My Story. Part One.

My life is an unbelievable story, one with twists and turns through valleys and dark caverns. It has seen pain and sorrow, fear and stress. I suppose I have seen some happy times, when I was on top of the world, gloating in the sunshine.  Often times though, when I look back, on all that has happened to me I see dark clouds swirling and pacing, waiting to unleash the storm of lightning, thunder, and blood-red rain.  I have been weathered down by the always constant storm.  My face has deep gouges etched out where the rain water runs down.

Small and fleeting moments of hope scurry through the story here and there.  But they are always hunted, stalked and devoured in the tall grasses by the predators; sadness and despair, until nothing is left except the decaying carcasses of what once was life.

Every time that happiness entered the story I was forced to return to the dark gray building where my life began with such fear and uncertainty. It is the place where souls haunt the hallways and the beds are filled with scared and clammy patients.  The smells in there burn my nose and nobody walks at a normal pace.  Some people there walk painfully slow, attached to machines, shuffling each foot forward always hunched over and looking down, they are as close to the wall as possible as if they are trying to hide in the shadows because they are not important enough for the middle of the hall. The people who use the middle of the hall run hurriedly from room to room making long loud echoes bounce off the wall.  So many people talk in hushed voices with dark shadow eyes because of the horrible fluorescent lighting.  It doesn't really matter because people do there best to avoid eye contact there because eyes are so rarely filled with bright hope for the future.

My hair is brown now and my eyes are blue. I am about 6'3" and I have learned the art of escaping reality.  All my life I have been running away from the scene.  Whether I run away to a distant country or I evade the truth of things by hiding in music, my best tactic to deal with something is to distract myself from it and hope that it will disappear.  It never does. I run from the gray buildings and I hide in a brightly lit room where the clouds cannot cover me in their iron cloak. I outrun the clouds for as long as possible and find a bright beach somewhere the problems cannot reach me.

The Person You Became

I told my dad and my brother right around the time that my mom passed away that I kept a blog. Paul showed interest in it and apparently now checks it and comments on my posts. But my dear father said, "No, that is what soccer moms do to pretend that they have meaningful lives. I think your mom kept one once." And then he got slightly hostile to the idea. Just to be clear, Barney Stinson (how i met your mother) keeps a blog. And he is not a soccer mom. I figured that pretty much guarantees to me that my dearest father won't ever check my blog or read this post so I can write it all out before I decide to go talk to him in real life.

You changed yourself for me.  I am flattered don't get me wrong.  You actually listened to the little hints that I gave, you picked up on the things that annoyed me. And I am surprised that anyone would put in this much effort just to make me happy.  You told me that you stopped working as much because you knew how much I hated that you seemed to put your work before everything.

There are two parts to this though, the first is that you changed, but the second is that everything else changed as well.

You changed and it scared me. The things that you changed to make me happy were the things that I loved most about you because it is what made you, you.  You changed your personality, you changed the way you spoke but you stopped listening. All that I wanted was for the old you back but I had no right to ask for that. You probably just wanted to old me back too.

I started a new journey and we started sharing stories but if I am honest, I thought that your stories were boring and I just didn't understand them because the people in them meant nothing to me. I could have tried harder but I just thought that my stories were better, I thought that I didn't need to listen to you or talk to you because in a way you were old and boring. I wasn't always able to talk, that is more an excuse than anything because I could have found the time if I wanted to. My new life was so exciting and fast paced and I didn't want to slow down and fall behind because you had a story of how you learned to make pasta for yourself.

It took you longer to keep your life going.  I felt like your nagging was constantly dragging me down, every time I talked to you you were shy and reserved and you were not at all the person that I used to admire. I don't know where your friends went at that time or where Paul and Michelle were because you seemed so alone and empty when had our very few and awkward conversations.  I didn't enjoy talking to you as much because you weren't you.  If you had just stayed yourself then our relationship would be so much different right now, we would be happier with each other, we would be so much closer. But this isn't your fault still, I should have been more sensitive, it was the first time ever you were alone. I just abandoned you but I needed time to figure myself out. I just wanted you to stay the same and to be a rock because I had no idea where I was going or what was going to happen to me next and then you just faded away.

Just a few years ago I tried so hard to have a relationship with you, any kind at all, but you just brushed me off. So I know how much it hurt for you this year.  A little sadistic part of me though, almost enjoyed putting you through that because it was about time that you learned what it was like to be in my shoes.

You seem to be doing so much better, now you are really happy. I have no right to be part of your happiness, I know.  After all I ignored you when you could have used me most.  I am glad that you are happy and I would like to be an even bigger part of it if you'd let me.

I just would like to let you know that I really am sorry for what happened. I am sorry for being insensitive and distant. I am sorry that part of me is jealous of Izzi, but I promise to be as nice to her as I possibly can. Maybe it is just the narcissist in me thinking this but if I pushed you away from me and towards her then I am sorry for ignoring you but I promise that I will try harder from now on.  I already lost one parent and I am not going to lose the other one as well.

I don't want for us to go back to the way we were before all of this but back to the way we were headed.

I Wouldn't Bet On It

Sometimes I don't make the best decisions. I will be the first person to admit that.  So in February, when Paul and Michelle visited me in New Zealand, Paul made me a bet that was rather inappropriate and if I told you the details some of you would lose a lot of respect for me. Over the course of ten days, Paul and I were in this bet, half way through I had to dye my hair brown.  If I won, he would pay for my hotels for the rest of the trip so I wouldn't have to stay in hostels all the time and he would pay for my flights, first class. But if he won I wasn't allowed to dye my hair back to the original color and I would have to keep it brown for the next three years. And when I say dye my hair, I mean all of it, my eyebrows, and everything.  I bet on blonde me, he bet on brunette me.  

People do not recognize me anymore.

I lost the bet. 

Apparently brown-haired me was just better at this task than regular blonde William.  

I guess blondes don't actually have all the fun.

I don't mind brown haired William, it just seems to change my entire appearance. Which wouldn't be a problem except when I was away this year I pretty much went through puberty part two and now my voice is like a half octave lower and I am pretty sure my facial structure changed a little bit because I get a wrinkled forehead all the time now. 

I didn't mind brown-haired William until my grandmother didn't recognize me. I was like, "Oh hey, how have you been this past year G-mom?" 

And then she said, "WHO ARE YOU?" 

And then I had to try and explain to her that it was just me, the grandson that went missing for a year and she didn't really believe me and made me answer questions about myself like what my real first name was and what my mom used to call me when I was little. I think she is a bit skeptical still. 

So if your thought process was going like this before reading this post: who is this guy that William is putting pictures of on his blog? OH MY GOD ITS THAT PARISIAN GUY! William is probably dating him now. Who would have thunk that he was GAY? Well I am not THAT surprised.

To clear things up, those are pictures of me, not Adrian the guy from Paris.  I only say this because someone saw a picture and then asked me if it was Adrian and before I could say no, he was telling me how good it was for me to find someone and that he was proud of me for being open with my sexuality and that he sort of suspected it all along. It was an awkward moment.    

So now your all caught up on the physical changes of William. And if I post more singing songs, I sound different because of that whole puberty part two. 

Anyways morals to take from this story are:
1. Call your grandma when you are going through puberty so that she will still recognize you.
2. Don't lose a bet where you have to change your hair color for three years when you lose.

3. Cut people off when they are about to get your sexuality wrong.

There and Back Again

Everyone told me to take a year off, to take time to travel since it was something that everyone knew I liked to do.  They told me to go to different countries and take in all the world has to offer, the different foods, the cultures, languages, and architecture. And I did just that. I returned to old favorites, and I went to new and adventurous countries and I truly enjoyed it all. 

I went around the world but I didn't find myself or discover a new life passion, I didn't become a Buddhist monk or realize that guinea pig was my new favorite food even though it is a delicacy in Ecuador. I actually found out that I really didn't care for any of the traditional delicacies in any of the places I visited.

Relationships struggled.  I was gone for a long time and in some places like Tanzania or Iceland cell reception and internet connections were few and far between.  It could be really lonely traveling alone and slightly depressing at times. Sometimes I felt strangely isolated; whether I was in a crowded Tienanmen Square with people asking me to take a picture with them simply because I had blonde hair or I was in the Sahara desert with only a guide, and two Afrikaners I had recently met.  I would go days without having any real kind of conversation with someone, but then I would call my brother or I would meet a few other travelers from various countries and we would spend a couple days together wandering around a city until we each headed our own ways. In December I met up with my dad for a few days in Los Angeles and in February, Paul and Michelle visited New Zealand with me.  By a complete fluke I saw a few people on a trip with my high school near the Berlin Wall in March.

The solitude came as a well needed break though.  I didn't miss the difficulties of having conversations with my dad, or the awkward moments with friends as they talked about a topic I still wasn't comfortable with. I liked that there wasn't always someone breathing down my neck to make sure that I was still okay and to make sure that they were there in case I needed something. 

There was a freeing sense of relief because there was always something to do.  I never had to worry about having nothing to do except sit around with my thoughts all day. I would get back to my hotel or hostel every night exhausted from the days activities and I would sleep happily. I worked in a fishing boat off the coast of Portugal for two weeks, I volunteered at an orphanage in rural Haiti and I spent a few days as an English teacher in Korea. I met a Parisian guy who offered to let me stay at his apartment while I was in Paris for the week, I kindly accepted; later that first night he took me to a place called Raidd bar which is really a gay club with male dancers showering in little glass boxes around the room.  I experienced a lot.   

I went from the beaches in Greece to the beaches of Dieppe, from Chinatown in San Francisco to Beijing, China. I stood on the equator while in the Galapagos Islands and I went past the Arctic Circle in Norway where I swam in the Norwegian Sea and saw the midnight sun. 

I was gone for 54 weeks, I went to 5 Continents and the following 28 countries; Dominica, Martinique, St. Lucia, Barbados, Grenada, Haiti, Ecuador, Laos, Singapore, South Korea, China, Japan, USA, India, Nepal, New Zealand, Australia, Marshall Islands, Germany, Netherlands, France, Portugal, Tanzania, Chad, Jordan, Iceland, Norway and Greece. Some countries, I only had the chance to stay the night like Dominica or Nepal, but I made up for that by spending four weeks in India and another four New Zealand.

Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Blogger Has Changed.

It has been over a year since my mom died, and now close to three since my friends have died.  I came back home expecting those memories to take over my life again like they did before I left.  I was expecting to come back to the stunted cage and the short chains that kept me hunched over and uncomfortable.  I am wishing that it was the case. I got home on August 2nd, after a long flight from Japan, to find out that life had continued while I was away.  
I am sorry my writing is awful, I haven't really had much human interaction for the past year because surprisingly the whole world doesn't speak English and as much as I wanted to believe it, I am not close to fluent in French.   
Anyways, my Father found his house empty.  Before Paul got married, two years ago there were five people living in the house; myself, Paul, Michelle, my Mom and Dad. And the next thing that you know, Paul and Michelle get married and move out, and then we lose my mom and I run away.  
I got so angry at my dad.  I know I didn't handle my moms death well.  I understand that I left my dad all alone.  But I couldn't handle everything there, everything being the same with the shadow of my mom everywhere around my house, my neighborhood and that city.  In January, Paul told me that dad had a girlfriend. I didn't talk to my dad for the next four months.  Then as every spoiled child realizes, I needed to live at his house again when I came back from my little adventure.  I hate myself.
But not more than I hate my dad.  
I get off the plane, did you know that a flight from Japan to Canada is nearly a full day. I was tired, I was sick of sushi, and rice, God I am sick of rice. And I go to find my dad at the airport. And there he was. Some blonde bimbo on his arm and she is like 10-15 years younger than him. I wanted to puke.  But I had to be nice, so I went up to him, and introduced myself to whom I assumed was his girlfriend that I had heard about in January, Janelle.  So I said, "Oh hey, you must be Janelle."
She wasn't Janelle.  
Her name is Izzi. Like Isabel but shorted and then spelled stupidly. And she was so excited to meet me because she had heard so much about me.  And she looked at me with such stupidity and excitement. And then she put her hands on my cheeks and looked at me sad and said, "I am sorry for what has happened to you but I am so glad you are home again." 
Izzi lives at my house. 
My father has another woman living with him.
It took me nearly two years before I saw someone after Hannah died but I didn't go and move in with her, I was in a foreign country for a week and then moved on. And Hannah and I did not even date for that long.
My dad was married to my mother for 26 years. And she hadn't left his bed for a year before he filled it with some dumb blonde chick.  It took me 500 more days to get over my girlfriend that it took him to get over his wife. We got to the same point nearly at the same time but my mom died 500 days after Hannah. 

How could he do that to my mom?  He disrespected her with Legally Blonde. My mom picked out the sheets that you two are sharing.  My moms clothes were in that closet just a few months ago and if she hadn't died they would still be there, Izzi.  My father is the worst man alive.  Just someone put a bullet in the back of my head please.     


Yeah it has been a year since I have been on here. No big deal right? Nobody even checks this anymore anyways, right? Cool.