Chuck Palahniuk says that "The writer isn't afraid to tell an awful truth. The writer might not be smarter than us but the writer is braver and more honest." My truth, my awful truth, and nothing but the awful truth is that I have a propensity, or, perhaps, a proclivity for being a fuck-up. Throughout my life I have failed more than I have ever succeeded and I can only hope that my honest admission of my awfulnesss makes me brave.
Life often feels like a vast and ever-widening collection of moments that I cannot change; a collection of profound instances in which I should have known better, an amassed assortment of words and deeds that I have either done or said that can never be taken back, undone, or unsaid. And yet, when I am at my most uncertain and unsure, I am proud of to my children, I am proud to their father, and I am proud to be a father.
Karen Rinaldo says that "on the other side of frustration and discouragement [there] is tenacity and hope". I know that this is true because I know that on the other side of every devastating obstacle and lonely heartbreak they are there. Together they are my North star, ever guiding me towards home. They are constellations bursting through the black of the bleakest nights with the fierce tenaciousness of hope.
I know that there is some light left in this world because my kids are in it. I know that there was once some light in me because I still see it in them. I may not know who, or what I am, but I know that I am their father, and that is more than enough...