When I Grow Up

When I Grow Up

I can remember way back when I was just a wee-little tyke in Chicago, maybe four years old, I got my first idea of what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be G.I Joe. Sure, G.I. Joe was cool, with all his gear, and his rugged life of combat, killing bad guys and saving good guys.

Then I switched to wanting to be a doctor after I had my accident. My thumb was severed from my right hand and reattached by surgery the old fashioned way-- ether, and a lot of big, sharp, metal instruments. You would think such an experience would be traumatic for a first grader, yet, due to the inexact science of ether and a little boy who took the mask off his face when the nurse wasn't looking, I woke up in the middle of surgery. No one noticed since I was under a cloth tent, so I turned my head and watched them work on my thumb for about five minutes or so. I didn't feel a thing and it was quite fascinating.

With a whoosh, a nurse yanked the sheet off my face and yelled, "Oh my God, he's awake."

Yikes! Here came that awful mask of ether again and--

I woke up moaning and groaning with a sore throat from smelling that stuff. I thought I was dying. I moaned again and again, "I'm dying, I'm dying." My mom talked them into letting her hold an ice cube over my mouth so just a few drops could drip into the back of my parched throat. It was a life saver. Good job, Mom.

Now, any normal person would probably want absolutely nothing to do with doctors after that, but for some reason, I wanted to be one. I was the talk of the ward, having awakened during surgery and watched my own operation. They still couldn't believe that I felt nothing and never cried.

As the years passed, the court case came due for the accident. I found myself at the ripe old age of ten talking to lawyers about something that happened to me at age six, as if I were supposed to remember everything that happened so they could prove the store was negligent and caused the accident that severed my thumb. A poor thumb, I might add, that now only had about a thirty percent range of motion due to the damage. The lawyers got five thousand dollars out of them, all surgery and medical paid, and all court and lawyer fees paid. Now I wanted to be a lawyer when I grew up.

Most kids I knew wanted to be firemen, cops, ambulance drivers, truck drivers, baseball stars, football stars, or some other action oriented career. I wanted to be a lawyer. Funny thing is, my dad fixated on that. Soon, he wanted me to be a lawyer and he never let me forget it. His mind was made up. I was going to college and then to law school to be a lawyer.

As the years passed, we moved to the suburbs in northern Indiana. I found other interests and other pursuits that I wished I could openly embrace, but I had to suppress them, because, by golly, I was going to be a lawyer. That's what Dad wanted and that's what Dad was going to get. He was proud of me. He even pulled some strings to prepare for me to become a lawyer. He denied it, but a junior in high school who isn't even in the top ten percent of his class doesn't usually get letters of invitation to Notre Dame, and William Penn.

I wanted nothing to do with those schools. My suppressed self cried out for expression from deep within. What do I really want to be? What am I interested in? I had never seriously explored other things in life for possible career choices because I was supposed to be a lawyer. My mind was in a box.

That summer I fled to my annual escape-- baseball. I joined a semi-pro team in pursuit of the majors. I had dreams of maybe being a baseball star. I was darn good at it. I had been a local star in our little league for years. I made the cut for the semi-pro team and played very well as a rookie in five games. In the fifth game, while stealing second, I took a cleat in the calf which tore my muscle at a critical place.

While in recovery I started abusing drugs and my "responsible" life took a sharp nose dive into the earth, while my "social and entertaining" life skyrocketed in boundless clouds of pleasure. I was having fun. More fun than I had ever had. We called it "partying." That suppressed creature who was being formed into a lawyer was suddenly and irretrievably out of the bag.

Well, I failed to escape college through baseball stardom, so as the time drew near to go, I had to choose some field of endeavor. I came face to face with the stark reality that I really did not know what I wanted to be when I grew up. And now I was supposed to make a decision that would affect the rest of my life.

I wrestled with myself and pressed my brain for some skill or some aptitude I had. Alas, it struck me upside the head as if trying to snap me out of my lawyer trance. There was that one thing I did in secret and hid from my father. I enjoyed this thing immensely. I showed some of my teachers who were interested. They encouraged me to pursue it. Dad caught wind of it a few times, but dismissed it with a wave of his arm as something for sissies. He was sure I was not serious about it. Wrong. That one thing that was near and dear to my heart-- writing. I loved writing poetry and short stories, and I was good at it.

After a lot of emotional arguments with Dad and several bouts of withdrawing into myself, I somehow managed to get to Purdue University. He about fell out of his chair in my counselor's office at school when he found out that I had enrolled in an English teaching curriculum. The first thing out of his mouth, right in front of the counselor, was, "Teacher's don't make any money."

After all the feathers smoothed out and the fur settled, I convinced him it was only because I was not sure what I wanted to major in yet and that it would be good to get a solid background in English, since, after all, that's the language we use to argue in court, right? I even signed up for a public speaking class right there just to placate him. It ended up being a great class that launched me on my career of being unable to shut up. Thanks Dad.

Dad left and went back up north and I went on cruise control through college. I still did not really know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wasn't eager to teach English, but I was eager to get home from my classes every day so I could sit in my room through all hours of the night writing and writing and writing. It was my ivy tower where I retreated and holed myself up, far away from the world, to enter my own realm where I just wrote and wrote until there was nothing left to write.

I somehow managed to get above average grades, but the real thrill was being published as the featured poet in two issues of the Purdue Literary Exponent. Twelve of my poems were published. That year I also won an essay contest. Unfortunately the details and name were erased by my continued drug abuse, and who knows where the letter and my five hundred dollars went. Probably parking tickets. I never made it to campus on time. I had to illegally park. If not, I would end up having to walk over a mile to class, in which case, I most certainly would have missed half the class.

The next year I dropped out of college part way through the first semester. That is where a few months of my life disappear because I got mixed up with some LSD and barbiturates. I remember I broke my leg. I lived on the floor at my aunt's house, because God forbid that I should go home to face the wrath of my dad after failing to become his lawyer. I floated through life from day to day in la la land, playing cards, head-banging to heavy rock, and taking more drugs.

Oh, I knew that I needed to do something with my life, but I still did not know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was so confused. So I embraced enlightenment through Zen poetry and haikus. I became the spiritual guru to all my friends as I brought them enlightenment through drugs, LSD, and the Zen philosophy. But that line of work didn't feed my face, nor my drug habits. I desperately needed money. So I tried crime.

Me and my buddy attempted to break into two different houses. I freaked out both times and ran before we entered. I was afraid of getting shot. The knowledge that someone could rightfully kill me with a gun is what stopped me from a life of crime. If you ever wonder if guns are a deterrent, I am a case-in-point that even a drug-crazed idiot will think twice about crime. Oh, I know, some don't. But those are the kind of people who would go rob a gas station with knives or ball bats if guns weren't available.

I ended up in Indianapolis with my sister and mom, and got a job as the kitchen manager of a night club. Just what I needed to get me off the streets and out of drugs, right? Wrong. Now I added a lot of alcohol to the mix. I nearly lost my right eye to a broken bar glass. I spent six months wearing an eye patch, looking like Blackbeard the pirate with my gruff goatee and long, curly hair. The pirate thing didn't pan out for me and I still didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up.

While pursuing my spiritual goals, I met an ex-con who lived in my apartment complex, a self-proclaimed Black Priest. With him I got heavily involved in the occult and more psychedelic drugs, like heroine and angel dust. I was slipping deeper and deeper into oblivion when, after a three day trip on PCP, I concluded that my life was worthless and I needed to do something drastic about it. So I joined the Air Force and told them to get me out of Indianapolis quick. Thirteen days later, the night after a Cheap Trick concert, I was on a plane to Texas for basic training. After I arrived and they dressed me in olive drab green and shaved my head, I kept thinking, Cheap Trick, Cheap Trick. Did I miss something?

After graduating from basic training where I narrowly escaped dismissal for bad conduct, I ended up having a whopping time in the decadence that was the early eighties Gulf Coast region, rife with bars, strip joints, arcades, prostitutes, and drugs. Us young military trainees fueled the local economy. We blew our entire paychecks on this smorgasbord of delights.

After Tech School, I ended up in Tacoma, Washington, sitting alone in my new barracks room, pondering what I wanted to be when I grew up. It wasn't long before I found the bad crowd, or it found me. I really can't tell which way it works. I think it is some kind of mysterious mutual connection. I want it, they got it, and we bump into each other. That led to more involvement in the occult and more LSD, freebasing, and any pill I could get my hands on, swigged down with gallons of beer.

Somehow, through it all, way in the back of my mind, I was still searching for a true path in life. I wanted some answers. Who am I? Why am I here? What do I want out of life? What kind of coffee should I drink? And, of course, what do I want to be when I grow up?

I got engaged to be married twice to two different girls, ended up living with a third girl, then finally got married and divorced, and then found someone else, and got married again, all by the age of twenty-three. How in the world did I fit that into the four years from nineteen to twenty-three? What a wreck.

It was in-between my divorce and my second marriage that God rescued me from myself. That is a story unto itself, but suffice it to say that I found out in a very real and dramatic way that His power is much greater than the source of power behind the occult arts and practices, to which I had given myself as an operative and astrological medium. I was dramatically delivered of a severe neurological disorder that caused catatonic and hypnagogic seizures. My doctors said it was incurable. Drugs had fried my central nervous system, but the power of God healed where physicians could not. I ceased all drug abuse and never went back.

Marriage was wonderful, but proved to be all the commitment I wanted as I still tried to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. The domestic life of children, a minivan, stability, and a mortgage, was daunting to me. But at least now with the power of God I had peace, prosperity, and enjoyment of life. I actually started to learn to do good things and excel in areas I thought were long dead. So I happily continued on this path for a while, excelling in the military as I began to learn how to be a minister. I took many classes that taught me the Bible and how to teach it and help other people with it.

Early in my marriage I thought about kids, but then somewhere along the way, I decided I liked our time alone, our time to spend our money on ourselves, just me and my wife. I wanted to be able to have fun and experience more without being encumbered by the great responsibility of raising children. I watched my friends' lives change when their babies were born and their children became their focus. Inside, I said, "Not for me."

That only lasted eight years and I decided to try the kids, minivan, mortgage approach to life in my early thirties. I had the van and a car, and I was buying a house on the beach in Florida, and my wife was trying to get pregnant-- yes, by me. Everyone thought that I had made it in life. My dad visited, my mom visited, friends from England, friends from Chicago, friends from the military, everyone enjoyed my success. I had made it. The vagrant had settled down.

Not really. Deep inside, I still did not want children, but I did not want to hurt my wife's feelings. Also, the whole domestic thing was just not quite right for me. The shoes looked like they fit on the outside, but inside my cramped feet were in pain. I still had not lived enough. The question lingered, what do I want to be when I grow up? I needed to experience more to find myself and find what I truly wanted in life.

I tried many different jobs and career paths looking for something I could do outside the Air Force. Some things interested me, but then I would tire of them and want change. However, there was one thing that stood out, one thing continued to interest me and excite me more than anything else, teaching and ministering to God's people. So I did something radical, I separated from the Air Force after ten years, sold everything, sold the vehicles, and went into a ministry college program. This program brought me to Colorado, the high country, adventure, river rafting, mountain climbing, hiking, skiing, not to mention the camaraderie of my classmates. I got around. Up and down the mountains and all throughout them, and to think, I didn't even own a car.

Then on to El Paso I went for another wild year of exciting adventure in the deserts of Texas. A group of us went on an outreach mission to start home fellowships and teach the Bible to others. I loved the challenge and adventure of it. I worked all kinds of odd jobs. I ran a home repair business for ten hours a week, worked as a surgical supply tech for twenty, and put in twenty more ministering to my outreach team. I was living life to the full, being who I wanted to be. And I still didn't own a car. I ran everywhere, rode my bike, or sometimes rode the bus. Ever see somebody carrying tools and a ladder on a ten-speed bike? Who needs a pick-up truck? And let me tell you, I was in some incredible shape.

But what in the world was I doing? What do you think my life looked like to my dad once again? Yeah. I had gone from being a successful high ranked enlistee on the fast track to becoming a Chief with a home on the beach in Florida, to being a home-hopping, career less, wild vagrant with no future. What happened to that stable life in Florida?

After I graduated, I went to work at the ministry headquarters in Ohio. I worked in various needed capacities as I continued to develop myself as a minister. Once again, I got to do a plethora of exciting and interesting things. I started out as an armed security officer and expanded into several other fields of service as a firefighter, first responder, and weather spotter. I soon became the corporate safety compliance manager for the entire ministry headquarters of over fifty buildings and nearly four hundred employees.

Then they needed an administrator for our automotive fleet service facility. I became the service manager of our in-house vehicle maintenance facility, wash bay, and fueling depot. Subsequently, I earned my commercial drivers license, drove semis to Texas for huge conferences, and drove the passenger coach from Ohio to Colorado a number of times to transport students in the ministry program. I got an hazardous materials endorsement and became a tanker driver as well.

Then I moved on to become the CEO of a credit union. A totally different life-- finances. I had done a short stint as a bookkeeper for a condominium association in my younger days, but nothing of this magnitude. I grew into the job well enough, but tasted the stress of the CEO life and decided that it is not where I wanted to focus my energies when I grew up. All these fields gave me opportunities, but the deep satisfaction of finding out what I really wanted to be still eluded me.

I was nearing forty years old and I still did not know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I spent some time pondering my entire life, thinking about the things I do. Why do I roam from job to job, home to home, lifestyle to lifestyle, experiencing everything I can? Why am I thrilled more with new experiences than with establishing myself?

And then it hit me.

Because I am a writer. That is the one thing that I have always been-- a poet and a writer. My entire life has just been job training for my real vocation and calling in life as a writer, poet, speaker, and minister. Alas, when I turned forty, I finally realized what I wanted to be when I grew up. Perhaps life does begin at forty like my dad's coffee mug read.

With renewed vigor I approached my writing, not just as the side thing I had done my whole life, but as my occupation. I did freelance jobs, started an online writing business, concentrated on getting my work published, and established myself as a writer. I was paid to ghostwrite a book, was the ghostwriter of a column in a weekly magazine, got more of my poetry published, and I am over halfway through the novel I am writing. I have enough well crafted poetry for a book. I'm going to become a publisher and build a business where I publish other writers and poets. And I am building a seminar business where I will teach both business writing and the art and craft of writing fiction and poetry.

I will have books in print within the next few years, and then I will become a publisher of other writers as well. Of this I am convinced without doubt. I can already envision it, because it is who and what I want to be, and it took only until forty to figure it out.

Once I had that figured out, the rest started to fall into place. Just last year I took another big step when me and my wife adopted three children, ages one, three, and five. We moved to Alabama where I am now the minister of a small congregation, and I am building my writing and seminar businesses, and started my press imprint, NavWorks Press.

I am finally living who I want to be and I know what I am, a writer, poet, speaker, minister, and publisher. As for dear old Dad, he came around by my late-thirties and started backing my wild endeavors. When I turned forty, I was able to tell him, "Dad, I have finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up." I looked him square in the eyes and said, "A writer."

He didn't say a thing, not one thing about it being sissy stuff, not even a smirk. How could he? He knows my language skills. He knows how persuasive I am. He knows my ability to logically present an argument and win my case every time. By golly, he knows I could have been a lawyer.