I've had zero help growing up. My mother had an alcohol problem and my father was the cliche absentee. The Marines dropped me a week before graduating boot camp C.O.G. for an age fracture. My friends were drug addicts among other things. The girl I picked to be my bride, my high school sweet heart, was too friendly to be stuck with just one man. She had a bad childhood but that's no excuse to be getting drunk and waking up next to men she didn't even know. After putting up with that for 6 years, off and on, hoping she would change I gave up on her and walked out. Leaving my innocent son in her ignorant hands. (I'll never forgive myself)
I narrowly escaped the small town I lived in without becoming an addict and without killing anyone, but I did feel like a fool because I was. Consumed with their own problems the friends I had fell away one by one. Lonely and broke without an ability to hold on to a job because of pride or boredom or whatever other reason I could come up with, I wound up homeless for awhile. Too ashamed to run back to moms I lived in my van, but I escaped that black hole.
I am now with the woman I love, but I'm consistently failing at everything I do. I don't blame my parents for how I am, but sometimes I feel I should. I don't blame them because I raised myself. Everyone knows right and wrong. I just figured out consequence and reason and rationality at an early age. My problem is, I think, that I've never felt like I had to impress someone. I've never felt like anyone truly cared. Certain people, like teachers and councilors have told me that I have potential, but I always felt like they were being paid to say that stuff.
I just want to be the man that she wants me to be. I want to be the man God wants me to be. I want to be the man I'm supposed to be. Not the boy who fails or the boy who blames his parents. I need to be a man, but sometimes I get overwhelmed with how much life can suck. I start to feel sorry for myself and then realize that there are so many out there who are worse off. Then I start to hate myself and realize that I'm being selfish and I'm not thinking about my son or my fiance who need me. I wish I could figure out how to be, how to pretend when I'm feeling shitty, how to explain myself to my love, and how to raise my son so he doesn't turn out like me. | |