FLASHBACKS

My parents bought me a guitar for my 16th birthday.  It was really special.  And I sold it for $75.00 a year later.  And then about 5 years later I bought it back from the same guy.  And pawned it a few months later to buy drugs.

My Grandpa bought us all a gun when we reached hunting age.  A rite of passage.  I misplaced that gun somewhere in my travels.  Since Grandpa is dead now, I really wish I had that gun.

I teased a girl named Margarette when I was in elementary school.  Glue on her chair, tacks on her chair and of course about her name.  Margarette?  For real?

I found out in high-school that she took her own life.  Margarette was a foster child.  Passed from house to house and somewhere in the mix of all that I was teasing her.  I can't help but feel I contributed to her discomfort in life.  That weighs  heavily on my mind.

And then the way I did my daughter's mother.  We were kids.  Not quite 18 and about to have a baby.  To this day I don't know why, but I cheated on her while she was pregnant with our baby.  It makes me ashamed of myself on the highest level that I would do her like that.

And now I look at my daughter that is like some high bred version of the two of us and I see her mom at 18 again and it makes me see myself at 18 and sometimes I get lost.  There was so much good in me at 18, yet how could I do something so stupid?  And I pray no boy ever breaks my girl like I did so long ago.

As I lay in bed at night, as I have done for so many years, those are the things that reach me, those are the voices that speak to me.  Margarette.

We've all made mistakes.  Do we own them?  I believe I am.  And for this next year, (my last year) I will continue to soul-search.  Prison took me out of life at 28.  Everything hit pause.

But it didn't out there.  And the fact is, I'll be a 40 year old man.  That's going to be hard to pull  off.  You can ask my daughter, sometimes she's more mature than I am. 

I don't tease anyone anymore.  I won't cheat on a woman either.  I keep things that people give me.  I have all my letters and cards from over the years, and I keep my clothes on in public.

My epic fails have been my best lessons.  It just hurts, you know.....
                 
                                                                                            the falling down!