had just as much of an impact on who I am as my genetic makeup.

For a long time, I struggled to understand Methuen. There is a certain collective consciousness that simply made no sense to me. For one thing, no one in Methuen seems to be happy they live there. They cut it down constantly and wish it could be better. However, if any outsider decided to say something bad about it, a true Methuenite would be ready to throw down in a heartbeat. I can call my son ugly, but I’ll be damned if you call my son ugly!

A great anecdote to sum up the Methuen mentality: You’re walking into the Border’s at the Loop – Methuen’s commercial heartbeat. A middle-aged woman is walking closely behind you, and you decide to hold the door so she can enter the bookstore first. You open the door and smile at her so she knows it’s her turn to pass through. The woman, in a huff, stops and scoffs. “You think you’re better than me?” she snaps before storming passed you.

This fact-based woman is Methuen. She has a chip on her shoulder for God-knows-what-reason and decides to hold it against the world surrounding her. Perhaps it’s because she cannot go further in life than Methuen – a proud blue collar town with both hints of poverty in some spots and affluence in others. It’s not as bad as Lawrence (thank God), but it will never be as good as Andover, either. It’s a neglected middle child, neither deserving of your attention through pity or praise. It has pride, but resents itself at the same time.

For this reason, the chip on the shoulder is present in most Methuenites. It’s the reason why the first solution to a questionable glance from a stranger is a shaking of the fist rather than a shrug of the shoulders. I’m not saying this to put down my neighbors, either, because it’s a quality I know I share. Granted I don’t solve my Methuen-based insecurities with fighting (my nickname in college from one friend was “the softie from Methuen”), but when put in an unfamiliar situation or place with unfamiliar people, I’m often looking around thinking, “Do they really think they’re better than me?”

But the chip on the shoulder can be a good thing. It can be a motivating force driving you to prove wrong all those people who think you won’t amount to much because you’re just another loser from Methuen (even though there’s no factual evidence to suggest those people even think this way). When I coached my soccer team, I recognized it was an important part of a team from Methuen to take on the town’s personality. That is, after all, what I had always done as a player. A Methuen team shouldn’t be masterfully skilled or brilliant tactically. Leave that to the Andovers of the world, breeding players in the best camps with the best soccer minds money can buy. If you want to play with a Methuenite style, though, you want to step out on the field every time with the attitude “They really think they’re better than us?” before out-hustling and out-working the other guys to prove them “wrong.” Based on the success of our team this spring, that mentality can work just fine.

Methuen, like any place, is flawed. The people can be frustratingly ignorant and the government is inherently corrupt. Still, I wouldn’t want to come from anywhere else. I love identifying with Boston as my home when I’m far away from Massachusetts, but I’m also sure to clarify that I come from a place 30 minutes north of the city – slightly off the beaten track, and it shows. It is home, for better or worse. It’s why, when friends heard I was moving and said I must be thrilled to be getting out of “this place,” I was sure to point out I don’t see what I’m doing as leaving Methuen as much as I’m going to Los Angeles. Methuen is a part of me. I wouldn’t be who I am without that crazy, pugnacious butterfly, and despite the negatives that breed a little bit of resentment in me, I’m still proud of it.

Who You Are

How many times have you heard a phrase like “I lost myself”, “I’m lost”, or a variation of the two? Maybe you read it in a book or heard it in a song or saw it on TV or said it to a friend or had a friend say it to you. When you think of what the phrase really means, it sounds like bullshit, doesn’t it? You can lose a dog, a homework assignment, or a basketball game. You can even lose your innocence in Mike Dratner’s house in fifth grade when you go there after school and he hits play on the VCR to show you the first porn you’ve ever seen, but until scientists come up with a way to remove a head from a body and keep both alive, we will never literally lose ourselves.

That’s not what the phrase means, of course, and you can in fact lose that all-important sense of who you are. Right now you might be reading this thinking, Of course I know who I am. Who doesn’t know who they are? No one knows you better than yourself.

Prove it. Sit down and write a short story right now. Make yourself the protagonist. Put your main character/yourself in a situation you’ve never faced before. Maybe you’re a Manhattan cab driver who picks up a woman whose water breaks in your backseat. What do you do? Maybe you’re a farmer’s son in Indiana and both your parents have just passed away to leave you a failing dairy farm that’s been in your family for generations. You’ll probably be better off selling it now for whatever money you can and finding a job closer to a city. What do you do?

You’re driving in your car today and you stop at a red light. A man with no motive whatsoever comes up to your car, puts a gun to your head, and tells you you’re going to die in five seconds. What do you do?

Despite what you may say or think, no one knows the answers to these questions. It’s nothing to be ashamed of either. While we can’t say for sure how we’ll respond to unpredictable situations we may encounter in our lives, we still know many things that make up who we are. We know how we’ll react to the everyday activities of our standard routines. We know about the kind of character we have – if we’re loyal, persistent, honest, dedicated, hardworking, etc. We know what we like and what we don’t like – what to keep out of our lives and what to let in.

In truth, though, we know very little about what we’re truly made of because we have such a limited understanding of who we really are when the cards are on the table and we’re put to the test. For proof, another exercise:

Think of the most difficult thing you’ve ever had to deal with in your life. If you can, dig a little deeper than that final exam that forced you to pull an all-nighter fueled by Adderall.  Got it? Now remember your mental and bodily response upon first coming face to face with this ordeal. Is it what you would have expected of yourself if you had sat down, wrote the screenplay of your life, and put your protagonist self in that situation fictitiously? Probably not, right?

Though it’s against my better judgment, I’ll give you my own example.

—

By now, you all have a pretty good idea of the trajectory of my life from the end of college to this moment. You know a lot of the setup for this story, then. You know I was in Los Angeles for my final semester of college when my parents dropped the bomb that they were getting a divorce. You know I then chose to bypass my career plans to stay in L.A. after graduation because it seemed much more important to be around my disintegrating family at this time than to begin a new life. You know when I tried finding work in industries like publishing, advertising, and public relations around Boston, I was lucky if I received a formal email rejection. I couldn’t even secure an internship. I was poor, I was miserable, and I didn’t try to hide it.

If you didn’t know that setup, you know now.

When New Year’s plans were being made amongst my friends – the one good thing in my life yet to cave in – I couldn’t afford to join the festivities at Foxwoods Resort & Casino’s club Shrine. I’d grown so used to my unfortunate lot in life that I wasn’t even fazed by it either. My friends, however, rose to the occasion on my birthday late that November, shocking me with a card filled with $200. Due to the kindest of an act that makes me feel like crying to this day, I wasn’t going to miss out on ringing in 2010 with some of the most important people in my life.

On December 31st, though, my night went in a different direction than Kiel the Writer would have prognosticated had he sat at his computer on December 30th and imagined our New Year’s Eve. Never much for drinking, I enjoyed the casino’s courtesy gin & tonics a little too much during our first couple hours at Foxwoods. When we went back to the hotel rooms to get ready for the club, there was champagne, beer, liquors, and mixers to be had, and I had a little bit of everything. When we hit the casino floor for a brief stint before heading into Shrine, I had a couple more drinks. I had planned on stopping, but after losing my money gambling so quickly, I lamented my terrible luck and chose more alcohol as the guest at my pity party.

In the club, we had our own table with bottle service. When you have bottle service, your waitress makes your drinks as stiff as she can because you’ve already paid for the bottle and she wants you to buy the next one as soon as possible. My vodka-tonic, then, was high enough in alcohol-content to supply a triage tent in the middle of a war zone. Still feeling sorry for myself after 2009’s string of bad luck had continued in the casino, I took my drink for a lap around the club. I even saw someone I knew. I remember that part. I took a picture with her and continued on. By the time I returned to the table, I was ready for another drink. It was a gin & tonic this time. I took it along to the bathroom and relieved myself. I still remember this too. I knew I was drunk at this point and struggled to walk straight.

I went back to the table and sat down because the room was wobbly. Lights out.

“Kiel! Kiel! We need you to get up buddy,” my brother yelled over “Bad Romance” blaring over the speakers. Hearing the song now still gives me flashbacks.

I tried to open my eyes, but only lasted a few seconds before I had to close them again. The strobe lights made me more nauseous than I already was.

“He can’t be in here if he’s like that,” the waitress said.

“He’s fine,” my brother replied. “Just give him a minute.” I couldn’t see, but he slipped her some money. “Kiel!” he yelled again. “I just bought us some time. You need to get up.”

It registered in my head that I was the guy in the club who was drawing attention to himself for being a wasted mess. Apparently I’d already missed midnight and thrown up. I’d managed to get some of the vomit in a bucket that had been thrust in my face. Good for me. Now I heard my friends and my brother alike trying to get me back to reality. I wanted to get up and walk out of the club on my own accord, but I couldn’t hold my head up, let alone move my legs or arms. My lack of muscle control included my mouth, and post-vomit drool hung from my lips. My friend Dianna had the unfortunate task of wiping up that mess.

“KIEL!” my brother screamed, right up in my face now. He slapped me hard on the cheek a few times. Each time it jolted a little life in me, but I still was helpless to control my body.

My brother and two of our friends grabbed me by the belt and carried me out of the club, bringing me to the nearby lobby of the MGM Grand. They laid me down on a pillar’s ledge. Either I’d said something inappropriate to a girl in my blackout state and she’d thrown a pitcher of water on me, or I was sweating profusely. It was the latter. An EMT arrived and had them take my shirt off. She tried talking to me and I tried to respond. Tried.

“Alright what the hell did he take?” she asked my brother and our friends.

“Nothing,” they replied.

“I need to know,” she demanded.

“You don’t know this kid. He doesn’t do anything like that and never would.”

“Do you think someone could have slipped him something?” she asked.

Yes, I thought. That had to be it. I would never do this to myself. Someone else did it. It’s not my fault.

The EMT leaned in close to me. “Kiel, I need to know if you want to come to the hospital with me or go up to your friend’s room to sleep this off.”

The decision was clear to me. I’d been slipped something and I had no control over my body. I couldn’t move a muscle and, for all I knew, there was a much longer lights out ahead.

“Hospital,” I muttered.

I was loaded onto an ambulance, still shirtless when they brought me outside to face the frigid January cold. I threw up on the ride to the hospital, but put most of my focus on the EMT as she tried talking me through the situation. Before her comforting presence, I really was convinced I could potentially die. After talking to my brother and friends when it was all done, there was a point when they feared the worst as well. The lights went out again.

When I came to, I was hooked up to an IV in a hospital bed. I felt a lot better physically, but unfortunately I could remember almost all the details of the events. It was the price I’d have to pay for making the mistake I’d made.

My friend Kathleen came around the curtain and approached my bed slowly. Her eyes were red from crying, and I felt terrible that I was the cause of the tears. I felt even worse about turning a night of celebration into one of panic for my brother and friends. I looked at my phone and it was only 2 am. The last thing I remembered before “lights out” was texting a buddy at, according to my phone, 11:47 pm. In a window of roughly two hours, that entire frightening ordeal had taken place. I knew it was real and there was nothing I could do about it, but I couldn’t believe it had happened to me.

—

I think it’s safe to say I was lost that night, several months leading up to that night, and I’m probably still lost now. I’m in a better place than I was seven months ago but, to borrow a trite expression, I’m not out of the woods yet.

If I sat down in front of a computer right now (imagine!) and wrote a story with Kiel Servideo as the protagonist, I’d have a much better idea of how he might react in certain situations than the Kiel of 2009. After all, I never would have guessed that guy would nearly drink himself into a coma, but that’s how it works when you don’t fully understand the protagonist driving the story. It’s not completely hopeless, though, and we do have some control if we choose to take it. Protagonist You may have no idea what the first words out of your mouth will be when your grandfather dies on page 75, but if you have a grasp on the graspable things which influence who you are – what you do and where you’re from – I’m sure you’ll navigate your way through the situation just fine, even if it’s not in the manner you’d expect.

Maybe, on some level, we’re all lost and always will be. I don’t know anyone in my life who has it all figured out, and maybe we’re not supposed to know. Maybe never being able to fully understand how we work or what makes us tick drives us to then define ourselves by other means where we have say. Along the way to self-definition there will be wrong decisions and miscalculations, but as long as we recognize the mistakes, we’ll continue to get closer and closer to becoming unlost – or as close to it as we can.

Road Trip in Review: Days 7 and 8

Road Trip Song of the Day: “Peaceful Easy Feeling” by The Eagles

“I like the way your sparkling earrings lay against your skin so brown / And I want to sleep with you in the desert night with a million stars all around.”

We left Albuquerque early Sunday morning in a rush. We had a predicament on our hands: Stay in the city, watch the World Cup Final at 12:30 that afternoon, and arrive at Mather Campground at the Grand Canyon for our reservation late that night, or leave the city early and book it to Flagstaff, six and a half hours away, to catch the game at the first piece of civilization between Albuquerque and our final destination. Ultimately we chose the latter, knowing we couldn’t let World Cup fever take away from the limited time we would have with the Canyon. This way, we could head up from Flagstaff – an hour and a half away – in the afternoon when the game was finished and still have some daylight to see the giant hole.

In the meantime, we had to drive, and drive fast. Much like the stretch between Amarillo and Albuquerque, there were no signs of life in the desert west of the city either. I guess that’s why they call it the desert. There was, however, a much more picturesque landscape. Rather than an expansive view of dirt and clumps of bushes, this part of the desert showcased brilliantly colored mountains of all sizes. It was enough to distract us for the hours we drove through the area, not needing to resort to the Christian Rock stations that had plagued us on our way into Albuquerque.

The game, however, spoiled these moments as we inched closer to Flagstaff. We’d left Sam’s house late and clearly would not arrive in Flagstaff in time for the game. We stopped at a Travel Center off the side of the highway – smack dab in the middle of Nothing and Nothing – and caught the majority of the first half in the truckers lounge. At halftime, I made the executive decision to jet for the next rest area. I figured we might as well pick up more ground on the Grand Canyon while the game was on hold. We hit the highway and continued west. Using Tom’s Droid, I looked for the next Travel Center. As time moved on and the second half started, I began to panic as it became clear that there were no stops between us and Flagstaff…and Flagstaff was an hour away.

I resorted to ESPN’s mobile gamecast of the final. Every minute, one-sentence updates clued us in on the flow of the game. Another yellow card! A great save by Casillas! This one could be headed for extra time. We hoped the last statement was true, knowing the extra 30 minutes would give us time to arrive in a Flagstaff sports bar to catch the game’s conclusion. Things went that way, of course, and we reached a curiously named establishment called Hog’s Hideout right off the interstate halfway into the first overtime period. I had the female redneck bartender put the game on the big TV (there was only one other person in “the Hideout” besides us) and ordered a beer for compensation. A few old men joined us as the game progressed. I watched Spain achieve ultimate glory with several cowboy hat-wearing, truck-driving man’s men looking on, perplexed at the young man reacting emotionally to every twist and turn in the game.

We left the Hideout and made our way up the mountains from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon. We reached our campground and pitched our tents (insert inappropriate laugh here) around 6 pm before making the 20 minute walk over to the Canyon itself. The words that come to mind now hardly do justice for how I felt in the first moment I stood on the edge of the giant abyss, but here they are anyway since this is, after all, a literary blog meant to put ideas into words: breathtaking, speechless, heartstopping, amazing, astounding, beautiful, gorgeous, mind-blowing, unimaginable.

See, they’re just words. I feel like they carry no weight compared to the real experience.

There are many things – from simple goings on like trying sushi for the first time to monumental life events like having your first child – that are built up to insurmountable heights before you ever have a chance to experience them. The result could be a major disappointment or a wonderful affirmation of the hype’s validity. In the case of the Grand Canyon, a high bar was set by both myself and the common thought of our society. In turn, my expectations for first beholding the natural beauty were through the roof. Somehow, the Canyon exceeded expectations. There’s something there that puts every other piece of your life in the backseat. As Tom perfectly stated, “Why do people need to wish for Heaven when this is right here?”

That night, after returning to our campsite to cook dinner, Tom and I walked down to Heaven with our nerdy L.E.D. head lights guiding the way through the dark roads and paths. We reached the rim and laid on our backs on the flattest and least rock-disturbed space we could find. Our upward gaze rewarded us with the only view from earth that rivals our first look at the canyon earlier that day. Above us, the entire sky was densely speckled with stars in all directions. It looked like someone had dropped a bottle of glitter on a black floor. This was especially precious to me, as my first love ever since I was a little boy had always been the night sky. Probably stemming from my childhood obsession with E.T. (I watched it almost every day when I came home from kindergarten), stars and space have astounded me and made me smile since the first time my brain told my head to look up. What a treat, then, to have the best heavenly view I can imagine from a place Icould never picture in my wildest dreams. When you see something so awe-inspiring, there is little you can do besides lay on your back and get lost in the twinkle and glow, contemplating your place in the world. When facing such beauty, the only rational explanation for your own existence seems to be that we are part of Something’s artful stroke of genius.

The next day we set our sights on an ambitious hike into the canyon. It was our only full day there and we wanted to make it count. After talking to some people and listening to their opinions about the trail options, I planned for Tom and I to walk 6.5 miles down the Canyon to the Colorado River. There we’d rest beside the water, perhaps cleansing ourself in the same liquid body that had helped shaped the canyon over millions of years, before traveling back through to the canyon rim by way of a longer (10 miles), though less steep trail.

Did I mention this plan was ambitious?

Ultimately, hiking in the middle of the day during the hottest time of year is not a good time to plan a 16 mile trek over tough terrain. We made good time heading down from the rim on the South Kaibab Trail, but it was clear we did not have the strength (or the water) to reach the river and back in the same day. After about three miles, the Colorado River finally came into view. We decided this was as good a place as any to stop for lunch and rest. I burrowed into the shady side of our mountain – nestled under a rock ledge – and feel asleep with a western view of the canyon stretched out in front of me.

The hike back up the mountain was less relaxing than the rest within the canyon, to say the least. The sun beating down and our water running low (and hot, may I add), we stopped every couple minutes after ascending as much as we could before we would collapse. We’d find the little shade there was to catch our breath and stop our hearts from beating out of our chests before traveling upward a little more. In the end, our way down took about one hour. Our journey up took nearly three.

As a result, the rest of the day was devoted to relaxation. I headed down to the Canyon alone (Tom was exhausted in his tent) for the sunset, which I felt was a must-see before leaving the canyon the next morning. I sat on a ledge at the canyon rim with a crowd of tourists joining me. We watched as the red Sun danced its way lower and lower in the sky before dropping below the ridge far off to the west. I returned to my tent, completely worn out from the long day, as it started to rain. I fell asleep to the sound of rain droplets peppering my tent. I barely noticed the sound because my mind was elsewhere. In 24 hours, I’d be in Los Angeles.

Road Trip in Review: Day 1

Road Trip Song of the Day: “Come Sail Away” by Styx

I’m sailing away
Set an open course for the Virgin Sea
‘Cause I’ve got to be free
Free to face the life that’s ahead of me.

Man, day one’s song is corny. So was day one, though. At least the beginning was. The plan was to leave Methuen around 9:30, but the hardest part about this trip reared its head when we had to say goodbye to family and friends before hitting the road. While you’re hugging these people most dear to you, it occurs to you that you’re about to experience the moment when you will be furthest from seeing them again. It’s especially difficult when you don’t know when that reunion will be. I thought I’d linger on this moment a lot longer than I did. Instead, I put my big boy pants on and ripped off the band aid.

Day one itself was pretty uneventful besides the emotional beginning. We drove through Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York and, to tell you the truth, it all looks the same. Pennsylvania provided a nice break from boring forest driving and offered some majestic valley views. Apparently Pennsylvania is little more than a collection of gorgeous green valleys because that’s all we saw for over five hours. It was nice at times, especially when the sun was large and red as it set in the west, painting the sky rare to medium rare.

When we finally entered Ohio around 10:00 pm, we were excited to be rid of the Keystone State. It’s probably the most excited someone’s ever been to be in Ohio. I was expecting to see more giant statues of Lebron shepherding the cars down the interstate, but I guess that’s why he’s probably leaving Cleveland. They could have loved him more! We reached Akron at 11 and checked in to a Red Roof Inn. We grabbed some White Castle across the street (when in Rome, do as the fat people do) before getting some much needed rest. Other than a prostitute staying in the room above us who tried to lure us into her lair of herpes, our day was over.

Now after waking up from a great night of sleep, we’re ready for day two.

Why July 5th?

Two-hundred thirty-four years ago, a wealthy Virginia man took a break from impregnating his slaves and wrote some funny new ideas on parchment to show his friends. His friends liked his ideas so much they put their signatures all over the parchment to symbolize the cutting of ties with the most powerful empire in the world. Chief among those ideas was a promise that every individual deserved the opportunity to pursue happiness in his or her lifetime. This concept gave birth to something extremely unique to our young nation and continues to define it today: the American Dream.

The American Dream has taken on many forms over the years. When television sets began to fill homes across the United States in the Fifties, the pop culture version of the Dream was on display in the countless wholesome family sitcoms that captivated audiences in T.V.’s  Golden Age. A perfect nuclear family existed with Father, Mother, Son, and Daughter. Father brought home the bacon, Mother kept a clean house, and Son and Daughter learned life lessons from their parents, who were perfectly prepared to handle anything and everything. It was what America should be. It was what everyone should strive for if they wanted to be happy.

The beautiful thing about the American Dream, however, is that it can take on any form. One individual may want the simple life of a nuclear family in Small Town, U.S.A. while another may want to never marry or have children and travel the world at every vacation opportunity. One man may want to be white collar while another will proudly assume his place in the working class. One woman may choose to dedicate herself to the arts while another may seek out a rich older man to marry. In every circumstance, once these people had what they wanted, the desired result would be the same: Happiness.

I spent a lot of time thinking about the American Dream since graduating from college last spring. I especially thought about it at Christmastime when I was working for U.P.S. as a driver’s helper. I’d run in and out of the truck all day, conversing with the driver at times, but losing myself in thought  for the majority. I thought about the people who lived in these large, breathtaking Andover houses. They received packages every day, meaning when they wanted something, a click of the mouse on an internet shopping site secured it for them. I wondered what they’d done to reach this level of economic status. Was this their dream from the start? Once they achieved it, were they happy?

Seeds of resentment planted, every night when the Sun was setting and the moon was on the rise I’d stare out the side of the truck at our bright white, cratered natural satellite as it held a low place in the sky, barely hanging over another gorgeous and monstrous cookie-cutter house. It looked so large and close I thought I could reach out and grab it if I tried. I never did or could, though, and by the time I realized thinking such a thing was silly for a 23 year-old college graduate to even consider, the moon had slid higher in the sky. It didn’t look so big anymore. It didn’t look so close anymore.

My own American Dream has looked both incredibly close and impossibly far over the past year. In my brightest moments, I have this sense that I am destined to possess everything I want in life and – despite recent struggles – it’ll happen soon. If I reached out, it just barely evaded my grasp. I was so close. In my darkest places, the Dream was so unattainable it became a nightmare, taunting me about the life I’d never have and the happiness I’d never find.

Whether the Dream eventually becomes a reality or a failure, I’ve resolved that, either way, the effort I’m willing to put forth will determine the result. A dream is just a dream, but when you stir awake you must be willing to do whatever is necessary to transform that fantasy into your real life. For a while, I was doing little more than sleepwalking.  Finally a few months ago, I was shaken to consciousness and had the realization I would end up thirty and miserable if I didn’t do what was in my control to achieve my Dream. When I needed to pinpoint my departure to kick-start this quest, the day after the Dream’s birthday seemed most fitting.

Now, I’m finally doing something. Today, I began my journey west – a 21^st century exercise in Manifest Destiny. I’m leaving one day after our most patriotic holiday, which commemorates the signing of that all-important parchment at the beginning of our story with the mother-of-all-promises that beckons us to dream in the first place: the Pursuit of Happiness. In this moment, I couldn’t be any more “America.” I’m a child of the second worst economic crisis in our history. Unemployment rates are high, and I am unemployed. Personal debt is soaring, and I am buried under a mountain of bills. I’m traversing the country because an indomitable voice in my head has never given up hope that the fruits of my labor will reverse my fortunes. The voice believes I can go to Los Angeles with no job, no place to call home, no car, and only enough money to hold off bill collectors for a couple months, but still I can reap the rewards of the life I want and am setting out to earn.

If that isn’t dreaming, I don’t know what is.