From This Moment On (2 page)

Sometimes during such episodes of what feels almost like borderline insanity, it may seem easier to just stay comfortably numb with drugs and alcohol. Many suffering souls take this route, but I don’t recommend it. Personally, I find it safer to face the pain and allow yourself to feel it. It hurts like hell once you start to thaw, but the alternative—freezing to death spiritually and emotionally—is worse. Thawing a broken heart, spirit, or mind is painful no matter how you became numb in the first place, but a wise friend’s advice worked very well for me. She told me that when the storm picks up, I should lean into the wind instead of turning away from it if I wanted to keep my balance. Running with the wind at my back would only give it the advantage to knock me over. She was right. Better to brace yourself and face it head-on.

There have been moments in my life when I wasn’t so confident tomorrow would ever come, so once I began writing this book, it started crossing my mind more regularly that perhaps I’d better hurry up and document my life story in case I run out of time. Hurry to ensure that my story would not be put together with half-truths someday, misconstrued through articles and various other media exploitation. I’m also writing this in order for my son, Eja, to have an honest and complete account of my life should I not get the chance to tell him about it myself—just as my mother never got the chance to tell me more about herself. She died in a car accident at the age of forty-two, three years younger than I am now. It’s an empty, helpless feeling to have so many questions for my mother and know that they will never be answered. The finality of mortality and the fact that you can never go back and get your questions answered directly has often frustrated me and left me feeling helpless, with a longing impossible to satisfy. I don’t want my son to have to draw conclusions about me based on bits and pieces of memory or other people’s recollections, but instead from my own heart and mind. This has been a key reason behind why I decided to document my life story.

I thought that maybe I could tell a sweeter version of my experiences, so the reader could get the gist of what my life has been, while
I avoided telling about the punches and focused more on how I rolled with them instead. Although I did manage to roll with the punches some of the time, other times they hit me square in the head. I struggled for a while about how to get started with writing this book without telling the whole story, but no matter at what angle I attempted this, I concluded that there is no way of telling a story with integrity if you don’t have the conviction to tell it without ducking and hiding the whole way. It was important for me to clearly explain the context and still be satisfied that I’d written an honest autobiography. Without braving through the painful explanation of the most difficult moments, the story is half empty, half true, and could even end up being misleading as a result. The complete picture is worth telling if your intent is to share the truth about yourself, how it’s shaped who you’ve become, how you once thought, and how you think now after what you’ve learned and what it is you’ve learned.

When I told a friend of mine who’s lived a very interesting life so far that I was writing my autobiography, he said to me that although he has much to write himself, his fear of overwhelming his sensitive friends and family, who are inevitably associated with his story, led him to give up on documenting his fantastic journey for as long as it was practical, as so many people he knows are still alive. I think the likelihood of him outliving almost everyone he knows, although possible, isn’t very promising. Even if he does, will he have the capacity to write his story then? That leaves millions of people who may never benefit from his remarkable story. For me, personally, there is a great deal of meaning in writing about my life in the event anyone ever finds my experiences useful as a guide in some way, or as inspiration to endure their own struggles. That maybe someone will find it helpful in a fellowship-like communication of one human being sharing with another. I believe sharing my life story serves more purpose than keeping it to myself, and I recommend writing your life story even if you don’t plan on sharing it publicly, and noting in your will that by a specific year, for example, your story should be given to specified people for private use only. Autobiographies are not only for the
purpose of public reading. In my case, as a public personality, I decided to use the platform of fame to hopefully inspire those looking for comfort, so that they can know they are not alone in the things we might have in common. No matter who we are, human suffering does not discriminate.

I have been quite closed about my private life until now for a couple of reasons. Not only was I embarrassed to reveal certain details to even my closest friends, it bothered me to look back on some of the more painful things, and I preferred to leave them as forgotten. Other aspects of my life I simply took for granted as not holding much value or being relevant or important enough to bother sharing.

The most obvious question is, “Why look back?” As I already explained, I wrote this book for the sake of thoroughly and accurately documenting my life and so that it might be of some help to others; but it has also been a positive force in keeping me moving forward during some personal lows, helping to prevent me from getting bogged down in self-pity, shame, depression, disappointment, and fear. In dealing with these emotions rather than avoiding them and coming to terms with them so I could move on to the future without missing the present, this book is that precious piece that bridges the past to the future. I had a certain level of discomfort while writing about my past but feel more at peace with it now that I’ve revisited it and given it a chance at a new understanding. Now that I have a midlife level of maturity and experience, it’s as though the past is allowed to be a part of who I am now and not just of who I was, as if it was something I didn’t want to be associated with anymore. But I knew deep down that those experiences were imprinted on me in the grooves of my memory, in the very formation of my character, and as permanent stamps on my emotions. I still thought I was “okay” with keeping painful things in their rightful place of “things that have already happened and can now be forgotten” and that I was perfectly fine being passive, confident that I was currently unaffected by what was now behind me, with no need to ever “go there” again.

I have to say, it’s been satisfying bringing myself up-to-date with
myself, if you will, through writing this book. I can see now that I was missing out on some wonderful feelings and emotions from the memories of my youth as a result of closing the book too tightly behind myself—leaving the chapters to collect dust on a shelf so high above arm’s reach that it would take too much effort to reopen them down the road. Much to my relief, in some instances I can say there were things I thought would be a lot scarier than they actually were when revisiting them, and it surprised me how things seemed so much smaller in retrospect. It’s like the giant tree at the end of your grandparents’ driveway, which you thought only Jack from
Jack and the Beanstalk
could ever be brave enough to climb. But when you go back as an adult, that towering tree might now be dwarfed in comparison to the magnified lens you once saw it through as a tiny child.

Before I started writing, this pretty much summed up my attitude toward the past: “That was then; tomorrow’s another day.” I did that because some of my past was painful, and this outlook helped me stay afloat. Now I see that in closing off part of my past, I also missed what was happening to me in the present. I was always in a rush toward tomorrow. Sometimes addressing things openly at the time they happen prevents “getting stuck” later on.

I was unhappy. My life had been a fight for security, a place in the world, the chance to pursue my goals. From a very young age, I grew up with the mind-set of a survivor, like a boxer in the middle of the ring, constantly spinning and turning, ready to punch anyone coming at me. Life was not going to knock me down! I had to make it. So I didn’t let anyone close enough to find a weakness that could undermine me. I lived in this survivor mode into my adult years and through the ascent of my music career. Long after I’d achieved success and security, I still kept my dukes up, as if no one told me that the fight was over or that I was at least between rounds. It was exhausting living in this defensive state, and other than being tired of it, I also slowly began to feel more confident that life wasn’t necessarily trying to beat me up all the time.

The bell still sounds for my defensive survival mode now and
then, but I practice not responding to it. I now find it more worthwhile trying to accept that my days will unfold as they will. That’s not to say I’ve become complacent. I’ve just redirected that strength to pursuing the fun stuff.

I also no longer sweat the discomfort of sharing the past, the present, or the voyage along the way. And I don’t see any point in keeping my story to myself, as explaining about life with my parents, for example, might inspire and give strength to many suffering men and women out there who can relate to and benefit from my parents’ challenges, and from the courage they displayed during some of the more difficult times. It would be a shame for their life’s experiences to have died along with them. Better to remember even their pain as a source of inspiration than to forget them in vain. My parents were conscientious people with good intentions. If they were alive today to reflect on the years when my brothers and sisters and I were growing up, they might not feel that they’d lived up to their good intentions. There were plenty of times when the Twain family didn’t have enough to eat, lacked warm clothes in the frigid Northern Ontario winters, and lived in a cramped, rented apartment or house with no heat. The perpetual undertow of financial instability took its toll in other ways, as it usually does, compromising my parents’ love for each other at times and no doubt feeding my mother’s recurrent bouts of depression.

Because of the unpredictable periods of instability in my childhood home, I didn’t feel that I could really rely on my parents to be consistent caregivers or protectors of me. I didn’t know what to count on from one day to the next—calm or chaos—and this made me anxious and insecure. It was hard to know what to expect, so it was easier to just be ready for anything, all the time. But I understand and forgive my parents completely for this because I know they did their best. All mothers and fathers have shortcomings, and although there were circumstances during my childhood that to some may seem extreme, if one could say my parents failed at times, I would say they did so honestly. They were often caught up in circumstances beyond
their control. If my parents were here today, I’d tell them what a great job they did under the conditions. I would want them to feel good about how they raised me. I would thank them for showing me love and teaching me to never lose hope, to always remember that things could be worse and to be thankful for everything good in my life. Most important, they taught me to never forget to laugh. I thank them for always encouraging me to look on the bright side; it’s a gift that has carried me through many challenges. They may not always have been the best examples, or practiced what they preached, but it was clear they wanted better for us. That in itself was exemplary.

Ultimately, I am responsible for how I live my life now, and what I make out of it. In fact, I am actually grateful for what I’ve gone through and wouldn’t change a thing—although I admit I wouldn’t want to live it over again, either. Once was enough.

Sharon’s delivery is long and complicated, with not enough relief for her pain. No epidural. The obstetrician’s voice betrays little hope as he informs her that the baby is breech, no longer moving, and is still in the birth canal. When she is finally delivered, there is no sound, no movement, no life.

While Sharon lies on the delivery table, the doctor quietly hands her a cigarette and lights it. That’s right: a cigarette, in the delivery room. The young woman understands that she has to be prepared for the worst. She’s delivered a blue baby, stillborn.

Except, miraculously, the baby girl is alive! Even more remarkable, she will have suffered no ill effects from the temporary lack of
oxygen during the stressful delivery. (Not to mention the smoky delivery room!)

While I was growing up, my mother used to frequently tell me the story of my turbulent, dramatic entrance into the world—the worst of her four deliveries, she always said. Looking back, sometimes I can’t help but think to myself,
So
that’s
what happened to me.
Ha! It explains a lot.

In this smoky Canadian delivery room on August 28, 1965, I was born. The same year the Rolling Stones had their first number one hit, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” Malcolm X was assassinated, and the movie musical
The Sound of Music
was released. My birth wasn’t as noteworthy as the more history-making moments taking place that year, but for my mother, a miracle had happened. We both survived that difficult birth.