august-September 1975, the lost years, Age 25 wanderer of the wasteland

Botching things with Katie was the single worst mistake I ever made in my endless search for a meaningful relationship.  I thought I had hit Rock Bottom with Rachel, but I was wrong.   I thought I had hit Rock Bottom with Celeste, but I was wrong.  Katie was the true Rock Bottom of the long losing streak that had started two years ago with Vanessa.

The failure to tell Katie how much I cared about her ripped a giant hole in my heart.  If any woman had the power to help me realize my potential, it would have been Katie.  I was inconsolable after blowing my chance with this once-in-a-lifetime woman.  Knowing I was 100% responsible for making this terrible mistake was more than my fragile ego could handle.  Heartbroken, I became Wanderer of the Wasteland. 

And so Phobia returned from exile to reign supreme.  This was the moment I realized just how profoundly I was crippled.  My Phobia was so serious I might never be able to lick it.  My failure with Katie broke my spirit completely.  I felt doomed to screw things up with any important woman I met for the rest of my life.  Why even try anymore? 

I cannot remember another time in my entire life when I was angrier at myself than now.  I absolutely detested myself for blowing my golden opportunity with Katie.  I had no one to blame but myself.  It is one thing to seek love and lose.  It is an entirely different thing to never say a word.  Considering the rapport we had, it was criminal not to ask her out.

There was no doubt in my mind that Katie liked me, but all I did was procrastinate.  "I will ask her out next week..."  Not once in six weeks did I have the guts to tell this young lady that I would like to see more of her.  This gentle woman was one of a kind.  Katie could reach past my prickly side and elicit my warmth.  It might be a lifetime before another girl like Katie crossed my path.  There was no guarantee I would ever get a second chance. 

Although I will never know for sure if Katie was interested in dating, in my heart I am sure she liked me.  However, since I had no way to contact Katie, the most special woman I had ever met was permanently gone.  I could not forgive myself for my failure to let Katie know how much I liked her.  I had been lonely before, but now my loneliness felt unbearable.  My lack of confidence around attractive women was costing me dearly.  What was the point of meeting women when I didn't know what was wrong with me?  Why bother finding a girlfriend if she was bound to discover what a loser I was and move on to someone better?

My depression felt insurmountable.  I was emotionally ill to the point of being immobilized.  How I managed to show up for work is beyond me.  Other than keep my job, I did absolutely nothing to shake my despair.    The Dance Project was suspended.  What was the point of dancing?  I needed to regain some confidence before resuming my seemingly pointless dance lessons.  But how?

Flashback to October 1965, my Sophomore year in high school.  I am 15 and my face is riddled with pimples.  It was late in the afternoon and I am headed back to the locker room after P.E. class.  We had just finished running track so it was time for a shower.  As I walked, I was unaware my arch-enemy Harold and his two cronies were waiting to ambush me.  Seeing me pass, they filed in behind.

"Hey, everybody, look who's here!  It's Dead-Eye Dick, the Clearasil Kid!  Hey Dickless, did anyone ever tell you are one hell of a Creepy Loser Kid?!" 

Creepy Loser Kid.  That phrase was more insidious than the worst computer virus.  Those words were frozen in my subconscious for eternity.  After losing Katie in August 1975, I could not get this phrase out of my mind.  Ten years later and Harold's cruel words still troubled me.  When things were good, I could ignore this painful message.  However it remained at hand for my next downfall.  Following the failure of my courage with Katie, fear of being the Creepy Loser Kid haunted me night and day.

I wanted to compete for the same caliber of young women I had known at St. John's... the best, the brightest, the most attractive... women like Katie and Rachel.  The healthy part of my mind knew I had the talent to compete.  But for the life of me, I found myself unable to take risks around pretty girls.  Was there any way to remove this curse?  My worst fear was that four years of High School Hell had permanently brainwashed my subconscious into believing I was the ugliest and least desirable boy in school.  There very well might not be a cure for this.

Deep down I feared I would fail with any woman who was a good match. 

How could I break this Curse?  When I was younger, I believed if I could just get rid of the scars on my face, I would become successful in love.  Now I knew the grim truth.  Recent experience demonstrated that even if I could magically clear my face of every scar, that would not solve the problem.  I was like the person who goes on a diet to improve their appearance, but after losing the weight realizes the insecurities are still there.  A dermatologist might remove the scars on my face, but I had no solution for the scars inside my head. 

My failure to reveal my feelings to Katie initiated a devastating round of self-criticism.  Lonely and full of hate for myself, I slipped into a deep funk.  This was a time when I more or less drifted.  I went to work, accomplished nothing.  I played basketball, went home, and sat there feeling sorry for myself.  Next day, same thing.  My life was going nowhere.  I had no goals and no ambition to find one.  I cursed my loneliness.  Hmm.  Where have we heard that before?  Vanessa, Yolanda, Rachel, and now Katie.  Except this time it was much worse.  I refused to go anywhere where I might meet someone.  As I have said repeatedly, the easiest way to cope with a Phobia is to avoid the problem.  Why take a risk when I was sure to fail again? 

The most powerful way to overcome negative programming is to face one's fears and take risks.  However, as the Katie situation revealed, I couldn't make myself do that.  I once met a man named Kent who told me he tried to take one risk a day.  Kent said every day he tried to do one constructive thing that he absolutely did not want to do.  I thought about Kent all the time.  I wished I could force myself to adopt that philosophy, but it was hopeless.  Courage was in short supply.

After I screwed things up with Katie, I decided to take a 'Siesta' from women.  All I had to do was run from every threat and my problem went away.  It was at this point that Gloria's importance increased dramatically.  Thank goodness for Gloria.  Her presence allowed me to remain a hermit.  If I needed sex, I went to see Gloria.  All I had to do was knock.  The rest of the time I moped through each day with a listless sense of defeat. 

Katie had been the opportunity of a lifetime, yet I had been unwilling to take a risk.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.  My life was headed nowhere.  I did not have a career and I did not have anyone who particularly cared about me.  Refusing to face my fears, I stayed safe, but felt worthless in the process.  I just trudged along, Wanderer of the Wasteland.

September 1975, the lost years

SAYONARA, MARK

Following the rupture of Mark's Love Triangle, things had never been the same between us.  Mark did not blame me in any way, but I reminded him too much of his failure.  Since Mark refused to talk about what had happened, our ensuing conversations were spent tiptoeing around the subject we should have been talking about.  He was a haunted guy who kept a wall around him.  Now that the light of his life had flickered out, the sparkle in his eyes was gone.  Mark's withdrawal upset me.  Why did our friendship have to end just because his Triangle disintegrated?  Maybe it was his wounded pride.  Whatever his reason, the cooling of our relationship was his choice.  If this is how Mark wanted it, I would abide by his decision.  Once a daily fixture in his office, I rarely visited anymore. 

Around the same time I met Katie in July, Mark met a new guy.  Steve was the man who helped Mark put his life back together.  Not long after they met, Steve got a job offer in New York.  Mark and Steve decided to move to the Big Apple over Labor Day in September.  On his last day of work, I went to speak with Mark.  I was pleased to see Mark was his old self again.  He was happy, warm, caring.  Trust me, I was very envious.  I was also very glad.  Mark was a good soul; he deserved to be happy.

"So how is it going, Rick?  I've lost track of you."

I decided to tell Mark about Katie for the first time.

"It always comes back to Katie.  I cannot get her out of my mind.  I am like the poor schmuck who drops the winning touchdown pass in the Big Game.  My mistake haunts me everywhere I go.  After my cowardice with Katie, I fully expect to choke when the next girl comes along.  I am so ashamed that I refuse to take the slightest risk rather than embarrass myself again.  I'm taking a siesta."

Mark nodded.

"Are you aware that you said the same thing after Rachel?  After she revealed sleeping with that Rice professor, you realized you would never get anywhere in the world with a woman like Rachel until you found a career.  That was a year ago and you still haven't done anything about it.  It seems to me you keep putting the apple cart before the horse.  I am worried that your love life will remain crippled until you deal with your graduate school failure.  Go out and get that career and I imagine your love life will improve the moment you take constructive action.  You have to do something to feel good about yourself again."

I smiled ruefully.  Mark was right.  The lack of a career sabotaged my confidence on a daily basis.  Given that women are attracted to success and accomplishment, my mastery of the Box Step wasn't going to cut it.  At that moment, we both sighed at the same time.  It was time for Mark to go.  We gave each other a big hug.  In that moment, Mark let his guard down one last time and began to cry.  I did too.  With tears in my eyes, I knew moving to a new city was what Mark wanted, but I would miss him.  Mark was one of the most special people I ever met.  Too bad he would not be around to stage another Invention.  Or maybe he did.  Mark had given me an idea.

September 1975, Age 25, the lost years

ABJECT FAILURE

I was overwhelmed with frustration over my dead-end Child Welfare job.  I hated my job almost as much as I hated myself.  Over the past year I had tried as hard as I could to help people.  However I rarely got anywhere.  I became discouraged when I realized that practically every effort I made turned out to be a waste of time. 

I developed the attitude that it was impossible to help people who did not want to help themselves... or could not help themselves due to a lifetime of psychological damage.  I cannot begin to list the number of times I met people who had been conditioned by a lifetime of failure to give up and quit trying.  Sad to say, every time I met a quitter, I thought of myself.  I witnessed my own shame in the futility of the people I met.  Like the pitiful dogs in the Learned Helplessness experiment, when life threw these people a problem, they laid down in their electrified box and whimpered just like the dogs did.  Ignoring realistic solutions to their problems, time and again they did not lift a finger. 

Perhaps some examples would help explain why I was so frustrated.  I made an appointment at a clinic to get a kid's head lice treated.  The kid was gone when I went to his house to pick him up.  I scheduled a much-needed appointment to help a client get food stamps.  The client never showed up for the appointment.  I scheduled a home visit with the intent of helping a mother clean up her house.  I picked up half the trash myself and carried it to the dumpster.  On my next visit, the house was disgusting again. 

As my frustration mounted, I began to go through the motions.  Well aware that I was spinning my wheels, I developed the attitude that it was impossible to help people who didn't... or couldn't... help themselves.  It hurts to admit this, but I ran out of patience.  It was amazing to me how many times the parent would find some excuse to sabotage my efforts to help their children (or help themselves for that matter).  They neglected their children because they were miserable, but try as I might, I could not find a spark that would light a fire towards improving their lives.  After a year of trying as hard as I could to help neglectful parents with only meager results to show for my effort, I was burned out.  In the process, I was paying a heavy psychological price for my constant futility

I was reminded on a daily basis that I was just as afraid to take a risk as my clients were. 

Oh, how I hated myself.  Gee whiz, I am just as big a loser as these people.  Seriously, in my mind I was no better than the people I was investigating for child neglect.  In a sense, the more they failed, the more I failed.  The more I failed, the less willing I was to try to help the next client.  Everything seemed so pointless that I lost patience.  Why keep trying if there is not a damn thing I can do to help these people get past their self-defeating ways?  For that matter, why keep trying if there is not a damn thing I can do to help MYSELF break through my self-defeating ways?  Confronted by their failure by day and by my failure by night, each day I became more bitter and discouraged.  Unable to find a way to help my clients and well aware they were bringing me down in the process, I decided it was time to do something about that career issue.  Fortunately, there was still a small flicker of fight left in me.  Not much, but some.  It was time to use what little fight I had left to look for another job.  I had some good ideas.  Back in college, I had shown talent for computer programming.  However, I would need training.  I would enjoy teaching history in high school, but lacked a teaching degree.  I considered sports writer, but lacked the credentials and contacts to get my foot in the door. 

Unfortunately, all three occupations had major hurdles to cross.  My main problem was that I absolutely refused to go back to school for more training.  Dr. Fujimoto had personally ruined me for further education.  I was done with school.  Why put my head back in the same noose?  I wanted to get a job using the degree I had.  And so my self-defeating attitude closed the door on all three career ideas.  Meanwhile I began to wonder if I had a secret talent I did not know about.  Perhaps there was a job out there that I was uniquely qualified for that would not require going back to college.  Maybe there was some sort of test that would reveal that secret talent. 

It was September 1975, one month after losing Katie.  On a whim I took a battery of aptitude tests at the Vocational Guidance Service.  I assumed the tests were designed to help me figure out what I was good at.  However, the tests were a complete waste of time.  Seriously, they did not help at all.  If I was interested in sports, the test said get a job in sports.  Oh, wow, insightful.  I could have figured that much out myself. 

Fortunately, the woman assigned to administer the test was excellent.  Her name was Gaye Brown-Burke.  Gaye, 40, was quietly attractive.  She was very tall, 5' 10", with dark brown hair and a gaunt face.  Her official title was 'vocational counselor'.  She struck me as very dedicated to her profession.  After I took the tests, Gaye and I met to discuss the results.  Her first question was to ask what I was interested in.  

In a subdued tone, I said, "I'm not interested in much of anything at the moment."

Gaye did not reply, but I noticed she was taken aback by the strength of my negativity.  Now that my cowardice with Katie had robbed me of my soul, my Rock Bottom depression was barely one notche above catatonia.  After my sarcastic remark, I expected Gaye would make a reply of some sort.  However, when none was forthcoming, I decided to continue. 

"What I hoped for was some hidden nugget.  Maybe the tests would suggest a profession I might be good at.  But all those tests did was bounce back the same information I put in.  I could have spoken to a mirror and accomplished the same thing." 

We chatted a while, but it was perfunctory.  I found absolutely no inspiration in the test results and was ready to check out.  At the end of the hour, I rose to leave.  However, just when I had one foot out the door, Gaye asked me to wait.   

"Rick, please hold up.  Okay, I understand your frustration with those tests.  But I am not happy about letting you just walk away.  Surely we can't give up that easily.  There is something unusual about you that I can't quite put my finger on.  You come off as someone who is apathetic, but that is just a mask, I am sure of it.  What is going on inside of you?  I want to try a totally different approach.  Would you give me that chance?"

Gaye's request made me curious.  There was actual interest in her voice.  Why would she care about me?  After all, I had shown no enthusiasm in the extensive testing she had done.  Gaye could have let me walk out the door, but instead she practically begged me to try again.  The bill for the visit was $15.  At that rate, I didn't have much to lose, so I said okay.  See you next week.