A Little More Homework to Do

     IT MUST HAVE BEEN some crazy stunt to teach us about Theatre of the Absurd. After all, our teacher not showing up for three days during that unit, thus forcing us to do mindless sub-assigned busy work, would be just the thing to give a “real life example.” Mr. Baird never missed school.

     February became March, and then came the “permanent sub.” We knew it was something more severe than a funny little joke. We knew it was bad. Rod loved to teach. He sold a prosperous business to be able to do it. It was not something he was doing for his livelihood. And he was good at it, too. He made everything accessible, including himself. I cannot tell you how many times I spent lunch with him discussing how God is sick or dying, if still alive at all. He would rebut, as a devil’s advocate, and I would ask him why God has let children be raped. His suggestion was that these things all happen for a reason, so there must be a reason why my Existentialism in Literature teacher, Mr. Roderick A. Baird II, died of pancreatic cancer.

     I denied it. It could not be true. It just didn't make sense, at all, why he could be suffering. And I had just stopped cutting myself, in February, when he left— it must be as Beckett said it: the tears of the world must be in a constant quantity. And that is when I got angry. It must be my fault; after all, if I had not stopped my self-injury, there would not have been a tear to go to him. Or was it my theory proving right? Is it true that once a person knows how the world works on an existential level that they are despised and tortured by God? Every day, I am thankful that I never shared that theory with him. It seemed it was my fault that he had fallen ill. There was nothing to be done.

     I cried at night in bed for hours before sleeping, and once I fell asleep, I was awakened by The Dreams. Of holding him in my arms one last time. Of just seeing his face. Of his death. I was again in the undertow of depression.

     A person with a psychological history such as mine rarely believes in God, and I am no exception. But I prayed to God. For the first time in my life, I went to church. I asked God to heal him. I asked God to make it okay. I entered a hypomanic phase, believing that God is good and He would make it okay. As quickly as it came, it left, leaving me in a dysphoria.

     We, being myself and my psychologist, are finding that I do not suffer from just the symptoms bi-polar depression. I have a severe non-verbal disorder and ADD. Some put me on the autism spectrum  I exhibit traits of post-traumatic stress disorder. I live with Borderline Personality Disorder. And as it is that I have been experiencing the slings and daggers of these illnesses since a very young age, the weekly hour—which is never really enough—in a therapist’s office has been a source of reason and a time to reflect from a hectic life.

     Some people have epiphanies in the shower: I had this one on the couch of a PhD. I can learn more from Rod’s death than his life. I when I first told him I knew of his diagnosis, he asked me to make him a solemn promise. I promised him that when my depression came to haunt me, that I would push it away like the ugly intruder it is, and remember how much he loved being alive. That is his dying wish for me. To be happy. A man that only knew me for six months, I realized, in some capacity, loves me. It seemed a foreign concept. But there is more meaning than that to his death.

     Rod has finally assigned me some homework—something he was not exactly fond of in class. The assignment consists of this: I must learn what he wanted to, but will not be there to teach me. I must learn how to be truly happy even when there is immense sadness and tragedy in my life. I must learn the philosophy of Plato, read the works of Dostoevsky, Nietzsche and Sartre, perform the lines eloquently penned by the Bard and the mysteriously perfect ones plays Beckett. I must, or at least attempt, to understand, why he had to leave the Earth so soon, and why it is going to be okay. After all, I know that a person cannot leave this earth until they have done what the Universe put them here to do.

~~~~~~~

Rod Baird was born on January 8th, 1951 and 

passed with dignity and grace surrounded by his 

loving wife and daughters on February 4th, 2012.

     Rod Baird has been a high school English teacher for 

eleven years. He is a graduate of St. Lawrence University. He earned his MFA degree in Creative Writing from Brooklyn College and attended Teacher’s College/Columbia University.

     Before teaching, Mr. Baird worked for The New Yorker for many years, then founded Salesconcepts Associates, Inc., a national firm that develops markets for consumer magazines. Later he started The Natural Athlete LLC, a sports event-marketing group. In 2001, he sold his businesses to become a teacher.

     Mr. Baird is the author of Counterfeit Kids: Why They Can't Think and How to Save Them, available on Amazon.

A memorial mass will be held on Saturday, Feburary 16th at 10am at 

Our Lady of Perpetual Help, 559 Pelham Manor Road in Pelham Manor, NY.

In lieu of flowers, his family asks for donations made to: 

The Memorial Sloan-Kettering Pancreatic Center or The Stratton Mountain Clinic

Me and My Generation

THERE IS A STRANGE PHENOMENON with my generation: the Maskbook phenomenon. My peers and I have an exoskeleton that is so opposite to ourselves. 
The therapist who I started working with on September  3, 2003 didn't realize the severity of the depression I developed over that that time until February 14, 2011, the day I was first admitted to a psychiatric hospital for what ultimately has been diagnosed as borderline personality disorder  
We, as a generation, can be off the radar until we crack. Sometimes the crack is just cleavage in the rock, like me, and sometimes it is earth-shattering, like Adam Lanza. All of us 90s kids and the millennials have been able to present a different version of ourselves online: the version we want to be: the version we can't be. 
I hid an eating disorder for over ten years. In July of 2007, I was 5'4" (just a tad shorter than I am now) and weighed 90lbs. The only reason I was able to break the cycle was because I was put on a drug that was also an antiemetic. 
Adults see the media that we do, the Victoria's Secret models, girls think they should look like, and boys think they should look like Taylor Lautner or Eminem. They don't realize how much it affects us until their daughter gets knocked up, or is too light that they no longer menstruate or their son has one too many sports-related concussions, or gets shot in the street. 

Every member of iGeneration is at war with their sense of self.

Embarking on a New Adventure

IT WAS ALMSOT FOUR YEARS AGO that my mother closed the door on my childhood. Or so it seemed. That night, when she closed the door, I knew that tomorrow would start the era of adolescence- high school.
I didn't know about the journey that the next four years would bring. I didn't know the irreplaceable friends I would make, the losses I would inevitably suffer, and the memories which I could not avoid making.
Just a few minutes ago, I closed the door on that time, and as it clicked into its frame, it sealed the joy into my triumphs and the sorrow into my lost battles.
Would I change anything? No. I made mistakes. I hurt myself. I hurt the people I care endlessly about. But that pain made me who I have become just as the pain I know I have caused others has changed them. And knowing that I have hurt has left its mark on me. But regrets? No. I love who I am--in all my imperfections and shortcomings. And the people who have loved me when I could not even love myself?-they are even more special.
Tomorrow, I embark on a new journey. A journey of self-discovery, a journey of wins, and a journey of losses. But most of all, a journey of finding the destination. I will leave behind my friends and my family in search of new friends, and the people who will become my family. But I will not abandon the people I know now-for they are all far to precious to lose. So don't think of it that I've left. Think of it as I'm just not around as much. Because as long as your are in my heart, we will never truly be apart.
I will return to you.