Everyone assumes I wanted to be president because of lofty personal aspirations. The truth, when I’m honest with myself, is that I never wanted this job. Not really. That wasn’t the actualgoal. Not by a long shot. The job was a means to an end.
Unfortunately, I didn’t realizethatuntil I was well on my way to that end.
Yes, I’m a dumbass and I’ll freely admit it.
The first time I thought about becoming president I was maybe ten years old. I remember sitting in our living room. Stella and I couldn’t watch what we wanted on TV that night because Dad was watching a presidential debate and we only had the one television. At the time, his preferred candidate was the incumbent.
I remember how Dad fawned over the guy, respected him. Former military officer from the Midwest, came from middle-class farmer parents. Not only did Dad seem to respect the guy but my parents’ friends respected him, too. I sat through many conversations after church or at the local diner where my father came alive in a way he usually didn’t while he discussed politics.
On that particular night Stella gave up hoping for TV time and retreated to her room to play. I remained on the couch and watched Dad, not the debate. Listened to him give his own opinions between sips of beer. Mom wasn’t paying any attention because she was too engrossed in her book.
There I sat, desperately wishing my dad would one day be as enraptured by me and my words as he was by the guy on TV.
Yeah, sucky reason, I know.
Yet the idea quickly wound through my soul and thoroughly convinced me that if I wanted Dad’s respect I needed to earn it likethat.
That maybe,finally, my father would look atmeand want to focusonme.
That he might actuallyseeme for a change.
Think about me the same way he obviously thought about the guy on our TV, because I sure as hell felt invisible.
It turned into an obsession. One whose true roots grew more obscured over the years. Until whenever I overheard my dad boast to others that his son wanted to be president it reinforced my life’s mission. Becausetherewas the hint of things to come, offinallyearning his direct praise. Dang sure felt like I couldn’t earn it any other way no matter how hard I tried.
Maybe one day he’d actually say those things tome. Tellmehe was proud of me.
Football was Dad’s sport, not mine. Years of Pop Warner, then he expected me to try out for the team when I hit high school and later in college. No matter how well I played I couldn’t earn his praise, just his opinions of how I could have done better. At no time was there ever a discussion about whether or not I actuallylikedplaying football.
Ever. He simply assumed that’s what I would do because he wanted me to, and he put forth the expectation that I would go along with that.
Just like I never discussed my sexual orientation with him or Mom or Stella once I eventually admitted it to myself after years of trial and error on my part. I’m not an idiot. At least, not aboutthat.
Don’t get me wrong, my parents weren’t and aren’t evil monsters. They damned sure weren’t religious zealots like Jordan’s parents. My fear of Mom and Dad disowning me if I come out might not even be completely warranted because I’ve never heard them openly disparage gays, or any other minorities, for that matter.
Never heard them openly support them, either.
Thus I chose to opt for the safer path and keep that part of my psyche deeply under wraps. Instead I ran for and won class president every year in high school. I went through ROTC in high school and college. Enlisting in the military was both an escape from home as well as a way to hopefully,finally, earn the recognition and respect I craved from Dad.
You know one of the first things Dad said to me when I returned to Nebraska after I was discharged from the military hospital? Before I’d even completed my initial rounds of PT, or figured out how to walk on a left leg that was now minus a foot and the lower half of my tibia and fibula?
“Well, at least now you can start running for office like you always talked about.”
I mean, what do you say tothat?
I guess if you’re a chickenshit like me you nod and say, “Yes, sir.”
* * *
I graduatefrom college at twenty-two with an economics degree and enter the Army an officer. By the age of twenty-four I have a Purple Heart, a prosthesis to replace the foot and chunk of my lower left leg mangled beyond repair by an incoming rocket in a village in a Middle Eastern desert, and I know way more medical terminology and jargon than I ever expected to.
And Istilldon’t feel like I’m good enough. Like I haven’t yet earned my old man’s respect.
My first true act of rebellion occurs early during my recovery, while planning my next steps—literally and metaphorically. I return to Nebraska and temporarily live with my parents immediately following my discharge from the military hospital, meaning I have to update the address on my driver’s license, car registration, voter ID—all of that.
While doing so I switch my party affiliation from GOP to Democrat.
Don’t tell my family, either.
