Brandon Held - Life Is Crazy - Episode 4

The speaker is Brandon Held, and he is recording a podcast about his life. He addresses some technical issues with his microphone and promises to fix them. He also mentions that he has to be respectful to his wife and not share certain details about their relationship. He then continues his story, talking about his time in the Air Force and his first vacation back home. He mentions how girls were suddenly interested in him and shares a story about his high school girlfriend breaking up with him. He reflects on the lessons he learned from that experience. He then talks about his journey driving from Ohio to North Dakota and getting lost in a sketchy neighborhood in Chicago. He expresses fear for his life and eventually finds his way back on track. He randomly decides to stop in Wisconsin Dells and describes it as a cool place. Welcome back. This is Brandon Held, Life is Crazy, Episode 4. Before I pick up where I left off with Episode 3, I want to say a few things. I believe I've made it clear on an amateur that it's just recording this out of his office, you know, on a microphone I have plugged into my computer. Nothing fancy here. I'm just trying to tell the story of my life and, you know, let my kids and maybe their kids or whomever know and anyone else that's interested. And I listened to my first three episodes and I noticed I do a few things. I say, um, you can hear my breath or maybe my lips smacking because that's the design of this microphone. If I sit back too far, it sounds like this. So I have to sit a little close and it picks up some noises that I wish it didn't. And also I noticed I was saying you know a lot. So I will do my best to fix the things that I can try to fix, try not to say um, try not to say you know. And also I would like to add that even though I'm trying to tell my life story in as raw and real as possible detail, I also have to be respectful to my wife. You know, my wife is going to listen to this. And there are plenty of details of my relationship past and history that I could tell on here and she would have to hear that. And I don't want her to hear that out of respect. So keeping that in mind, some of my relationship stuff will not be as you know juicy or detailed or whatever as you might hope. Um, but you know I have to do what's best for my relationship and my wife. Now, having said that, I'm going to pick up where I left off which is I had just graduated technical school as a security policeman for the Air Force. Found out I was going to be stationed in why not, my not is what they ended up calling it when I got there. Why not, my not? Freezing is the reason. So that's a saying up there. They also say that's where you send people to get out of the Air Force. But anyway, so I got to fly home from Texas and I got to go on 10 days of leave, my first vacation since I had joined the Air Force which was about six months prior at this point. And you know I would have to drive from Ohio to North Dakota. I wouldn't have to but I did because I wanted to take my car and some of my belongings which trust me wasn't much. It was clothes basically. That's about it. But when I returned home and I went to see people, I noticed almost right away that girls were looking at me differently. I believe like the first day that I returned home, one of my sister's friends who was a very attractive girl at the time, knocked on the door to come see my sister or at least that's what she said she was there to do. And she like didn't even hold back. She was like, oh my God, you're home. Look at you. You look so good. And she was kind of gushing and almost a little bit embarrassed about how she saw me and the way she was looking at me. And it was eye opening to me because I know she wasn't even looking at me or giving me the time of day when I was in high school. You know, then from there I was just hanging out with my friends and buddies and my little brother and just happened to be connecting with some of the girls in town, you know, and again I was – I could tell like women were into me like I had never felt before in my life. You know, I had a high school girlfriend, which I didn't bring up in previous episodes, and I will say as much as I'm trying to stay in order going through my life, you know, sometimes it's hard to stay in order. Sometimes a thought or an event will come into my brain and, you know, I will have to digress a little bit and maybe backtrack to get a story in that maybe I forgot to tell or a part of my life that I forgot to tell. But having had been, you know, the romantic, you know, thinking love was going to be, you know, a great answer or a great part of my life, and I still do believe that. I just didn't know how to do it properly or how to pick the right person or anything like that. I did have a high school girlfriend, you know, who I was two years older than. She was a cheerleader. You know, she was cute, kind, sweet, fun to be around, and, you know, I thought I was in love with her, you know, puppy love, my first real girlfriend, right? And we were only going together like six months, I would say, but we were hanging out a lot, like almost every day. I was going to church events with her. I was, you know, meeting her family and doing all those things. And just kind of out of the blue, when I thought everything was, you know, good, she broke up with me. She ended it with me, and I didn't know why, and I didn't understand why. And the reason she gave me was her parents thought we were getting too close and that we should split up. And I'm not saying her parents didn't say that to her because they might have. It could have been true, right? But what I am saying is I quickly felt within like two days that that 100% wasn't true. So here I was a little bit heartbroken, you know, not understanding what happened. And, you know, she's now dating some other guy at school two days later, like to the point they're kissing in the hallway at school. And people are telling me about this. I didn't see it, but, you know, I was being told about it. And so then I knew, like, you know, she was just full of it. You know, she found someone else that she was more interested in, and she wanted to pursue that. And I get it. You know, she's a young girl starting out life. You don't need to be tied to someone your whole life. And I'm glad it worked out that way. It was a tough lesson at the time, but it also made me tougher. It also made me understand that, you know, love isn't what you see in the movies or you hear in your 80s ballad rock band songs. You know, things can be great as far as you know, and then for whatever reason it ends. So it toughened me almost to the point of, you know, maybe I was a little too tough after that. But anyway, I digress. So here I am back at home, you know, her cousin who had never expressed any interest in me before all of a sudden was hitting me up, trying to talk to me. You know, and then we ended up getting together while I was home on vacation, and she understood it was what it was. I was in the Air Force. I was there for a few days, and I was leaving. So, you know, that happened. There was a couple other girls that were expressing interest in me while I was there, and all these people I knew before this. And they never once even, you know, hinted that they were interested in me, whereas now they were being very outgoing with, hey, I like you. I'm interested in you. And, you know, it was a super huge eye opener for me and obviously confidence builder, right? So, you know, I enjoy my 10 days at home with my family, and I pack up in the car and get my clothes in there, and I start driving to Minot. And, you know, this was another new adventure for me, driving a long distance. I had never done that before. So this was going to be new. And it was a learning experience. So, you know, I got to the Chicago area pretty smoothly without any issues. And once I got in Chicago, got to remember, back in these days, you know, I had to do, like, a printout of, you know, what maps do nowadays, where you just put it in your car or you put it on your phone and it tells you how to get there. This was a printout that I literally had to read while I was driving. You know, obviously reading and driving, not a good combination. But it was the only way I was going to get to Minot without getting lost because I didn't know anything about traveling long distances. So I got to Chicago, and I missed a turn. I missed a turn where the freeway went one way, and I went on the freeway another way. And once I realized that, I exited blindly, not knowing where I was. And when I went to turn around, I noticed I was in a not-so-nice neighborhood. And I look, you know, I see these are run-down buildings. These are run-down homes. And, oh, by the way, hey, I'm the only white guy there. This is all brand new to me. I grew up in a small town where when I lived there, it was pretty much all white people. No other races. I believe there was one Mexican family there. But it was pretty much all white people. And so I'm not used to other races at this point in my life. And I'm just used to what I see or hear on TV or radio. And here I am in what I would have called or considered the ghetto, and I was scared out of my mind. You know, I was driving a fairly nice blue Monte Carlo with a, you know, nice 350 engine bored out to 380 that I had purchased, you know, when I was working at a job at home at Cedar Point. And it had nice rims on it. You know, it was a pretty nice car. I really loved it. And I was scared for my life. I couldn't get out of there fast enough, and I was lost. And so here I am lost in this neighborhood where I'm scared to death. And, you know, eventually I make my way out of there and get back onto the freeway and get back headed to the right direction. And I just remember that feeling of, you know, just being scared like that. And I don't think it will ever leave me as the first real fear for my life that I've ever felt. And you might think that's dramatic, but even to this day I still don't think that's dramatic. I was a white guy in the wrong neighborhood, and, you know, who knows how that could have ended. So it was very scary and frightful. So I get back on the interstate, and I get headed back in the right direction. And, you know, while I'm driving, I feel like, okay, it's getting close to time to stop. And I had no particular stopping point in mind. I wasn't trying to reach a certain area and say, this is where I'm going to stop. I just randomly was like, it's time to stop. And I stopped in a place called Wisconsin Dells. Now, this was totally random. I knew nothing about Wisconsin Dells. And if you do know anything about Wisconsin Dells, it's a pretty cool area. It's a cool place to stop. They had a lot of cool stuff there. They had rides. They had things to do. I just kind of tripped and fell into this really cool place that I stopped to rest on my journey. So if you're ever in that area, I definitely would recommend going to Wisconsin Dells. You know, granted, this was 1991. I don't know how much it's changed since then because I know nothing about it. I didn't keep up with it. I just know it was really cool at that time. So I stay the night in Wisconsin Dells, and then I get up the next day, and I finish my journey. I drive all the way to Minot, North Dakota. Now, this is in the summer of 1991. So when I get there, you know, I don't have any strong negative feelings about the city of Minot in North Dakota, the state of North Dakota. But I did notice that it was a very, very flat land, you know, once I left Minnesota and got into North Dakota. It's just flat. There's just nothing to North Dakota. It's just flat land. So it was a long drive just through North Dakota to get to Minot. But I got there with all the excitement one could hope to have considering the situation. I was still excited about, you know, becoming a man on my own and living my life and, you know, seeing where life may take me. And I got there, and I got put into a barracks, and right away I was, you know, back then in 1991, I just caught myself saying, you know, I've probably said it more, but I just caught it. Back then in 1991, you got a room that would just take like a small hotel room and then put bunk beds in it, and I mean a small hotel room, and put bunk beds in it, and then put two foot lockers up. And that's what I had to live in with another guy. And then there was a bathroom. There was a toilet, but the shower and tub was adjoining to another room where two other guys lived. So we had to share. No, I'm mistaken. The toilet was in the bathroom. We had to share a toilet, shower, and tub with two other people, so four people trying to share this one shower and toilet and tub. And it was a small, very small setup, and it was cramped. And so I get there, and I meet this guy, Scott, right away, and, you know, he's, I don't know if he's insecure or, you know, I usually chalk up cockiness to either ignorance or insecurity, and he was pretty cocky, you know. He was a senior airman. I was an airman basic. He was from Washington. He had kind of a big nose. No, he had a big nose, not kind of. And he, you know, he just treated me like in a condescending tone that he was better than me, whatever. That's how it started off. You know, as time progressed, we got along a little better, but I never really felt like we were truly friends. It was more of one of those relationships where you're, quote, unquote, joking, but you're always digging on each other or shitting on each other. That's the kind of relationship we always had. So anyway, he's telling me about this girl that he's into, and, you know, he met her, and, you know, he really wants to get in this relationship with her, or he may not have even said that much. I think he actually hinted to the point that he was with her, and, you know, so he left. He went to go see this girl, and I'm in my room alone. I don't even know what I was doing at this point, maybe watching TV, maybe listening to the radio or some CDs or whatever, because I was really big on collecting CDs at this time. As a matter of fact, at the peak, I had over 300 CDs in my collection, but I had started in tech school. I would take my paychecks, and some of it, you know, I had no bills. I had nothing to spend my money on. I had room, board, everything paid for at that point in life, no bills. So I would go to the BX, BX in the Air Force, PX in the Army, and I would just buy a group of CDs, you know, 10, 11 CDs, spend $150 on CDs because whatever, it didn't matter. So I ended up with over 300 CDs, so I listened to music a lot. So anyway, it got into the evening, and it was getting dark, and then all of a sudden, the phone in my room rang. You got to remember, this is 1991. We didn't have cell phones yet. It would be multiple years from that before cell phones would become a common thing. Excuse me. And I picked it up, and I said, hello, and this girl says, is Scott there? And I said, no, he's not. He went down to see somebody. And I said, can I take a message? And she said, oh, you know, hi, this is, you know, so-and-so. Okay, yeah, I was the one who came to see, but, you know, I just didn't know if he was back yet. And I said, no, he's not back yet, but I'll tell him you called. And she was like, well, how are you doing, right? And then so she intentionally started a conversation with me when I was just, you know, let him know. And so then we started talking, and, you know, I said, you know, and she was being really flirty with me. And I'd never met this girl. I didn't know anything about her, what she looked like, nothing. I only knew her name. But I could tell she was being really flirty with me. And at some point, I was like, aren't you dating Scott? Aren't you going out with Scott? And she's like, no, not at all. He's trying to pursue me, but I'm not interested in him. And so we ended up, you know, talking more and getting closer. And then, you know, she asked to meet me sometime, I think maybe the next day. And so I agreed to do that. And so I go meet her the next day, and she's actually a really pretty girl. I understand why Scott was going after her. And we ended up becoming boyfriend and girlfriend and dating and, you know, getting into a relationship together. And then while we were dating, she said, you remember that time I called and we first started talking? I said, yeah. She said, I knew Scott wasn't there. You know, he had come to me talking about this new roommate, and he was telling me about you. And she was like, you know, I became interested once he told me about you. And so I called right when he left because I knew he wasn't going to be there. I called just to talk to you. And that kind of blew me away a little bit, not because I was flattered, but more because I thought it was kind of sneaky behavior. It didn't come across probably like she probably meant for it to be flattering. But I saw it for what it was, which was sneaky behavior. So, anyway, we ended up dating, getting into a serious, intense relationship. And, you know, in my Air Force job, I was a missile protector. I don't remember. I was a missile cop is what they'd call us. But what we would do is we would go out into the missile field for three days at a time. We would eat there, sleep there, you know, work there, everything for three days. And then when we returned, we would get, you know, three, four, five days off before we had to go back, depending on our rotation and how many people were in, how many police forces, how many security specialists we had. At Minot, that would dictate how often we would need to go out in the field. So I believe in the beginning it was every three days for me. But by the end, I was going out. I had three days on out in the field and then five days off, which was pretty nice. And so, yeah, we would have this relationship, and I would go out in the missile field, and we would talk on the phone. And, you know, her behavior was a little sketchy to me, you know. And, you know, I already told you what I went through with my high school girlfriend. And, you know, she was telling me what she perceives probably to be an innocent story and how she was hanging out with these guys, and this one guy offered to give her a ride on his motorcycle. So she took a ride on his motorcycle. And, you know, all I could see at 17 was my girlfriend on a motorcycle behind this guy hugging this guy, right? And it just made me angry. It made me so angry. I was super mad about it. And we got into a huge argument, and we broke up right there over the phone. She felt like she didn't do anything wrong, you know, that it was all innocent. And, of course, only she knows whether or not that's true. I didn't feel like it was innocent, just by the way she explained the story and what had happened. And so when we broke up, I completely, completely overreacted. I told my flight sergeants I didn't want to be at work, that, you know, I didn't want to pick up my gun because I was afraid I would put it in my mouth and kill myself. And I basically threatened suicide. I threatened that I was going to kill myself. And they were trying to talk me down, and they were like, you know, this is how you really feel. And I was like, yes, this is how I really feel. I feel like if you hand my gun to me, I'm going to kill myself. And then the next thing I knew, before I knew it, you know, I and my stupid, young, naive brain thought they were just going to take me in from the missile field and I wouldn't work, you know, and then I could go see her and, you know, try to smooth things over and iron things out. But instead, what happened was I got put – I got taken to the hospital. I got sedated, and I got put on a flight from North Dakota all the way down to the hospital back at Lackland Air Force Base. So the next thing I know, I'm back at Lackland Air Force Base. I was flown there on a military plane, laying on a bed, basically handcuffed to a bed with drugs in my system to where I was sedated and couldn't really move, and I slept most of the way. And the next thing I know, I'm in a mental institution in the Air Force. And, you know, when I first got there, I was like, you know what? This thing's so bad. It's a vacation. It'll give me time to relax, heal, get over this, whatever. But it was so freaking depressing. Like, I genuinely was super upset in a moment, and I obviously severely overreacted in that moment. But I wasn't serious about killing myself. So being in this institution around these people who were – people with serious problems and dead serious about killing themselves was so freaking depressing. It actually, honestly, makes you worse. It made me worse because of the state I was in, right? I still knew I was young, had a lot to live for, you know, feeling good about myself. And just being around these people was awful. And so one of the biggest mistakes in my life was the way I overreacted to this situation. And I share this with you in real raw words because if you ever feel this way, don't overreact. Don't do that like I did because, as my wife says now, it could always be worse. So it could always be worse. And I didn't realize that at the time, and I put myself in a really bad situation. And so we are now at almost 30 minutes in this podcast, and I'm going to end it here. Thank you for tuning in to Episode 4. In Episode 5, I will pick up where I left off.