My Life 10 Years Ago

Ten years ago I was a tender 19 years old. My world was a little upside down. That year, my mother suffered from an aneurysm while I was on spring break in the bahamas. While on that trip I arrived at the hotel (a hotel I didn’t have the information of to relay back to family yet) from Chicago, I had a message waiting for me from my brother informing me of the news. The next twelve hours and the phone calls back home and the subsequent night’s sleep spent in the airport was all surreal. To compound the situation, things were beginning to resemble normal from the death of my father 2 years before from cancer.

It’s amazing when I reflect back, because for the life of me I know that there were things that I closely aligned to that helped define me but with those two events, I lose a little insight on what those things were. I was huge into music, much like I am today. I just started playing the guitar and still do today. I made frequent trips up to the John Muir national woods in Wisconsin to mountain bike with my brother and loved it.

I was finishing my second year at Loyola and having a good time ‘discovering’ who I was. Drinking Wednesday’s through Saturday’s was the norm and that was the first year I tried the substance that’s since been claimed to provide medicinal relief. Oh… the wonders of marketing. I was into playstation and discovering that great new band.

My world was opened to the classic college influences of The doors, Zeppelin, Marley, Miles Davis, The Smiths, Al Green, Lou Reed, The Who, Curtis Mayfield. Music is what I ate drank and slept. I said the one job that I would do for free is serve as the dying breed of DJ. What I loved about those things is that I hated to be classified. In hindsight… I loved being “alternative.” It’s continues today, don’t fence me in is the mind sight when it comes to new things ventured, just because I’m not expected to do something doesn’t mean I’m not going to dive into it full blow.

Spirit of the times, was that of experimentation. Think of new ways to do things and then push that to the nth degree. The world was changing with the prospect of a Unified Europe. Being a political science major, EU was everywhere and who’s in and who’s out. The world was becoming a little smaller and access to that world was becoming ridiculously easier. I miss the optimism of that day, the U.S. wasn’t entrenched in war, the economy was looking up and the world was optimistic on a whole. It was all about learning about new cultures and the Asian cultures led the way. Zen was everywhere, what’s this Feng shui stuff…
It’s almost ironic, when looking back at the world that was primed for a lot of change and optimism permeated everything, I feel that was my lowest point. My family had just been divide by 2 in 2 years and my brother and I felt we were doomed to in even number years. Those deaths has forever changed me… obviously. But in looking at those events, what person won’t feel that lose of a parent? If anything, I appreciate the acts for the fact that recognizing what was important was a murky task before that happened. That change was a life lesson, I don’t know of one life lesson however painful, you would give back for the ignorance that previously resided…