Not Quite Love

Not Quite Love

Ryan Onstad

Copyright © 2015 by Ryan Onstad

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2015

ISBN 978-1-329-63783-2

www.notquitelove.com

All the names have been changed to protect people’s privacy as well as some elements of personal information, composites and attributes. The events that take place are my recollection to the best of my knowledge of them. However, the stories you are about to read, as well as my name, are all true.

Dedicated to my mother, may you always be proud of me.

To the dreamers:

May this book be an inspiration to you, for the simple fact that it’s proof, no matter how good or bad this book may be, that if you put your mind to it, you can do anything! No matter people’s reaction, for better or worse, you too can find a way to accomplish what you feel led to do. Don’t let anything or anyone stand in your way!

Prologue: This Is Who I Am

To understand why the following stories you are about to read are semi-tragic, you have to understand the person they affected most… me.

I’m just like many of you. I’m everyone, yet no one. I’m a unique individual. My background and life story are similar to some of you, yet uniquely different from others.

For a lack of better terms, if I’m going to be the hero of this story, then let me tell you about myself, so you can have someone to root for.

Allow me to introduce myself: my name is Ryan.

Life got started right off the bat unlike anyone in my family tree I came to find out… I was adopted. Born in Omaha, NE and shipped to Lincoln, NE three days later (a little adoption joke some laugh at). My birth father was a traveling musician and my birth mom used to work for the F.B.I., doing paperwork; she wasn’t an agent like Dana Scully from The X-Files, one of my favorite shows of all time, but I digress.

I was adopted into a loving family, my mother was a former elementary school teacher and my father has his P.H.D. in mathematics and became a computer analyst. Eventually, my dad got into computer coding and made a living teaching old computers to talk to new computers… however, it didn’t pay Apple money, that’s for sure!

I grew up in a normal white-picket-fence world, went to good schools, had good friends and had it a lot better than others for many reasons. My parents never beat me or did drugs. They always provided for me; I was an only child, so I was the only thing they really had to focus on!

Despite my presence in their life, my dad faded out in my life fast. Sure, he made the money and put the food on the table, but other than that, he checked out emotionally. My dad was never one who wanted to go on those father/son fishing trips, etc. and by my teen years and still today, we don’t really talk much. Deep inside I know my father loves me; he just has a hard time expressing it. My mother assumed the role of lead parent early on. Since she was a school teacher, it was in her blood, I suppose.

My parents taught me that love is about commitment, that despite the fact that some people grow apart, there is still a foundation that brings them together. They are committed to making things work, which few couples can say today. Instead of quitting, they choose to try to find new and different ways to communicate and grow together.

As the saying goes, A ring don’t mean nothing if you can’t hold the weight. Well, they certainly have carried theirs like Frodo headed to Mordor!

In elementary school, I was the man! I played every sport imaginable, minus football. My mother banned me from it because she was afraid that I would injure myself. I was also the tallest kid in school for the longest time, so I was often guaranteed a starting position and didn’t have to be really that good! Sports was my life for a long time. Summers on the baseball field with a mouthful of nice and salty sunflower seeds… nothing better than that, I thought!

In my off time from my various athletic fields, my escape was music. I loved listening to anything with rhythm and groove, I was drawn to anything that was untypical and not simple composition wise, not poppy and bubble gum like; needless to say, my musical tastes gravitated toward metal.

By this time, my parent’s health started to get bad. My mother is a cancer survivor. On top of that, by this time in life, she had already been in 11 car accidents, none were her fault, from stupid teenagers, drunk drivers; they all seemed to find her on the road. I was in 3 of the accidents with her. She was either really lucky or really cursed, depending on how you look at it! Either way, my mom would spend many days on the floor, not even enough strength to make it into her own bed… so I helped take care of her a lot of times.

My father’s health didn’t fare much better either… over the years, he has had cancer twice and suffers from Crohn’s disease, so what manly duties he couldn’t do around the house, I had to lend a hand in his place.

In the 6th grade, life took a dive for me. My asthma for some reason got bad… my lungs weren’t growing as fast as my body and subsequently, athletics were cut out... except baseball; if I didn’t have that, I don’t know what I would have done!

Middle school came and my health took another hit. I developed a digestive deficiency that was hard to originally diagnose. This resulted in me having severe stomach pains. They were crippling at times. I’d be fine one second and then hunched over on the floor the next. This issue was eventually resolved when the doctors found out my body didn’t produce some protein and certain enzymes, but for a year, it was a living hell!

The rest of middle school was a blur; without my athletic friends, I had virtually no one, less than three friends to my name. Two of those at this point also got into drugs and since I wasn’t into that stuff, the calls to hang out were few and far between.

Still to this day, I’ve never had a sip of alcohol nor done a single drug. Though neither straight edge nor a legalist, it was a choice I made for myself about this time in my life, that I wouldn’t do those things, because addiction was something that was present in my biological family.

I also grew to have severe back and neck issues too. I got teased a lot, no thanks to the back brace that looked more like a bra! If I had one that was just a giant metal pipe, I might have faired better!

I spent many days alone, just me and my music. My friends were Van Halen, Def Leppard, Extreme, Aerosmith. If it rocked, I listened to it. By this time as well, I had taken up the drums and fell in love with them!

During my final year of Middle School, I received a final hit to my health that almost did me in. I contracted a severe case of mono. I missed nearly 2/3rds of the school year. I was a virtual ghost. No friends. I lived for one thing at that point, Saturday night… my ritual was watching Saturday Night Live then Headbanger’s Ball.

My friends now were the cast of SNL and Anthrax, Pantera, Metallica and Dream Theater.

When I arrived at high school, no one recognized me. I wore glasses now. I didn’t go to school-sponsored games or school functions. I avoided them to dodge being teased. I still had baseball in the summer, but what teammates I had, didn’t think much of me, no matter how well I did on the field because off the field, I was a square. That in part is why I didn’t get invited to parties or was able to be friends with the people I so desperately wanted to have accept me.

I wanted to die. I had a plan. It would have worked too.

Then things changed.

When I was in the 2nd grade, I accepted Christ as my personal savior… now beyond that, it was meaningless. It was merely Hell insurance. I’d pray here and there, but when nothing good came in life and in fact when it just kept getting worse, God and I were not friends.

So by the summer heading into my junior year, I stopped praying. I cursed God and told him that if he really had a better way for me, than lets see it, otherwise, I didn’t care to talk to him; I cussed him out, re-plotted my quickest and easiest course of death and was ready to clock out.

A few weeks after that day, I met my youth pastor through a bunch of circumstances that showed it was clear; God was making our paths cross. Long story short, I finally understood who Jesus was and what he meant to my life. Through my youth group, I met the majority of my friends who are my closest companions today and have been for nearly twenty years.

I finally caught a break. I had God, my friends and now music. I joined my first band! I taught myself how to play bass by watching videos of Steve Harris of Iron Maiden play and ironically enough, helped start the worship band in my church’s youth group.

The church band led to my first real band, which made my senior year of High School a blur. I went to school, got good grades and then immediately was allowed to play my bass. I also got a part time job at a local radio station as a DJ. At school I was a zero; outside of it, I was a rock star in training.

When college came, when everyone was out getting drunk and laid, I was showing up to class, getting grades and then immediately off to do band things. I had no time for distractions.

Eventually, the band started to go somewhere. Enough so I was able to convince my parents that dropping out of college was the best option. We recorded a demo, got airplay, touring offers and a real management company interested in us. But we eventually broke up and with none of the success I had hoped for. My bandmates and friends all were getting married at this point and I was getting left behind.

I got a job in medical records at a local hospital, and I still had my radio DJ gig, but with my parents continued failing health and them letting me build a recording studio in their basement, I remained at home.

I joined a few more bands as the years went by, but none achieved the success of the first. But, it didn’t stop me from treating them like my wife. I poured everything I had into them, financially and creatively. I figured the women and fortune would just follow after all my hard work paid off.

However, it wasn’t like I didn’t try. I just didn’t have the cool moves, the catchy things to grab women’s attention, frankly I was plain. What few took interest, were quickly turned off when they realized I had morals. Seriously, in my experience, say you believe in Jesus and they run in the other direction!

After the band life, a part of me died.

My friends were all now married with kids and solid jobs and structured lives; mine wasn’t.

I spend a lot of my free time helping others, but just not myself. I went on missions trips to foreign countries on a regular basis. I did secular relief work as well. I lived to serve others and show Christ’s love through my actions.

However, inside I was falling apart and was about to implode.

Eventually, I fell into depression and suicidal thoughts again, except, I found a new coping mechanism; instead of being stereotypical like the rock stars before me with alcohol and drugs, I found food.

No joke, at my worst, I was eating 6-8,000 calories a day. My nutritionist and I did the math: one day, I almost hit 9,000 calories! I was out of control. A standard meal would be an XL works pizza from Papa Johns. If I was in a rush, 2 foot long subs with extra meat and cheese at Subway. The worst was two burritos from Chipotle. Sometimes I would do that twice a day with a large buttered popcorn at the movies and a giant soda to boot. I was an eating machine. Once I even ate three Chipotle burritos in thirty minutes; the manager took pity on me and gave me a free shirt, which should have doubled as a bib for my fat ass! I was spending over $400 a month just on fast food!

My existence then became eating, video games and movies. When I wasn’t at home watching endless hours of TV and video games, I was at the theatre.

I didn’t fit in much anywhere. I was depressed, lonely and pathetic and that was even with God