Before Your Next Excuse: Harness the Power of Choice and Change Your Life

By Ned Barrett

In the pages of Before Your Next Excuse, Ned shares his candid and uncensored memoir of an artist who grew up with dyslexia, stumbled through addiction and yielded to tragic personal loss.

By sharing his journey, he enables us to see ourselves, and the reflection of the wrong turns we all experience in life's mirror. He compels us to take a raw look into our souls and shares startling insights that brilliantly emerge as a result of climbing out and finding your way.

A brilliant offering of grit, pain and triumph, Ned gives us a shiny new perspective on hardship, limitations and the power of choice. You will never look at the things that hold you back in quite the same way ever again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781631924170

Book preview

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

Sometimes it seems we are all like sea glass. We start out crafted from different molds, varying in shape, color and size. Although we share the same composition, it’s our unique imperfections and limitations that make us who we are.

Many times along the way we are shattered into jagged, uneven pieces and discarded into currents of mystery. Yet, as we tumble across the sea of the raw unknown with nowhere and everywhere to go, compressed inside the iron fist of daily pressures, we rough pieces slowly start to become smooth again. Over time we will have transformed and taken on new lines, angles and textures. Finally, when we wash back ashore, we will have a new color to offer the world.

CHAPTER ONE

THE PORCELAIN GODS DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOU

The year was 2001 and I had just turned thirty. It was another typical whirlwind San Diego night for my friends and me. Yet, there was nothing ordinary about what was happening. I had just puked a load of cocaine and a California burrito into the toilet. Sweat was streaming down my face. My heart felt like it was going to explode. I’d been doing lines with some friends for two days straight and was as close to overdosing as one can get and still be alive. With clammy hands on the bathroom counter keeping my shaking body upright, I stared at the pale landscape of my ashen face in the mirror. I watched as the stale fluorescent lighting seemed to be stabbing holes in my caramel-colored skin, letting all the color spill out on the floor. As I looked at my eyes in the mirror, I felt as if I were looking into a condemned building. Doing everything I could to relax and ride the whole thing out, I thought I heard nefarious whispers. They seemed close, like I could reach out and touch them. That’s when I realized those murmurs were closer than I thought. They were little voices inside me telling me that I’d done something beyond stupid, something that would probably cost me my life.

Everything felt sticky and final, as if I were drowning in hot asphalt. My breaths were short and confused, hot-faced tears blurred my sight. My body was stretched tight, like a guitar string ready to snap. I tried to give myself a reassuring pep talk by speaking out loud, but even the most basic words were too heavy to speak. Through lips pressed tight with fear, I let out a chuckle to bring some light to my situation, but my emotions were being tossed around like paper in a tornado. I was crying one minute and laughing the next.

However, when I continued to stare at my reflection, and was reminded the mirror never lies, those brief easy-feeling moments disappeared. I could see my life had turned into a junkyard of drug use, one in which I’d sleep all day and party all night. The sunlight had become a stranger and I was a mere echo of my former self. And worst of all, there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. I’d made my choices and every attempt to stay calm was defeated by the fact that my heart might stop, sending me somewhere I didn’t want to go. Fuck.

I was burning up and the room began to spin. I fell to my knees while clutching my heart with shaking hands. As I knelt down to rest my head against the cool porcelain of the toilet, my vision was reduced to a pinhole and I braced myself for the end. That’s when an inky black shroud of fear came over me. It wasn’t your garden-variety fear. It was primal, like I was trying to keep my head above the waves, lost at sea on a stormy night. The void stretched for miles beneath me, wind and rain drowned my screams. No one can hear me. No one is coming to help me.

Feeling the physical and emotional violence within me, I stuck my head into the toilet bowl. My stomach, constricting like a python, tried to purge the army of toxins invading my system, but the only thing that came up was some stomach acid that burned my throat. Drops of blood from my nose hit the water and stained my ghostly reflection in the water red.

I wondered what would become of me. Would my tragic story be shoved into a ten-second bit on the 11 o’clock news, just after the silver-haired weatherman reported on how beautiful the rest of the week would be? Did I just waste my entire life for a fucking high? I thought about my biological mom who gave me up at five days old so that I could have a better life. I’m repaying your unconditional love by wasting my life with drugs? I hadn’t put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger, though I might as well have; it would’ve gotten the job done quicker. No … I was slowly and sadistically committing suicide one line of cocaine at a time.

I cried out for my adoptive parents. Mom, Dad, I’m so sorry. I love you, please help me. I don’t want to die, I’m scared. I just want you to read me a bedtime story and tell me monsters aren’t real. I want you to kiss me on the forehead, turn on my night-light and tell me everything will be ok. Please don’t be disappointed in me. I love you Mom. I love you Dad. I don’t want to die like this.

CHAPTER TWO

FOUNDATIONS

In order to understand how I got to that point, I needed a look into the rear-view mirror at earlier times in my life, when I lived in the suburbs of Washington DC. I needed to step back into some memories that would let me close my eyes and lose myself in the sincerity of my smile. Those memories reminded me that as long as I held them close, good things would never die.

One of my fondest childhood memories was of the day I found out I could draw. I was in my 1st grade class, which was a large room that was actually two. It was divided into tiers by a few steps that spanned the width of the room. One teacher on the upper tier taught half of the class and another taught the rest on the lower half. The waxed floors were shiny and smelled like lemons. Asbestos tiles covered the ceiling and if you threw your pencil at it just right, the tip would stick. There were long rectangular black boards on each side of the room with rows of desks facing them, about fifteen desks on each tier. One of the walls was covered with construction paper hearts that we had made earlier that day with that bottled glue that smelled like stinky feet. My teacher, Mr. Pinkerton, was tall, thin, wore tight bell-bottom jeans and a loud shirt with an oversized collar and was teaching us math. I tuned out the words that came through his bushy mustache and gazed out the large, grid-pattern windows on the other wall. Through them I saw the asphalt dodge ball court that was bleached white by years of being hammered by the sun’s rays. I looked past the dodge ball court at the vast field of grass that was edged by large oak trees and began to daydream.

As my mind wandered about, I began to doodle on my canvas three-ring binders. I drew a crude futuristic cityscape with round shaped buildings and cylindrical spires. Once I completed the city, I sketched in triangle shaped space ships and had them destroy it. In the end, my drawing was a mess of explosions and fire. I then drew a cavernous world beneath the ruined city where the sky was an up-side-down mountain range. I sketched a new city in that underworld and then drew the alien craft that destroyed that one too. I was scolded for not paying attention several times. But I didn’t care because when I drew there were no rules, no expectations, and time didn’t exist. I drew what my heart wanted to say. I didn’t know any of that at the time, of course. All I knew was that I found I could draw and I loved every second of it. From that moment on, all I wanted was to be an artist.

Another memory that will live with me forever is my freshmen year in high school: a time when leg warmers, neon-colored clothing and the big hair of the eighties ruled the hallways. It was a time when the best part about my life was not having a clue what to do with it. It was a period when the biggest problem of the day was deciding which shoes to wear. I remember getting into girls that year. I sat in class and traced the lines of their faces with my thoughts. From time to time they’d slip me notes telling me I was cute. I wanted to say something to them, but I never knew what to say. So I smiled, nodded and went back to my drawings, the same ones I’d been drawing since the 1st grade.

I never felt the need to take an art class because I had taught myself all there was to learn about drawing. By the time I reached my freshman year in high school my deft hands could draw anything I wanted.

That year I wanted to explore new paths with my art and decided to take a painting class. A woman named Mrs. Peterson taught the class. She was a short, round lady with pasty skin and boyish short black hair. She walked around the classroom with bi-focal glasses hanging on the tip of her nose, spreading encouragement and guidance to all the students.

Every few weeks Mrs. Peterson would set up a still life using cow skulls, assorted bones, dusty typewriters, rusted tin cans, lanterns and other antiquated objects in the room. I quickly found out that conducting my brush to the music within composition and color came naturally to me.

In that class I met a group of friends that I’ll never forget. Daniel was the tall, greasy-haired intelligent one. Chad was the short and stocky troublemaker. Philip was the square-jawed jock. Doeeyed Steven was the sad and quiet one. Rufus had dark hair, fair skin and was the asshole of the group.

After school we’d spend the afternoons together skating, looking for things to shoot with BB guns or taking out teenage aggression by slamming each other during pick-up games of football. Our weekend nights were spent playing marathon games of Dungeons and Dragons. Nothing came between us. We were inseparable.

The summer after our freshman year, Chad’s mom gave him a Chevy Chevelle for his sixteenth birthday. This spelled independence for us, and independence in the minds of fifteen and sixteen year old boys leads them to trouble. And we found our trouble in the form of mailbox baseball.

On one of those summer nights, we turned into a random neighborhood and came across the holy grail of mailboxes: a two-foot wooden replica of a German beer stein. It was also at the end of a long and empty street, the perfect set up. Chad drove the car to one end of the street and turned off the headlights. His foot lightly tapped the gas pedal and the engine revved and teased us with anticipation. We saw our prey down the street. Like a cat in the tall grass, we waited for our moment to strike. When we were sure no one in the neighborhood was watching, Steven leaned out the window with an aluminum baseball bat. Chad stepped on the gas and the engine sputtered and knocked. The car took forever to reach a decent speed, which only doubled the anticipation. Steven swung the bat at the mailbox and it exploded into pieces that flew in all directions. We laughed and cheered. The tires of the car screeched as we rounded the corner to make our getaway. Later on, after a few more mailboxes met their untimely death, they dropped me off at home. The pines in my front yard smelled like gin and the fireflies drew neon lines across the dark canvas of night. I reveled in the joy of knowing there would be no school the next day. Those welcoming nights were never long enough. I wished things would never change and the summer would never end. I just wanted to have fun with my friends forever.

CHAPTER THREE

THE BODY OF THE SHAPE OF THE THINGS TO COME

During the fall semester of my freshman year in high school, I held a guitar in my lap for the first time. I’ll never forget that day, it was Rufus’s birthday and I was at his house. His present from his mom was a Martin acoustic guitar, the brand of guitar that professionals use. It was a work of art. I remember when he handed it to me. The hourglass figure of that guitar rested snug on my knee and the tangy scent of its spruce body filled the air. The bronze strings were cold with secrets of an unknown language. It felt completely alien to me and I was skeptical about my ability to learn how to play it. I remember thinking that the guitar was for those who had talent—anyone other than me. But like sand through my fingers, I let those negative thoughts sift away because deep inside me I felt like I was holding the body of the shape of things to come.

When I plucked at the strings and cringed at the discordant sounds of not knowing what the hell I was doing, a memory came to me. I remembered being back in the first grade at a school assembly. All the students were gathered into the auditorium to be entertained by a one-man band. He was short, round and had a fleshy face. He had long dark hair, spoke with a booming voice and wore an apparatus of many different instruments, which included a few drums and cymbals as well as a keyboard, kazoo, harmonica and whistle. While it caught the imagination of everyone there, I had no interest in it and forgot his name as soon as he said it. The sounds his musical contraption made were annoying at best. I just wanted the assembly to be over so that I could go back to class and draw. It was only when he took off the monstrosity of interconnected instruments and picked up a guitar that I began to focus on him. Before playing, he taught us a dexterity exercise to do with our fingers. We had to put our hands on the floor with our fingers fanned out. Starting at one pinky finger, we were asked to drum our fingers so that it looked like a wave was moving all the way across all the fingers of both hands. I couldn’t stop doing it.

He started to play one of his songs and I was mesmerized by the way his fingers gently attacked the fret board. A tepid stream of intimate sounds made its way around my soul as he played. I felt like I was listening to infinity as its boundless tones filled the air. It was the coolest thing I had ever heard. I was spellbound, and within a few minutes I had told myself that I’d learn to play guitar someday.

Sometime during my junior high days my desire to learn guitar went dormant. I started getting into break dancing, wearing parachute pants and checkered shirts. Of course I wasn’t complete without a checkered bandana and a leather glove. I