Muhammad and Me

On June 3^rd, 2016, Muhammad Ali succumbed to his decades-long battle with Parkinson’s syndrome at the age of seventy-four. The news of his death was more sudden than shocking. People in their seventies who are afflicted with either variant of Parkinsonism are often seen to be on the decline. It was hard to view Ali in that light – as a normal human being. When he was hospitalized with respiratory complications on June 2^nd, the news caught many off-guard. But, this was Ali, and it wasn’t the first time he’d required such care in his later years. In less than twenty-four hours, he was gone. His condition steeply declined, and he passed away quietly, surrounded by family.

I cried when I found out about his passing. The flood of emotions that hit in that instant was unexpected, but in retrospect, made perfect sense. You couldn’t miss it; literally, every outlet was running a story on it.   More than a man, he was an idea. Or an ideal, whichever you prefer. Ali was a paragon of self-possession. If someone needed a blueprint for establishing one’s own identity, or for being unapologetically true to one’s own principles in the face of great resistance, they need only study the life that Muhammad Ali led. That’s what I did. I discovered boxing at the time in my life when I felt most isolated – during my senior year of high school and freshman year of college. Naturally, I discovered Ali’s life and trials at the same time.

I first laced up a pair of gloves on Saturday, January 28^th, 2012, at 1:00 PM. A crystallizing moment – I knew I was right where I was supposed to be. I’d never felt that before, and the self-assuredness that came with it was addictive. Muhammad Ali had turned seventy just eleven days prior, so many networks were still running his biopic – the one starring Will Smith – on repeat. That night, while I was still sore from working an entirely new set of muscles, I caught one of the screenings. It told the story of Ali, beginning when he won the heavyweight crown as the heavy underdog from the fearsome Sonny Liston in 1964, traversing the turbulent late 1960’s through the lens of Ali’s refusal to step forward in the draft, and ending with his epic knockout victory of George Foreman to regain his crown in 1974. Imagining the ending fight scene, overlaid with strains of “Tomorrow” by Salif Keita, still sends chills up and down my spine.

 

October 30th, 1974. Muhammad Ali shocks the world by knocking out George Foreman.

 

I immediately started watching his old fights, as I slowly progressed in the sport myself. Quite a few fighters have had movies made about them, whether they were major productions or not. However, Muhammad Ali is the only one out of that group who made the on-screen representation of his life look colorless and boring in comparison to the real thing. Will Smith did as good of a job as anyone could in portraying the man, but there’s only one Ali. Watching his fights against Frazier, Foreman, Liston, Norton, Patterson, Lyle, Cooper, Chuvalo, and many others, was breathtaking. He possessed speed like no other heavyweight, before or since. When he eventually slowed down to the point where he was getting hit, Ali also showed that he had a near-superhuman ability to take punishment. Yet, with all that skill, he was so much more than a mere athlete. George Foreman said it best, when speaking about his fight with the self-proclaimed Greatest of all Time, “Boxing was just something he did.”

That first year in boxing, I read everything about Muhammad Ali that I could find. It didn’t matter what it was – old Ring Magazine pieces, articles by George Plimpton, or the novels by Norman Mailer and Mark Kram – I devoured the pages by the hundreds. When I looked at Ali, I saw someone I could aspire to be like. Of course, very few fighters in the history of combat sports have ever come close to his level of success or ability, but the more I read, the more I realized for myself that there was so much more to him.

When I look back on who I was then, I realize that I needed that influence. The summer of 2012 was a crossroads in many ways for me. I was headed off to college in the fall and had absolutely no idea of what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I had no concept of the fact that everyone else at that age feels similarly.

My first girlfriend, who I’d traded virginities with on prom night (yes, I know how cliched that is,) dumped me halfway through the summer. In retrospect, I think we were heading towards an ending anyway. However, the straw that broke the camel’s back was my non-attendance at a party that we were supposed to go to together. Late one afternoon in early July, I was scheduled to spar. I was a total novice and all of 163 pounds…and the only other fighter who showed up that day was a heavyweight. My trainer threw me in with no instruction on how to deal with a larger fighter and, as a result, I took the worst beating I’d taken to date. He all but threw me around the ring and ended it with four straight hooks to the head. Left-right-left-right. Two to each temple, and I finally took a knee. Truth be told, I think I could’ve taken more, but I knew I had to drive myself home afterward. It wasn’t a short trip, and I was seeing spots. I fought back the tears in front of my then-trainer, gritting my teeth all the while. When I got to my car, finally got a look at myself in the mirror. My head was pounding, and I couldn’t keep my vision in focus long enough to get a decent look at my face. Didn’t matter. I could feel the bruises and scrapes. I broke down on the drive home, and knew I couldn’t go to the party that night. I barely wanted to be around myself in that moment, much less a bunch of people I didn’t know. Physically, I could suck it up, but psychologically, I was a total mess.

I called my then-girlfriend on the way and told her that I wouldn’t make it. I tried to explain myself, but admittedly, didn’t do the best job of articulating where I was coming from. The next day, I was planning on calling her to promise to make things up to her when I got the “we need to talk” text. I really did love her, and I tried to tell her. I knew from early in the relationship, but could never say so, not even when I was faced with the end. I’d seen too much of the bad side of love in my parents’ marriage, and the words stuck in my throat when I tried to say them. To say that I choked on them is not hyperbole.

As minor of a relationship as it was in the scope of my life, that hurt worse than anything I’d previously experienced, and that pain lasted entirely through my first semester of college.

Soon after, I began to live with my father for a time. More out of necessity than anything. My mom was experiencing some financial difficulties, and we both knew that the only way I’d make it to my first year of college was with his help. He owed nearly $12,000 in back child support payments, and even with a job that paid six figures, getting him to pay what he owed weekly was like pulling teeth. Even when our relationship was at its best, as it was for those six weeks, we had almost weekly screaming matches. If it wasn’t that, then it would take a subtler form. Maybe a snide comment about being bruised after another sparring session, or about how I needed to make more friends. I hid from it by training obsessively. I was unemployed but still woke up before 6:00 AM to run, then spent two-plus hours a day at the gym.

That ordeal made me realize how lacking I was in self-confidence. The happiness I thought I was feeling was coming entirely from being in a relationship. I had no ability to self-validate or be content with myself. I didn’t know who I was, aside from the fact that boxing felt right for me. So, I looked at Ali’s life more closely. The brash confidence, living by one’s own principles, and discipline in all things. He was the only positive male role model I had at the time, and I had never even come remotely close to meeting the man. I feigned the confidence, occasionally going so far as to mimic his speech patterns. Laughable, I know. But, this was the pattern I followed for roughly two years until I was legitimately confident in myself. That finally happened the day I changed my name.

I had wanted to change my surname from Ostroski to Donnelly for years. From my father’s name, to my mother’s maiden name. I even had entire notebook pages filled with my revised signature. One day, after a year and a half of not having any contact with my father, I filed the paperwork with the town probate court. I didn’t care how my father felt. Muhammad Ali didn’t care how anyone felt when he changed his name from Cassius Clay, to Cassius X, to its final form. He just did it. It was his life, and he took it in his own hands.

 

Confidence: I faked it ’til I made it.

 

On August 3^rd, 2014, I became, legally, Sean Patrick Donnelly. Even though he loved me in his own way, I won’t pass on my father’s legacy, or name, to my children. This is my life, and I choose to live it as authentically as I possibly can. I haven’t looked back since that day. Not even when my father took his own life three days later. As painful as that was, I knew that allowing the weight of it to slow me down wouldn’t do anyone any good. Even if his meandering suicide letter implied that my non-contact and name change were to blame.

Muhammad Ali was far from perfect. The cruelty he showed to Floyd Patterson and Ernie Terrell in the ring after they refused to call him by his chosen name used to confuse and startle me a bit. However, changing my own name gave me a little perspective on that. For better or worse, I’ve had similar incidents; from an acquaintance who said, “I’ll just keep calling you ‘Ostroski.’ It’s easier to remember,” to a sparring partner who spoke poorly about my father’s suicide behind my back, I’ve had to protect the name I now carry. I calmly informed the former that his using my old name again would merit a physical response. The latter of the two paid for his words with a terrible beating in our next sparring session. There were witnesses present at both occasions so, thankfully, I haven’t been required to so since. It’s a principle that I very much live by. I have one name, and I’ll do anything required to protect it.

The day after Ali passed, there was a boxing card on HBO. All present observed a moment of silence, and a ceremonial ten-count to commemorate the life of boxing’s greatest ambassador. During his pugilistic career, Ali was involved in a record-setting six Fights of the Year (as awarded by Ring Magazine.) It was only fitting that the main event of the boxing card immediately following his death should live up to that standard. Orlando Salido vs Francisco Vargas may have ended in a draw, but I can guarantee that precious few of the spectators present that night in Carson, California, remember that. Much like Ali had done throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s, the fight left viewers feeling privileged to have bared witness.

He was a transcendent figure. I’m white, and was born thirteen years after his last professional bout, so the fact that I’ve been so inspired and molded by his life’s journey is simply remarkable. His influence has spanned across six continents and as many decades, to all demographics. At the end of the June 4^th, 2016 HBO fight broadcast, analyst Max Kellerman summed Ali up perfectly. “I’ve spent way too much of my life preoccupied with Muhammad Ali: watching him, listening to him, reading about him. I’ve seen him in crowds, and everyone looks at him like, ‘Muhammad, it’s me’.”

So many of us felt a personal connection to him. Out of all the other principles and lessons I took away from looking at his life, there is one story that stands out to me.

Ali was walking through Miami, where he trained and lived, with a friend. When they encountered a homeless man, Ali gave him some ridiculously large donation. The friend said something to the effect of, “You know he’s just gonna blow that on booze, right?”

Ali responded (I’m paraphrasing,) “That doesn’t concern me. If he wastes what I gave him, he’s the one who has to answer to himself and to god for it. At least I know that I tried to help him.”

That, more than any other account of his life, is the one that I’ve most tried to live by.

Happy birthday, champ. And thank you.

~Sean Donnelly

 

There was only one Muhammad Ali.

 

Dear Boxing,

You’ve given me far more than I ever could have imagined. When I first stepped into a gym on that winter day in early 2012, I had no idea what I was really getting into. I had always wanted to try, but never got around to it. My family never had the spare money. Having the power, heat, or water shut off were regular occurrences, and I can remember many times when there wasn’t enough food around for the next meal. You weren’t a priority, and for a long time, I totally forgot about my desire to step into the ring.

All of that lit a fire in me, though. I was already withdrawn, and a bit of an oddball, which invited criticism from many of my peers. It did little to help my already-quick temper. I struggled in my interactions with others, aside from a couple of friends that I was lucky to have. For the most part, I emulated what I saw at home, which was to respond to most situations with anger. I really didn’t know any better. I wanted so desperately to learn to fight. I was aggressive and hyper-competitive in everything I did, so it seemed fitting.

My parents always had me enrolled in baseball – just the town rec league. I grew to love it, but never felt like I was totally fulfilled by it. I became good enough in my teens to make it onto a few all-star teams, but my head was almost always elsewhere. One of the enduring pleasant memories of my early childhood was listening to my dad talk about the golden age of heavyweight boxers in the 1960’s and 1970’s. As difficult as it was for us to get along, we could always talk about boxing. The way he described the epic rivalries between Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Sonny Liston, and Kenny Norton was so captivating. Those men seemed like gods to me, and all I wanted was to follow in what they had accomplished. Or, at the very least, take part in the sport.

But, you were put on the back burner again when my parents split up. I forgot about my desire to fight for a time, even though the fire inside me remained. From ages thirteen to sixteen, I lapsed into depression, which I’ve been dealing with ever since. My mom and dad appeared so intent on hurting each other throughout their lengthy divorce settlement and child support disputes, that I began to feel even more alienated than I already was.

I smoked and drank too much in high school. Mostly to minimize the emotional strain on myself. I had no way to channel all the dark shit that was floating around in my head on even my best days. During that time, the couple fights I got into were – scary. If nothing else, I learned that I genuinely enjoyed dealing out physical punishment. That used to frighten me.

My life changed one day in the middle of my senior year of high school. It happened in British Lit. We were finishing up a unit on the ‘Carpe Diem Poets,’ which included an in-class viewing of Dead Poets’ Society. At the end of the film, Mr. St. George gave us all an assignment; “Go out and seize the day by doing something that you’ve always wanted to do, but never had the time or courage to.”

Everyone in class started talking to each other about what he (it was an all boys’ high school) would do to complete the assignment. I heard everything from getting an ear pieced, to taking a day-trip to New York. For some reason, you resurfaced in my head. The more I thought about you, the more I became totally hooked on the idea that I would find a trainer and at least try boxing. I just didn’t want there to be any regret when I look back on my life in twenty or thirty years. I had to do this for my own peace of mind.

So, I found a local gym, and booked a one-hour session with a trainer there. It was just going to be a standard mitt workout with some teaching of basic fundamentals, but it was more than I had done in a formal setting before. As soon as I had my wraps and gloves on, I knew it felt right. The trainer put on his body shield and focus mitts, and put me through my paces. I was sweating buckets within a few minutes, but it was already the most rewarding thing I had done. After showing me where to place my feet when punching, the trainer called out the first combination: one-two, left hook to the body, with a cross upstairs to finish. Immediately, he backed up and said, “Jesus, you hit hard.” All I could do was smile and shrug.

That, and my first sparring session a week later, had me totally hooked. Mike Tyson said it best; “It was love at first fight.”

I have no idea where I’d be without you. I wouldn’t have Meiya, Coach Rocky, or so many of my friends; Hector, Alfred, Allen, Sacha, Cara, Sam, Chris, Calvin, Anthony, Mike, and too many more to name. I wouldn’t have progressed enough in school to know that my other true calling is to be a writer. I don’t know how I would have gotten past my father’s suicide without you. Ultimately, I’m the one that had to persevere through some very public and devastating losses, but still. Saying that you’ve given me everything is not an overstatement.

Relief. If you’ve never fought, it’s tough to capture the feeling of getting through a hard, ten-round sparring session.

I love everything about you – the early mornings, running in sub-zero temperatures, hitting the heavy bag until I can’t lift my arms, and the headaches after a hard sparring session. Even the losses…I’ve learned far more from my losses in the ring than I have from my successes anywhere else.

You made it possible for me to believe in myself, even when I’ve had to go home and cry in frustration after taking a tough loss or a beating in sparring.

You’ve allowed me to dream. For most of my childhood, I was only focused on survival. I couldn’t consider anything that wasn’t directly in front of me.

You’ve broken my heart before, and I know you will again, but I’ll always come back to you. I know I have what it takes to be a champion. However, even without the physical and mental gifts that I’m so lucky to have, I don’t think I could possibly give you up.

I am a fighter.

I always have been, and I always will be.

~Sean Donnelly

Growing pains. It’s tough to learn in this sport if you haven’t been beaten up at least a few times.

Making My Own Way

I’ve had a couple of soul-crushing jobs. Perhaps the most jarring of these was the position I held in the bursar’s office at my university. As a student employee, I thankfully only had to work eight hours per week. At the start of most two or three-hour shifts, I was given a list, which showed names of students who owed money to the university, with a corresponding phone number. The lists were organized by dollar amounts, and displayed values ranging from a few hundred dollars, through to the ten to fifteen-thousand-dollar neighborhood. For two or three hours at a time, I would sit at a desk next to my supervisor and call these former students to discuss what they owed, and how they wished to proceed in paying off their debts. As a rule, I was not the first person to contact them. I was often the third or fourth university caller to reach out. Furthermore, my calls were almost always the final step before the bursar would transfer the debt in question to a collection agency.

When I took the job, I thought, somewhat naively, that I could make a bit of a difference. I know the toll that financial difficulties can exact on someone. I know what it feels like to lose sleep when worrying about where the rent or the next meal, or money for utilities will come from. I was only using the job to pay for groceries and my electric bill, but I thought that, in some small way, hearing an understanding voice on the other end of the line would help the people I was tasked with calling. Sometimes, it did. But, often, I didn’t get that far. The person on the other end of the line would see the area code and generic university number, and would answer already in a defensive mindset. Sometimes, they would lose their temper, but I tried not to take it personally. I knew from experience, that they weren’t actually angry. They were scared. Not a fun position to be in at all.

I maintained a somewhat idealistic outlook for about six weeks at that job. After that, I began to dread going to work. I became more than a little cynical about my coworkers as well, which was somewhat unfair of me. I have to admit that much. There were a couple of student employees, who I could tell derived some enjoyment out of calling these people, but most of them were basically good people. So, I started calling out more and more. Oftentimes, I just couldn’t take going in. It simply hit too close to home for me, and most days that I worked, I would end up going back to my apartment and breaking down in my room over the profound unfairness of it all. I know more than a lot of people that life isn’t fair, but the uncomfortable fact that my job was to, in a way, pile on to the financial burdens of others, was a little too much. I heard many stories from those people unfortunate enough to receive a call from me. Almost all of them were making an effort to pay their debts, and almost all of them came from single-parent, single-income households. When a college education costs in excess of $40,000 per year, one income will usually not be enough to pay for it. Once again, this all hit far too close to home for me. Even when my father was alive, he was never a source of financial support. He died owing $10,000 in back child support to my mother, and what little he had at the time of his suicide was sold off to pay his debts.

So, eventually, I was let go. Rightfully so; I wasn’t doing my job often enough, and even when I was there, I could barely stomach the work. I should have left that job earlier, and it was unprofessional of me to carry on when they could have been looking for a suitable replacement, but hey, you can’t change the past. Regret is a wasted emotion. It’s always been my nature to be unyielding in the face of a challenge. I’ve always tried to “just grind it out” when faced with adversity, and it has served me many times. If this job taught me nothing else, however, it showed me that there are certain times when you should cut your losses. Certain situations simply aren’t salvageable.

Every office job I’ve had has been similarly discouraging. I know that my intelligence isn’t to blame for this – even if my overall temperament is. I’ve found that my past jobs in landscaping, moving furniture, janitorial work, have always given me a far greater deal of satisfaction. Not from the money, mind you. If my rent and bills are paid, along with a bit extra, I’m typically content. I think the satisfaction comes from the tangibility of the results of my work. After a day re-structuring a yard, or cleaning, you can actually see the difference you’ve made. In that regard, it’s far different from filling out spreadsheets behind a desk.

Apart from writing, my destiny most definitely lies somewhere else. I want to be in a position to, eventually, help people and make a difference. Both the town I live in (Amherst) and the surrounding area have an extremely high homeless population. Seeing them outside of stores, or at entrance ramps to highways, always makes me think, “What if?”

Contrary to popular belief, most people on the streets aren’t there by choice, or because they are inherently inferior. Sure, there are those who are in that situation because they have exhibited poor decision-making abilities, and, despite numerous second chances, have ended up in the gutter. They tend to be the exception, and not the rule. Often, their plight is the result of an uncommon string of bad luck, or extreme mental illness. Considering the latter of those always hits home for me. My grandmother, uncle, and father, were all extremely depressed individuals, along with who knows which other disorders that went undiagnosed. I have had uncounted bouts of depression, and am still working through my issues. So, the question remains; “What if?” What if I didn’t have the amazing support system and safety net that I have? What if I had two dysfunctional parents instead of one? My depression isn’t an easy cross to bear, and I’ll be honest, I don’t know where I’d be without the positive influences provided by my mother and my coach. I always wonder if I would even still be here. There’s no shame in admitting that you need a leg up every once in a while. Apart from the rare exception, most of us do at some point.

Every time I see someone panhandling, I can’t help but feel some degree of kinship towards them. I’ve only ever admitted this to my mother and my girlfriend of nearly three years, but whenever I have a spare few dollars on me, I give it away. I don’t know that I could tell anyone besides them face-to-face, but doing so here feels easier. Besides, I’m disclosing this with a purpose in mind. It hurts me not to, and it hurts even more to have it and not give. Life is hard enough in the best of times, so making a small dent in the collective unhappiness of the world is comforting when I can do it. Being short a few dollars won’t prevent me from paying my bills. If it does, then I have bigger, more immediate problems that I should be addressing instead of writing this. But giving it to the right individual can help make someone’s day a little easier, and a pat on the shoulder or handshake to make someone feel connected in a way, costs me nothing.

So, again, I feel an urge to help in any way that I can. I can’t (and won’t) do that while sitting behind a desk. My future is definitely in writing and boxing. No matter where my fighting career takes me, I know I will eventually be a trainer. The sport, due almost entirely to my current coach, has done so much for me. So much of my identity is tied to boxing, because I had no concept of who I was before I began on the long road to becoming a fighter. More than anything, this sport is something that I need with every fiber of my being. It showed me that I was worth something, and that I could achieve whatever I put my mind to. If I can do that for even one kid who was in a similar or worse position than I was, then it will be entirely worthwhile.

The same goes for my writing. I plan to write extensively about addiction and mental illness. If nothing else, I want to normalize these things. Then, maybe those who are afflicted with these issues will feel less ostracized and more able to talk about them. My memoir deals with how I got through my own troubles early on. I was broken as an individual, multiple times, and somehow put the pieces back together each time. Truth be told, I look back often, and realize that it’s a miracle that I’ve made it this far. I owe so much of it to my strong mother, my amazing girlfriend, and a number of friends who are like family to me now. Without them, I’d be nothing. Many of them have told me that I’m one of the strongest people they know, and I always cringe away from that compliment. The only reason they see me that way is because I betray so few of my emotions to the majority of the people close to me, even in the worst of times. Truthfully, I felt all of it. The breakup and loss of my first love, the sudden deaths of my grandmother and father, the years of financial and marital stress between my parents that warped my world view, and god-knows-what-else. All of it. I’m trying to realistically depict how it all affected me, and how I dealt with it. Again, if that, or my eventual collected works help at least a few people, then it will be worth it.

I just hope I can make a positive difference.

~Sean Donnelly

All That We Are

This may be the last memoir chapter I share publicly for a little while. Like all of the ones I’ve posted here and the two I put on my other blog, Puncher’s Chance, this one is intensely personal. It deals with my own struggle with depression which, again, is a growing problem in society at large, and must be spoken of openly. Sweeping it under the rug and treating it like some disease that you’ll catch if you so much as acknowledge its existence only makes those who are dealing with it feel more alienated than they already are. Thank you for reading.

---

There’s nothing romantic about being the best fighter no one has ever heard of. Or about being a good writer whose material not enough people have read. I have hundreds of pages written that I’m scared to publish, and have yet to perform up to my potential in the ring. I don’t know what the hell I’m afraid of. The best explanation I’ve been able to come up with is that I’m subconsciously holding back. If I don’t give one hundred percent, then I’ll still have an excuse if I fail. Or, maybe, I’ve trained myself to shut down – at least partially – during moments when action is most required of me. On the few occasions that I’ve read, or been required to read Shakespeare’s Hamlet, I always felt some kinship with the play’s protagonist. After all, Hamlet’s inability to act was his tragic flaw.

My life must look amazing from the outside. I’m blessed with talent in areas that I enjoy and have been lucky enough to discover them at a young age. My sparring partners, from the lowest amateur to the several established professionals, have paid me every imaginable compliment. I have everything going for me, but I can never quite put it all together when it counts. I perform maybe at thirty or forty percent of my potential and, even with that, I put on a clinic against UConn’s team captain. He barely hit me clean all fight long, and I couldn’t miss with my counter punches. It was like I was seeing everything in slow motion, and I was still not at my best. But I’ve still lost a lot of fights to guys who, quite frankly, aren’t on my level. Whenever I stop fighting, I don’t want to always wonder, ‘What could have been?’ And when I die, I don’t want my closest of kin to find multiple novels’ worth of unpublished work on my computer because I was too scared to follow through on it. It would be such a waste; I need to stop selling myself short.

Hamlet’s hesitancy to act was infuriating to read about, and yet, I understand it on a very deep level. I wish I could say differently, because that would mean that I’m not dealing with the same problem.

So how must it be for those closest to me to watch? Meiya, my mom, my coach. They’re all so supportive of me, even when I don’t perform to my abilities. But I always imagine them feeling the same. Being as disappointed in me as I am myself. So I allow that fear to fester and grow. It’s not a hole inside, whose existence I can cover up anymore. It’s morphed into a crushing burden that I carry everywhere. It drives me to a knee, then to the floor in a heap. I thought I was too smart for this to happen, but it finally caught up to me.

—

“It’s noon. I really should get out of bed. Be productive. Do something.”

“What’s the point? Why does it matter what you do?”

“I…I don’t know. I’m fresh out of answers. Nothing I do makes a difference. I have class in an hour…”

“Fuck it.”

“But…okay.”

“That’s right.”

“I have work today.”

“Call in sick.”

The idea of lying in bed for yet another day is both repulsive and inviting. I don’t feel anything as I look at the accumulating clutter around my room. I’m normally a clean person, but this is getting to be pretty disgusting. What the fuck is wrong with me… I’m barely eating anymore. Can’t even maintain a consistent train of thought. “I should really clean up this mess.”

“No. Stay in bed.”

“Fuck. You.”

“You’ll just end up like your friend did. Sooner or later…”

“Shut up.”

“You’re not making any compelling arguments as to why I should.”

I roll over and look at one of the Muhammad Ali posters that adorn my walls. Ali is standing defiantly over Sonny Liston. What would he think of this pity party? What was that famous quote of his? ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’ I force a chuckle, realizing that I’ve got the suffering part down. I sit up in bed.

“You haven’t been quiet in almost three years.”

“Your father’s suicide really got my attention.”

“Because of you, I’m not whole. I haven’t been since that day. If I could physically reach into my chest and rip you out, I would. Bodily pain is easy. That’s why fighting is easy for me…I should go for a run. I’d have a good reason to shower then.”

“Why?”

“I’m not letting you take me. You took my dad already. You took my friend last month. You’re not driving me down like you did them.”

“So naïve…”

“Maybe. But I have a choice. I always have a choice.” I throw one of the many tissues by my bedside into the garbage.

“We’ll see about that.”

I’m starting to pick up the dirty clothing and scattered papers which have totally obscured the area rug by my bed.

“What’s the point of all this, now?”

Ignore it. All the sleepless nights and listless days because of this motherfucking leach. I lie awake, stressed out about everything and nothing at the same time, then shamble through my days. Even when I try to write, nothing comes out. I’m not letting this thing rob me of my creativity, my vitality, or my figurative and literal will to fight anymore.

“Excuse me. I’m fucking talking to you.”

“Because what we do is all that we are.”

Silence.

“Because ultimately, no one gives a shit that I’m struggling. That I’m fucked up. They only see that I’m not going to class, that I’m calling out of work too often. That I’m not training. So what happens then?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you lie back down? Take a load off…?”

“Then my professors flunk me, and I get fired. My coach pulls me from my next fight. He cares, and would want to help, but his hands would be tied. So I’d be out of work and might not graduate if I don’t do something.”

“Because of me.”

“Because of me. You’ve always been a part of me, but if I have my way, you won’t always be.”

“So that’s it. You’re ‘all better’ now?”

I laugh. It’s the first audible noise I’ve made in I don’t know how long. It seems to echo off the walls. Maybe because I haven’t said a word in days… “No.”

“I don’t follow.”

“No. I’m not all better. Far from it. I still feel lost. I still don’t see how it will get better. I still have no real will to do anything that I used to enjoy. But…I still do want to be happy. I can’t find that hiding under my covers like some sniveling little kid who thinks there are monsters under his bed.”

“We’ll see.”

“I guess we will, but you don’t own me. You owned my father. You owned my grandmother. You do not fucking own me.” My fists are balled. My eyes are boring a hole in the rug in front of me. “You won’t run me into the ground like you’ve done to past generations of my family. I won’t pass you on to my kids, like my father did to me. They won’t even know that you ever existed.”

—

So I shower. I get dressed. I go through the motions. It’s already four o’clock. I’ve missed all of my classes. Again. The day isn’t all lost though. I can take a baby step towards sanity. I can leave my apartment. I put my headphones in my ears and try to tune out some of the inescapable noise in my head. I press play, and Eminem’s “When I’m Gone” resumes, already in the middle. “I look up, it’s just me standin’ in the mirror. These fuckin’ walls must be talkin’, ’cause man I can hear ’em.”

Same, Em.

I stand at the door to my apartment, place my hand on the knob.

And turn.

End

~Sean Donnelly

Fairway

Fairway

November 21, 2016

It’s 1:00 AM, and I just can’t seem to get comfortable in bed. I have a fight later today, and will be weighing in in a little more than five hours, but that’s not what is keeping me awake. Well, not really. I’m a little nervous, and I have a terrible case of cotton mouth from water deprivation. Can’t put any more weight on… But I’m used to all of that. It’s par for the course before a fight.

Meiya is sleeping peacefully next to me. Lucky.

I look out the window and listen to the ambient noise that’s coming through from the traffic below. Normally, I’d be irritated to hear anything at this hour in the morning, but now I draw a little comfort from knowing that others are awake as well. I feel out of place here. I’m caught up imagining the crowd at my fight this coming evening. If the member portraits in the hallway outside our room, and in the athletic facilities below are any indication, they won’t be my kind of people. From dignitaries, to former Olympians, to ex-presidents. Even a young Donald Trump…I think his hair was real then. Who can be sure? All of that, and I still wanted to be here. The Arthur Mercante Collegiate Boxing Invitational at the New York Athletic Club. I earned the right to be here; I’m the best fighter on my team by far. If only I could just put it all together in the ring, where it counts. Even if the idea of a bunch of trust fund kids and scumbags from Wall Street critiquing my performance tomorrow is making my skin crawl.

My coach’s room is just down the hall. If I text him about this, we could probably talk. He hasn’t slept much since Vietnam, so I’m almost certain he’s awake as well. I have to smile, since lately, my insomnia is starting to rival his.

But I don’t have PTSD. Not me. Right? Nah. I don’t need to see anybody. What’s a therapist going to tell me about myself that I don’t already know?

I could talk to coach now. I know he’d be happy to listen, but at this hour, I think it would be more counterproductive. I need to sleep.

I wish it were easier for me to talk to people about this stuff. To ask for help when I need it. Funny how my surrogate father is far more willing to listen than my biological father was. I still feel as if I’m imposing on him when I do open up though.

Now, hunger pains accompany my growing thirst. Five more fucking hours. Why am I even doing this?

February 2008

I was at the old house, in my childhood room in Cheshire, Connecticut. As I sat on the edge of the bed, I found myself holding back tears. I didn’t want to be there. Any happiness I had felt – or thought I felt – in this house was long since gone. Every single fond recollection of the time when my parents were together was tainted with the tension I always felt around my father. I once overheard a family friend call him a “carrier.” Carrier of stress, unease, discomfort, what have you. I could feel it even then, a good thirty feet away, separated by multiple walls. He was in his home office, furiously toiling in search of a job, which would ultimately prove futile.

Under the conditions of my parents’ separation and impending divorce, I was obligated to spend every other weekend with my father, besides seeing him once a week for dinner. I fought my mom every step of the way on that. Those weekends were miserable, and this one was living up to my expectations.

Sitting on my bed, I couldn’t tell if the tears were from anger or profound sadness. Maybe just teenage angst. I was thirteen, after all. What a wonderful age.

It was a gloomy, cold Sunday. I guess I was just running out the clock. Waiting until I could go back to the apartment my mom and I shared for a few hours of relief. Even that would be fleeting; the next day, I’d start another painfully awkward week of middle school.

I wanted to lie down. Maybe stare up at the ceiling for a few hours. Nothing was all I felt like doing. I didn’t have any vitality for anything else. But, my stomach started to growl. I realized that it was well past noon, and I hadn’t eaten yet. I wanted to ask if we had any food in the house, but I’d already been screamed at twice that weekend. Once, for talking to my mother on the phone, and once for…search me. Being in the way, maybe?

While making as little noise as I could, I snuck downstairs to the kitchen and checked the pantry. Nothing. Some flour and sugar. A few old extract bottles whose contents had solidified around the caps, making them impossible to open. In the fridge, it was more of the same. Quarter-filled condiment bottles about to expire and some grated parmesan on the door, with nothing on the shelves. As I contemplated going to the basement to look for something canned on my dad’s storage shelves, I noticed how cold it was. He could barely afford food anymore, so the fact that the heat and power were even still working was a miracle.

I didn’t have much luck in the basement either. There were only a few cans on the shelves – mostly expired green beans and corn. And one lonely, expired can of chili. It had only gone bad a couple of months earlier, though.

I could call my mom and ask her to bring something. I knew she would, but at the expense of my peace of mind for the rest of the day, or longer. My dad would have a coronary if he caught me on the phone again or knew why I was calling her. So I could either go hungry, or risk catching something from whatever might be festering inside that can. My stomach growled again, and I let out an involuntary sigh. I hadn’t eaten in almost a day.

“Fuck me, right?”

November 21, 2016

And now, I’m hungry by choice. What kind of bullshit is this?

Whatever. He wasn’t all bad. Honestly, I felt a little sorry for him, since I could see through it all. Whoever said that my father was a “carrier” was right. Above all else, he was a carrier of insecurity. His constant attempts to compensate for everything that he wasn’t made those around him anxious. Always living above his means at the cost of financial stability. Always having to be the funny one: the life of the party. It was painfully obvious to me that that wasn’t him. I could recognize that he was more of an introvert, like me. Not that he would ever admit that.

I wonder what he’d think of me if he could see me now. Of how far I’ve come as a man since we last spoke. Of how far I’ve progressed in boxing. What would he think of Meiya? He wasn’t all bad. I’d want them to meet. I think.

The more I think about that, the more desperately I hope for some kind of afterlife. And the more I’m convinced that it’s just some fairytale we tell ourselves so we can sleep at night.

I still have his ashes. They’re in a container somewhere in my mom’s apartment. His last will and testament stated that he wanted them spread somewhere on Cape Cod. My parents and I used to vacation there when I was a kid. One to two weeks every summer for six years. He paid for it with money he didn’t have, which he and my mom fought about constantly. He just had to rent out a beachfront cottage, go to high-end restaurants, and splurge on everything.

I still don’t understand it. He always spoke so nostalgically about our vacations in Dennis Port that I’ve begun to think that he lived in his own reality. Did he just block out the fact that we would routinely have our power or water cut off? That we once went without a landline for almost a year? Or that his friend had to drive to our house while we were away and rip foreclosure notices off the front door? It really is amazing what I thought was normal back then.

His thought processes still confuse me. Did he think he’d earned those vacations? His constant heightened stress levels may have led him to think so, even if his bank account balance didn’t quite agree. Am I still grieving, or just struggling to understand? I think, in all honesty, I mourned his loss bit by bit in the years leading up to our estrangement and, ultimately, his death. As it became apparent that I’d never have a serviceable relationship with him, I think I started to distance myself emotionally.

It was what I had to do. All I could do.

I can’t help but imagine what I’ll feel as I scatter his ashes on the Cape. Out of the fourteen years that he and my mother were married, I think his only escapes from reality were those vacations. Two weeks per summer for six years. Twelve weeks in fourteen years. He always wanted us desperately to be that rich, globetrotting family. He’d talk about vacationing in Europe as if it were totally feasible. Not some pie in the sky fantasy. Even as a young kid, I could see it for what it was. I didn’t particularly want that life for myself, but it made him happy to think about. And if he was happy, it meant that he wasn’t on my ass about something. Like my getting a B+ on a test, or “disrespecting” him in some trivial way.

Oh well. Everyone has issues, I guess.

Of course, that final memorial act could quickly go wrong. All it would take is a slight change in wind direction at precisely the wrong moment…gross. Stop it.

A salvo of car horns reaches my window from seventh avenue below.

For some odd reason, the movie Due Date comes to mind. A typical odd-couple type comedy where an eccentric aspiring actor, played by Zach Galifianakis is forced to drive cross country with a hi-strung businessman, played by Robert Downey Jr. Galifianakis’ character just so happened to be carrying his father’s ashes in, of all things, a coffee can. He had planned to spread the remains near the Hollywood sign before making his attempt at silver screen stardom. However, one macabre mishap during their trip led to the father’s ashes being mistaken for coffee grounds.

After the ensuing disgust, accompanied by dry heaving and gagging, Galifianakis quips, “In life, he enjoyed coffee. And in death, he was enjoyed as coffee.”

I let out a snicker as I bring a hand up to my cheek. I can only imagine. What if that happened to me? It certainly wouldn’t make for as poetic an ending for him. I imagine he’d be at least a little pissed off if he could see it happening. After all, he preferred hazelnut flavored beans to plain.

That does it. I snort a little as I rush to stifle a laugh. I look over at Meiya to make sure I haven’t woken her. I’m shaking from holding it in and, all the while, I know I shouldn’t be finding this remotely as funny as I am.

After a couple of minutes, I’m able to regain some composure. I take a few deep breaths and look out the window again.

He wasn’t all bad.

—

2:00 AM

We used to go golfing together. It was one of the few things that always seemed to bring us together no matter what else was going wrong in our lives. It didn’t matter how bad the court battles between my parents got, or what terrible argument we had gotten into over the phone that week. We could always go out onto the golf course and just talk.

“I always play better when I have you out here with me,” he’d say. Often after we’d both ripped drives up the center of the fairway. We needed some distraction like that to connect. Neither of us was ever much good at expressing ourselves otherwise. At least to each other.

The more I think about that, the more I find room to forgive him. He really was trying. But I think, sometimes, his inability to communicate was from some fear of screwing me up like his father did to him.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that parenting, in a way, can be thought of as damage control.

I’m not forgetting all the difficult times. However, when I remember my father, I’d like those late afternoons on the golf course to stand out more than everything else. Highlighting the more pleasant memories doesn’t have to mean forgetting the negative. That will always be there, but I don’t think that dwelling on it will help me either.

2:30 AM

I sink under the covers, and lean over towards Meiya. After kissing her on the forehead, I roll over and try to get some much-needed sleep. I have a fight today.

End

~Sean Donnelly

Echoes

Even though  they rarely have much practical meaning or staying power, dreams can, on occasion, have a real and lasting impact. The recurring dream that I recount in this memoir section had a profound effect on me, and the images from it are still totally clear well over a year after my last experience with it. My sharing this is not meant to illuminate my own depression or other issues. I’m putting this out there to show what it’s like  for those left without any avenue for closure in the wake of suicide. If you’re in need, please get help. If your depression won’t allow you to do so for your own sake, then try to act with consideration for those you will leave behind if you decide to go through with it.

If this impacts you in any meaningful way, please leave feedback, or read the other chapters of my memoir that I’ve published on this page “Coming of Age” and on my other blog, Puncher’s Chance (“My Struggle,” and “Monster.”) Also, please follow here and on my Instagram (seanpatrick623) to stay updated.

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Echoes

July, 2016

It happened again. I’m alone in my room, sitting on my bed leaning against the wall, drenched in a cold sweat. I absent-mindedly look over to my phone to check the time. It’s almost four AM, and I know that I won’t be able to sleep after the night I’ve had. All I can do is stare into the blackness around me and try to calm myself down. After a few minutes, I realize how shallow and quick my breathing has become, and that my heart is beating through my chest. I close my eyes and try to focus on taking slower, deeper breaths and calming down.

The dream is always the same. I’m standing in the kitchen of my father’s one-floor rented house; he’s irate and screaming at me, although I can’t make out what he’s saying. It all comes through to my ears like a distant echo. No words. No clarity. I don’t even try to respond. Even in a dream, this sight is all too familiar. It’s something that I was conditioned over many years to accept. When it suited me, I’d often respond with a passive-aggressive remark designed to piss him off even more, if that were possible. It turned into a game; let’s see if I can give the old man a rage-induced heart attack. With all the cigarettes he smoked, it was nothing short of a miracle that it never happened. I was going to get my licks in if he was committed to yelling at me for some trivial or nonexistent issue. It could have been the result of something as inane as my putting a box of pasta on the wrong shelf in the pantry for all he cared.  I may as well have drunkenly crashed his car into a jersey barrier. Most “offenses” got the same reaction from him. This was different though. As I stood there, I felt none of the usual anger or spite. Only pity. As I got older and stronger, and eventually took up boxing, he was always sure to be outside of my arm’s reach when he would start these arguments.

The man who I had feared for many years shrank in stature before my eyes when I realized this. He became something feeble and gray. I hadn’t respected my father for years, but when that transformation occurred, I began to hate him. Who knows, I may have begun to respect him again if he had the balls to follow through on one of his threats and hit me. At least then, he’d be a man of his word for once. But, no. He never hit me. A few times, he grabbed me by the shirt, shook me, and threatened to “beat the living shit out of me,” but he never hit me. Psychological beatings were where he drew the line.

—

“You’re so fucking lazy.”

“You’ll never amount to shit if you don’t act this way.” You mean if I don’t stick to getting an MBA and become yet another drone working in a cubicle somewhere? I think the fuck not.

“You’re an antisocial loser. Just like your fucking mother.” I’m an introvert and I know it. You’re an introvert masquerading as an extrovert and it’s quite painful and awkward to watch.

Just a few things that were beat into my head over years and years of conditioning that was meant to make me feel inferior. So I would never surpass him. Narcissism and ego can be a motherfucker, can’t they?

—

After all of that, I can’t help but feel sorry for the man I see before me in my dream. The echoes I hear have no shape or form. They couldn’t be called words. They don’t even have a hint of anger in them as they hit my ears. They’re sad, and sound vaguely apologetic. Maybe he’s reaching out from beyond the grave to tell me that he’s sorry. The facial expression remains just how I remember it though. Red, with veins bulging in the center of his forehead and on his right temple. A drop of saliva flies from his mouth as he screams at me. The melancholy behind his words is still coming through, and all I want to do is walk across the space between us and hug him. Just closure. That’s all I want, but his final act robbed me of ever being able to have it. Jesus, it’s been two years since he took his own life, and this still has an inexorable hold on me.

It’s fitting that my dream has delivered an angry version of my father before me. It’s the only emotion of his I can remember clearly enough for my unconscious to recreate with any clarity. Towards the end, all his emotions came out as anger, no matter how he was actually feeling, so what difference does it make? He continues his simultaneously infuriated and depressed tirade, and I still can’t will myself to bridge the widening gap between us. I try, but my legs remain static and unmoving. My inability to help him see what he’s doing to me is indescribably frustrating. I can feel a knot forming in my throat, as a hollow sensation in my chest begins to expand and engulf me.

Suddenly, the echoes change in pitch: rising higher. Something is different. The sadness I was hearing has morphed into full-blown depression. He turns away from me and begins pacing back and forth across the kitchen. He won’t make eye contact. With all the strength that my dream-self can muster, I reach my left hand out to him, but all of my other limbs remain frozen.

Still looking away from me, his pacing slows, and he begins to fumble around in his pocket for something. My hand remains outstretched as he produces that same .38 special revolver from his pocket. The rest all happens in slow motion.

I raise my hand as he raises the .38 to waist level, then to his chest. My hand blocks him out of my field of vision. This is it. I wait an agonizing second for the sound. The ripping of the bullet passing through my hand, then my head.

BANG!!

The sound is deafening, and robs me of my breath. No ripping. No searing pain. As my hand drops, I see a pile of ashes where my father stood. The bullet was never intended for me.

I realize all of this in the half second following the shot, and am jolted awake before I’m able to fully process the scope of it all. I snap straight up in bed, eyes wide, jaw clenched, and fists balled. My ears are ringing from the sound of the imaginary gunshot. The memory of the dream comes back all at once and the lump in my throat overwhelms me. I begin silently sobbing into my hands that still won’t come unclenched.

It is 1:30 AM.

I didn’t think I would fall asleep again that night, but the exhaustion of being so tense for the duration of the dream caused me to slip under again.

BANG!!

It is 2:15 AM.

Same dream again. Those forty-five minutes felt like forty-five hours. The same tension and emotions well up once again

BANG!!

2:55 AM.

Repetition isn’t making this easier.

BANG!!

3:25 AM.

I sat rigidly in my bed for what felt like an eternity. All I could do was think one terrifying thought on loop until my alarm rang, or until I fell asleep.

I remember that he sent me a “happy birthday” text first thing in the morning of August 1^st, 2014. I had just turned twenty. I hadn’t spoken to him in a year and a half, and I didn’t know whether or not to respond. Even if I did, what the hell would I say? What could I say?  How do you even start a conversation with your father after your last interaction ended with a profane declaration of his failings? Even if I really wanted to, I couldn’t think of how to go about it. I deleted the text.

Three days later, he turned sixty-one.

Two days after that, he was gone.

I felt the guilt of my decision to delete the text for the next six months. It was on my mind every second of every day. After all that time, I read a news story from my hometown about a man who had come home from work, shot his sleeping nineteen-year-old son through the chest with a shotgun and then offed himself with the same gun in his garage. Shit. I remembered playing with the kid a couple times when we were both toddlers.

The age similarities between them and my father and I spooked me for a bit, until I really thought about it. What if I had responded to that text on my birthday? Would I have ended up going over there? Expecting a reunion and…? Jesus, that ending is hard enough to think about, much less write.

I kept telling myself that he wouldn’t have done it, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. No one is ever in their right mind when they take their own life. I did the right thing. His path was already headed to a tragic ending. There was nothing you could have done. No action of yours brought this on. You didn’t put the gun in his hand. Didn’t raise it to his temple. Didn’t…

I push the last image out of my head as quickly as I can. I did the right thing.

But, what if you had gone over there? This plays on a loop in my head until…

BANG!!!!!

3:55 AM.

I’m still tense, but I have no more tears. I’m empty. The years’ worth of tension that was made real again for me in my dream have gutted me. Regardless of how disparate we were as individuals, and of how we never quite saw eye to eye, it would have been nice to have been able to say goodbye the right way.

“But you robbed me of that,” I say aloud, to no one.

There I sat, for the next two hours. I was unable and unwilling to move. I just wanted the alarm to ring so I could go through the motions of my day and at least appear normal. Even if I was anything but.  Run a few miles, shower, eat, go to work. Just pretend that I wasn’t losing my grip.

It took a while for me to feel right after that. The irrational fear of my father randomly stepping out at me from around the next corner or from behind a random wall stayed with me for the better part of the next week. Just have to shake it off, I guess.

That wasn’t the first night I’ve had that was lost to my recurring nightmare, but I pray that it’s my last. I can only throw myself into training for my next fight or into writing and hope that it works. I’m still looking for the day when I can sit completely still and be at peace. When I won’t need to occupy myself with constant work and training for the voices from my past to finally fall silent. Then, I can move forward.

End

~Sean Donnelly