Thursday, June 5, 2008

Year #1 out of high school : 2003-2004

Well, summing up a past year of your life turned out to be a more time consuming and difficult task than I expected. After going back and reading my journal from the time period, I am quite surprised to see how much I have changed in the way I think about things. Some of the stuff I wrote literally makes me cringe and want to burn it so nobody ever reads it, but other stuff I never want to forget about. I apparently was a rather unhappy person that year, and was sure to let my journal know about it. While reading it, I wanted to go back and slap me in the face and say get over it. I let some things affect my happiness much too easily. I'm glad I have learned to be a generally much happier person since then, but I guess as I now go back and recap that year, it might look like I am just going back to re-complain about it all over again, but I guess thats what it was really like, so here it goes:

The first year out of high school was mostly filled with loneliness and boredom wondering what happened to all my friends from the year before, and what the heck I was supposed to do with my life now. Most people seem incredibly eager to experience the freedom that comes with graduating high school, but I more dreaded the end of my senior year. Everyone I knew growing up and everyone I saw everyday, some for the past 12 years, were all no longer a steady part of my life. This one place where I spent more of my life than anywhere else was now in the past. I didn't always enjoy high school, but having to go somewhere everyday where there was always people and friends was nice.

That first summer out of school had its moments. Immediately upon graduating I headed to the Grand Canyon where I managed to make the 2 day hike across without dying. That is an experience I'll never forget. I remember standing at the north rim looking across thinking you got to be kidding me if you are saying that we are gonna hike all the way to that faintly visible strip of land on the other side. For any California readers, the best way to describe this really is to imagine standing on top of Saddleback mountain looking out to Catalina Island without there being water in between. After making it out, possibly more sore than I have ever been in my life and hardly able to walk, my Dad and I headed for my grandfather's house, or Grandpa Hodi as I've always known him. This trip was to be my last experience of him being a human being capable of communication. A couple months later he would decide on being done with the whole life thing and basically gave up. I still look back at that trip wishing I would have talked to him a little more; gotten him to tell me his life story or something. I'll never forget that last real goodbye though, and the sturdy, strong handshake this old feeble man gave me. I never really knew him that well, but always admired him and thought he was the coolest old man ever. I remember once hoping that he would at least last till I had a bit of a family of my own, just because I would want them to have known him. I knew it was a stretch, but I for some reason have always wanted people close to me to know him; words are not enough to describe him, and to me, he was worth knowing. Anyways, upon his arrival into the after-life, he was nice enough to leave his offspring with lots of cool things, and through my dad I have very gratefully acquired a fair amount of them myself. Other than that trip to the Grand Canyon, and the other trip when he died, not much of anything else of significance happened that summer.

When the summer ended, most of my friends then went away to college, while I, not knowing what to do, just went to community college a couple days a week. I thought this was wonderful being able to be a full time student while just having classes 2 days a week. With much of this free time I had, I started playing the guitar seriously for the first time which was nice to start to become somewhat decent at. After a while however, my Dad saw me as wasting my life away spending far too much time sleeping in at home and was relentlessly on my case to go out and get a job or something. I suppose he was correct, but man did I not like him at times during that time. Forcing me out of bed early in the morning when there was absolutely nothing for me to be getting out of bed for, and always finding annoying jobs for me to do around the house was what he seemingly lived for. He even resorted to dumping cups of cold water on me a couple times to get me out of bed since it was past 8 am. You may be thinking this harsh, and most definitely my father reading this probably regrets it and thinks he was too hard and will apologize to me, but no apology is really needed. I probably needed a good kick in the pants, and I am glad to have some ammo on my kids someday to be able to tell them how easy they have it and that I would get water poured on me if I wasn't out of bed by 8 am. Its a good story to tell really, and for that reason alone I like that it happened. Don't worry Dad, your still a great guy to everyone. Soon enough however I got a pseudo job working for an old friend of my Dad's named Gary Erickson. Gary was a jolly old man who built and repaired guitars out of his garage. I liked guitars, and the thought of making one myself was altogether incredibly exciting. The thought of someday holding in my very arms a real sounding instrument I built myself from scratch was a dream to say the least. I had recently become a big fan of the sound of mandolins and so I decided I would build one of those first. Something strange somehow happened though and my time with Gary changed from me learning how to build instruments to me helping him build a studio in his backyard. I guess it did the job of getting my dad off my case, and I still learned a good deal from him and am grateful for his friendship, but that mandolin is still sitting as a pile of wood in my parents garage. I did get a complete fretted neck, but the rest of it is just scrap wood. Not finishing that is possibly the greatest failure of these first five years, and it is still a dream of mine to someday finish it and continue on with that hobby.

Overall, I rather disliked college this first year. A few classes were interesting, but I kind of dreaded going to class and hardly ever talking to anyone. Pretty much all of my social activity for this year revolved around my friend Simon (after he decided to quit normal school and move back home, and then again after he got Mono at Bible College and once again moved back home). Simon started BBSB (Backyard Bible Study Brigade) which was our weekly meeting at his house for a good time with friends and a quick Bible Study. I also learned how to play poker this year which ended up being the only thing my friends ever wanted to do for quite some time.

Significant deaths of the year: Grandpa Hodi, Uncle Jesse, and Trevor Win'e

So that is pretty much my first year out of high school for ya. Nothing too eventful happened and I made no real new friends, but I think the overall boringness of it made me realize that I had to get out and experience something new, which was what I did the following year...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You weren't the only one he threatened to pour water on. It was a whole lot more effective when Dad would open the blinds and play guitar until I woke up. I never understood how you could sleep in in that house until I slept in your room recently. I think it's actually the quietest room in the house. Mine is a sound tunnel. I have decided that's the room I want to stay in now when I visit.

shaun said...

Yeah, but he didn't threaten to pour the water on me, he did. And I don't think I agree with you about that being the quietest room in the house. Everytime anybody walks down the hall it sounds like somebody is beating a drum outside the door, and the washing machine and dryer were right on the other side of the wall which were often very noisy. Your's was much more secluded. I hope to see you soon sister.