Experience, Adversity, Discovery, Evolution, And A Crisis Of Identity.

A few months ago, someone close to me told me that I dress like a hipster. A hipster? I may be many things, but I most certainly am not a hipster. My fashion wardrobe consists entirely of "Life Is Good" shirts, Dave Matthews Band tour t-shirts, a multitude of outdoor and workout tees, Keen shoes and sandals, a multitude of Buffs, and the ever important designated hat. This, most certainly, is not the wardrobe of a true hipster.

This moment triggered some reflection and self analysis concerning who I was, what I've become, and what it all means to be me. Coincidentally, it is the 7 year anniversary of my move to Kauai. Ever since my experience on Kauai and relocation to here in Missoula, I have struggled with just who I think I am identity wise. Before I moved to Kauai, I was obsessed with materialistic pursuits and living the "normal" life someone in their thirties with a good career lives. I tried extremely hard to follow this path, determined to be just like the rest of the average United States citizen....... and I was very unhappy, as a result. I told myself, "There has to be more to life than this.". I was married, I had three dogs, we were on track to buy a house someday, why wasn't I happy? I yearned for something completely different, I needed an experience so different that it would force me to see life in a completely different way. Well, I got just that... in spades.

My wife and I had honeymooned on the island of Kauai, and it had given me a taste of a lifestyle that I had never experienced before. We jokingly entertained the idea of giving everything up and moving to the island, at no point in time did I think my wife was serious. One day, she called me at work and was really excited about something. She had done some sniffing around on the internet and found a job opening for a Medical Technologist, on none other than the island of Kauai. Suddenly, we were seriously entertaining something that was beyond the wildest of my dreams. Long story short, we took the plunge. I literally had no idea what was to come once I set foot on the island as a resident, or even just how much of an effect it would on the person I was at the time.

The state of Hawaii has a style that is completely it's own, to say the least. Being a haole from the mainland, integrating with this culture proved to be far more difficult that I could possibly have imagined. Despite those obstacles, I found that I embraced a hybrid of Californian and Hawaiian surf culture. I found this to be a very good fit for my personality, and quickly grew very comfortable with it. Surf culture is usually very laid back (when not in the water,waiting for sets to come in, then it is very, very structured, rigid and intolerant of non-locals) and very liberal in nature. Before I moved to the island, my ideals were very much what you would consider middle of the road, I was socially and politically conservative on some issues and liberal on others. Growing up in Montana, my cultural experiences were very limited and naive in nature.

 However, once I got to Kauai, a radical change began to occur, so much so that my then wife told me that she didn't recognize who I was anymore. My wife left me after 6 weeks on the island, unable to deal with the cultural differences and sheer distance from all that she had know. Suddenly, I found myself to be a lot more financially challenged than I had ever been. As a result, my personality moved away from materialistic endeavors to a much, much more laid back and liberal mind set. Being able to play in the waves every day only strengthened my adoption of the island lifestyle and mindset. Oh how much I miss riding waves every day. I have always been a real water person and it just seems like I was born to  close to the ocean. To this day, I have yet to encounter a euphoric experience that even comes close to riding across the face of a wave, time seems to slow down and you feel very at one with the essence of the wave and the ocean as a whole. It was a very life changing experience, and I would like to believe that it opened up my mind to things that I had never contemplated before.

Hawaii is a very beautiful place, but it has a very sad side to it. On Kauai in particular, a great deal of the local population lives in what we would consider poverty. For the first time in my life, the disparity between the "haves" and the "have nots" was a constant presence. The Hawaiian people as a whole, are some of the most beautiful people I have ever met. I had the honor of meeting two women who were 100% Hawaiian, in fact the person who introduced them to me told me to touch them because they were 100%, and were extremely special. Both of these women were very much true representatives of what it Hawaiian culture is. Unfortunately, that culture is slowly dying, something that I lament very deeply to this day. I learned what Kau Inoa means and why it exists as a movement. You see, the indigenous people of the Hawaiian islands do not hold "indigenous people" status in the eyes of the United States government. This means that native Hawaiians do not receive the same kind of benefits that the many tribes of Native Americans of the mainlands from the federal government. This is an absolute outrage since the US expatriates overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893, and the US government annexed the islands in 1898. I became more and more ashamed of the actions of my government and country as I learned more and more. This had the effect of opening up my eyes to plight and treatment of all the indigenous people of the United States. Things were no longer simple, or black and white. I came to realize that we, as human beings, have a responsibility to each other and society. In short, I was becoming more and more liberal, and socially conscious each day.

As much as the Kauai had an effect on me, it wasn't a good place for someone who has Complex PTSD, making me very much susceptible to any negative social stimulus, due to the abuse I suffered as a child. I learned how ugly racism could be, the locals hated haoles from the mainland, we were occupying their land and taking all the good jobs from them. Racism was very real toward whites, and I identified with and understood the reasons the local people of Hawaii hate us. Things didn't work out for me and I crash landed back on the mainland after a very public nervous breakdown at work. I discovered that my ex-wife had taken almost all of the furniture that was in storage, the majority of which was given to me by my father before we even got married. I had next to nothing, it was me, JackJack and my car. I only two friends left over from the divorce and worse yet, I was in a relationship with a very, very unstable woman who, in the end, tried her very best to destroy me.

I had absolutely no idea who I was anymore, and things only continued this way for nearly three and a half years due to the manipulation and abuse my ex-girlfriend subjected me to. Things finally came to a head in May of 2011, after a six month long stint of an increasingly absurd, and cruel ruse perpetrated by my ex, designed to do nothing but torture me, I snapped. Fortunately, I landed in an intensive outpatient treatment program for people with mental illness. It was at this time that I finally started to untangle the experiences of the previous 5 years and gain some level of understanding of who I am again. I'd like to say that this has been an easy process for me, but it hasn't. I'm forty years old now and I struggle with concepts of where and what "normal" people my age are doing with themselves. I know I'm not supposed to think about things like that, people are all different, and lead lives according to who they are. It helps that Missoula is a very liberal community that supports a very wide variety of lifestyles. What doesn't help is that if I drive 5 miles in any direction, that sort of tolerance comes to an abrupt end. I'm forty now, I have lived in a tiny studio apartment for almost 4 years now. I'm just now climbing out of the debt I accrued during my time on the island. I'm about 40 pounds heavier than I was on the island, my sister killed herself nearly four years ago, I have a very serious mental illness and I have basically stopped trying to interact with the people in the world. I carry a great deal of shame over this.I feel like I have nothing to show for the last seven years of my life. People tell me this isn't really the case, and to a large extent, this is very true. The amount of life experience I've gained during this time is absolutely staggering and cannot be calculated. I have undergone a radical change, so radical that I doubt the person I was ten years ago would even begin to recognize who I've become. Unfortunately, I'm not sharing that experience with anyone, and I rarely ever talk about my life and  experiences on the island. In fact, it's only been within the last few months that I have even been able to think about those experiences and how much they had an effect on me, it was just too raw and painful. This was coupled with the fact that I was literally just trying to survive from one day to the next without removing myself from this plane of existence. Recently, I've done things to remind me of those days I spent on the island. I got a tattoo of a Hawaiian Honu with a representation of the Hawaiian islands on it's shell, Kauai colored in red, on my left calf. I also purchased a Maori Koru and Honu surf necklaces to serve as daily reminders of my experience, and adventures on the island. I need to remember that culture, it's very important to me. Sadly, I still can't bring myself to listen to the Hawaiian music I collected during my time there, it reminds me too much of the time I spent with my ex-girlfriend. Maybe with time that will change.

I've finally stopped denying that the last seven years happened, and I'm trying my best to learn about the person that I've become. It's a daily and complicated process and it most certainly is going to continue to take a long time. However, I know the following things: Ideologically, I am extremely liberal, bordering on non-conformist, this means that I am far more empathetic than I used to be. My "emotional "age and "experience" age couldn't be farther apart if they tried. I am a vanguard member of the "geek" generation in terms of age and growing up, that territory is largely unexplored as far as societal acceptance goes. I've seen things that are so beautiful that they have brought tears to my eyes (that subject is for another time and place), and I have seen unspeakable cruelty. My path is my own, and no one else's, I have to accept that for what it is. I am no longer materialistic and seek the meaning of life through experience and enlightenment, instead of material possessions. I will always, always have dogs in my life, preferably rat terriers. Things I struggle with: What I have to offer to people in terms of relationships and friendships. My exact place in the world. Trust. Trust. Trust. Isolation, both self imposed, and incidental. A balanced view, and sense of self.

Coming to grips with who you are is something that everyone has to deal with in their life. Unfortunately, a lot of people aren't capable, are too wrapped up in their lives, or are just too much in denial to stop and look at themselves. I'm not claiming to be an expert on this subject, just having learned how to look, and perceive things myself. I am beginning to be able to see just how much I've grown and changed over time. Though I have suffered a lot of pain over the last seven years, I am very thankful for the experience and wisdom that it has provided.

"Came in from a rainy Thursday
On the avenue
Thought I heard you talking softly

I turned on the lights, the TV
And the radio
Still I can't escape the ghost of you

What has happened to it all?
Crazy, some are saying
Where is the life that I recognize?
Gone away

But I won't cry for yesterday
There's an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive

Passion or coincidence
Once prompted you to say
"Pride will tear us both apart"
Well now pride's gone out the window
Cross the rooftops
Run away
Left me in the vacuum of my heart

What is happening to me?
Crazy, some'd say
Where is my friend when I need you most?
Gone away

But I won't cry for yesterday
There's an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive

Papers in the roadside
Tell of suffering and greed
Here today, forgot tomorrow
Ooh, here besides the news
Of holy war and holy need
Ours is just a little sorrowed talk

And I don't cry for yesterday
There's an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive

Every one
Is my world, I will learn to survive
Any one
Is my world, I will learn to survive
Any one
Is my world
Every one
Is my world"

Duran Duran "Ordinary World"