When younger, my life seemed in constant change and turmoil at times; parents fighting, my mom running. Always never knowing what was to come next around the corner. Where I might live. What school I might be attending. What friends I might have. What was right, what was wrong. My dad dying. My brothers fighting with me. Stealing from me.

Seeing my family change from happy to bitter and mean and depressed. Seeing them all slowly falling into this pit of darkness and destruction in their own personal lives by all their endless trippings of mistakes they were making and I could do nothing but watch them. I loved them all and I had no guidance myself for what it meant to be a man. My dad died when I was about twelve but my mom had separated and took us from him years before, but I held to him though. The memory of what I knew of my Dad. His caring eyes, his patience, his slow almost reluctance rise to anger. His calm knowledge and assurance of all things that he did teach me before he died.

I pulled him forward with me through time from my terrible junior high days of almost homelessness and trying to maintain decent grades at a school that expected your best at all times. I kept my head up and my smile even through my failings knowing my time would come and I would eventually win through.

I made friends… some good for me, some not so good but they all helped me learn who I was and who I wasn’t and who I wanted to aspire to be as a man all the while my father echoed in my mind.

Girls and Women showed me my failings growing up as the stupid teenager and man later in life that I was. I failed them all in certain ways which caused them to fail me. A collective comedy of errors on all our parts with no blame or disparages to throw.

I found we are all human. All failures big or small.

I have changed. I have grown. I have failed and will probably fail again. But I have learned, I am wiser, I stand taller. I do not look down or am ashamed. Because the past is not me. I am me right now.

Ever moving forward to bigger things.

by Philip Wardlow 2018