| he's all alone, some things will never change - the lonely loner seems to free his mind tonight. |
[29 Jan 2010|02:57pm] |
There's a certain amount of anxiety about hitting 30 that people go through, whether they admit it or not. Unfortunately for Jonathan Collins, it took him to an emotional breakdown.
Collins hit 30 feeling alone and uninspired. A widower with a now five-year old daughter, Madison Michelle, Collins felt like life had become stagnant while staying in his home area of southern California. Feeling like life had to be resparked to find any hope of getting out of his emotional funk, Collins packed his bags and his daughter, moving to Boston. Why Beantown? To be honest, Jonathan never came up with a logical answer, so he tells most people it's where the dart landed on the map. In June of 2008, Collins arrived in Boston, and the rest seems to be history.
Wait, rewind, it can't be that easy.
Established March 26, 1978, Jonathan Daniel Collins grew up in Anaheim, California as the fifth youngest of six kids. The kids grew up in California knowing two things - they were hellraisers and they loved professional wrestling. In fact, a couple years before his daughter was born, Collins auditioned for the reality show Tough Enough, where the participants competed for a WWE contract. Collins narrowly missed the cut, but still watches wrestling to this day. He was not deterred by the loss, but it certainly established an extra love for the sport, having started to train some in California while he was younger because his older brothers decided it was a career they wanted to pursue. Of course, this is just a minor detail in the life and times of the young man. Collins got his education, a graduate of the University of Southern California, excelling in the courses involving communications and english, especially excelling in anything that involved sleeping until 11 AM. Using his newfound college degree and all those hours of extra sleep he received, Collins got a teaching certificate and started teaching junior high english at first, stepping up to high school english only two years later. It was during his time teaching junior high english that he met a fellow young teacher named Helena Benes. The two had instant chemistry and began dating the summer of 2001. Their instant romance and chemistry was so immediate, their courtship only lasted until October, when Jonathan proposed. The two went to Vegas on the school's winter break, and she came back to school Mrs. Collins. In November of 2002, the two of them welcomed their daughter into the world, Jonathan deciding that Helena could choose to remain at home to care for the child or go back to work, neither decision affecting his feelings for her. Helena went back to work, and her and Jonathan resumed life as they knew it with the addition of a child.
It was December of 2003 that things took that turn for the worst. Jonathan had come home early to tend to a sick daughter, only to find out hours later that Helena had been involved in a fatal automobile accident. The stoic male Collins remained stonefaced as the funeral went on, becoming more of a workaholic, devoting time strictly to his daughter and his job, leaving the things he loved often untouched for days. These things included, but were not limited to his bass guitar, his rollerblades, his unfinished novel, and the entire Stanley Kubrick DVD collection. Collins became emotionally detatched from a lot of the friends and things that had made him connect with his students, many of them feeling they could talk to him about anything. He was that "cool" teacher, because he was able to reach them and make the material seem like it was above no one's level of education. His loss affected everyone around him, and it wasn't until his 30th birthday that he was able to understand this and let this go.
In the present day, Jonathan has continued to teach at the Boston Arts Academy, although after several years of putting it behind, along with the acceptance of the grown up responsibility of tending to his daughter, Jonathan has finally trained to become a professional wrestler. Paying for lessons to enhance what he already knew at Phildelphia's famous Ring of Honor training school, Collins has been living one of his childhood dreams while continuing to teach at BAA. To his colleagues, none of them know about Jonathan's outside of work ambitions and weekend career, simply explaining to them that he's become a "weekend warrior", explaining the trips that he often takes. Traveling as far as Japan over the summer and extended vacations for this new endeavor, Jonathan is starting to wonder many things, including if he'll ever find love or if he can truly keep this secret.
Ten Fast Facts:
- Collins is left-handed.
- Collins considers his favorite director to be Quentin Tarantino, and can talk for hours on any of his films.
- He is still fairly decent on the bass, though he hardly considers himself good enough to play in a band.
- Collins, unlike most men, can cook a fairly decent meal.
- Collins is only sort of a superdad. While completely devoted to giving his daughter the best, he hasn't quite figured out she can't watch everything on TV with him, the two of them often sitting down to enjoy movies like The Matrix together. That being said, Madison can occasionally act older than she should.
- Collins, after much debate with his older sister Michelle, recently put up a profile on match.com, a move she was in favor of.
- In frustrating situations that anger Jonathan (and they happen more often than not), his favorite phrase to utter is "that's just awesome" in a rather sarcastic tone.
- Collins lists "Flight of the Conchords", "Entourage", "Carnivale", and "South Park" amongst his favorite non-wrestling shows.
- Jonathan does not consider himself an anime fan, but he does enjoy the series Cowboy Bebop, and has dressed up for Halloween at work on two occasions as Spike Spiegel.
- Jonathan has managed to kick the following habits: Smoking, Sleeping past 11 AM, Pokemon.
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