Reminiscence of a Meaningful Life and a Message of Hope

As we go through life, our experiences and the people we surround ourselves with, directly affect the amount of passion and meaning we inject into our everyday lives.  In my short life, I have lived both extremes. I have lived with passion and energy that inspired others, and I have stood on the edge of oblivion, living a meaningless life. I remember thinking: how did I let it get to this? How did I let meaningless infect a life that once had so much meaning and joy? My name is Morgan Paquette, and this is my story.

In June of 2003, my Nana opened the door to a wide-eyed boy, clutching “A Pirates Handbook” to his chest like a prized possession, a family heirloom. That boy was me, and I had fallen in love with the adventure, romance, and danger of the high seas and the pirates that roamed them. My nana, always ready to indulge my overactive imagination, laid out a pencil, crayons, and paper as I asked, “Nana can you draw me a treasure map?”

For the next two hours, I sat with Nana as she carefully drew the template for a secret treasure island and I colored it in. I sat with her as we stained the paper with a tea bag, let it dry, rolled it up tight and tied it with a red bow. I spent hours reading the book, spreading jam and butter over the hard tack biscuits for which there was a recipe. My nana fueled my imagination as I told her about the ship I would captain one day, and that I would bring her along to show her the world she deserved to see.

I was only six years old, but my life in that period had more meaning and passion than most people exuded during their daily commute to work. I would spend my school days daydreaming of adventures on the high seas. At recess I would commandeer the play structure and imagine myself a fearless pirate captain, with my trusty tea stained map, to guide me to the treasure that was always just out of reach. When someone asked me a question about pirates my eyes would light up and I would talk their ear off.

Two years later, during a school project, the seven seas would give way to the drifting sands of Ancient Egypt. I studied and learned hieroglyphics, saw King Tut’s sarcophagus on a traveling tour, and even once corrected a curator at the Royal Ontario Museum for misreading a hieroglyphic in his own exhibit. The greatest moment, however, came when my nana and I were reading a National Geographic magazine with an incredible photo of King Tut’s gold and jewel-encrusted eagle necklace. A quick trip to the craft store and eight long hours later, we had created a perfect exact replica out of cardboard. I still have that necklace, tucked away in a box of special treasures, and it is a physical representation of some of the best times of my life.

Shortly after this, however, I noticed a shift in my life. Middle school hit me like a ton of bricks. I could no longer daydream or play pretend on the play structure without being chastised or bullied. I noticed others around me were moving faster, and I struggled to catch up to my peers. In that endeavor, the treasure maps and weekend crafts were replaced with eight-hour, tearful struggles to play Hot Cross Buns on the Recorder.

It wasn’t until the seventh grade, that I had found my passion and my meaning in life. It was a late afternoon study-hall session, and I was struck with inspiration I had never felt before. I asked a friend if I could borrow her neon orange gel pen, and wrote a six-page story. Over the next two years, that six-page story grew and was nurtured into my first novel with a word count over 100,000.

In middle school, I was still bullied terribly, but as soon as I got home I was Jack Parsons, street basketball star and hero of my novel. Getting lost in Jack’s world, banishing bullies, getting the girl all while wearing a stylish pair of Maui Jim sunglasses, was therapeutic for me. Every night when I went to bed, I would dream of where I would take my character tomorrow. I found myself jumping out of bed each morning, eager to write a few more pages over cinnabutter toast and hot chocolate before I had to go back to the real world.

I was in my ninth grade science class when I wrote the last sentence of my first novel, I had frizzy hair, a face full of acne, wore my mom’s glasses, and braces in an attempt to straighten my horrible teeth. My novel was finally done, but a sense of anxiety washed over me as I realized I would no longer have a world in which to lose myself.

After that, it was harder and harder to pull myself out of bed. The next four years were a dark time in my life. For one thing, my father and I didn’t see eye to eye. When I was in kindergarten, I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I proudly proclaimed that I wanted to be a Global Man (that was the company my dad had worked for). But my dad and I would constantly bicker as he tried to teach me the life skills I needed to succeed. It wasn’t until the twelfth grade when a handwritten letter from my dad would explain that he was so hard on me because the world was a hard place and he wanted me to be able to take care of myself and my family, no matter the circumstance.

I was sent to a new private school and was still badly bullied. I was slammed into lockers, kids stole my clothes during gym and made me chase them around to get them back; kids would often lock my lock upside down or on the ceiling lights. I nearly dropped out because my peers made me feel like I didn’t belong there. When I finally graduated from high school, I went into the Education Faculty at my local University, wanting to become a teacher not because it was what I had wanted to do as a child, but because more than one person told me that writing doesn’t put food on the table.

On the outside, I had it all together. I had direct entry into a great program, I was on my way to the success that society demands of people, but underneath the façade, I was a pained person. My dad would drop me off in the morning, I would have a panic attack on the way to my first class and retreat to the computer lab. I would try desperately to write, and then trash it after one page. I would play mindless online games and loathe the fact that I was wasting away, not doing anything productive. I would wander the streets of downtown Winnipeg, aloof and lost. I had no idea where I was going in life…

I would sit at the bar after working my kitchen shift and look through the empty pint glass or beer bottle, looking for a different perspective. I needed something to change, but it didn’t. On top of that, my relationship with my girlfriend became toxic and began to fall apart. I became angry and resentful and I was hurting the people that I loved. I couldn’t believe the person I had become.

Then on a cold night in March, as the wind howled and snow fell, my friend picked me up from. It had been one of the darkest days of my life. I just wanted to hurt less and when you are in that state of mind, you aren’t thinking about what is reasonable. Five hours, a bottle of tequila, a bottle of vodka, some whiskey and several beers later, I had done everything I could, and I still felt broken.

I stumbled home through the snow at about 4:45 that morning. On the way home, I crossed an eight-lane highway. The only thing I remember from the long walk home through the deep snow was the headlights of a car veering out of the way to avoid me as I stood nearly catatonic in the middle of the road. A brush with death has a profound effect on a person.

That was the last I remember of that night. I woke up the next morning on my bathroom floor, horribly hungover. I rested my head against the cool ceramic of the bathtub and had a long hard look at myself. My personality was not that of a self-loathing binge drinker who hurt the people he loved. I had been uncharacteristically careless in my life.

As I lay on the floor, my dad peacefully asleep just across the hall, unaware that he had been moments away from waking to find his son, lifeless on the floor, I had an epiphany. I knew, that if I didn’t change my life, I would be dead. Never again would I ask Nana to make a treasure map, take in the smell of the earth after a rain, or watch the sun set on another day.

Over the next two years, I dedicated myself to self-development. Instead of drinking to make my anger go away for a few hours, I let it come to the surface and channeled it into a newfound passion for cycling. As I blasted down the highway, I would scream until my lungs gave out.

I left my toxic relationship and reconnected with old friends I  pushed away over the years. But something was still missing, the mask was still on. I tried different hobbies, different people, different experiences but I couldn’t get myself fully out of the slump, I couldn’t strike a balance in my life. The joy in that young boys’ eyes had been extinguished and I was just out of reach of a flame.

One day, the stars aligned and something happened to me that finally brought the joy and meaning back into my life that had been starved of it for years. On November 17th, 2018, I fell in love. I met an amazing girl, my girlfriend Mariam. The first day I met her I cried. I felt safe with her, and she made me realize that I was holding myself back.

She told me my writing was good, that I didn’t deserve to be in the kitchen. She stood by my dreams and helped me through insecurities I had burdened for several years. Just the other day, I was sitting in my mom’s basement looking at photo albums from my youth. With each page I turned, I watched the passion and joy drain from the happy little boy, I watched him flash a fake smile at the camera and I studied the pain behind his eyes. After I met her, that joy came flowing back. I still have bad days, meaningless days where I want to scream and shout. But as soon as I see her, as soon as I give her a hug, it all melts away.

As someone who went from living a meaningful life, to living one without meaning, and back again, I have some insights that I feel obliged to pass on to my fellow humans, Look through your photos, your treasure chest of memories passed, and find those things that made you happy. Take them out, keep them in your room, in your wallet, in your heart and be reminded of the joy they brought you.

Try new things, meet new people, move forward. Tiny or great, a step forward is a step in the right direction. Every morning when you wake up, look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself that that joyful, happy-go-lucky little boy or girl is in there somewhere and in the events of the day, it is up to you to rescue them and bring them back to the surface. Don’t be ashamed of who you are, don’t be afraid to tell the world you aren’t perfect because no one is.

If you are going through hell, keep on going! If you don’t see the beauty in the world, wipe your glasses. No matter what you go through in life, no matter what cards you’re dealt or what obstacles you encounter, you can burst through that wall of uncertainty and rejuvenate your life.

If ever, dear reader, you find yourself in a dark place, remember and recite the words of Bernard Williams: “There was never a night so dark that it could defeat the sunrise”.

 

Author: Morgan Paquette

Editor(s): Julie Skodowski

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