'You might want to be a bit more realistic'

Visions of the Blind pt. 2

I’m about to admit something that I’ve never admitted aloud.

I’m a spiteful person.

Only a handful of people know this story. And I highly doubt they’d agree with that.

I’m not spiteful in a *waves hand broadly* general sense, but with much more laser focused precision. Specifically spiteful, some may say. There are a handful of
(what do the youtheeesssssss say these days) core memories(?), canon events(?), trauma times (?) that have made me this way.

They have driven certain decisions in my life just so I can spite the people that have caused them. I’ve made my life harder simply to not fall into the box that they put me in — their vision for my life.

(contextually, my life hasn’t been that hard. I’m a straight, white, male)

These visions of me that make me recoil in a way that doesn’t often happen.

These are visions that tell others who I am, who I can be, and who I want to be based on who THEY are as a person and driven by life experiences I have no say in.

These are visions of the blind. These are visions of people who’ve never been able to see my whole name. Who Colin is and can be.

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I remember sitting in the car on the way to a soccer game in the 8th grade with 2 of my friends. Three boys with their slide phones, listening to what I had to guess was Kid Cudi’s ‘A Kid Named Cudi’ mixtape on an iPod. Or maybe Lil Wayne’s 6 ft 7 ft? Was that even out yet? I can’t remember.

An actual picture from this day

My mom is driving as we’re on I-75 speeding past the big ass robot-Sphinx-liger splattered across some random building just outside of Detroit.

(Kinda iconic, someone should restore that.)

Maybe we weren’t speeding though — she’s an incredibly cautious driver? Anyway… the star of this story is about to enter.

My best friend’s mom…

No, she doesn’t have it going on. She is being the usual annoying town gossip and backseat driving.

As us kiddos are jammin’ out to our pre-game warm up music — that probably consists of equal parts rap as it does Train — we’re starting to think about high school, what we might major in in college and what we might become when we’re older.

Nothing profound, this isn’t a boyhood story, this is just typical midwestern kid shit.

I forget what anyone else said but when I said, ‘I think I want to be an astronaut when I grow up,’ my friend’s mom said what any good parent should never tell a kid:

*record scratch*

Alright, Peggy.

Good talk. You’re a real A+ motivational speaker. Good to know you set your expectations high for us as kids.

You definitely didn’t instill any self doubt in the minds of impressionable youth or anything.

I’m in 8th grade for fucks sake. I haven’t had my first kiss, I’m a virgin, never grabbed a titty. Hell I haven’t even had a sip of alcohol or took my first hit of weed. I HAVEN’T EVEN READ TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD YET.

I’m quite literally just a baby.

Just because you’re unhappy with your marriage and where you ended up in life doesn’t mean I have to be. I can’t believe you’re gonna tell me I’ll work in a cubicle in my hometown when I’m 13 years old?

I don’t even know what a cubicle looks like yet — I haven’t even started Mad Men.

Fuck. Right. Off.

She lost all the respect an 8th grade boy can muster. Looking back — that probably wasn’t much, but I was a sucker for authority as I wasn’t a problem child.

(Spoiler: or maybe I’m just a long game problem child…?)

I’ve held onto this statement since that day. I’m 27, turning 28 in about 2 months. If anyone is good at math that’s about 13-14 years worth of decision making based on spite.

I still say I’ll probably end up as an astronaut in the future, if only to make fun of this interaction — but with daddy Elon making space ‘more accessible,’ maybe that actually will turn out to be true. A boy can dream.

This statement has driven me to explore and think bigger than I ever had, simply so I will never become who Peggy deemed me to be.

I rather be unemployed and broke living in an apartment I may not be able to afford than live in my hometown. I rather be a starving artist than work in a cubicle. I rather make my life hell and go into engineering than get a business or marketing degree (check, I’m an engineer who doesn’t practice engineering). I would do all of this simply so I wouldn’t work in a ‘typical office setting’ as she so elegantly didn’t put it.

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One summer during college, I visited my hometown after the semester ended. It wasn’t anything particularly special, I was just there for a few weeks before my first internship started. I remember being at my friend’s sister’s grad party and some of their parents asked me what I was up to, how college has been, yadda yadda — what do ‘adults’ even talk about with ‘young adults’? I couldn’t tell you.

I was excited though, this was the first time in my life I was doing something really interesting and can rub it in that memory of Peggy’s face. I was about to embark on a journey unlike anything a little boy from Toledo could imagine he’d be doing. I told them how I was about to head to Colorado for the summer to work for the National Forest Service and that later in the year I was headed to Hawaii on a student research program because I worked in a coral laboratory in college.

Fucking, sick, dude.

I liked, and still like to this day, one of the parents I was talking with in particular because he used to call me ‘The Beast’ (lol) in soccer. Apparently, ‘I’d hit kids really hard.’

(football for my Brits, in case y’all’s tea is cold and you’re a little confused why)

I’m not particularly fond of his response though. Why? Because he said something along the lines of ‘Oh that’s super cool — sounds fun, but when are you going to get a real job? What do you actually want to do?’

I scoffed. Not really, I was still just a shy boy.

Where did the respect I had when I was playing a sport go? Why is anything but an office job not classified as a real job? After all, I’m from the 1st least interesting city in Ohio and the 4th best city in Ohio. That’s…. Ohio for ya, I guess?

(I’ll set the record straight — I love Ohio and my hometown made me who I am, don’t get me wrong. And NO, you’re not allowed to make fun of it. Only me.)

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I don’t write this to describe my childhood. I write this as a way to describe something I’ve always felt — the vision I have for who I am, who I can be, what I can create, and what I know I’m capable of — has always been greater than what others have had for me.

(can someone say ‘Confidence of Mediocre White Man’??????)

My visions have always been a bit bigger than what I could feasibly, realistically figure out how to accomplish. That’s okay. I’m still working on them.

They don’t call them dreams for nothing.

These visions have instilled in me a curiosity for this world that have brought me many interesting opportunities and opened my eyes to people my hometown overlooks.

I’ve worked as a trail crew member 4.5 hours from any established town in the wilderness of Colorado. I went to Hawaii with a coral scientist who is based in COLUMBUS, OHIO(????????????) and got to work with one of the leading coral researchers in the world. I went to NYC to work for an innovation consulting company that created the Coke Freestyle Machine and the layout of both Buffalo Wild Wings + your modern day Chipotle. I’ve worked with budding entrepreneurs all around the world and have worked in anything but a ‘typical office job in my hometown’ for my entire professional career.

I’m tooting my own horn here because I should. I’m very proud of what I’ve accomplished and experienced today at just 27 years old. I’ve learned and experienced so much and have so much more life to live.

But I also recognize that since I’ve opted for curiosity and spite, I am in a place of insecurity and instability. I am jobless, I have no savings, and I am in a place I love more than anything and it also just happens to be the most expensive city in the US.

There could have been an easier path, and that path likely would have led me to a very comfortable, acceptable life in a cubicle in my hometown.

I see these images of a life not meant for me as the very real possibility of my time ending here flashes before my eyes — and it’s scary. It’d be very easy to find my feet on the rails of the train tracks leading directly to those visions that I feel are nightmares. A death in a manner.

I’ve just arrived and just set my roots. I’m desperately clinging and clawing my way to stay because I feel my heart telling me that this is a place I’m supposed to be. I’ve felt that since I first saw the city scape in 2019. You feel the pulse of the city’s heart if you pay attention. It’s beating, and so is mine.

I so desperately want to keep spiting the image Peggy had for me but one of the things I’ve worked really hard on is letting go. And I’m getting very good at it.

Part of my heart screams that this is something I shouldn’t let go. Something I can’t let go — if I do it’ll feel like giving up. And look how far it’s gotten me.

Maybe this is a hot take — but I think it’s totally okay to be spiteful when it comes to certain things. This is just one of those instances. I will continue to act in a way that proves the visions of the blind wrong, that is out of a hatred of their ideas of what I might become, out of a desperate desire to be anything but the visions’ projection onto the little boy that I was.

Why? Not because of spite or because today I care about what Peggy — or any of the others who’ve had similar visions of me — thinks.

(though… mom I know you read this — please for the love of god, get another fucking hairdresser…)

Rather, I will continue to run from the visions of that life because of the many lessons I’ve learned that led me from that spite. The opportunities that I have found and fallen into because I was running away from the words that caused so much hurt that wasn’t yet realized.

I learned:

• curiosity

• resiliency

• hardness

• intelligence (I learned I was much smarter than I thought I was)

• creativity

• dependability

• a love of travel

• a love of wilderness

• a love for the city life

• a love for people

• a love for fitness

• photography

• poetry

• literature

• and last but not least — self acceptance.

That last one is a bit curious to write. How on god’s great flat earth have I learned anything about self-acceptance when I’ve built my life spiting the image someone else has had for me?

Great question. It’s because I’ve learned an incredible amount of what I don’t want to be. I learned what I did not like. I learned what didn’t resonate with who Colin is — and have been searching desperately for what I do love. Along this spiteful path, I’ve found many of those things.

I’m grateful for it. Today — it’s funny to say that I’ve learned who I was to spite someone else. But what an arc that is — makes for a good story doesn’t it?

I’ve forced myself to explore and step out of my comfort zone to spite the visions of the blind.

I’ve wanted to gather their leaves and sprinkle the dustings these images leave in my head on a bonfire. I’ve left a trail of gasoline in the shapes of my footsteps just so I could see the dead grass path all the way back to those words.

‘You might want to be a bit more realistic. Chances are you’ll end up in a cubicle in your hometown like the rest of us.’

You’re right — I might want to be a bit more realistic. Realistic that these crunchy grass steps in the shapes of my feet leading back to you in the front seat speaking loudly were centered on your fears.

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These were never the visions I had for myself, and I have to be realistic about that.

The visions I have for myself are of love, creativity, community, and travel.

I see myself spiraling through the air towards a place I’ve never been, without expectations of where I’m going, or who I’m going to meet.

I see myself holding hands with the woman I love, feeling at ease and at home after a long string of failed attempts at relationships.

I see myself holding my mom as I come home for Christmas. Hearing my dad laugh at a dumb TV joke while we share a slice of salami on crackers.

I hear their cheers as they sit next to me at The Game, cheering on Ohio State.

I feel my friend’s hugs as they welcome me home, feeding me cookies and telling me what they’ve been up to while I’ve been gone.

I hear their laughs, and none of it sounds like that of an office cubicle.

I glimpse myself in galleries studying my art and seeing my photography plastered across the wall.

I see my words written in crisp pages of a new book and myself speaking in front of an audience on the relatability of a shared experience.

I see myself working with global entrepreneurs because, while I may have a disdain for capitalism, my curiosity gets the better of me and technology is modern day magic.

I no longer wish to hold onto the spite that those words have made me feel and act upon in a silent matter. I feel now that I don’t have to because I know who I am and how to find more pieces of myself that are scattered in the wind.

I feel these trees that have grown in ground sowed with spite shedding the leaves as this season of me changes.

I see the crispiness clasping the orange hues of the leaves as they drop toward the Earth in preparation for a winter that will bring about more thoughts of self as we’re all trapped inside waiting out an East Coast Winter.

I feel the bounty in my bones as I’ve gathered the harvest of self to keep my stores full and my soul alight.

I hear the whispers around the bonfire that I set ablaze with tales to be told in front of fireplace that’s waiting for us in the home that I’ve built.

My home. Me. With my eyes washed, and my visions unblinded.

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Much luv,

colin scott mortemore

(bet some of u besties didn’t even know my middle name. fake bitches. we ain’t even friends are we?)