Hello, My name is Darwin.

"Hey you two, don't drink out of the milk jug on the counter. It's dish detergent. Not milk" "OK!" I said, not paying any more attention to what my mother said than the energy it took to speak the words. Summer was in full swing, and me and my friends would spend every waking moment outside until we were forced inside to become decent human beings again. Until then, we were savages exploring, jumping, riding, climbing, and being generally annoying. I was the tallest of the group, the shyest, and likely the dirtiest. My right sleeve was perpetually filthy from wiping my sweaty mouth against it. Even if I were a twin standing beside my brother I could be identified by my filthy right sleeve which frustrated my mother. In fact, my inability to turn my head to the right as far as I can to the left has something to do with my early years mouth wiping. At birth I was blessed with overactive sweat glands and it didn't matter what the stimulus was, I would sweat. I would like to think that in a sensory deprevation chamber I wouldn't sweat but I'm not counting on it. 

Like any other kid, I would run inside and cool off and grab a drink and then head back out. However, this time the moment just before I took the first big gulp, my brain screamed,"wait, wait, wait!! Oh no…" A tiny little spot in my pea brain seemed to recall something about dish detergent and not drinking and it being in a milk jug similar to the one that was attached to my lips. That didn't stop me though. That little voice wasn't screaming louder than my desire to ignore my brain. What eventually did scream louder was me, vomiting the contents of my stomach into the frame of the kitchen window. It was lovely. It looked like an oozing, stained glass window that smelled like dish detergent and vomit. Let me tell ya, Mom wasn't amused. I'm not sure why not though. It looked really cool to me. But that's how my brain worked back then; all impulse and no thinking. It's a wonder I've survived with all of the stupid things I've done. 
How do we survive though? There are easily a thousand examples of incidents that should have killed me. How is it that standing a cinder block on end and then laying a flimsy piece of wood against it and using it as a ramp not a good idea? As soon as I hit the board just to the left of the cinder block, I knew things were about to get heavy. That's how I spoke then. All grown up. Heavy, man.
Thankfully my Dad had laid the driveway with newly broken gravel that was sufficiently jagged enough to painfully remind me that I am not an engineer and that my design was faulty. I landed hard enough to knock the breath out of me, which was handy because I would have been screaming bloody murder had it not. I skidded along the driveway at a respectable speed, tearing layers of skin and flesh away from my face, knees, and elbows. My Dad, already used to my antics stepped out onto the car port and said casually,"Hey, buddy. You ok?" Of course, he knew I wasn't. Looking up from where I laid among the jagged rocks and twisted bicycle , I looked at him pitifully and let out a groan of agony. I stood up with heavy tears already rolling down my face and was perilously close to regaining my breath and starting a wail that would wake the dead. "Come here, let's get you inside." Dad picked me up like I was paper and walked me inside to my horrified Mom.  I slept on the couch for three days and did not go to school because the scabs were so thick that any movement of my arms and legs would tear open the wounds leave me a bloody mess. And it hurt. Oh, the pain. Yet, I did not make any of the declarations that I later would as an amateur adult drunk. "I'm never drinking again. God, if you'll make this room stop spinning then I will contribute to the AARP every month for the rest of my life." As a kid, I tended to think only about how I could do it better. The ramp would eventually be improved and the next horrifying injury would happen AFTER I launched as opposed to faulty ramp construction. 

We knew our wounds would heal in those days. It was an exciting time for exploration of the world. Our excitement far outweighed our fear and that frightened our parents, as it should have and always will. We were always so close to dying it seemed, that it looked as if we had a death wish. However, it wasn't death we were chasing but rather life. There is a fine line between the two when you are flying through the air on two wheels, but in that space is where the real magic lies. Every new generation brings another group of banged up, filthy, degenerate, future business owners…and fathers, and mothers, and employees, and care takers, writers, soldiers, poets, and artists. Learning is messy business. It never looks organized and nine times out of ten, it hurts. But that is the beauty of it all, and seeing clearly the beauty is what makes life worth living.