This is all true.
When they diagnose me with cancer, any day now, I will spend
my last days having fun figuring out exactly when I gave it to myself. Because that’s
the way I think it works when you’re someone like me. A non-contributing,
cynical, needling, complaining waste of Doritos and Oreos. It doesn’t stick to
the bottom of your shoe on your way home from the bank, then slither into your open mouth as you take a nap on your parents’ couch. And you don’t get it when the
homeless guy’s long, sharp pinky nail scrapes against the palm of your hand
when you offer him change because you’re trying to bribe karma into that job
promotion. No, when you’re terrible, you give it to yourself. And for the short remainder of my life, I will
tirelessly dissect every event in my life that could have contributed to that defining
moment.
Predictably, my search will start at the beginning. I think
we’re supposed to look back at every traumatic experience we had and think of
what terrible part of our personality is the direct result of it. Do I not
spend enough time with my niece because I farted at my grandfather’s wake? Am I
only asking that guilty question because it was during the eulogy? I think I don’t
volunteer my free time to help those that are less fortunate because I once let
my dog lick my privates when I was taking a poop before hockey practice. My
parents paid thousands of dollars for me to learn how to play the piano. I
can’t play a single song. And thousands of dollars for me to play hockey. I
can’t stop with my left foot. My dad never wrapped a towel around his waist in the locker room at
the YMCA. I’m still making comparisons. Any traumatic experience I had just
made me even more selfish than I already was. Cancer is the perfect cure for
selfishness. It eventually kills it.
But maybe I was too young then to really begin the downward
spiral of being told, “Everything happens for a reason,” and Facebook memorials
that give “friends” the homework assignment of sharing a story about a cute
memory. They say your teenage years are your transformative ones, so maybe my
body started attacking itself then. There was a time when I ate back-to-back Chipotle
burritos and had to sit in the car with the seat-reclined for an extra half
hour to make sure I didn’t throw up the $19.50 I just spent. My friends in the
backseat weren’t impressed. I think I was averaging 9 burritos a week at that
time. Although it might be great for the toilet paper companies and their
stockholders, it wreaked havoc on my digestive system. A group of my
friends used to be really into collecting basketball cards. We would frequent
the local card store. We’d trade, beg, and steal to get the best cards. Yes,
steal. Instead of spending our time helping our 400+lb. best friend get in
better health, we were busy using him as a camera shield at Venture as we were
lining our pockets, underwear, and socks with as many packs of basketball cards
we could waddle out with. Unfortunately, fat friends aren’t as good at
shielding unwanted eyes as we had planned. Apparently they attract a lot of
attention. Even though I was terrified as security stopped my friends but not
me, I didn’t bother to tell my friend’s mom as I got back in the car. We waited
30 minutes before she figured something was up. The anxiety remains today. Maybe
leukemia feeds off of it. In high school I copied almost every single homework
assignment that didn’t have to be typed. I didn’t have to ask Nelson Torres
what he got on his AP Bio exam. Because I know we both got 4’s. And now biology
is the exact thing that is probably killing me. Or is it chemistry. I wouldn’t
know, because I refused to take that AP test at the end of the year. There’s
nothing to be proud about when you pass out from too many Miller Lites under a truck in DeKalb,
Illinois in the middle of the winter. I woke up in the middle of the night in my friend’s
car, completely soaked, and freezing. For weeks we both told everyone that I
peed on myself and locked him out of the truck. But really we both passed out
outside in a puddle, sharing the under-the-truck as if it were a twin-sized
bed. That’s how people die. White blood cells don't kill stupidity. I kissed my first girl when I was 18.
When you only apply to one college, never visit, live with
people you already know, and never put a single thought into what you should
study, you’re asking life to end early. Or you’re looking forward to it never beginning.
All those college parties, and all the ass-kickings I narrowly avoided never
taught me any positive lessons. Maybe a black eye and a bloody nose would have toughened up my
immune system. I
was too busy only caring about myself. Not in the healthy way. I told my
buddies on the lacrosse team a bunch of racist jokes, because I wanted them to
like me. Does being completely pathetic seep into your bone marrow and ruin the
red blood cell making process? I forced my mother into coming with me to the
doctor so we could find out if my private parts were the right size. They
weren’t. They’re not. If you’re one of those people, like me, that thinks there
is a ‘right’ size. But why did I drag her with me? If I had kept my problems to
myself maybe I would have learned to accept life for what it is and maybe not
have wasted so much of it. I could never build up the courage to do the things
I felt passionate about. I fell in love with a girl. I never told her. And I
never accepted that I never told her until years later when time replaced love
with various other things that are too insignificant to remember. Love could
have been the answer. I lost my virginity when I was 20, or was it 21? It’s one
of those things that I’ve lied about so often that I can’t remember. Like my
ACT score.
If there is a moment when you’re supposed to realize you’re
an adult and accept responsibility for your life, I never had it. After college
I caddied for a summer, then moved to New York City where I pretty much lied to
everyone about what my intentions were and what I was up to. I wanted them to
be impressed, when really I should have just done my own thing and turned into
the person I wanted to become. I guess I didn’t want it that badly. But that didn't stop me from telling everyone I did. There were booze-soaked nights of scraped faces
and misplaced desires. But not as poetic. Even though that wasn’t very poetic.
Instead of being a mindful, contributing citizen, I became a despicable version
of myself. “Version of myself” just really means, I was myself. Chasing a
dollar while running from it. I don’t know if my soon-to-be cancer is correlated
with greed. But I know greed is a cancer. Going $25,000 into credit card debt
is something I’ve done in this most amazing city. I missed out on all the incredible
experiences all that money could have bought because it’s hanging in my closet
and folded in my drawers. Tell my mom to dress my un-embalmed body in every
overpriced article of clothing I own. Hopefully a pretty girl will be
impressed. Because that was the whole point anyways. “I moved to New York to be
a comedian, well, to do something creative.” I’ve done standup less than 10
times in this city. And I rarely work towards any creative goals. So maybe I
deserve to wither away and be forgotten. Cancer is composed of immature cells. No wonder.
In the end, and this is the beginning of the end, what I’ve
amounted to is a guy that satisfies himself by watching old friends’ wedding
videos, sighing, judging, and being arrogant. All in the third person. Or is it
the second person? I’m the guy that is too lazy to look on the Internet to
figure out if it’s the second or third person. I don’t give anyone a chance.
They’re assholes before “Hello.” I’m the one that doesn’t deserve the chance.
By the way, Facebook shouldn’t be the place for self-improvement, yet my whole
life revolves around it. And I’m a liar.
I’ve had a terrific life. My family is hilarious, caring,
thought-provoking, and a bunch of pains in the ass. If there is anything in
life I’ve taken for granted, it’s them. And all the rest of it. I make fun of
my cousins for having children that stress them out. I smirk at their divorces.
Can I get the wedding gifts I never gave back? I tell everyone my brother is my
best friend. I guess it’s acceptable to talk to your best friend once every
other month. By text message. My mom is super intelligent, loud, and absolutely
wondeful. I avoid her. My dad is the funniest person I’ve ever met, he’s
insane, he worries, and he pisses me off. I blame those few moments when he was unimaginably mad at me. I never let them go. I’ve wasted a terrific
life.
And now I sit here and think about how the most shameful
moments in life are the ones we waste. It kills us. I’m not wishing for a
better tomorrow because I’m trying to be fully in the present. But really, like
everything else in my life up until now, I’ll wait to start that tomorrow. If I
have one.
