MegaMan Matrix - Baring my soul to the world.

There are lot of secrets that I've kept from everyone I know. For a very long time, now. And on top of that, I've always found it very hard to explain my views on life. This doesn't do it justice, but today I started writing.

I just started writing what has been on my mind. All about the important things that changed me and changed my outlook on life.

It's very personal. It's very dear to me.

But my point is that I have no reason to keep any of it a secret.

Maybe I wrote it all for attention, because I'm normal and crave attention and like when people think I'm interesting.

If that's why I wrote it all, then so be it.

What still stands is that it's all authentic and it's very meaningful to me, and I wrote it and feel like showing people.

I didn't even hesitate when I posted it on Facebook, which is odd because next to none of my friends know about any of this.

And I don't really know why I'm posting it here aside from I feel that I have at least some small real human connection with you guys and maybe some of you can take something from it.

So.

My soul.

Here:

This is going to be a very, very, long read.

But it's very interesting. I finally feel like I can tap into myself and bring out some of what's going on in my head.

I have a very personal view on life, and I have a very strict life philosophy. But like I said, it's personal, and only applies to me.

This is the closest I can come to explaining that.

I like to consider myself as someone who isn't afraid to say or do anything. Someone who wants to just be himself even if he doesn't know who he is.
Someone who just wants to be as crazy as possible within the limits of society while still being in control and respected for being crazy and such.

If I'm not afraid to leave up AIM away messages telling people not to IM me because I am actually masturbating, or if I spent most of my drawing class senior year hiding small #####es in all of my assignments for my teacher to find, or if I feel perfectly natural letting people know exactly how I feel about them at any given moment...

...then why not tell all the things I've kept secret for years?

I didn't have to keep them a secret.

I just did because I thought I had to. I was finally making friends and I didn't feel like telling them all of these things.

There are so many things that you probably didn't know about me, I promise.

Some of you will change your perspective on me after reading all of this. ##### you.

If you liked me, or didn't not like me, before reading this stuff, then that's what counts.

I am who I am now. Not who I was then.

The whole point is that I'm coming clean because secrets suck and I want to be an open guy about this stuff.

Now that I'm at college and essentially starting anew with a new social group and a new social life... I really don't feel like keeping these secrets all over again.

So, here I am, putting them on a Facebook note that some people will read, and some people won't.

Killing two birds with one stone: letting my long-time friends know the things I've kept from them, and letting my new and future friends know everything about me without me having to pretend certain things never happened.

So, without further ado:

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CHAPTER ONE: HOWE MILITARY SCHOOL or "I'm immature and like being the center of attention and rebelling against authority!"
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I tell people I went to military school for Freshmen and half of Sophomore year.
Which is true.
But it's bending the truth.
I went to Howe Military School in Indiana for all of Freshmen year and one quarter of Sophomore year.
I went to St. John's Northwestern Military Academy for the second quarter of Sophomore year.
I went to West Bloomfield High School for the rest of my high school career.

Now I'll fill in the pieces.

I was a horrible, horrible child. I gave my parents such hell, and to this day I don't know how they put up with me. I was sent to the office so much in middle school that I don't even know why they didn't just get rid of me. My parents would get calls almost every day to come pick me up or because I did something wrong or did something stupid.
I mean, I've literally had the vice principal chase me around Orchard Lake Middle School on foot. I ran out to Orchard Lake Road and threatened to jump into the middle of it.

Suspension was a regular monthly event, I'm sure.

So, at the end of 8th grade, OLMS kindly asked my parents to switch me to Abbot. At least, that's the story I got. I won't count it as an expulsion, but it might as well have been. So, I finished out what little was left of 8th grade at Abbot, the other middle school in our district for those who don't know.

I behaved.

But my parents still felt the need to send me to a military-themed summer camp to whip me into shape. I think they thought it was a boot camp.

I kind of liked it. It was just the summer camp for Howe Military School. It was strict and military-oriented, but it was no boot camp, that's for sure.

I don't know what made me do it, but I decided that I wanted to go to Howe Military School for high school. It might have been that rebellious spirit inside me, but I think it had a lot to do with me feeling like a failure in public school. I had lost any friends I had made from pre-school to middle school.

I really had nobody.

So I went to military school.

The ironic thing is that even though I was a horrible kid and my parents should've been the ones to have suggested sending me there, it was my idea, just because I was that sort of kid.

It was tough, but not horrible. It was a small boarding school, college-prep, strong on academics and strict rules... just with a military aspect. So I was able to deal with it.

But I didn't deal well with authority at that age.

I was oppositional, always starting problems and getting into big things. I was suspended over and over again, my parents were always being threatened that I'd be kicked out.

I gave death threats to tons of kids that made fun of me there, I took everyone who was even slightly nice to me for granted, I yelled and screamed and refused to do things just because I wanted to start problems.

I figured out a way to install AIM on the very limited and secure school computers, not because I had anyone to talk to (because I had no friends, remember?), but because I just wanted to prove that I could do it.

The suspension wasn't really worth it.

I threatened everybody in the Echo dorm and they had to switch me to the Delta dorm, but only after a suspension.

I threatened to kill myself all the time. I built a noose for myself and stood on a chair ready to do it, but of course I chickened out because all I really wanted was attention and pity.

I got it, sure.

But it really didn't matter because I didn't know why I wanted it.

I treated everyone with disrespect and I don't know how they put up with me there.

I apologize for all of that, because Howe was a great place, and I've glorified it in comparison with the next school I went to.

Somewhere early in Sophomore year, I must've done something horrible because I was finally expelled. I don't remember what it was that I did. I've blacked it out of my head.

My parents won't tell me because they think I'm just doing it to spite them, they think I'm pretending to have forgotten just to piss them off. I don't blame them, I wouldn't put that below me.

But the fact of the matter is that I was expelled.

I remember my dad driving down in the middle of the night. I barricaded myself into my room, pushing my bed against the door and not letting anybody in.

When he finally came and they broke through into the room, I ran out into the night, hoping to hide in the Indiana cornfields and open farm fields.

They found me and my dad brought me home.

Not that I really made any real friends there, but I didn't get to say goodbye to anybody. And the one kid who was really nice to me while I was there? Well, I told him to go ##### himself, in an idiotic fit of rage as my dad dragged me out to the car.

That long car ride home was one of the worst moments of my life.

The key words there are "one of the worst moments."

Because there are more.

Here they are.

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CHAPTER TWO: ST. JOHN'S NORTHWESTERN MILITARY ACADEMY or "I act weird and people think I'm weird because that is the natural response people have when somebody acts weird!"
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When my dad brought me home, it was one very long week. I just stayed in my room and stared at the cieling. I didn't really move.

This is where I believe I developed my slight insomnia. I never really went to sleep. Just stayed up and thought. I believed I was thinking about things that mattered, about how I hadn't done anything wrong and the whole word is against me. About how I'm the only one in the world who is right, and everyone else is just an idiot.

I just lay there.

And got yelled at by my parents. And I hated them for it.

But looking back...

...I mean, hey. I was just #####ing kicked out of an expensive boarding school. I'm a failure. And they don't want to send me back to public school because we all know how that went.

So, at the end of the week, my parents inform me that they found another school called St. John's Northwestern Military Academy. It's in Wisconsin. I have to fly alone on an airplane to get there.

At this point I'm not so hot on the idea of going to military school anymore because I already used the rebel approach and it didn't work.

This time, though, it's not my choice.

Very different atmosphere, you see.

Plus, this school wasn't co-ed. Just a bunch of guys. And the showers were just one open area with a few showerheads on the wall and a bunch of naked guys showering.

At this point in my life, that idea made me nervous. Because I hated people. Because they hated me. And I didn't want to see people I hated naked.

Whatever. Not the point.

Almost immediately after I start school there, I start causing trouble. I immediately piss off every kid in my dorm, and act weird and stupid and rebellious.

I learned absolutely NOTHING.

And this was NOT the place to act like that.

I drew some cryptic image full of abstract death threats and weird things and hidden messages... I e-mailed it to everybody... and everyone took it seriously. Very seriously.

Everyone thought I was going to kill everybody.

I was bullied there more than I was ever bullied in my life, but I was asking for it.

I was being strange because I didn't know where I fit in with life. And I guess I wanted to be bullied because being hated is better than not being anybody... right? Sure, sounded like perfect logic to me at the time. Although at the time I was just doing it, and I don't think I had even worked out a reason.

In short, everybody hated me. Especially my roommate.

AND NOW TIME FOR MOVIE-TALK!

Has anyone seen Full Metal Jacket?

Remember that scene where they take bars of soap and oranges and put them in bags and beat that kid with them while he's sleeping?

Haha, that's some #####ed up #####, right? Because soap and oranges don't bruise when you get hit with them! But they still hurt like #####! Oh, man, movies.

Movies unlock a realm of fantasy that we normally could never visit.

But when I think of fantasy movie worlds that I'd love to visit, usually the lists are topped with the Chocolate Factory from Willy Wonka or the Death Star with Darth Vader... not in the bed of the boot camp getting beaten with soap and oranges in that scene from Full Metal Jacket.

On an entirely unrelated note, getting back to my story:
My roommate unlocked our door at night and let a bunch of kids in so they could beat me with sacks filled with soap and oranges, which don't leave bruises when you get hit with them but still hurt like #####.

What I felt is a certain feeling that I can't really express with words that aren't "excruciating pain" and "inescapable panic." But you can probably assume that this is another one one of those "worst moments" I was referring to.

This tipped me over the edge. I hated everybody at this school. Eventually one particular person ticked me off enough that I came at him with a broomstick.

Right outside a staff member's room.

Another expulsion.

So, from here, my parents didn't want to fly down to Wisconsin and pick me up. They are fed up with me. Words cannot describe their anger.

I'm told I will be escorted by school staff member to the airport, where I will have to fly home by myself and willingly greet my parents at home.

Willingly.

Right.

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CHAPTER THREE: WISCONSIN MENTAL INSTITUTION or "This is the part where I realize things have gone horribly, horribly wrong!"
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So, instead of waiting for my flight to take me straight into the hands of my ferociously angry (and justifiably so) parents, I make a run for it.

I don't know where I was running.

But I didn't make it far.

They called the airport security and I was held down until a police car took me away.

Away to some out-patient mental institution.

I had to give them everything I had on me, including shoelaces so I wouldn't, y'know, kill myself with them.

I had to sit in a dull room with nothing to do for hours on end. At some points they let me out into a main hall area where other screwed-up kids are sitting and coloring and watching the same movie over and over again. The Fast And The Furious. Over and over again.

It was all they had.

But they kept watching it.

Every #####ing day.

After a few days, I was alerted that I had a phone call from my mom. She was going to come pick me up.

I started throwing a fit, rebelling and telling her I'd rather stay in this institution than go home.

The institution staff then informed my mom that, due to this tantrum, I was not ready to go home yet and had to stay longer.

As the days went by, I realized that these kids really DID have problems. I got the feeling that many of them came from horrible backgrounds, may have been abused, may have serious mental problems, may have had truly horrible lives.

My life hadn't been horrible. I wasn't mentally ill (or at least I don't like to think so despite being taken to hundreds of psychologists and being prescribed every pill on the planet). And I certainly hadn't been abused by my parents.

My parents did so much for me and I never ever showed them any appreciation.

My mom got calls from the middle school almost every day to come pick me up because I had done something terribly wrong and gotten everybody scared.

My dad drove through the night to pick me up from Howe, on very short notice. And I greeted him by barricading myself in a room and then running off into the fields so they had to send people out to find me.

They both fought so hard to keep me in every school that I so ferociously tried to act like a #####tard in.

They both fought so hard to have a normal child.

And sitting here, in this dull room with nothing to do except count the minutes until the next showing of The Fast and The Furious...

...I realized something.

I #####ed my life up. I did everything wrong, messed everything up, ruined everything myself.

I was asking for everything that happened to me.

The world wasn't against me.

... I was against it.

This is when the gears started turning.

This is when everything started to go right.

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CHAPTER FOUR: WEST BLOOMFIELD HIGH SCHOOL or "How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb."
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After many days of mind-dulling mental captivity, my mom picked me up and I went home.

I was very quiet.

My parents drove me to tons of different specialty schools in the area and threatened to send me there and just give up on me.

But deep down, they still had hope.

I love them so much for whatever possessed them to give me one final chance.

They sent me to West Bloomfield High School, our public school with all the old kids that I used to claim had ruined my life for making fun of me and making me feel like I needed to act so weird. All the kids that I had tried to forget and had succeeded in forgetting. All the kids that clearly remember the idiot I had once been.

I was very quiet.

I started attending WBHS in the second semester of Sophomore year. I didn't really talk a lot. I kept my mouth shut and didn't socialize with anyone, and I came off as very shy and timid.

But my mind was going crazy.

Every time I saw a kid I used to know, it would drive me insane for reasons I still don't know. I would be overcome with feelings of hatred and fear. But I knew that I didn't hate or fear them. I just wanted to feel something.

Nobody really asked me where I'd been for all this time.

It's not like they cared, anyway.

I was very quiet.

Slowly, but surely, I began to figure everything out.

I figured life out.

As in, I figured out that life can't be figured out.

And I gave birth to a new Alec.

I joined the marching band drumline, made new friends, and started talking more.

I was being weird again, but not like before. I had a purpose now.

My purpose was to live my life to the fullest and be somebody.

Be a character.

Be somebody people will appreciate knowing and being friends with.

There's no way I can ever describe what goes on inside my head.

I can't even make sense of it.

But however I was acting, it was working. I was finally making new friends, real friends, real people that actually cared and wanted to hang out with me.

It didn't happen overnight, no. I still got into some trouble a bit, still had some tiffs with authority, but it's all trial and error.

With every mistake I made, I made improvements.

I shaped myself into something new and all my own.

I was weird.

I was odd.

I was crazy.

I was very loud.

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CHAPTER FIVE: MY VIEW ON LIFE or "What I've learned from all of this."
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If I meet somebody new, I don't want them to ever forget me.

My tool for this is humor.

I figured out that a lot of what I do nowadays is to make myself and everyone else around me laugh.

I love having stories to tell. I love doing crazy things like climbing the back of a giant ski slope or jumping out of cars just so I have stories to tell.

I appreciate characters. I appreciate people who are... unique. They are what I live for. People so odd or so NOT odd that I would feel perfectly fine hearing their entire life stories.

I don't hate anybody. I can't hate anybody.

Because EVERYBODY is a character.

Every single person has a life just as complex and interesting and full of insight as mine.

I would love to just sit down and have everyone tell me their life stories. Everything they've learned along the way.

I make a point not to hate anybody because everybody has something to give me.

Even a complete asshole fascinates me. The bigger the asshole they are, the more fascinated by them I am.

Even somebody I should truly hate, like somebody that just kidnapped and raped a small child, or somebody like Hitler or Saddam Hussein... they fascinate me because they ARE characters. But on the same note, I'm not advocating their actions, so don't take it like that.

My point is that from all that I've been through, I've really learned to love people. I've seen the very worst and the very best that they can do.

It interests me to no end to see what people are capable of.

And if you ask me if I regret anything I've done in my life, all the trouble I put my parents and the people around me through... I don't. I don't regret any of it.

I apologize for it. Greatly. Deeply. Hugely.

I am so sorry for having been like that.

But I don't regret it.

It's made me into who I am today, and I rather like who I am.

Every mistake I made has contributed into making me more me. Not necessarily a BETTER person in general, but... a better Alec Robbins. A better me.

I'm not superior to anyone, and nobody is superior to me.

I have my own life story, and you have yours.

I know how to deal with my own life and the problems that come out of it, and I'm confident in that. I'm also confident that when a new problem comes up, that I will handle it poorly and make a mistake and then learn from it, and improve upon it.

You will never forget me. Strong words, eh? But I believe them, even if I know they aren't true.

Everyone will forget me. To some, I'll just be "that weird guy who draws #####es" or "that awkward fellow who makes vulgar comments"... but I do believe that nobody will ever forget me.

I believe it even though I don't think it's true.

I'm a character.

So are you.

Appreciate that.

I dedicate all of this to my parents, who I hope will never read this.

I love you all. Every person in the world. And I hope I get to meet all of you.

I expect a "tl;dr" from Sano and a "looks interesting but I'm busy so I'll read it later" from Mike. Hehe.