My life-Part 1
Many people write memoirs about their life capturing all the joys and struggles in phonetic wording and expression for hundreds if not thousands of pages. I feel that my life can be explained with short stories and comic diagrams. I was born in Idaho so I’ll start there.
“THE IDAHO PART”
Growing up in Idaho was weird for many I suppose. Here are items that were normal for me.
I was born in Idaho not far from the capitol.
My elementary school had a roof that was grass.
Side note: It wasn't too old when I went there. It was touted as an energy efficient building with a brand new design keeping temperatures consistent with solar panels to offset cost. The one thing it was consistent about was the roof leaking and custodians and students helping catch the water in buckets. It was torn down a few years ago while many older buildings kept going.
We raised sheep through 4-H which meant we walked sheep like dogs down the road so they’d be obedient and shape up for the fair.
Side note:
We were told these sheep would help pay for college. I once sold a sheep for $4/lb which was a lot at the time which equated for around $520. Using this math and a typical 4 year degree cost at the time you need to sacrifice around 62 lambs for a basic degree if the lamb doesn’t need anything. You probably realistically need to sacrifice 120 lambs for a degree.
Why do I tell you this math? Because I believe this is what was actually happening:
I went to the Acropolis in Athens recently and they talked of a yearly sacrifice of 50 animals for Athena. My point? Athena would think we pay too much for school.
Back to the highlights of growing up in Idaho.
We swam in pesticide ridden canals.
Round up Lake aka any canal holding pond in Ada and Canyon County
I had a dairy cow named Milky Way that kicked my ass. A lot. This was another 4-H project we took on to raise money for school. Most kids had cows that acted like dogs. Mine acted like a honey badger.
Many pastimes when you are young in Idaho include keggers in fields and shooting stuff.
When I am asked how rural the part of Idaho I went to school in was I tell them two words: “Testicle Festival.” Before you google that… the version I am referring to is when you have a giant bbq of calf testicles after branding. Below is everything you need to know if you are ever invited to one.
Almost all streets were built on one mile plots and ran perpendicular to each other. If you made a wrong turn it would likely cost you 4 miles to turn around.
The college football team always had a blue turf.
I was actively chewing tobacco, smoking and drinking by the time I was 18 and this wasn’t that abnormal. To put my life into perspective now I can hardly handle coffee and had to switch to tea recently.
Then the Idaho as I knew it blew up. The cheap cost of living attracted many from more expensive states like California and there was an exodus to Idaho; the Starbucks and strip malls came in droves.
Things you saw driving pre urban sprawl
Things you saw post sprawlI wouldn’t say the urban sprawl in Idaho inherently broke me but I will say the setting did not benefit me as I navigated changes. I had yet to discover how more and more stimulus in the environment stressed me out. I manifested a lot of that struggle in “less than ideal ways.”
If I were to take a few steps back this cycle and needing to zone out due to emotional disregualtion isnt a surprise looking back. I grew up believing and being told I was really smart, however I started to struggle in Elementary school.
I could intuitively get good grades but it was stressful. This progressively got harder until high school where I hit a wall and could no longer fake it to get the attendance award “A.”
It didn’t help that no one realized I needed glasses until I was in the 5th grade either. So to be fair the drawing above looked like this:
I would later find out I had ADHD in my 30’s. This information was an “oh that makes sense” epiphany. It was also an “you know that would’ve been helpful to know a while ago” epiphany.
I can best describe growing up with undiagnosed ADHD as events where my distraction had the best of me. There’s this scene in Park’s and Rec where Ben gets depressed and makes a pitiful claymation short instead of addressing his life. I literally did that once as a kid when I should have been working on a school project. My Wallace and Grommit remake failed and I failed.
I would reflect and find ADHD for me was a lot of starting things but not figuring out how to finish them.
It’s missing spots in the lawn you need to mow.
It’s leaving every cupboard open and light on all the time.
It’s being interested in something or someone and quickly losing interest.
It’s a storm of anxiety where you can’t sit still and annoy the hell out of everyone.
For me it was taking on a trade ( heavy equipment mechanic) because I could put that energy into something tangible.
It’s doing tangible things because parents and teachers say that is the only thing you are good at.
It’s spending countless Saturdays at a tutoring center to get your bachelors and spending half your paycheck every month on a tuition payment plan.
It’s quickly getting frustrated at too many noises and distractions.
It’s desiring to zone out constantly amidst the slightest chaos.
It’s being told you have some sort of depressive state and wondering why the meds don’t work.
It can be a dark place not knowing why.
I wouldn’t figure this out in Idaho. It wasn’t until many years later; for me when I became an adult my version of Idaho was mostly this:
I reached a low point with this where I knew I needed to leave the environment of my childhood and the urban chaos.
So I moved to Oregon.
Part 2 coming soon.
