So there I was in La Crosse. Just like that I was free. But I had no job, no driver's license and no hope of ever getting anywhere. I brought my bike, which was promptly stolen and recovered. We lived in this little efficiency apartment on Ninth street, almost across from the main library. It was a hot summer. I applied for jobs and got one at the Wisconsin Conservation Corps. It was more of a training program than a job. I threw myself right out into the world of work and life. My own life. The thing is there was one condition, for me to stay there. I had to start attending the church of Jehovah's witnesses again. Considering my past with them, I wasn't to keen on the idea.
I started that a began where I had left off, rejoining the ministry school to give bible readings and to become active in the field ministry. I also began studying to become baptised with a fellow called Doug. At the same time, my job consisted of weatherizing houses for CouleeCap. On the other side I started smoking cigarettes and started smoking weed. I didn't care. It was fun. But the depression and anxiety was still there from what I had experienced.
I hung out with my brothers friends, Ken, John and Andy. They where from the church. I also began drinking at this time, which would later become my drug of choice for the years to come. I first got hooked on alcohol when Dave had brought in some jello mixed with vodka to school. We ate it right in the middle of sociology class. We also snuck out once, when there was a substitute teacher and drove around with Becca and they smoked as I rode along.
My first movie outside of the house was Air Force One. My first experience with other people was the second day after I moved. There was a graduation party for one of the girls from the church. Some I was forced to go. I didn't know anyone and some people tried to talk to me, but I didn't know what to say or do. One girl tried to figure me out right away. Her name was Cassidy. She disliked my brother, and tried to see if I was different. I some ways I was but to her I was the same.
This was also the same time I would meet some of the M family. Why do I mention them? For one they became a sort or surrogate family, until shit would hit the fan years later. One of them was okay, the others still judged me as my brother. The okay one, Brandon was like me. He was a rebel. He didn't take kindly to being told what to do. One or two people liked me, but the others treated me like a disease. They stayed away from me as far or as long as possible.
My job went okay. I was fun. My co-workers where cool. But I still longed for home. Mostly because of my surrogate family I had left behind. I would visit if I could. By the end of summer I would see Kat again and check in. She went to college and we lost contact after that for a long time. I finally got my driver's license. Went to Viroqua the second weekend I had it, to visit Dave and Leslie. We hung out a their friends house outside of town and smoked pot and had fun. That was until Chernobyl dug her nose into my life and found me. The bitch ordered me to the house. It wasn't because it was snowing, or because I had left and not told anyone. It was just her way of trying to keep the control over my life as she had done for eighteen fucking years! Nothing happened. I went even though I was still stoned. I don't think she noticed, because she never had done that drug.
Fall turned into winter into spring. My mind was still gone. I studied to join the church. I quit smoking. Didn't drink much. Just followed what I was told to do. I had set the date for my baptisim. June 27, 1998. It was to be at the district convention in Rochester. I thought that all of my friends would be there to see me take the biggest step in my my. As true to my life, no one was there. They where to busy to go eat or to chase tail to see me join a religion. I was disappointed and made my feelings known. I was told that if I didn't like it why did I even become bapitised. That is where things began to go downhill.
Although, June 27 was an obvious error in judgment, it was a day that a future friend, a future surrogate would take the same choice.
Kimberly. I first met her at the sunday church meeting. She was engaged to dumbass, as she calls him now. It wasn't her first trip either. She was older than him and I. She had some of the same problems as I did. When I went on a trip to the Mall of America, which I finally was allowed to go on, I stated that I was manic-depressive. Dumbass mentioned that she was too. This began the next chapter in my life.
Dumbass didn't like it that his wife and I clicked so well, as friends. Kimberly began to help me out with my mental state. She took me to the free clinic in La Crosse-St. Claires health mission. There I was referred to La Crosse county human services, where I met with my first therapist. I was diagnosed with severe depression. Kimberly had me try St. John's wort a natural herb to fight depression. I was put on Paxil at first. In therapy learned all these new terms like depression, and triggers, ups and downs, feelings. This was about 2000. It had been five years since I was reborn, but I still had to deal with my former life. It was the life I had ended on that partly cloudy day in November so many years ago.
My depression and mood didn't help my job either. You see I started working for Dumbass' father. His name is Asshole. That is what he is and what his name is and no one should say any different.
My drinking didn't help with my scrambled head either. I was elevating more and more. I never stopped writing during this time. My musings went away from poetry and became more questioning my life. It was 2000. I watched the new millenium come in from 15 and Main in La Crosse, watching the fireworks atop Grandad's Bluff. The second week my grandfather George died form a heart attack. My grandparents had just celebrated their 60th wedding anniversery three weeks before. It was typical of my family, not to have a big funeral. Probably because nobody cared. I was one of the pallbearers.
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