One day in preschool I got in trouble.
In fact, the teacher felt it was necessary to call in my mother after school, so that she could explain exactly why I was being punished. So, she sits my mom down and says, “Your son hugs people too much.” My mom, waiting for the actual reason I was in trouble, gives a long response of “okay,” then waits for the rest to come out. The teacher goes on to tell my mom that everyone that comes through the door I hug. And at lunchtime if people leave for an extended period of time, I would hug them when they came back into the room. Oh, and apparently after naptime too.
My mother laughed out of what I believe was pure pride for a mother to have for a son. My mom then asked, “what’s wrong with that?” And then took me home. I remember her telling me how she bought me ice cream afterwards—as a reward.
I knew who I was at a young age. Everyone does, actually. I think we all act out of instinct and emotion when we’re young, and the only thing that changes when we’re older is that we now work through this “filter.” Some imaginary filter put in place that tells us things like, “Don’t do that! People will talk,” or even “No one else is dressed this way; why are you?” Little filters that make me stop and check my pride—so as not to tarnish it.
It’s a sad thing to grow up. Not because we get older, but because we get more afraid. Afraid of possibility, afraid of what we can do, and what others will think about us.
But all that is starting to change again.
Something is transforming in me. Something in art that is the transformation of an artist going from Master Emulator into Novice Original. It’s happening with me right now.
It ‘s that same feeling when for some reason every love has never worked out. Just some feeling that you can’t explain, but it just never felt right. But suddenly, with this new person there’s a sense of right that for once outweighs all the wrongs going off in your head. It’s that feeling when spiritually something has clicked, or is beginning to click, where the time of your life is coming into what was always supposed to be.
Being young, I get anxious a lot. And since patience is never the role I take first, I usually try to jump into something I’m not meant to take on yet. That’s really where I fall short. It’s the desire to find my purpose, and get started into the life I know I’m supposed to be within, but acting in it before I’m really ready to.
It’s all very fluid and open right now. But at least it’s beginning to take shape.
It’s a sensation that can only be exampled by feeling it. It’s like describing an emotion of something, where the words of that emotion haven’t been invented yet. It’s that raw right now, and yet it’s the time for the rawness to take a truly creative shape.
A second story finds me at 17. I had just been inspired to begin playing guitar. I remember running up to my room after school, throwing my book bag on the ground next to my bed and picking up my guitar. It had still been lying there where I fell asleep with it the night before. Practicing, playing, falling in love. It was something I wanted so bad, that those voices from friends about “what people will think” disappeared. In fact, I lost a lot of good friends because I started playing guitar. We just stopped hanging out.
I lost 15 pounds the first three months I played guitar, because when my mom would call me for dinner, I would always say “be right down.” Sure enough, every morning there was my dinner sitting in the microwave, untouched from the night before.
When we find our purpose, we find ourselves…
I feel like there are times in my life that stand out. Like checkpoints in a race. Times where, you can’t tangibly point it out, but something has changed. Issues you once worried about or cared about don’t matter anymore. Times like getting over the whole “get drunk/hook up” party scene. Or that desire to have to feel from people desiring you.
I think it’s God’s way of stepping in. He timelines out my life. I feel like these checkpoints pop up ever-so-often. Then we grow, and we don’t even realize the change until I can say, “That’s the way I used to be.”
I think the common thread that is stitched through the hearts of every person is the desire to connect, and the inspiration to find purpose. To find what we are all doing here.
I believe I am finding mine, and it’s a beautiful beautiful thing.
-Jason O’Toole
(Source: memoir.jasonotoole.com)
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