I think it’s important that we take time to reflect on who we are right now, how we got here and where we desire to go next.
To jump into the title of this blog post, my name is Robert. Online, I go by Dread Rawb, OstegoUndead, EvilDeath696 or F3AR_M0NG3R, depending on where you find me. I know, a lot of aliases. Interestingly enough, the Rawb variant of Rob, I created independently based off of the singer of PsychoStick, who stylized his name as Rawrb. Others out there have probably also created the Rawb variant, but that’s where mine came from. If you didn’t notice the theme in my names, they all have an aspect of Horror tied to them. Dread, Fear, Evil, Death, Undead. I like Horror games, music and films, so I wanted to incorporate some of this into my online personas. And yes, OstegoUndead is literally the title of a Static X song without the space.
To reflect on where I’ve come from, my family isn’t too stellar. We aren’t rich enough to do anything great, like road trips or anything of the sort. Our monthly family outing was going to the mall and eating at a restaurant called Chevy’s. Although to some, this isn’t anything special, my family was just barely able to afford to do that once a month. It doesn’t have to be special to you, it was special to us, and that was what was Important. Furthermore, we weren’t poor enough to have to worry about food, water or shelter. My parents tried their best to do the best they could. Like bratty teens, it was overlooked.
Before I started Secondary School, or High School if you prefer, I lived with my grandparents 50+ miles west of Phoenix, Az. I grew up out in the middle of nowhere, literally. I was always that kid who got along with everyone, but never had any friends. That hasn’t changed over time. I never had an actual birthday party with friends, because of my birthdays proximity to Christmas, and the fact I didn’t have any actual friends. So, from a young age, I learned to not care about my birthday. This last year, on my birthday, I worked 12+ hours at my job, and not a single person there even knew it was my birthday, if they did, they would give me an empty “Happy Birthday” wish and continued to work.
After I started Secondary School, I had moved into the city and lived with my Mom and Stepdad. I have 2 sisters, who lived with me in the middle of the desert, and a half-brother, who lived with his parents. Me and my sisters moved in with our parents and then my whole clan moved to a “trailer”. It was a manufactured double wide house, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, with a kitchen and living room. It was situated on a half-acre lot. It was also a hand-me-down, my aunt bought it and was moving to a larger house, so we got it. Jump back to the monthly mall visits and bottom middle class family wealth. And we’ve gone full circle to the abridged version of my life up through Secondary School.
Since we never had a lot of money growing up, we never learned how to save it, a burden I still have. When I started working in 2006, I was making $5.50/hour, minimum wage was $5.15/hour, so I was doing relatively alright starting out. With this meager income, I started buying my own stuff, like lunch at school and clothes. But I wasn’t interested in getting a phone or car, so I had extra money. I would use that money on everyone around me, freely. I bought gifts for people in my family, solely based off of if they liked it, or I thought they would. Since I didn’t need the job, I didn’t bother saving the money. I got one raise at the job, and that was when minimum wage jumped up to 6.75/hour. You would think a $1.25 raise would seem great, but I should have been making $7.5 at that point with the companies “policy” of giving raises per station learned, and I knew how to do everything there, including management stuff. But it wasn’t important, but annoying.
After Secondary School, I started college at Arizona State University for Aerospace Engineering. Pretty nice for a slacker. In primary and secondary school, I got by with decent to good grades without effort, developed the bad habit of not doing homework because of it. That hurt me at ASU, since everything was basically based on Homework, like 40% of the grades or something. I struggled, became depressed and removed from everything. I took a semester off, partied a lot, and went back and had a good semester. The following one sealed my fate at ASU. Two of my roommates weren’t in school and my third roommate dropped out early into that semester, so I lived with 3 people who didn’t give a fuck less about school and they started partying a lot. I was sealed into a leash so I couldn’t leave, and rather ignorantly decided to try to balance doing both, and failed. I withdrew from my courses and in doing so, my financial aid got cut off because I had done that twice in 4 semesters. I was on probation and withdrawing as I did was a violation of that academic probation. So, unable to continue school I took three and a half to basically four years off of school and spent a good year to year in a half drinking and partying heavily, to almost alcoholic levels. I was spending about $600/ month on alcohol. It was fun and I didn’t get in any legal troubles, but people near me did.
I ended up getting bored of partying all the time and stopped drinking, for the most part. In 2014, I started school again, and have taken far longer than I should have to finish it. Upon penning this, I have one class to finish, and my financial aid has been cut off for taking too long. I can afford to pay for this one class though. Thus, bringing us full circle to present me.
The current version of myself, is not who I hoped to be. I’m 27, a bit overweight, I work at a restaurant, still have no friends, and single and spend most of my time alone. Pathetic, I know, sob story and blah blah blah. Reflection summary, I hate myself, and can’t get a girlfriend because of my negative opinion of myself blocks me from noticing anyone who might be interested. Summary complete.
Abrupt, I know. Over the years, I’ve grown more into a wallflower who listens to everybody else’s stories, but never really telling my own. I’ve also noticed, that no one I interact with notices or cares. I’m just some fat dude they’re forced to interact with. Ask them, and they’ll tell you differently. People tend to have a significantly more positive experience with dealing with me than I have dealing with myself. Even when I get fit, I’ll still have this negative mindset. Kind of like that absolutely gorgeous woman, or man, who doesn’t think they’re good looking. That’ll be me, except I still won’t be great looking. This negativity probably has something to do with me being alone. I can’t fix that, unfortunately.
Continuing on where I want to go from here. I hope this year, to get fit, get my foot and truck fixed, and do some traveling. I might not get a girlfriend this year, mostly from lack of trying, but you never know. It’s not high priority. I’ll finish this one class I have left and hopefully land a decent job from it. But from here, I can only keep moving forwards. I might carry the weight of my world on my shoulders, along with a lot of emotional baggage that I keep hidden, but I will move forward.
To quote Pop from Luke Cage. Forward, Always.
Thanks for reading this if you did, I don’t do this often, but I might try to post weekly. I signed up for a year, I might as well try to make it somewhat worthwhile. I’m not as young as I used to be, so the naked chicks, although wonderful to look at, aren’t that interesting when I can go down the road and see it IRL at a strip club, although not nearly as nice looking.