Blame it on Sin City
When a person says they are conflicted, they are usually
talking about one specific disagreement in their decision
making. Stop or go. Left or right. Yes or no. Chicken or fish.
Decisions are a part of everyday life. Generally speaking,
our decisions begin when we put our feet on the floor rather
than hit the snooze button again and end when we get back
into bed rather than watch another rerun of I Love Lucy on
Nick at Nite. Now, it may be me being a drama queen, which
is not entirely out of the question, but it seems that the
general population has a much easier time with these conflicts
than I. Im not talking about the little decisions, the
routine, the mundane. I can drag myself out of bed with the
best of them. I show up to my job on a regular basis. I brush
my teeth. I pay my taxes and look both ways when I cross the
street. The proverbial daily grind is not my dilemma. No,
my issue is with the bigger questions in life. Actually,
my issue is my life, and my life is my issue, and my issue is
my conflicts, and my conflict is my life. Or maybe its that
my issues conflict with my life, or that my life conflicts
with my conflicts, or that my conflicts conflict with my
issues. This is all very complicated.
The Cliff Notes version of my life is this: I never choose
what I think will definitely make me happy without first
trying what I think might make me happier. The long, confusing
explanation of my problem is this: If what I thought might
make me happier actually makes me happy then I want to try
what I originally thought would have made me happy to make
sure that my original thought wont make me happier then
what I chose at first. And if what I thought might have made
me happier doesnt make me happy then I try to make it make
me happy because I dont want to think that I was totally
wrong in thinking that what I thought might make me happier
didnt make me happy at all. And by the time it has made me
happy, or Ive convinced myself that it has made me happy,
one of three things have happened: Its either too late
to try what I originally thought would make me happy, which
is ok because now Im, at worst, delusional and think Im
happy and, at best, truly happy. Or I have time to try what
I originally thought would make me happy, but that idea
has now become what might make me happier since Im already
happy. Or I realize that Im not truly happy and have a
whole new set of ideas of what actually will make me happy
and what will make me happier. Any way this issue is analyzed,
it leads to one conclusion: my life is a string of circular
choices and dizzying self-evaluations that make as much
sense as the former ramblings on the motivations behind
said actions.
Though my search for answers is still in its infancy, I believe
I have traced the two roots to this complex enigma: the place
I call home and the people I call family. I am a product of
Sin City, one of the most two-faced, conflicted places
on earth. Las Vegas was built on the premise that everyones
a winner and anyone can be the next millionaire. But those
casinos werent built on the backs of winners. Suckers
go into those places everyday and make a donation to Lady
Luck, the citys favorite charity case. Its no secret
that more people lose money than win. People just cant
stay away though, the other side of that losing coin, the
chance of being that one lucky winner, beckons them. Play
or leave. The guy at the craps table is pondering, Leaving
with my last five-hundred dollars still in my bank account
will make me happy, but staying and winning will make me
happier. Play or leave? Ive seen this all my life. This
ideology can grow on a person after a while.
So there is the stay or go, and there is the good or bad. This
is the one thats infected me the most; its in my blood.
As I said before, Vegas is a conflicted place. The town cant
decide whether it wants to be a seedy adult playground or
a weekend rest stop the whole family can enjoy. Walking
down the Strip a tourist can see the Luxor, the Excalibur,
and Circus Circus: all casinos with game rooms and shows
for the kiddies, so they can be included in the fun. One can
even stumble upon Game Works, a two story arcade with only
a small bar area reserved for the twenty-one and older crowd.
But on the way to these family fun spots, a person will be
handed no less than half a dozen ads for on-call escorts,
a politically correct way of saying hookers in a town
that supposedly banned prostitution. A man can take his
kids to a mini carnival, gamble away his life savings, watch
a high-wire act with his family, get a blowjob from a hooker,
get a clown to make his son a balloon animal, and get stabbed
by a crack head all in the same block, all in the same building
if hes lucky enough. Las Vegas is a bipolar city that cant
decide if she wants to be a homemaking mommy or a street corner
hooker, and she gave birth to me and passed those mood swings
right along. In the least, being raised there is a legitimate
excuse for why Im the way I am, and Ill be damned if Im not
going to use it.
If being raised in a city like that isnt enough of a root
cause of my issues, how about being raised by a family that
is just as conflicted. Im not talking just about family
conflicts, bickering within the ranks, though we have
plenty of that. Currently, my mother isnt speaking to
her two brothers, her father isnt speaking to them either,
(but there was a time in the not so distant past that my grandfather
wasnt speaking to my mother; it seesaws), my step-father
only speaks to one of his four siblings, and the whole family
tries to avoid speaking to his father. Though there are
too many reasons to cover on why these people dont talk,
the more interesting ones are as follows: My mother doesnt
speak to her brothers because they beat her and her two sisters,
one of which is deceased and the other was given up for adoption
because of her brothers torment, when they were children
and because they refuse to back my grandfather in a wrongful
death law suit hes filing for the death of my grandmother.
This is the same reason my grandfather wont speak to them
either. And because they wont send him money, which he
piddles away at the nickel slots. My step father wont speak
to one of his sisters because she tried to get him involved
in a money laundering scam. He wont speak to the other because
shes a drug addicted prostitute who falsely accused him
of molesting her. His brother took off after he got in trouble
with his drug supplier. As for his father, after getting
out of federal prison, he is now delusional and thinks he
can make money appear every following Tuesday. Throw in
a couple manic depressives, a few people with OCD, a murderous
cousin in a maximum security mental institution, and my
biological father who committed suicide by napping on
a train track because he couldnt deal with being bipolar
and we are quite the colorful bunch.
Now, from that statement, we sound like the Manson Family,
and were really not. We do have our share of problems, but
my core family is extremely loving, would do anything for
me, and raised me the best they could. For what its worth,
I think they did a damn good job. I was raised by my aunt, uncle,
mother, grandmother, and grandfather. My aunt passed
away when I was five; I stayed with the rest of the family
until my mother married my step-dad. From there on, my family
consisted of us three and two little brothers that popped
up along the way. We had some hard times, but nothing I would
consider scarring. What stuck with me was the dualistic
nature of my household. For instance, my mother is a relatively
conservative woman, meaning one wouldnt find her tying
up my step-father and beating him with a horse whip or even
understanding why anyone would do such a perverted thing
(her thoughts, not mine). But her conservative nature
didnt stop her from having sex on my bed when I was seven
or matter-of-factly explaining how to pleasure a woman
to me when I was ten. Another example was how strict the house
was when it came to school. School and extracurricular
activities were priority number one. But if my brothers
and I had everything done and were doing well in school,
we were allowed to stay out late, even on school nights,
and go to places my parents knew would give us access to sex,
drugs, and alcohol, as long as we promised to be safe and
not do anything too stupid. I could have sex in my room with
my parents home. I was dead though if I left a dish in the sink.
My family couldnt decide if it wanted to be the twisted,
sick people on the block everyone whispers about or the
loving, caring family on the block everyone raved about.
My parents didnt know if they wanted to be the cool, Ill
let my kids do what they want parents or the strict, get
the hell in your room and finish your homework until you
get it right parents. I come from a family whose coat of
arms reads, Oxymoron.
For me, the struggle has always been good or bad. I wanted
to do well and succeed. I wanted to be a complete screw up
who gave into every impulse. In junior high, I was a straight
A student, perfect record. I was also in a tagging crew,
spray painted on walls, smoked pot, and drained my parents
liquor supply. Not to mention I was suspended from the bus
for throwing a bottle at a truck and suspended from school
for fighting the day before I was supposed to give my speech
for the National Merit Honor Society. I cleaned up my act
in high school and stopped my life of crime, minus some shop
lifting, and laid down the drugs and alcohol. But that didnt
stop me from hanging out with the drug dealers and pot heads,
even though I was the valedictorian. Instead of doing narcotics,
I did girls, in mass quantity. I settled down my senior year
other than the fact that I almost didnt graduate because
I ditched so many days of class. Now Im a respectable member
of society, one who will swallow the occasional handful
of pain killers, wash it down with a few shots of tequila,
and snit an adderol or two or three. The dilemma of good or
bad has evolved for me though, expanded into new realms
because of the freedoms that come with adulthood. Not only
do I have to think about good or bad, but I have to think about
big city or small town, high pay/high stress job or low pay/
lower stress job, married with a family or partying with
a girlfriend. Theres no right answer because the only
choice that makes me happy is having a choice. Theres always
something I wish I was doing or wish I had done. Happy. Happier.
Happy. Happier. Happy
The time between my senior year in high school and now is
a perfect example. My senior year in high school I was on
top of the world. I loved my city. I was the valedictorian.
I had my first long term girlfriend that I was in love with.
And I got accepted to my first choice, Stanford, which was
close to everything I loved. But I got an offer from Duke,
a place and area I knew next to nothing about, and I thought
the change might make me happier, so I took it. At first I
was miserable and ready to go back to what I knew would definitely
make me happy, but then I met a girl that really made me happy,
so I convinced myself that how happy she made me balanced
out how unhappy the school made me and stayed. Then I graduated
college, but this time I was more down in the sewers than
on top of the world. My bipolar disorder was full blown,
I had two stays in psyc. wards, once delivered by cops after
I called 911 because I was trying to bite off my tongue, I
was in complete denial, and the meds. they gave me made me
so lifeless that suicide would have been redundant.
That was ok though, I still had the girl that made me really
happy. But then I got to thinking, what if theres something
that would make me happier. A brilliant idea came to me:
Dont accept the high paying sales job near the beach in
Florida and ask your girl to come with you. No! Take a low
paying teaching job in Roanoke, Virginia and live there
by yourself. That will give you plenty of time to really
learn about yourself and figure out what will really make
you happy. Now that my decision didnt quite live up to
my expectations, Im thinking about moving back to Las
Vegas, the place that originally made me happy; I dont
know if it will make me happy, but I think it might make me
happy, at least happier than this place. Its logical.
Move back to a city and be with people that are as confused
as yourself. A no brainer right? Here I go again.
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