Who I Am, Who I've Been

My past is something I've had to come to some kind of terms with. I'm not proud of it, but I'm not into forgetting about it and moving on. Without my past, I wouldn't be who I am today. I know that sounds cliche, but it's true. I've never thought or myself as evil or anything like that, but I have to acknowledge that there was something wrong with me. I liked violence too much. I cared too little about the feelings of others. I was raised the same way my siblings were, yet none of them flirted with the darkness like I did. The closest was my brother, Eddie, who came even closer than I did to being arrested. He was actually put on probation for the beating he gave to some kid at a Pennywise show a number of years ago. Maybe it was because my parents let me have more freedom than the others. I've always felt as though I was the experiment child, since I was the oldest. After me, my parents held the others closer to home and kept them from getting out of hand. I'm the only one who was able to run around all night and get into trouble. Boy, did I get into trouble. Thankfully, I was never arrested. The closest I came to it was one night in Santa Monica, when I helped out a gay man who was jumped by two scumbags I had just met through another friend of mine. When I went to help, the other two guys turned on me and beat the shit out of me along with the gay guy. I fought back as best as I could, then the owner of the cafe we were in front of came out with a baseball bat and broke things up. The cops showed up and we were all lined up along the wall. My hands were cuffed behind my back and I had blood running down my face and onto my white t-shirt. The gay guy was confused about who was doing what and I thought for sure that I was going to jail for doing something right for a change. I kept trying to remind the homosexual that I was the one helping him and the cop told me to shut up or he was putting me into the car. His exact words were, "If you say one more thing, just one, I'm putting you in the back of the car." At that point, I couldn't have stopped myself if I tried. I said, "Fine, whatever." He grabbed me and threw me into the squad car. While I sat there, I got more and more angry. I finally decided to show the cop a little something. So, I blew blood out of my nose onto his window. The finally got the whole thing figured out and the officer came to let me out. He took one look at the blood and he made me clean it off with my shirt. Oh well, I was going to throw the shirt away anyway.
The point is, I'm a new person these days. I accepted Christ and became someone new about 17 years ago. I know there are those who would laugh at someone saying that, but it's true. How else can one explain that I went from loving the violence of a good fight to feeling remorse for everyone I'd ever hurt? I never felt remorse or guilt about the people I beat up. I always reasoned that they had it coming. Suddenly, I pray to this God I'd heard about and turn my life over to Him. I figured that He had to do better with it than I was. He definitely did. I still wanted to do the things I used to, the drinking and the drugs, but I'd found a reason to say no. I'd found a reason to think that I could get past it all. Most of all, I'd found a reason. A reason for life. A reason for living and making a difference. This is what was missing from the punk scene I had become a part of. It was the missing piece to the life I was living. Punk was supposed to be about making a change and standing up for what you believe in. I was using the scene as a place to hear good music and get into fights that didn't usually turn into gang violence. I became a part of a scene that cared for the individuals in it. Christian punk and hardcore bands cared about those of us that came to see them play. They wanted us to live lives that would guarantee our place in heaven with them. I could no longer play them off as kooks and losers. I came to understand that most of the members of these bands thought of themselves as just as bad, if not worse, than any of us in the audience. Most of us were not PK's (pastors' kids) or private school kids who grew up hearing the Word and knowing who Christ is. We were the rejected members of society who tried other avenues to escape from families that didn't care. Most of us had tried any combination of sex, drugs, alcohol, and violence to escape from our pasts. Now we had a place where we could come together and worship the Creator who put us here for a higher purpose, and we could be with others who shared our common pasts.
(to be continued...)