M. J. Dougherty - Life Lessons from a Total Failure

LIFE LESSONS from a

TOTAL FAILURE

M.J. Dougherty

Life Lessons from a Total Failure

M.J. Dougherty

2016 M.J. Dougherty. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means - electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other - except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by The Hodge Podge House Publishers, LLC Los Angeles, CA

ISBN 978-0-9972864-3-4 Paperback

ISBN 978-0-9972864-1-0 Hard Cover

ISBN 978-0-9972864-2-7 eBook

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016901906

Printed in the United States of America

Edited by Andrew Rutledge, Jason Quist, Kim Husband

Publishers note:

The Hodge Podge House is very proud to present this book to our readers. Although we stand behind our authors, The Hodge Podge House is in no way liable for the content of this book as they are the authors words alone. The Hodge Podge House has no control over and assumes no responsibility for author or third party content.

For Karen

All of this is because of you.

and

For Pete

I wish everyone could be lucky

enough to have a Pete in their life.

What would I do without you?

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Up Next...

The who, why and what.

L

ife is hard. Not only is it hard, but trying to get it to turn out the way we want seems impossible most of the time. No matter how hard we plan, try, and hope, life often has plans for us that may be different from our own. For example, in my wildest dreams, I never thought I would write a book. Although I have a great fondness for books, I was never much of a writer; I was always more of a watcher. I grew up in a small town in a small house with my mom, dad, and older sister. Our little house was bordered by two highways and a few businesses, leading to most of my childhood taking place indoors with the only friends I had in my neighborhood: the ones on my TV.

Television was not just my entertainment growing up, it was an extension of who I was. I thought about life in relation to how it would play out on a sitcom. Oh, the sitcom! Without a doubt, my favorite programming genre. I spent hours watching reruns of TheDick Van Dyke Show, Mary Tyler Moore, The Brady Bunch, and Happy Days, to name just a few. I would wait all week for Friday nights to tune in to ABC's TGIF for Full House, Step by Step, Perfect Strangers, and Family Matters. Add Saved by the Bell, The Facts of Life, The Golden Girls, and The Cosby Show into the mix, and that pretty much made up my childhood world.

My teenage life became much more social, but I certainly didn't stray from my love of TV. In fact, shows like Friends became part of my daily routine. I felt a sense of comfort and normality just hearing I'll Be There for You playing in the background of my life. In many ways, this obsession with the world I watched through the tube led to the feeling that my life played out as though I was a sitcom character. I was convinced that after a long, hard days work of being omnipotent, God would kick his feet up and tune in to The M.J. Show to see what hijinks and drama unfolded that week.

And honestly, like clever weekly scripts, my life has always been a series of extreme highs and lows without much middle ground. It wouldn't be out of the ordinary for me to win the grand prize from a raffle I didnt realize I entered on the same day I nearly died while walking under a tree struck by lightning (true story). In the course of one month, I could bounce my rent check, not know how I would pay my bills, and then get an unexpected bonus at work that brought me back into the black on the same day my utilities were about to be shut off. Thats just how my life was. It was my normal, even though I knew how abnormal it was to others.

Looking back, my life has had years of extremely good times contrasted with horrifically tragic times. I was a self-proclaimed flake who flitted about in hopes of finding myself and some form of direction. I bounced from city to city, state to state, and country to country, all the while picturing an opening sequence featuring me finally getting a fresh start as the epic theme song to The M.J. Show played. I love a good theme song. I was always on the move, looking for that perfect place with perfect people where I could be my perfect self. What I learned, however, is that life does not play out like a sitcom, and a perfect life is only found on TV.

My actions, thinking, and issues, along with a healthy dose of fate, all contributed to my life looking progressively more like a melodrama rather than a comedy as I got older. I may have made mistakes and displayed poor judgment consistently through my teens and early twenties, but when you are that young, you have an incredible way of rationalizing your behavior and staying positive for the future.

I assumed that this constant feeling of tripping into each new day while keeping my fingers crossed that I wouldn't fall was just how life was supposed to be. I patiently waited for the day soft music would start playing in the background while someone gave me a heartfelt talk, la Danny Tanner, telling me how everything was going to be okay and I would soon find happiness. Unfortunately, as the years rolled on, that never happened, and my ratings must have taken a sharp decline, because my story line was about to go to a much darker place than I had ever experienced or imagined. It may have made my life hell, but it made my life one hell of a story.

I think about this dark time in my life as my made-for-TV movie era. You know the type of movie I am talking about: the type that plays endlessly on Lifetime, starring actors like Robert Ulrich or Meredith Baxter Birney, and titled something ridiculous like