…to easily arrive at the conclusion that I am a nerd, and a bit of a misfit – on some days, and for some things, it’s my differentness that is a strength, but on other days, and for other things, it’s a liability, something that makes you stand out when you would rather just fit in or pass by unnoticed. I have a very developed and specific, set of interests, but that’s not because I am or was some hipster who went too far on his archaeological dig of the obscurest of cultural ephemera, appropriating any little nugget or shaving of gold he could find. 

It mostly comes down to the circumstances which brought about my existence. I was born to a single mother who was about 18 years old when I was born, and who, when faced with a potential future of setbacks from having a baby at precisely the wrong time, at a time when her adult life was just beginning to take shape, decided to double down with determination to give me a reasonable life full of opportunity.

And she pulled it off – she succeeded, and therefore I succeeded. The biggest regret I live with to this day is the uncertainty of knowing whether my mother actually believed me when I told her that I appreciated her sacrifice and struggle to not only put food on the table, but to set her only child up to not only reach the milestones of standard American adulthood, but to set them up to thrive and prosper. She did that, and when she passed away unexpectedly a few years ago, it was all I could think about – I hope she didn’t die thinking I was an ungrateful son. There is plenty of evidence in my eyes to suggest that maybe she did die thinking that I was unappreciative, ungrateful, or at the very least, not using the foundation she helped lay out fo rme to any kind of usefulness or stability.

It can’t be overstated how much the cards were stacked against us back when I was born. As a society we have made considerable progress since the mid 1980’s, and a single mother is no longer a tragic trope trollop who is deserving of pity like a Lady Madonna archetype. Families not only come in many configurations, but the general march towards tolerance and acceptance for a multiracial, multiethnic society means that some of the bias has faded away in the years since I was born (out of wedlock, to a teenage mother.)

One of the few things I still have that I can treasure from my childhood are the family photos and school papers that my mother lovingly saved for decades. She was proud of her only child – when teachers or other people started to take notice of the fact that I was rather intelligent for my age, she received some form of validation that she was doing something right, and I am sure that this sustained and motivated her to keep on doing the best she could to provide for me. My school papers and childhood photos give an insight into who I am, even to this day, that is kind of fun to look at.

The actual papers, and the actual photos were stolen and probably discarded in a dumpster somehwere when my car got broken into in 2021, and this loss devastates me to this day. The thought of someone breaking into my car is a violatory feeling in and of itself, but when you consider that someone broke into my car, opened the cardboard boxes and popped open the trunk, and saw a man’s entire life right there, and chose to throw it away or discard it wantonly, is something I’ll never be okay with. I often think about who it might have been who broke into my car that Sunday morning in Seattle, and no potential logical answer can possibly make it okay. This person (or these people) stole everything: from my laptop, to my clothes, to all of my childhood family photos and school papers, my college diploma, high school yearbooks, my mother’s favorite LP records from her younger years, and the worst part of all, my mother’s Pewter urn with her cremated remains.

I was very, very, very stupid to think nobody would break into my car – even if I only left it unattended for an hour or so, on a quiet block in a nice neighborhood in Seattle, on a Sunday morning. I can only think of a few types of people who would do such a heinous thing:

• Someone who was on fentanyl or heroin who was sufficiently desperate or craven enough to break into my car to find anything of value.
• Someone who knew me but didn’t like me, recognizing my distinct looking car with its unusual license plates, I don’t really have any enemies, but I did have a friend whose boyfriend was violent, manipulative, and made threats to me in the past because I was often the one who would come to the rescue and whisk my friend away after a particularly bad fight. His threats kind of matched up to the results of my car being broken into.
• A homeless person who lived in the big encampment a few blocks from where my car was parked. I was unaware that nearby Jose RIzal Park had become one of the largest homeless camps in a city full of homeless camps.

None of these types of people give me any kind of faith in humanity. But what was worse was the fact that my car was parked in front of 3 brand new million-dollar townhomes, 2 of which people had moved into. Their Ring cameras at their front door were literally less than 10 feet from my car, and if any of them had been activated, they would have seen the entire thing, and I would have had a bunch of evidence to help me in finding the suspect who did this.

Thank goodness I had the foresight to scan most of these pictures and school papers that were taken from my car. It gives me some kind of assurance that technology is not in fact evil, because if it wasn’t for a flatbed scanner, I would be even less connected to myself. These photos and papers, being in digital form, will survive any cars being broken into, acts of God, or hurricanes.