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Who am I striving to be.
That seems to be a fairly loaded question, one deserving of some thought, but I can't
answer about my future until you know more about my past.
My name is Brian Shoop. I am a big, goofy, funny, sometimes crazy, easygoing guy. I
have an odd sense of humor. Sometimes I can hear a joke that has people rolling and
not laugh at all. Other times I can think of a simple phrase, or I read a sign in a funny
voice, and I can laugh for days! I was born in Jacksonville, NC in march of 1983, my
father was in the navy and we moved around a lot until I turned three. This county is
really the only place I remember.
I grew up in Fremont, NC, moving out to Pikeville when I was ten. I still miss the feeling of
being in a small town community where everybody knew everybody else and you could
be on a first name basis with the whole town. I miss those days, even though I now am
old enough to realize that there were major problems under the surface of that
'hometown charm'. I remember when the public pool was for 'members only' and they
wouldn't allow black families to join. When my brother (six years my elder) was turning
14 he wanted a pool party, and the board of directors for the public pool wouldn't let him
invite his black friends. In short, Fremont was a town where the 'no coloreds' signs
hadn't so much been removed as they had been hidden in plain sight.
By the time I was in high school, I had found the first of my passions: Theater. I was
very active in Stage Struck (the children's community theater) and later Center Stage
(the adult community theater) I loved to perform. In my high school days my love of
performance led me to audition for and join the Show Choir (what you would now call a
glee club). Some of my best memories of that age are in that choir room. I felt like I
belonged for the first time in any school setting. I still talk about the time my show choir
went to the national Musicale tournament in DC and took not only first prize, but several
awards for solo singers as well. We were even invited to be a part of the Macy's
Thanksgiving Day Parade that year! Unfortunately we were unable to attend due to
circumstances outside of our control, but we were invited, dammit!
But while my time in the show choir was some of the happiest in my life, it was also
some of the worst. My father, my relationship with whom had been deteriorating for
years, walked out on us a week before I turned seventeen. It was awful, my entire
family fell apart. If it hadn't been for show choir, I don't know how I would have survived
that year. What my sister and I now refer half jokingly to as the 'Year of Hell'. Having to
get a job at McDonalds to buy groceries for the family, struggling with bills and finances,
even watching my mother (who had always been my rock) fall apart. (She would go on
being in a small town community where everybody knew everybody else and you could
be on a first name basis with the whole town. I miss those days, even though I now am
old enough to realize that there were major problems under the surface of that
'hometown charm'. I remember when the public pool was for 'members only' and they
wouldn't allow black families to join. When my brother (six years my elder) was turning
14 he wanted a pool party, and the board of directors for the public pool wouldn't let him
invite his black friends. In short, Fremont was a town where the 'no coloreds' signs
hadn't so much been removed as they had been hidden in plain sight.
By the time I was in high school, I had found the first of my passions: Theater. I was
very active in Stage Struck (the children's community theater) and later Center Stage
(the adult community theater) I loved to perform. In my high school days my love of
performance led me to audition for and join the Show Choir (what you would now call a
glee club). Some of my best memories of that age are in that choir room. I felt like I
belonged for the first time in any school setting. I still talk about the time my show choir
went to the national Musicale tournament in DC and took not only first prize, but several
awards for solo singers as well. We were even invited to be a part of the Macy's
Thanksgiving Day Parade that year! Unfortunately we were unable to attend due to
circumstances outside of our control, but we were invited, dammit!
But while my time in the show choir was some of the happiest in my life, it was also
some of the worst. My father, my relationship with whom had been deteriorating for
years, walked out on us a week before I turned seventeen. It was awful, my entire
family fell apart. If it hadn't been for show choir, I don't know how I would have survived
that year. What my sister and I now refer half jokingly to as the 'Year of Hell'. Having to
get a job at McDonalds to buy groceries for the family, struggling with bills and finances,
even watching my mother (who had always been my rock) fall apart. (She would go on
to reconstruct herself as a strong, confident woman, of whom I am exceptionally proud).
The year of hell did serve one purpose, though: the hardships we suffered during that
year brought the three of us (myself, my sister, and my mom) much closer. Nothing
quite like adversity to really solidify the bonds between people. You see, my sister is
adopted. My family adopted her when she was 12, she had just turned 13 when my dad
walked out. She had been an emergency placement at first. We were just a place for
her to stay until DSS could find a permanent home for her. But from the moment she
walked through our door, she was a part of our family. It's funny, but I knew that this girl
was my sister before she ever introduced herself to me. She just FIT. We knew all this
before dad left, the hardships that were to follow simply became the fire in which the
steel of our family was tempered. The year of hell allowed the three of us to form a
bond closer than anything I had ever known, and to this day I feel closer to my sister
than I do to almost any other person on earth.
Fast forward the better part of a decade. I met a girl with whom I moved out, got
married and had a child all within four years. Jessica and I are still married and our
daughter, Piper, has become the most important thing in my whole universe. We fight a
lot, mostly due to money, but I know we love each other, and there is nothing either of
us wouldn't do to make that little girl happy!
At this point, I'm going to skip over a major part of my life. I got sick about three years
ago. I wound up on disability, and battled my way through some pretty severe
depression. But I came to the realization recently that the best way to not be sick was
to pretend not to be sick. So I started getting my life together, I'm back in school, I'm
walking without the cane, I'm even writing again. I'm still hurting and in pain, the
difference is, I'm choosing not to SUFFER anymore.
Which brings us to now. Who am I striving to be? Frankly, I don't know. I have a
passion for storytelling, and I can see that leading down several paths in my future. I
am ostensibly striving to become a history teacher, preferably at the high school level,
where I can earn a living wage and support my family. But the thing I enjoy most is
designing board games and card games. I love designing games, coming up with
themes, figuring out mechanics, building prototypes to test and play with, it's all just the
thing I love to spend my free time doing. So I guess I want to become a teacher as a
backup plan so I will have a career to fall back on while I design games on the side.
And who knows, if I get rich by designing the next monopoly or risk, I'd probably be okay
with that. And if I don't, I'll be a teacher. Following in the footsteps of my mom (who,
despite her flaws is still my hero) whom I am very proud to say is an instructor at East
Carolina University. I can think of worse things to strive for.
Ultimately, though, I am striving to be someone who takes care of his family. I want to
be a better man than my father turned out to be. So, in the immortal words of Forrest
Gump: "That's all I have to say about that."
- Brian 'magicpokey' Shoop
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So, now you know, and knowing is half the battle.
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