This morning I got up as usual and left Amanda and Syd at home. Syd is sick with a cold so I let him take the day off of school. On my way into the office I was listening to the radio and they had one of the members of The Trashmen on. In case you don’t remember, The Trashmen were a 1960′s one-hit-wonder that recorded “Surfin’ Bird”. The radio talk show hosts were treating it like that song was the most ground-breaking, innovative thing ever recorded. It was practically Sgt. Peppers. This is because, of course, The Trashmen were the first band to make good from the great state of Minnesota, my home. A caller called in saying that The Trashmen helped pave the way for Husker Du, Prince, Semisonic and lots of other Minnesota bands and musicians. I don’t know, I guess I would have to give that honor to Bob Dylan. I’m not sure “Surfin’ Bird” really had the long term impact that gave to it.
This matters to me because I am a Minnesota musician. I play around the Twin Cities area (when my instruments are not all in pawn… heh). I have felt indebted at times to the great local band and musicians that helped establish a music scene here, but The Trashmen never came to mind. Maybe I’m wrong and these guys on the radio (all much older than me) have a valid point. I don’t know.
I really hope that Amanda and Syd have a good time today. She is from Chicago and we dated long distance. She’s only lived here since November of 2000 when we got married. Syd is just getting used to the whole “Mama Amanda” thing. Oh, yeah, one more thing. Sydney is really starting to learn to read. It’s amazing. He turned 6 in November and is in kindergarten. Last night in the car I started writing various words in a notebook and then handed the pages to him and asked him to read them. He did so well that I wrote a short story and asked him to read it. He did it. I was really impressed. That kid is so smart.
At the same time, Sydney will have to be in special education all summer. I really need to get that set up with my school district instead of his mom’s. For one thing, they do a terrible job of it, for another I want him closer to me and I have joint custody so there is no reason he shouldn’t be. Sydney has somethind called Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS). PDD-NOS is like Autism in that the causes and symptoms are the same, but just not as severe. He doesn’t display all the traits of an Autistic child and the ones he does display are not as severe, but just think of it as a mild form of Autism. Tabithah and I first suspected something was wrong when he was 18 months old. He didn’t communicate like the other kids. He seemed to be lost in his own little world and everything he said was a quote from a movie or game. None of his words were his own. He did have a traumatic childhood. Tabithah got cancer (Hodgkins Lymphoma, now in remission) when he was 6 weeks old. She went through 6 months of chemotherapy. He didn’t really have his mom during that time and I was working like a dog to try to pay for it all (we were uninsured). Then, a year and half later we split up and eventually divorced. So, naturally, we blamed Sydney’s social and communication problems on ourselves. It was hard enough losing my marriage, but to feel like it was also destroying my son was awful. However, we found out later, that he just had this genetic condition and that it had nothing to do with what was going on with us. It was crushing and a relief at the same time. It wasn’t the fault of our actions, it was the fault of our genes and we could not control that.
That was almost 4 years ago now. We had as civil a divorce as I can imagine (although there has been plenty of animosity on both our parts). I think the reason it’s been civil has been because we both love Syd and respect that fact that he is a special kid who needs both of us to grow up.
After the divorce I found myself a twenty-something divorced father and discovered, to my surprise, that this situation made dating easy. Tabithah was my high school sweetheart and the only girl I had ever been with, so I did not have any idea what to expect on the dating front. I met a lot of women and girls, all between 18 and 25, several of whom I dated, most of whose hearts I broke because they were not what I was looking for. One of them crushed me instead. I feel like it might have been karmic retribution. Heh. I eventually met Amanda on a train in Chicago. She was dating a friend of mine. I was between girlfriends. I soon found a girlfriend, she soon broke up with her boyfriend, I soon broke up with my girlfriend and we found each other. So, now I wake up in the morning with my lovely wife, say good morning to my beautiful child and jump in my silver VW Beetle and head into the office where I have no really difficult responsibilities and a nice fat paycheck. My life seems to have rebounded from the point where I was alone, divorced, depressed, unemployed.
The sad thing is, that those problems and the messes they create don’t leave that quickly. The financial messes I made with the young marriage, child, uninsured cancer, putting myself through computer programming school, being single and irresponsible… they’re on the verge of killing me right now. The emotional stuff I carry around is indescribable. I do weird things like cry when watching Ferris Beullers Day Off (you know, when he sings Danke Schoen). I either sleep too much or not at all. I constant craving to smoke even though I am a non-smoker. I am afraid of my mailbox. I am afraid of my telephone. I hate all forms of communication in which there is the possibility that somebody will be either wanting money from me, wanting help from me or wanting to help me.
I feel like I haven’t made it to where I wanted to be in life. I had a list of goals for myself to accomplish before I was 30 that I have mostly accomplished (I’m 27 now) and yet I still feel like a failure. Here was the list when I was 19:
- become a published author (accomplished, 5 years ago and repeatedly since)
- hear my own music on the radio (accomplished, 8 years ago but not since)
- make more $ than my dad (happened about 4 years ago)
- beat my dad at basketball (he’s a jock, I’m not, but I finally started beating him sometimes last summer)
- go to England (last year)
- finish a novel (still working on this one..)
- learn a foreign language (getting decent at Russian)
Believe it or not, that is the main list. It will all have been done by the time I turn 30 (I hope). In addition to all that, I have traveled, have a beautiful boy who loves me, I’ve been told by my ex and current wife that I am a good father, I’m in decent shape, I write songs that people like, I’ve had several girls fall in love with me, I’m not totally attrocious looking (hee hee), I have a good singing voice, two pet mice, a cute car… what’s wrong with me that I’m not happy? That I feel like a failure? That I’m not satisfied? That I feel like I’m getting old and not making my mark? Why can’t I just relax and go with it? No wonder I can’t dance…
More From Ryan Sutter
- God As I Knew Him – Part 4
- God As I Knew Him – Part 3
- God As I Knew Him – Part 2
- God As I Knew Him – Part 1
- tabithah
