memoirs.
FOREWARD.
I always swore I would never write about my life. I refused to be another autobiography tucked on a back shelf in a corner bookstore on Nothing Street in Nowhereville. I always assumed that my life was never as interesting as the ones of the people who wrote autobiographies (save for a few people I was forced to read about in high school, whose lives were more dull than watching someone brush their teeth, for three hours). But here it is, my life, slapped onto a few blank pages, falling out of my mind from the backseat of the terrible toaster-shaped car I deemed the Embarrassment Wagon from day one. When I really got down to it, I decided that I didn't have to write about all the bad times and all the drama that made up my life in order to make it sound interesting. Instead, I decided to write about the seemingly average moments that pieced together the core of my existence; the little pieces of laughter, and the broken bits of late nights out that sort of comprised the elements of, well, me. And as I wrote them all out-- the music, the laughter, the screaming, the long drives, the cups of coffee, the stupid high school jobs, the countless shows, the new shoes-- I realized: nothing about these average, ordinary moments was average or ordinary in any way, shape, or form.
For seventeen years, I have believed that I am a little fish in a big sea, and up until now, I let it belittle me and discourage me into thinking that I had nothing to share with the world. But now, I realize that being a little fish in a big sea just means that I have that much more to explore; that much more to learn, and that much more room to grow into the person I will eventually become. I figured that the end of my senior year in high school was a good time to begin this epic tale of nothingness, seeing as how this point in my life is definitely a milestone, and ultimately a good place to start looking back on how far I have come. In retrospect, there were, of course, a lot of things I wish I had chosen to do differently. But for the most part, I am thankful for every step I have ever taken in all the directions I have ever taken them in, because all the twisted, messed up paths have all eventually led to me being who and where I am today: strong, and where I belong.
About a month ago, I came across a book in my friend's closet while I was helping her clean her room. The cover was your overly typical black and white photo of a boy on some stairs, looking sullen and serious, but it was the bright yellow type across that photo that caught my eye. "A Life Deliberate, Memoirs of an Unbreakable Boy," it said. "By Christopher Gutierrez." His name struck me as familiar, and the book suddenly took on a new weight in my hands.
"Christopher Gutierrez?" I asked outloud, interrupting my friend, Lauren, as she shuffled through some loose papers. "Where do I know that name from?"
"It's HeyChris." She clarified, shrugging. I looked at her.
"HeyChris, as in, Fall Out Boy's HeyChris?" I had to laugh a little bit. Up until that very moment, I had assumed the boy who wrote the book I was holding was an internet famous, good for nothing, fame-sucking leech who hung on bassist Pete Wentz' every word. I assumed, from what little I knew of him, that he had written the book just to brag about his awesome times touring with the band and being their go-to guy, and over using quotes from their song dedicated to him. The lyrics were already playing in my head-- "Hey, Chris, you were our only friend, and I know this is belated, but we love you back." From that song on, Chris Gutierrez became HeyChris, and to most cynics like myself, lost any future credit he might have ever had.
Lauren nodded. I was hesitant to put the book down, though. Something about the title made me think twice. "Memoirs of an Unbreakable Boy." I ran my thumb over the pages, pressing the spine of the paperback into my palm, and asked Lauren, "Can I borrow this?"
That night, I indulged in the words on the pages of that book. I fell into stories of seventh grade embarrassment, fourth grade war games, and ridiculous past fashion trends. I read aloud his tale of an impromptu trip to Barcelona, just to run with the bulls and nearly losing his life in the pursuit of living it to the fullest. HeyChris was suddenly Christopher Gutierrez again, and I was suddenly not a cynic anymore.
I fell in literary love with the boy who wrote those words, and I deemed the book my holy bible of sorts. I carried it around for weeks, refusing to give it back to Lauren, adopting the paperback as my own. I copied lines from it onto sheets of paper in drawing class, adorning the blank sheets of white printing paper with colorful interpretations of the words -- his words -- the ones I had come to live by. I scribbled 'LIVE DELIBERATE' on every blank surface I happened to come by, and spread the gospel of my little holy bible to every ear that would listen. I kept the book safe in my Anberlin tote, pulling it out in every class to re-read bits and pieces of the life I suddenly wished to know more and more about. Every time I opened the cover, I was truly hoping that somehow, if by magic, more pages would have been added to the end, letting me read on into the epic story that was this Christopher Gutierrez. To some, an average sort of boy with too many tattoos and a foul mouth, but to me, and everyone else the book may have touched, a special person who had truly defined the meaning of living.
Thus, I was finally inspired to let go of my hatred for writing about myself. The book led me to realize that, to myself, my life may be mediocre and average, but to someone else, it could be magic. And so, I felt it only right to document the things I have experienced, so that other people might read my words and come to the realization that they, too, are special and extraordinary. Every walk down the street, every silly dream, every afternoon out with a best friend, every drive to the mall, every night at every show-- everything we ever do is worth remembering. So here are my memories.
--
Half the time, Lauren could barely lean out the window far enough for the person on the other end of the speaker to hear her yelling out our orders. Maybe it was that she was too short, or maybe it was because of the obnoxious and unnecessary screamo music we always had playing in the car, but either way, she was always yelling. And Kayra would be in the backseat, talking over me, demanding another strawberry milkshake and trying to reach over my shoulder to grab Lauren's iPod and change the terrible music to something inevitably indie. The three of us, we were from three different universes, but we were three verses of some awful song that only sounded good when sang together. We had all sort of stumbled upon each other, brought together by fate and music, ending up crammed into Lauren's mom's Solara at a Burger King drive-thru window.
"We don't even have any onions," the crackling voice from the speaker was barking back at Lauren's demand of "no fucking onions on one of those double cheeseburgers." Lauren sat back in the driver's seat and I was still trying to keep Kayra in the back and away from the iPod.
"Strawberry milkshake!" Kayra's shouts were sort of falling off into these giggles and insults at me and the music that was playing.
"Oh and a strawberry milkshake," Lauren added, yelling out the window, and I was thankful that no cars were behind us. We had been sitting there a good eight or so minutes. Yelling, debating, talking over each other. Just another night out. "Why do you need a milkshake? You're already getting a sweet tea."
"I just want both!"
And then Lauren was pulling around to the next window, and the tire was bumping up over the curb, and the side mirror almost got ripped off by a near-collision with an oncoming wall, but we were all too busy laughing at the terrible Arma Angelus song that was blasting through the one not-blown-out speaker in the Solara to really notice.
I always swore I would never write about my life. I refused to be another autobiography tucked on a back shelf in a corner bookstore on Nothing Street in Nowhereville. I always assumed that my life was never as interesting as the ones of the people who wrote autobiographies (save for a few people I was forced to read about in high school, whose lives were more dull than watching someone brush their teeth, for three hours). But here it is, my life, slapped onto a few blank pages, falling out of my mind from the backseat of the terrible toaster-shaped car I deemed the Embarrassment Wagon from day one. When I really got down to it, I decided that I didn't have to write about all the bad times and all the drama that made up my life in order to make it sound interesting. Instead, I decided to write about the seemingly average moments that pieced together the core of my existence; the little pieces of laughter, and the broken bits of late nights out that sort of comprised the elements of, well, me. And as I wrote them all out-- the music, the laughter, the screaming, the long drives, the cups of coffee, the stupid high school jobs, the countless shows, the new shoes-- I realized: nothing about these average, ordinary moments was average or ordinary in any way, shape, or form.
For seventeen years, I have believed that I am a little fish in a big sea, and up until now, I let it belittle me and discourage me into thinking that I had nothing to share with the world. But now, I realize that being a little fish in a big sea just means that I have that much more to explore; that much more to learn, and that much more room to grow into the person I will eventually become. I figured that the end of my senior year in high school was a good time to begin this epic tale of nothingness, seeing as how this point in my life is definitely a milestone, and ultimately a good place to start looking back on how far I have come. In retrospect, there were, of course, a lot of things I wish I had chosen to do differently. But for the most part, I am thankful for every step I have ever taken in all the directions I have ever taken them in, because all the twisted, messed up paths have all eventually led to me being who and where I am today: strong, and where I belong.
About a month ago, I came across a book in my friend's closet while I was helping her clean her room. The cover was your overly typical black and white photo of a boy on some stairs, looking sullen and serious, but it was the bright yellow type across that photo that caught my eye. "A Life Deliberate, Memoirs of an Unbreakable Boy," it said. "By Christopher Gutierrez." His name struck me as familiar, and the book suddenly took on a new weight in my hands.
"Christopher Gutierrez?" I asked outloud, interrupting my friend, Lauren, as she shuffled through some loose papers. "Where do I know that name from?"
"It's HeyChris." She clarified, shrugging. I looked at her.
"HeyChris, as in, Fall Out Boy's HeyChris?" I had to laugh a little bit. Up until that very moment, I had assumed the boy who wrote the book I was holding was an internet famous, good for nothing, fame-sucking leech who hung on bassist Pete Wentz' every word. I assumed, from what little I knew of him, that he had written the book just to brag about his awesome times touring with the band and being their go-to guy, and over using quotes from their song dedicated to him. The lyrics were already playing in my head-- "Hey, Chris, you were our only friend, and I know this is belated, but we love you back." From that song on, Chris Gutierrez became HeyChris, and to most cynics like myself, lost any future credit he might have ever had.
Lauren nodded. I was hesitant to put the book down, though. Something about the title made me think twice. "Memoirs of an Unbreakable Boy." I ran my thumb over the pages, pressing the spine of the paperback into my palm, and asked Lauren, "Can I borrow this?"
That night, I indulged in the words on the pages of that book. I fell into stories of seventh grade embarrassment, fourth grade war games, and ridiculous past fashion trends. I read aloud his tale of an impromptu trip to Barcelona, just to run with the bulls and nearly losing his life in the pursuit of living it to the fullest. HeyChris was suddenly Christopher Gutierrez again, and I was suddenly not a cynic anymore.
I fell in literary love with the boy who wrote those words, and I deemed the book my holy bible of sorts. I carried it around for weeks, refusing to give it back to Lauren, adopting the paperback as my own. I copied lines from it onto sheets of paper in drawing class, adorning the blank sheets of white printing paper with colorful interpretations of the words -- his words -- the ones I had come to live by. I scribbled 'LIVE DELIBERATE' on every blank surface I happened to come by, and spread the gospel of my little holy bible to every ear that would listen. I kept the book safe in my Anberlin tote, pulling it out in every class to re-read bits and pieces of the life I suddenly wished to know more and more about. Every time I opened the cover, I was truly hoping that somehow, if by magic, more pages would have been added to the end, letting me read on into the epic story that was this Christopher Gutierrez. To some, an average sort of boy with too many tattoos and a foul mouth, but to me, and everyone else the book may have touched, a special person who had truly defined the meaning of living.
Thus, I was finally inspired to let go of my hatred for writing about myself. The book led me to realize that, to myself, my life may be mediocre and average, but to someone else, it could be magic. And so, I felt it only right to document the things I have experienced, so that other people might read my words and come to the realization that they, too, are special and extraordinary. Every walk down the street, every silly dream, every afternoon out with a best friend, every drive to the mall, every night at every show-- everything we ever do is worth remembering. So here are my memories.
--
Half the time, Lauren could barely lean out the window far enough for the person on the other end of the speaker to hear her yelling out our orders. Maybe it was that she was too short, or maybe it was because of the obnoxious and unnecessary screamo music we always had playing in the car, but either way, she was always yelling. And Kayra would be in the backseat, talking over me, demanding another strawberry milkshake and trying to reach over my shoulder to grab Lauren's iPod and change the terrible music to something inevitably indie. The three of us, we were from three different universes, but we were three verses of some awful song that only sounded good when sang together. We had all sort of stumbled upon each other, brought together by fate and music, ending up crammed into Lauren's mom's Solara at a Burger King drive-thru window.
"We don't even have any onions," the crackling voice from the speaker was barking back at Lauren's demand of "no fucking onions on one of those double cheeseburgers." Lauren sat back in the driver's seat and I was still trying to keep Kayra in the back and away from the iPod.
"Strawberry milkshake!" Kayra's shouts were sort of falling off into these giggles and insults at me and the music that was playing.
"Oh and a strawberry milkshake," Lauren added, yelling out the window, and I was thankful that no cars were behind us. We had been sitting there a good eight or so minutes. Yelling, debating, talking over each other. Just another night out. "Why do you need a milkshake? You're already getting a sweet tea."
"I just want both!"
And then Lauren was pulling around to the next window, and the tire was bumping up over the curb, and the side mirror almost got ripped off by a near-collision with an oncoming wall, but we were all too busy laughing at the terrible Arma Angelus song that was blasting through the one not-blown-out speaker in the Solara to really notice.