how i became brannon, part IV

part IV: death of an instrument 
"When I was of age I saw a gate so wide and a path so broad for the taking
But the road to everything led to a cliff so I sprawled out naked and aching…

Christmas with my sister.

 

I used to rock the white boy fro.  I used to hate it but now I miss it.

 

My first friend, many years later.

 

Art show at my community college.

 

…and then I discovered D/C and a flat iron.

 

 

The Myspace era.

I actually went to 3 proms. Not bad for an unpopular guy.

I think I looked my best around this time.

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After high school graduation, I traveled 200 miles to visit my almost girlfriend from years earlier, the one who left me as soon as she came to me.  I missed her.  We had a small connection but that connection was severed before we even had a chance to explore it.  I drove with the girl who initially set us up.  It was my first real road trip.  It was fun and I enjoyed the time I spent with almost girlfriend.

That’s when I had my first and only kiss.  I had dreamed about kissing a girl for the longest time but no one gave me the opportunity.  I had heard from my friends how great it was and even saw a few of my friends make out at parties, much to my disgust.  But I wanted to be disgusting like that.  As insecure as I was and as isolated as I felt, I was a romantic at heart.  I had so much love inside me and I knew if someone could just see it and give me a chance, I’d make a great boyfriend.  But I was not the boyfriend type.  I was kind and considerate and girls were only interested in the bad boys, despite their vow to the contrary.  I saw it time and time again and knew the truth.

The kiss was nice but I was too insecure to enjoy it.  Did my breath stink?  Were my lips soft enough?  And oh God, where did I place them in conjunction with hers?  She enjoyed it, though.  I still remember the Burt’s Bees tingle and her comment afterward.  "That was awesome lip action."  It makes me cringe now but it made me feel pretty good at the time. 

She was nice, cute, but after examining the situation, I realized she wasn’t for me.  I realized I was so needy for someone special that when she came around and liked me so much and I had no other prospects, I made myself like her back.  But we had nothing in common except she liked me and I wanted someone to like me.

She eventually met a guy who got her in a lot of trouble with her parents.  She sneaked out of her house a lot and he ended up getting her pregnant.  They married and divorced shortly afterward.  She then met someone new who married her and took in her daughter as his own.  She seems happy now

In 2004, after summer breaI went to community college to get my basic classes out of the way before I ventured off to university.  I thought community college was far easier than high school so without the stress of research papers and strict attendance policies, I focused on losing weight.  From the beginning of 12th grade to graduating from community college, I lost over sixty pounds and felt better about myself than I ever had before.  I learned how to dress better and find a hairstyle that worked for me.

After 3 years working the retail clothing job, I quit and vowed to never set foot in there again.  I was going to be a successful animator and I would never look back.

I was physically prepared to go to college.

The mental preparedness?  Probably should have worked on that a bit more. 

 

In the hotel in Georgia before moving into my dorm.

 

Moving into my dorm.

 

My first day in Georgia.

 

In May of 2006 at age 20, I graduated from community college with an Associate’s degree in art.  That September, I moved 8 hours away from Alabama to Georgia and went to college to study animation.  That childlike fascination with cartoons never left me.  It made me a bit of an outcast in high school but it would be my career as an adult.  I was so sure of it.  My ultimate goal was to create entertaining and educational television shows that would teach kids and young adults life lessons.  At my age, I didn’t know much about life but I was sure my college experience would teach me a lot and open up my eyes even more.  For the first time in my life, I felt good about myself and where I was.  Things were finally looking up.

And then I walked into my first class.

I realized I was completely unprepared for the talent I was up against.  I knew going in I wasn’t the best artist but I always thought studying art would help me to be better.  I never took into account the crippling insecurity that would crop up once I witnessed my peers’ work.  I was good for my small town but when I saw the great work being produced, I saw that I sucked.  I felt I didn’t deserve to be there.  I was no artist.  Sure, I went to school to be better but even at my best, I was no match for them.

My roommate made things worse for me.  He was two years older and a hipster.  I was a southerner who lived in a bubble all of his life.  I was an easy target.  He assumed I was dumb and naive and a country bumpkin who he could take advantage of.  And in a lot of ways, I was dumb and naive and in a lot of ways, he did take advantage of me.  In fact, he made my first year hell.

I didn’t real

ize it at the time but he reminded me of my sister.  He was older and thought he was too cool to be my friend.  He made jokes at my expense and did not use his age or experience to make college life easier for me.  He made me feel stupid and I hated to feel stupid because my sister always made me feel stupid.  Just like how I hated when people yelled because my parents yelled.

For a long time, I carried a lot of anger for him.  But I had to realize he was not there to help me.  He had no obligation to hold my hand and show me the world.  He had his own life to live and his own studies to focus on and although it would have been great if he would have went easier on me, it wasn’t his responsibility to do so.  I’m no longer angry.  Now, I’m just sad that things weren’t better between us.  That need to be liked always stayed with me and he doesn’t like me.  And that bothers me.  I never wanted to leave the world with a sour taste in anyone’s mouth but as hard as I tried to make it work between us, he shut me out and gave me no opportunity to repair things.  It’s a shame because despite everything, he did have some good characteristics about him and he could have taught me a lot.

Now he’s in a band and has a wife and a newborn baby boy.  He’s doing well for himself.

All the smarts I had in my small town didn’t amount to anything in college.  I realized I was too sheltered and I felt too exposed out in the world without the security of my parents and their home.  My social skills were entirely too limited for the opportunity I had in front of me.  Now I’m filled with so much regret that I turned my back on so many great chances and experiences because I was too scared or too insecure.  When life or school or people became too hard, I did what I knew best: I stayed in my room.  I secluded myself away like I did when I was an acne ridden child.  I split apart from people because people were scary and they judged me and made me feel stupid and feeling stupid was the worst feeling in the world to me, besides feeling fat.

Food was hard for me to deal with, especially under such stress.  I had a meal plan with the dorm cafeteria but I didn’t care for much for their food.  I ended up eating pizza every day, the only consistent choice among their ever-changing food selections.  And when I wasn’t guzzling pizza grease, I indulged in convenience store binges.  I often went down the pastry aisle, or what I liked to call the "medicine" aisle, and grabbed any sweet bread/carb confection I could get and ate them straight away in my car in the parking lot.  Sometimes I didn’t even taste the food, only swallowed it and waited it to coat my stomach and snuff out my feelings.

And if I wasn’t visiting the convenience stores, I bought expensive clothes from vintage boutiques.  In three months, I literally blew through thousands of dollars and thousands of empty calories.  I felt so ashamed of my behavior that it only drove me back to the shops and gas stations.  In those months, I managed to undo a lot of the hard work and dedication and willpower I had built up over a period of two years.  All the weight I had lost, the healthy attitude toward food and my body, all slowly unraveled.  

When I came back from Christmas vacation, I knew I had gained a lot of the weight I had lost a year or two prior.  I knew I would have to change my behavior and no matter how miserable I felt, I knew I couldn’t use food as the solution.

So I stopped eating.