It was the best of times, it was the worst… Oh, sorry, wrong tale! My story begins with the events of the evening of Thursday the 8th of September, 2011. I received some unexpected news that afternoon, which not only changed my plans for the evening , it also led me to think quite a bit about the last twenty years, and where they have gone. I found out the middle of the afternoon that an old friend had passed away, and that his calling hours were that evening. John Cippitelli, aged 77, had passed away on Tuesday (Rest in Peace John, you will be missed!). John, along with his wife Ida, his brother Enzo, and Enzo’s late wife Agnes owned Green Lake Resort in Catskill, a place that would help to define who I was as a person.
It was the spring of 1991, and I was just about to finish my Sophomore year of High School. I needed to get a summer job, so that I could start saving some money for college. I had applied several places, and persistence paid off- I got a job as a busboy at Green Lake. One of the many resorts scattered throughout the Catskills, Green Lake catered to people from New York City, Long Island, and Connecticut, who were looking for an escape into the countryside. Many of the families had been vacationing there for years, and when I was hired, I had no idea what an impact working there would have on me. I became very close with the Cippitelli family, and many of the resort’s guests, some of whom I am still in touch with to this day. I went on to become a waiter, and spent six summers working there, earning enough money to pay for two of my four years of college. Many of my oldest friends are people I met working there, and those six summers were some of the best summers of my life.
Seeing John lying in his casket brought so many memories rushing back to me, it seemed like only yesterday I was bringing dinner to the “Family Table” where John, Ida, Ida’s brother Tony and his wife Terry, and some of their friends had their lunch and dinner every day throughout the resort’s season, which ran from mid-May until mid-October. It was really hard to believe that I first worked there 20 years ago this past May, that it had been so long since I had seen John or Ida, and that I never got to say goodbye to him. I would often stop out there to visit on school breaks and when I was home on vacations, but after I moved back to the area, I kept saying to myself that I would get out there one of these days. Days turned into years, and although we continued to exchange Christmas cards, it had been years since I had last dropped by to say hello. The funeral home was filled with many familiar faces- other members of the family, friends of the family, and even one of the waitresses I worked with all those years ago. Many of them looked just how I remembered them, for others the last 20 years had changed them quite a bit. Some recognized me right away, for others it took a little reminding of who I was. One of the biggest changes for me was seeing Ida and John’s grandson Vincent, now a grown man. The last time I saw him, he was a young child. Ida would often send me into town in her Lincoln Continental to run errands for her on the break between breakfast and lunch, and among other things, she would occasionally have me stop at the store and get juice and cookies to drop off for Vincent on my way through. Hard to believe that twenty years later I would be telling him that story while standing in the funeral home paying my respects to his grandfather.
Those summers at Green Lake taught me several valuable lessons, many of which I still carry with me this day. It was my first real job, my first taste of the “real world” if you will. I had a uniform, a schedule, and was making money. Gone were the lazy days of summer (if you can call spending much of the summer helping with farm work “lazy days”), to some extent the summer of 1991 was the beginning of my journey into adulthood. I got my license that summer, and by fall was driving my first car, a 1983 blue Dodge Aries, that I had bought from my Great-Aunt for a dollar! I learned the value of a dollar that summer, and also learned what it was like to have money of my own to spend, without needing to rely on birthdays, Christmases, or allowances. More importantly, I learned customer service while I was working there, something I have relied on heavily at almost every job I have held since then. At the time, I was having fun, making friends, and making money, but looking back, I realize now I was also beginning to form the person who I am today.
It seems like only yesterday that I graduated from high school, and left home for the first time, moving to Syracuse to attend college. As my parents drove me to Syracuse, not only was I leaving the familiar behind me, I was gladly leaving the high school years in the past. I was very happy to be done with them, as for me high school was not an overly happy time. I was very much alone most of my time spent there, a country kid who never seemed to fit in among the cliques of village kids who already knew each other. Very much a nerd, I was an easy target for bullies, and spent much high school miserable. Girls either rejected or ignored me, the guys picked on me, and being smart and getting good grades only made me even more of a target. I was completely lacking in athletic ability, socially-awkward, and brilliantly chose to partake in activities that further enhanced my reputation as a nerd. I was in chorus, I was on the newspaper and yearbook committees, I was treasurer for more than one organization, including the Senior Class, I was on the quiz bowl team. Is it any wonder that I did not have a girlfriend the entire time I was there? I did have a few friends, and towards the end of Sophomore year I did gain a little popularity and become borderline cool, but only because I started to partake in parties, much to the chagrin of my parents. However, the friendships didn’t last, the partying only led to hangovers and problems at home, and in the end, I still was more than happy to leave Coxsackie-Athens HS in the rearview mirror.
College life had to be better, I told myself, and to some extent, it was. However, it was an entirely new world for me, one that I never did fully feel like I fit into. Here was a scared kid from the country, living in a city for the first time, not knowing anyone. I had to learn to meet new people, find my way around on my own, and make it to class every day (a task that I never did manage to perfect, I might add). I went from my quiet, sheltered upbringing (but an upbringing that I am very thankful for all these years later - thanks Mom and Dad!) to being on my own, and like many students experiencing this for the first time, I went a bit wild. Ok, so a bit wild might be a little of an under-exaggeration, but regardless, I went wild. There were parties to go to, and much celebrating to be done, even if the only thing being celebrated was new-found freedom. I was on a quest to find out who Jeremy really was, because I could not accept or believe that he was really the quiet, shy kid that did not really have many friends, the kid that spent the last four years getting picked on.
I experienced many things during those four years, some of the highlights being the ten days I spent on the island of Dominica during March of 1995, and the month-long summer session at Cranberry Lake the summer between Junior and Senior years. Going to the bar for the evening with friends took on a whole new meaning when it took half an hour via canoe to reach the bar! I don’t want you to think that all I did those years was party, and skip classes, although unfortunately my grades did reflect that I was doing more of that than I should, and at the end, I was lucky to graduate on time. I did learn a lot over the four years that I was there, I made some good friends, and I learned many life lessons. And I don’t just mean lessons about how awful you feel for days and days after too much purple passion at the Kappa Phi Delta annual party of the same name… I experienced some great times in Syracuse, but I also experienced some of the lowest times of my life to date while I was there. The highs were high, but the lows were very very low. More than once I hit rock-bottom, and it took the help of others, including my family and my roommate Joe and his girlfriend (now wife) Stephanie for me to make it through a couple of the lows. To this day, I still carry the scars with me from that part of my life, both literally and figuratively. This new world was a bit more than I was fully able to handle, it would seem. However, I managed to pull it together enough to graduate, and before I knew it, I was heading off on the next adventure.
Shortly after graduating, I flew to San Antonio, Texas, to interview for a job at the local zoo. I was offered a position in the Bird Department, and as I had always had a love of birds, not to mention the fact that it was the only full-time job offer I got, I packed my belongings, and moved to Texas. Talk about culture shock! This country boy was not sure what to make of living in a city of 1.5 million people! It took quite some time to get used to the traffic, living in an apartment complex surrounded by shopping centers and streets jammed with other apartment complexes, let alone an entirely different climate from what I was used to! Here I was, almost 2000 miles from home, living in the middle of what might as well have been a foreign land. I was alone, completely alone, and not sure what to make of it. The only people I knew were the people I worked with, and other than the couple of people I met at my interview, even they were complete strangers at first. Over time, I met people, made some friends, and learned how to cope with weather much hotter and drier than I was used to! I enjoyed that job, and would have stayed longer had it paid more.
Still convinced that partying was the only way I could really socialize or “be me”, I continued where I left off in college, and spent far too much time out with friends, partying the night away. I was having the time of my life, but I was still not really convinced that I was any closer to figuring out who I really was. Yes, I was having fun and making friends, but every time I went out, part of me thought back to my younger years, and how disappointed my parents would be if they knew what I was doing, how much trouble I would be in at the end of the night if I was returning home rather than returning to my apartment. I rationalized it by telling myself that they were almost 2000 miles away, and had no way of knowing what I was up to, unless I told them. I also had myself convinced that going out to bars and clubs and acting ridiculous was how I was going to find someone to spend my time with, but that scheme did not pan out (and still has not panned out to this day, I might add). I experienced many different things living there, some of which I am neither proud of or willing to discuss in great detail. I was beginning to lose control, and had to reign myself in before I went to the point of no return. Luckily, I got an interview at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and was offered the job. Although I enjoyed San Antonio, I was enjoying it a bit too much, and the move to Florida probably helped save me from myself to some extent. Besides, I was going to be working at Disney World!
It was while my parents were on a vacation to Walt Disney World that they (and I) first became aware of plans for a new theme park that was underway- Disney’s Animal Kingdom. I had always loved Walt Disney World when we visited there on family vacations, and although the rides were fun and the shows were fantastic, one of my favorite parts of the trip was a stop at Discovery Island, which was a small 11 acre zoo that Disney ran on an island in the middle of one of their lakes. From the first time I saw it, that was where I wanted to work! Although I greatly enjoyed working at the San Antonio Zoo, which at the time had the 3rd largest bird collection in the country, there was always the idea in my mind that what I really wanted to do was work for Disney. My love for birds was thanks in large part to my maternal grandfather, a lifelong birder, who got me hooked on them at an early age. I was hired to be a part of the Aviary Team, working primarily with Asian and African birds. The park was amazing, and the resources available to the zookeepers there blew away the resources available to a smaller, city-owned zoo like San Antonio, with the ever-present need for wisely spending every dollar available in the limited budget.
I made new friends, and soon some of my old bad habits returned… I was once again partying quite a bit, although not nearly as much as I had while in high school, college, or Texas. Still, it seemed that the only way I felt comfortable socializing was if there was alcohol involved. Alcoholism ran in my genes, but I never really gave it a thought that I might actually have had a problem with it. To this day, I still find myself feeling like I need to have a couple of drinks when out socializing, and although it usually lifts my mood for a while and I enjoy myself, I usually find myself crashing before the night is over, falling back into a dark and miserable mood. I was just having fun, even if I paid the price for that fun the next morning. Had I gotten any closer to finding myself? Not really, although the partying did a good job of masking the underlying depression and unhappiness that continued to gnaw at my very being. Yes, I worked in the “Happiest Place on Earth”, but somehow even that was not enough to truly make me happy… I was still alone, living over 1000 miles from my family, and the only place I could afford to live was in a bad part of town. This too was a new experience for me. There were bars over many of the store windows in the area, instructions letting customers know what to do in the event of a holdup, and the sounds of gunshots were becoming all too familiar. On more than one occasion I was illuminated from above by a helicopter spotlight while out walking my dog at night, or had the joy of experiencing the S.W.A.T. team run past my apartment in pursuit of someone! I was not in Athens anymore!
One of the highlights of my time spent in Orlando was the acquisition of my dog Rico. Early in 2000, I was involved in a brief online long-distance relationship with a girl from Ohio. Although it did not last very long, I fell headlong into it, because I was not used to anyone paying that much attention to me. My only other real relationship was with a girl from back home. It started as a blind date set-up by a friend and co-worked from Green Lake, and although at times we did have fun, it was not really a very good relationship, and eventually ended. That was during my senior year in college, and the breakup led me to another of my lowest points, even though it was my idea in the first place…. But, I digress. Getting back to the girl from Ohio, that “relationship” did not last long at all, and when she worked things out with a previous girlfriend, it ended, although it took some forceful encouragement from co-workers at Animal Kingdom to get me to actually end it. To take my mind off of things, they decided to give me a puppy, and in June of 2000, Rico came into my life. He was a wormy, underweight little dachshund-chihuahua mix, taken in as a stray with his mother and siblings. Scared of his own shadow, I quickly became his person, the only one he would have anything to do with. I would take him places with me, but he was still very timid about anyone else approaching him or making contact with him. He became a very big part of my life, and finally I at least had someone waiting for me when I got home from work, even if it was just a dog!
Over the years, I had always been interested in having penpals from other places, and while I was living in Orlando, I had a penpal from France who was going to be staying with relatives in the Orlando area. She wanted to meet me while she was here, and we wound up spending two weekends together. She was very cute, and we got along great! After returning to France, she told me she wanted to come back soon to stay with me for a week or so, but by then I had started talking to someone else online, and told her it was not a good idea, because I did not know what direction things were heading in. Rightfully so, she became very upset with me, cancelled her trip over, and that was pretty much the last time I heard from her. What was wrong with me? Here was a girl who wanted to fly from France to Orlando just to spend time with me, and I blew her off for someone online that I only talked to a few times before she disappeared… Talk about stupid! Years later, I still regret that I did that, and wonder if things in my life might have been dramatically different had I let her come over for another visit. I still have penpals to this day, and for all I know, one of them might turn out to be the one I am looking for….
As the years passed by, the luster of working at Disney’s Animal Kingdom began to dim a little. Sure, the job paid much better than the job in Texas, the benefits and perks were good, and I had more visitors than I would have guessed (free park tickets and discounts on everything will bring people out of the woodwork!), but I felt like I was spinning my wheels and not really going anywhere. I was growing increasingly interested in the environmental side of the theme park business, and took every opportunity that came along to spend time talking to the people in the environmental departments, as this is where I could see myself really being able to put my schooling to use and make a difference. Working with the birds and other animals was great and all, but the main focus of our job was to provide learning experiences to the thousands of people who passed through the park each and every day. The unfortunate part of that was that most of the tourists only saw the bird areas as something in the way along their path towards far more exciting attractions, like the gorillas, tigers, water rafting ride, and safari ride. Very few actually cared about the birds, or wanted to hear what we had to say, and instead made their way through the bird areas as fast as they could. The few who actually did listen made it rewarding, but not rewarding enough to want to keep doing it. The management in the department was fairly well entrenched, so there was no real room for advancement, so that led me to trying to move into the environmental end of things. Jobs in that sector were few and far between, and the magic of working for the Walt Disney Company began to fade. Not wanting to continue to spin my wheels and make no progress, I began to look elsewhere, in a completely different direction.
I began applying for positions with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. This would not make any use of my prior work experience, but would make great use of my degree, and fulfill that childhood dream of being a park ranger (little was I to know that park rangers were actually law enforcement officers, which was an entirely different ballgame). An opportunity came along to interview for a position working in the Everglades, another place I had never been before but had always wanted to visit. Once again, my focus became to be the best salesman I could be, and try to convince the FWC why I should be the person they considered for the position. It worked, and the job was offered to me. In only a matter of weeks I had gone from trying to educate thousands of uninterested tourists to driving an airboat across tens of thousands of acres of the Everglades! Being out in that vast wilderness confirmed to me what a small part of the world each of us really is, yet with each camp I passed or each piece of trash that floated by, it also confirmed to me how great an impact we can each have on the natural world. The Everglades were hurting, and the few of us who worked out there were doing our best to at least stop the damage, if not reverse it.
When I first moved to the area, I was renting a room in a house, in order to give me a chance to explore the area a bit and find a place I could afford, without having to rush into something. What an experience that was! The day I arrived from Orlando, I was greeted in the driveway of the house where I would be renting by a skinny, wild-haired man wearing no shirt or shoes… What had I done, I asked myself?! He showed me my room, and I brought my the few belongings in that I had brought with me. Most of my stuff, including Rico, was still in Orlando, in the home of some friends from Disney. They agreed to keep my stuff for a couple of months, until I found a place of my own. The man I was renting from, Tom, then showed me two wall safes in his bedroom closet filled with guns, and the monitor for his home security system. This guy is nuts, I thought, and was not sure if he showed me the guns as a threat, or so that I would know what people would be looking for if they ever broke in. His favorite past-times were working on his beat-up old racecar, going to races at the local tracks, and watching wrestling on tv. Even if I was not interested in watching it and in my room, he made sure I knew what was going on, as he spent the whole time running back and forth giving me updates on who was doing what to who. Can we say redneck? He certainly fit the stereotypical description, and I began to grow increasingly fond of the times when he was out with friends!
Shortly after moving there, I got a horrible phone call from my friends in Orlando- Rico had gotten out of their yard, and was gone. They had searched and searched for him, but he was nowhere to be found. I was certain that I would never see him again, and although I tried to act like it did not bother me that much when people were around, I was crushed by his disappearance. As fate would have it, approximately 12 days later, he appeared on their back porch, a bit thin, dirty, and with some scratches on his nose, but alive! The back porch was in their fenced-in backyard, so he either found the hole he got through, or had spent the whole time hiding under one of their storage sheds, having been scared by one of the nightly fireworks shows. He was terrified of them, and it would not surprise me at all if he went to hide and either got stuck or was unwilling to come back out. Either way, he was back, and I was overjoyed! Now I could not wait to see him and get him back! My friends were growing increasingly impatient with all of my stuff being piled in their living room, and I was tiring of my “roommate”, so I put increased effort into finding a place, and moving out of the room I was renting. I rented an apartment, took the bus to Orlando, rented a truck, and the next morning was on my way back south, the truck filled with my possessions, and Rico sitting happily next to me.
Working in the 700,000 acre Everglades Wildlife Management Area was probably one of the most profound professional experiences I have had to date. It reconfirmed my desire to help the environment and the natural world, and showed me a part of the world that I had never experienced before. Many of the experiences that I had during this job were new to me, and most of them I was not likely to do again. Driving an airboat deep into the marshes, at times completely out of radio contact should help be needed, was a very humbling experience. I was completely at the mercy of Mother Nature and the mechanical workings of my airboat, and often completely alone. Should something have happened, it could have proven nearly impossible to pinpoint my location or gotten assistance. Not to mention getting paid to start fires! Prescribed burning was a large part of the habitat restoration efforts my office was working on, and we conducted several burns while I worked there, some as large as 20,000 acres in a single day!
How could this amazing ecosystem be within the United States, but seem so much like a foreign land? And how could people be so willing to destroy what had been here for millennia, long before humans inhabited the area. The area where I worked was cut down the middle by Alligator Alley, the primary interstate crossing South Florida. The entire area was crisscrossed with canals, originally put there to try to drain the Everglades for agriculture and development. On either edge of the Everglades live millions of people, and the development needed to support the burgeoning population of South Florida threatens to push deeper into what is left of the “River of Grass.” Traveling through the vast marsh on an airboat or flying above it in small planes and helicopters showed me things I had never seen before, and gave me a new perspective on things. Here was this vast marshland so critical to the South Florida ecosystem, and all around as far as the eye could see, development choked the view. New construction was taking place on every scrap of land not already paved or built upon, and vast tracts of land were also being converted to agriculture, one of the main industries of South Florida. This job made me more determined than ever to find a way to help prevent what we were trying to fix in the Everglades from happening elsewhere.
The office I worked in had a very small staff, so we quickly got to know each other and became friends. A few of us started hanging out, playing poker, and occasionally going out to a bar or club. This is where my old habits began to return, although for a change I was not finding myself drinking quite as much to socialize or fit in. Yes, I still had my moments, but for the time being, it seemed like that part of Jeremy was subsiding a little. I still don’t fully know how I managed all those years to avoid getting into an accident or getting arrested (or worse) as a result of my bad habits, but for whatever reason, I have been kept around and kept out of trouble.
There was another reason for my decreased partying and socializing as well - a girl. Shortly before I left Orlando, I began emailing and chatting with a girl from Toronto. The conversations became more frequent, and before long, we decided that we were “dating”, for lack of a better word. She was very jealous and possessive, and even though we lived over 1000 miles apart, she did not like me going out with friends or socializing, because she was sure I was going to meet someone else. I did meet someone else shortly before we became “serious”, but that did not wind up working out. After a few evenings out at the bars, we parted ways, and lost touch with each other. Once "Canada" and I became a “couple”, much of my social life came to a crashing halt. She wanted me to spend all of my time not spent at work sitting home, waiting for her to call or go online. In the beginning, we did talk and chat a lot, but as time went by, the conversations became shorter and less frequent, although the mail and emails remained frequent and in great number. I kept telling myself that at least I had someone, and that nobody else wanted me anyway, so I might as well be happy with what I had, and make the most of it!
As the years went by, things got rockier and rockier for us, especially after she revealed to me that she was married, and had been the whole time. She claimed it was a marriage of convenience, to help a friend from China get his citizenship so that he could bring his family to Canada, and that they were in the process of divorcing, and that the only reason she actually went through with it was because she had herself convinced that she would never find someone of her own anyway. Even after this, I still tried to make things work, and did not give up. She was even going to come and visit me, and I could not wait! The day she was supposed to arrive, she told me that somehow her plane ticket disappeared, and that she would not be down. Then, as was often the case when she was upset about something, she went into hiding for a couple of days, leaving me without any contact from her. This should have all warned me that something was wrong, but still I persisted.
Two years into my job in the Everglades, that ugly beast called advancement reared its ugly head again, and because of the specialized work that we did in the Everglades and my lack of experience working in other habitat types in Florida, I was finding that it was going to be increasingly difficult to move up the ranks in the FWC. The longer I stayed in the Everglades, the harder it seemed to be to get a job elsewhere in the state. So, my thoughts turned towards home. I had lived away from my family and my home for 7 years now, and began to realize how much I missed the change of seasons, the Fall colors, the views of the Catskill Mountains from the farm where I grew up (the only “mountains” in Florida are all man-made, and all found on Walt Disney World- Big Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain, and Splash Mountain).
Also, I was sure that me moving back to NY would make things easier for the relationship with "Canada". I began combing the internet, job sites, newspaper ads, anything I could find to get me back to NY. I was willing to take a job doing most anything at that point, I was so determined to move back home. As luck would have it, I found a listing for a staff ecologist with Audubon International, and it was located only about 20 minutes from where I grew up! I flew to NY, interviewed for the position (I was certainly becoming a pro at selling myself to prospective employers at this point!), had a short visit with my family, and returned to Florida to play the increasingly familiar waiting game. The call finally came, and within a matter of weeks, I was living back in Upstate NY.
While I was glad to be back home, I had forgotten just how cold and miserable a New York winter could be, having left sunny Florida and returned to New York in the middle of December! For the next 27 months or so, my primary task was to help golf courses, as well as a few businesses who were members of the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program become more environmentally-friendly and run their operations in a more sustainable manner. I also helped to develop a similar program for schools, which I found to be especially rewarding. The children were our future, and while helping to change the mindset of the businesses and golf courses was certainly rewarding, if we could get the children thinking green from the beginning, the future did not look quite as bleak. For me, a Native American proverb nicely summarizes what for me has become a mantra of sorts, the reason I do a lot of what I do:
"We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, We borrow it from our Children."
Reaching these children, helping to incorporate sustainability and environmental ideas into their everyday lives, that was the way to turn the tide! There was a drawback to this grand scheme of mine though, money. Being a small non-profit organization who relied on membership fees and donations as the primary source of funding, there was not much money left to pay the staff (at least at my level) a decent salary, and there was also no room for advancement.
I began to work part-time at a local convenience store, and because of my work-ethic, it was not long before I was approached about going into the Manager Trainee program. A meeting with the District Manager cemented things, and although it pained me to leave the environmental field behind, I could not afford to keep working there, and the 60 plus hours a week I was working between the two jobs was wearing me down, both physically and mentally. So, I set about to the task of learning what it would take to be a manager of a convenience store. I was making the best money I had ever made, and learning every aspect of running a successful business, but something was missing, I was not enjoying myself. I did not dream of being a convenience store manager when I was a kid, and it certainly was not what I went to school for. Nevertheless, it was paying my bills, so I struggled on. The last straw came when the District Manager decided to farm me out to several other stores to help where he saw fit, sometimes as many as 4 different stores in a single week. However, he made it plain that there were not likely to be any Store Manager positions opening in the foreseeable future, and that he did not think I was ready anyway. Increasingly frustrated and finding myself seriously questioning this career path, I made the financially painful decision to step down from the management position, returning to being a retail clerk. Gone were the 15-20 hours a week of overtime that the DM paid out of his own budget, and increasingly my financial situation worsened. I also grew to detest working the ice cream counter, especially on nights when there were Little League games. At the end of the game, both teams would storm into the store in a chaotic whirlwind, and soon there were dozens of children yelling out their orders. Not only did I have no idea who wanted what, who was paying for who, the kids would change their orders halfway through me making what they had originally ordered. This job was testing my limits, and stretching my customer service skills to their breaking point. I was miserable there, I hated it, and I had to get out! In dire straits, I set out to find a part-time job to supplement my dwindling income, and with any luck restore some of my sanity, or at least save what was left of it.
Of the many positions I applied for, the only two that I really had any interest in were an Outside Garden position at Lowe’s (another of my great interests in life is plants) and a Pet Care Associate position at PetSmart. I was called for an interview at PetSmart, and ultimately was offered a full-time Pet Care Lead Associate position, based on my combined retail and animal experience. The plan was for me to become a Pet Care department manager in 6-8 months, when a position became available. Plans changed, and I was promoted to Pet Care Manager only 6 weeks after being hired! All of a sudden I was in charge of a department, I had a staff of people who reported directly to me, and the health and well-being of thousands of animals (including the fish) were in my hands. Able to make use of my animal background and my retail manager trainee experience, I was at least somewhat satisfied with my new role. Yes, I would still have preferred to have gotten a job in the environmental field, but New York’s fiscal woes all but ended those hopes, with parks being closed and positions being cut left and right. It seemed that the environment was not as important as it was made to seem, at least when it came to the state budget. I decided to make the best of what I had, until (if) the state ever got things turned around, and almost 3 years later, I am still running the Pet Care department, having seen it improve significantly in terms of sales volume and reduced pet loss since I took over.
Things continued with "Canada" in much the same manner for the first couple of years that I was back in New York, with one difference- we finally, after having known each other for over three years, got to meet face to face! She surprised me one night by calling to say that she was in Albany with friends! We spent the next day together, and that night, and then the next morning she had to return to Albany so that she could go back to Toronto. It was a brief visit, but I was incredibly happy having finally spent some time with her, and felt a renewed hope that things were looking up for us. Two weeks later, she was back for the weekend, having decided to come visit for my sister’s belated graduation celebration from college. We had a great weekend, and I could not wait to see her again. Little did I know that I never would…. Things quickly went back to how they were- she never felt good, she always had problems with her mother and/or sister, she for whatever reason was not able to stick with her plan of finishing school in a timely manner, and plan after plan to spend time together again failed to come to fruition. We took a break of a few months early in 2010, after she decided that we were not going to work out and that my interests were elsewhere. I did not put up much of a fight, because at that point, I was drained, and had long since given up hope that anything was going to come of it. We barely had any contact with each other, until a few months had passed, and I foolishly began responding to her occasional emails and text messages. Soon we were back to talking pretty much every day, and things were going as well as could be expected. That lasted about a week, and then the communication began to drop off once again. Finally, I came to my senses, and ended it once and for all that summer. It felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders, in large part because I was being strongly encouraged by some friends from work, not to mention my family, who had given up on her long before I allowed myself to face reality and move on.
I was doing my best to make friends and meet people, although this was limited in great part due to the no-fraternization policy at work. Managers are not allowed to pursue relationships with associates or even other managers from the same store, and are strongly discouraged from even socializing with them outside of work. That left me with my usual mode of socialization of late - the internet. I met a few people here and there, chatted a bit, but basically was alone. Once or twice I chatted with local people, and we made plans to meet in real life, but for one reason or another, it never went forward. I began to feel increasingly depressed, and was losing motivation for most everything. I was not sleeping much, was not eating like I used to, and found myself returning to one of my old vices, alcohol. Night after night, I lay in bed listening to music and staring at the ceiling. I was isolating myself from my family, and I was miserable at work. I had gotten to the point of making Eeyore look happy-go-lucky. There were times that the only reason I stopped myself from doing anything serious (or stupid, for that matter), was the thought of how my family would explain it to my nieces and nephews, who were far too young to understand or even comprehend what they were being told. I love those kids, and I fully believe that they are one of the main reasons that I am here today writing this story. Watching them grow and develop have been some of my happiest moments over the last five years, and I am very thankful that I have had the privilege of being so involved in their lives. I can still remember my first day of Kindergarten, and I cannot believe that my oldest niece and nephew are beginning that very same journey already! I can only hope and pray that their journeys will not be filled with as many bumps along the way as mine has been.
As my mood continued to deteriorate, people at work became increasingly worried, and finally I decided that I had to do something. I went to my doctor, and she put me on an anti-depressant. I also made an appointment to meet with a psychologist. He diagnosed me with major depressive disorder, and we began meeting weekly. The meds slowly began to work, as did the therapy, and I was feeling better. People noticed a change in me at work, and could not believe their eyes when they would catch me smiling or laughing. My whole demeanor seemed to change, I was more in touch with my family again, and even began to go to church with them when my schedule allowed. This was something that I had long ago stopped doing, as it did not feel right to me, and I was not even sure what I believed any more. I was feeling better than I had in years, and starting to enjoy life again. Then came winter….
I have long suffered from seasonal depression, and due to my already shaky state of mind, this past winter and holiday season was my worst one yet. My meds did not seem to be working any more, and I felt myself slipping steadily backwards. My doctor had already upped my dosage of my meds once, so she upped them again and added a second as a supplement. I got some “winter blues” lights, and the combination seemed to be working. The thoughts of harming myself were mostly gone, as were my feelings of worthlessness. It was a struggle all winter long, but I seemed to have the upper hand. One particular day I was feeling especially miserable, and as luck would have it, I had a counseling session that afternoon. I did not really feel like it had helped a lot, but was still glad I had gone.
We had been getting a lot of nasty winter weather, but it was sunny and clear that particular day. As I was heading down the Thruway after my session, I was still feeling somewhat blah, when I hit a patch of snow that had blown off of a tractor-trailer ahead of me. My car began swerving and sliding all over, and started spinning in circles back and forth across the highway. How I managed to avoid getting hit, I will never know, but eventually I clipped the edge of a snow bank with my back bumper, and the car gradually came to a halt, facing the wrong way on the right shoulder of the road. I sat there in stunned silence, shaking. Seconds later, several tractor-trailers flew past, any one of which could have ended things once and for all had my car not stopped when or where it had. I slowly resumed my drive home, feeling like someone up there had saved my life that day, and that I was being given a second chance at things (or a third or fourth or fifth, if we are actually counting at this point). The uplifted mood only lasted a couple of hours though, by evening I was very much back to my miserable self….
Soon Spring was here, and with it came better weather and an increasingly better mood. As the seasons progressed, my mood was for the most part a much less miserable one. Yes, some days were worse than others, but overall I was doing pretty good, relatively speaking. The ups and downs of life continue, and I still feel lost and overwhelmed, afraid of rejection, and quite often a sense of complete hopelessness, but these do not last day in and day out like in the past. Work is frustrating at times, but then, so is life! I have gotten a little bolder, and made some progress with talking to girls that I don’t know. I have asked some out, and not gotten the answer that I want, but the important thing is I am trying a lot more than I have in years. I don’t know that I will ever get the answer that I want, but I need to at least keep trying…
Fourteen years after graduating from college, I am beginning to embark on the next chapter of my life, one that will hopefully help me to achieve my life goals. I have been accepted into the Accelerated Online Program at Marylhurst University, to earn an MBA in Sustainable Business, with a focus on Green Development. My life goals have not changed over the years, they have only changed focus from time to time depending on my circumstances. Ultimately, I want to have a place of my own, a family to share that place with (at least a family that consists of more than just my current menagerie of pets and plants), and above all, I want to feel like I have made a difference. With a swelling human population and continued strain on our already overtaxed natural resources, making a difference is becoming more and more important than ever. I would also like to become financially stable enough to pursue some of my other interests, such as photography, travel, and volunteering in environmental programs. In order to achieve these goals, I will need to be able to better advance my career, and simply having a Bachelor’s Degree and some related experience is no longer enough to distinguish yourself from the growing competition for jobs. This degree should open many doors for me, and lead me towards a better future. I guess only time will tell! One of my ultimate goals is to help leave the planet in slightly better shape than when I first took up residence some 36 years ago.
The last twenty years has certainly been quite a ride, and I by no means think that the ride is over yet. I have laughed and cried, loved and lost, fallen apart and put myself back together on more than one occasion, sunk to the lowest lows and risen to the highest highs. I have traveled in darkness, built walls to keep people out, and then knocked the walls down to let the light and people return to my life. It has not been easy, and has required the help of family, friends, medications, and counseling, but it is worth it if it helps me to be a better me. Being me has always been a difficult task for me, because I have never quite been sure who I really am. I have always been shy, self-conscious, and lacked confidence, which has made meeting people, making friends, socializing, and finding a girlfriend very difficult. One of my best attributes has always been my sarcastic sense of humor and my ability to make people laugh with my observational comedy, but that alone has never been enough.
I have sat in silent agony at family events watching my siblings with their spouses and children, and while out with friends, watching them with their significant others. I have gone to clubs countless times only to stand in the corner un-noticed, and too paralyzed by the fear of rejection to approach anyone. I have tripped and fallen many times along the road of life, only to find a way to pick myself back up again, or to be picked up by a helping hand when I refused to pick myself up. I have become bitter, jaded, and miserable, and then turned around and become happy again. Part of me thinks that the miserable, lonely Jeremy is the real Jeremy, a Jeremy who will live as a recluse, packed away in a pitiful existence surrounded by endless clutter instead of friends, a significant other, or a family. Yet another part of me refuses to accept this fate, and will continue, even if in vain, to find a way to make myself more social and outgoing, more confident and less socially-awkward, and try to find someone to share my life with. One thing is for sure, I am a work in progress, and this journey is not yet over for me. Stay tuned for further developments…
