I Feel Like a Robot

I loved The Iron Giant as a kid. The animation style and color palette bring a warm feeling inside. I can remember popping the VHS into my old CRT TV. It's hard to remember exactly what that felt like, but I do remember getting lost in that world.

As an adult, I frequently think about that quote:

You are who you choose to be.

It's a simple idea that I think is true for everyone.

This line was a core concept in The Iron Giant. The movie is about a mysterious robot that a child finds in the woods and befriends. It starts with an innocent friendship between them and ends with an emergency military force. The robot was designed as an advanced military weapon, and when it went rogue, the government deemed it a large enough threat that they sent a bomb to the town (after all else had failed).

In the end, the robot chose to fly up and collide with the bomb while it was high enough to spare the town and everyone in it, despite them thinking he was the enemy. It certainly left an impression on me.

Choices

I'll be turning 30 this year. I will also celebrate nine years of marriage with my wife. I have a three-year-old son and a 10-month-old daughter. We live on a private acreage next to my in-laws, surrounded by natural wooded land. My marriage is better than ever, I get along with my in-laws well, and my kids are very sweet and easygoing.

I have also not seen almost everyone from my side of the family for a little over a year and a half.

For the most part, when people hear about the issues between me and my family, they don't ask many questions. Some are genuinely curious, and others are concerned. Even though I've not been pressed to do so, I feel the need to explain myself to everyone. In my heart and mind, I'm guilty until proven innocent.

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about death. Not in a bad way or anything. It feels like yesterday that I got married, and today I have a three-year-old son, a 10-month-old daughter, a completely different career, and most importantly, drastically changed family relationships. The difference between now and eight years ago is more than I would have guessed, and it went by in a moment.

The past decade feels like each year has gotten exponentially faster than the last. What will the next 30 years feel like? By this measure, the next 70 years will feel like the past five (this is unverified math). Which has me thinking about the inevitable end that we all face, and how I ought to live in the meantime. It feels like I am going to die soon, even though I still hope to live to a very healthy and ripe old age.

I also have been thinking about how much of a complete clusterfuck a large part of the first 23 years (give or take) of my life was. There are many things I wish had gone differently. Raising my three-year-old son has brought a new perspective that makes what happened with me and my brothers untenable.

The world is not fair. Every day, some children are born into worse conditions than I was. For a long time, I didn't let myself even think about what might be wrong with my family because of this fact. But after years of suppressing any hint of criticism, it took having a child of my own to realize the reality of my upbringing and what kind of parent it takes to enact such an upbringing.

At the end of the day, we are just the sum of our choices. Every choice provides an opportunity to course-correct. Easy in theory. When you add generational precedent, deeply rooted traumas, tradition, and the fact that we're animals pretending we're not, it's not so simple. Yet, the truth remains unchanged, as it always does: We are the sum of our choices.

Play Your Cards

When I was 20, my circumstances were different than a lot of others at that age. I was still living with my parents. Not uncommon, but most people I know moved away as soon as they could at 18. The main differences here were not only that I was still living at home, but also that I was still working full-time for my family. My father was also my boss, and I saw him all day, every day.

Additionally, my two brothers and I were homeschooled. Our materials were an assortment of PACEs, Apologia Science books, and Saxon Math. If you're not familiar with these, they are self-taught Christian homeschooling materials.

I was doing "so advanced" that I was "graduated" early at 17 so I could immediately start working for the family company. During the busy season, which was typically March through September, this meant 10–12 hours a day with a lot of six-day weeks, with the occasional seven-day week. When I was 13–16, I was working my "summers" (i.e., March through September) at $5 an hour, so the idea of working so many hours at $7.25 was exciting at the time.

At 20, I was working more than anyone else I knew. I'd managed to buy two secondhand cars in cash and save another $20k on top of that. What no one else knew was that all my cash was kept in my father's safe in his closet, as per his rules. I had a bank account, but the only money in it was what he allowed me to keep from my checks as spending money. My father had also found, negotiated, and committed to buying both of these cars with my money before even telling me about it. In the same fashion, he found a half-acre lot for sale for $19.5k, which he bought for me so that I could build a house on it. It just happened to be across the street from my grandparents and just down the road from the family company.

I was heavily discouraged from doing anything outside the predestined path my parents gave me; this included considering anything outside of working for the family forever. By extension of that, this included the idea of a college education, in which I would be throwing away my homeschooling and corrupting my mind.

I followed suit and did as I was told. I "courted" my wife when I was 18 and she was 15. We dutifully abstained until marriage. I built a home on that piece of land, moved into it just a week before I turned 21, and got married exactly a month later.

I had pinned just about all of my hope for the future on the day I would finally be married and in my own home. I thought that this would be like a rebirth into a new life. That did not happen. A few months into my new marriage, I felt the weight of my family, particularly my father, bearing down supremely. I was beginning to realize that no, my problems would not go away on their own. That meant facing a lot of things I wasn't ready to face.

At 21, I was beginning to feel the serious weight of what was ahead of me. By 23, I was completely lost and contemplating suicide. Every single person in my family was actively working to keep me in the family company, subdue my wife to fit the family mold, and quell what they deemed my "rebellious spirit." My life had always been something they owned, and I blindly hoped this would change with time.

I was stuck. I had ruled out trusting anyone in my family. My marriage was on the brink. I was $26k in credit card debt due to the home I built going way over budget (thanks to my family). I had a flimsy education (at best) with no realistic path to college I could see. Upon checking the prior year's W-2, I had worked an average of 63 hours a week, every week, and I was treading water in every part of my life.

Death looked easier to me than trying to reclaim my life, but I didn't want to die. I was exhausted and angry and felt that I had no options. I remember, in a moment of desperation, praying to God that I wanted to emancipate myself from my family in all respects. That I would only look to Him and ask Him to point me in the right direction.

I wasn't sure why I prayed that, but it was the first time I'd done anything in a very long time that just felt right. In my memory, it was the beginning of a long road ahead of me that would ultimately lead me out of the darkness.

I realized that despite the hand I was dealt, I had a few valuable cards to play. For one, I was smart. I'm no rocket scientist or anything, but I can grasp concepts others seem to struggle with, and I'm a fast learner. I was also determined when I wanted to be. I've always been naturally timid, but that doesn't mean I won't do something—it just means I might figure out alternative methods of doing the said thing that might avoid shit blowing out of proportion.

With God's direction and continually reorienting myself to it, today I have a peace that I could only hope for in the past. On the outside, it looks like it cost me my entire family, and that's not wrong. However, what most don't understand is that I would say I never really had much between me and my family to begin with, and certainly not in the last 5–6 years before it all collapsed.