Wasted Years

In the song Wasted Years by Iron Maiden, Bruce sings, "So, understand, Don't waste your time always searching for those wasted years." I only wish I could take that advice. Even after singing this song with the band in Tampa, my heart won't let me do it.

Holding back tears is much harder than just crying. Crying actually brings relief, as if you really do "let it out." But when you don't let yourself do it, your throat tightens up, your face stresses, your breathing sort of stops and your eyes feel pressured. Personally, my inner arms ache with stress. It kinda feels like a rush of chemicals down my arms. Though I often bounce my leg anyway, it surely starts when I try to hold back. As I write this, I'm in public so I'm holding the gates closed, and I like the pain. I won't allow myself to feel better, not today.

If the world would just shut up about it, maybe I wouldn't even know that today is Father's Day. I actually wished that I'd sleep through it and just wake up monday, but no such luck. I'm scared of the way I'll feel for the rest of today, I'm scared of where I may end up. For anyone who missed it, I have a long lost 16 year old Daughter named Drew who I just met 3 months ago. Click on her name to read the story. It wasn't until she was 8 years old that I began to realise that she was mine, and I never even saw her. Up until that point, I was convinced that she wasn't. I'm an idiot I guess. But when a friend attended our high school reunion and was shown a picture by her mother, the news rather quickly traveled the grapevine and suddenly, for the first time, I feared that a colossal mistake had been made. I remember spending about 4 hours on the phone in the middle of the night with the my friend TheDevil, the final link of the grapevine. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what Drew knew and finally I decided not to disrupt her life. On top of that, I figured her mother must hate me and probably went to the reunion with the single purpose of killing me.

The fact that I hadn't seen the pictures for myself is probably the only thing that allowed me to survive the next 7 years. I thought of Drew and her mother, Laurie, often. I harbored a huge amount of guilt, though I would have never admitted it out loud. Many times I wondered if the fact that I wasn't where I was supposed to be was the reason that nothing ever seemed to work in my life. And to go deeper, I questioned if I was being punished, or whether it was self inflicted subconsciously. I've often considered that my self destructive behavior and constant sabatage of my life could have stemmed from the surpressed guilt and an unrealised belief that I didn't deserve any better.

Then came the Myspace page. It was just before I moved to Vegas in December of '07 that a friend decided that I should see Laurie's Myspace. Several friends whom I've known since we were kids had found it and upon seeing the pictures of Drew, for them, there was no longer even an ounce of doubt about who her father was. Well, after a few days of mental preparation, I looked and realised that nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. There is no unit of measurement minute enough to describe how long it took me to know 100% in my heart, my mind, and my soul that I was Drews father.

To put it mildly, seeing her face on screen tore me apart. I spent weeks trying to figure out what to do. Some would believe that I made another mistake when I decided not to contact Laurie or Drew, and I'm leaning that direction now too. But just like 7 years earlier, I fought any urge to find her and figured that she was a happy 15 year old with a mom and dad, little brother and littler sister and I did not, in any way, want to upset her life. I thought that it would be selfish of me to show up and how did I know she'd want to know of my existence? I didn't know for sure what she knew, but I figured that if she knew about me and she wanted to meet me, her mom would find me for her.

If you read this blog around the time I moved to Vegas, I'm sure you noticed a deep sea of depression. I was in a very dark place at that time. Other parts of my life were not so great either having just been robbed and having my house of cards that was underground G-vegas crumble around me. I'd arrived in Vegas practically broke and had taken a few horrific beats to suck me dry of what little money I had to get started. But Drew was on my mind and I became a little self destructive and I even wonder if once again I was self-punishing. With the new found knowledge of what was in my mind concerning Drew and Laurie, if one were to go back and read the posts from 11-07 through the following months, it wouldn't be hard to see.

Though I had made the decision to not try and find Drew, I was always wishing that she would find me. During the 14 months between the time I moved west and the day Laurie contacted me, I very frequently daydreamed that Drew would find out about me and show up at my door. I wondered what she'd be like. I wondered what she'd think of me. I even imagined what it would be like if she lived in Vegas with me. I thought about her all the time. I guess I'm an idiot for not just contacting her. Believe me, it wasn't easy to make the decisions I made. I had no idea that her mom had wanted to contact me and I had no idea that Drew would embrace my existence. Then the dream of her showing up finally came true the night Laurie contacted me through Facebook with the most important message I'll ever recieve.

This Father's Day, I'm exactly where I deserve to be. I'm celebrating by torturing myself in a deep pool of guilt and shame and sorrow. I'm at Starbucks on Haywood road dwelling on the failures and mistakes that have shaped the last 16 years of my life. I'll probably never be able to explain to myself, or anyone else, what happened 16 years ago. I would agree to make today my dying day if I could only go back to that time and change what happened. When I think deeply about it, I just want to throw myself into the traffic racing back and forth out front. But the problem with that is twofold. First, that would be an easy way out and I deserve to live so I can painfully toil over this for years and years to come. If I live to be 120 years old, I'll die filled with regret and it wouldn't be punishment enough. I'm trying to forgive myself, I really am, but who knows if I ever actually will.

But the other problem with hurling myself in front of a truck is even more important. I now know Drew. I met her almost 3 months ago. We've spent some time together and she likes me, and that's what I want more than anything. I love seeing her, talking to her. I love her face, her voice and her laugh. Deserved or not, I'm having amazing experiences with her. Frequently, she says things and I know exactly where they came from, me. I love that she's so intelligent and I love that she's strong willed. We have a lot of fun when we hang out and I wouldn't trade it for anything. And it gets better each time I see her. I wish I could see her right now. I love her to death.



It's getting tough to hold back now as a tear just escaped. I feel so angry at myself. I feel cheated and I'm the one to blame. I want to break something. I think it's time to go.


I am a father, but I'd give anything to be a dad.

Too much time on my hands, I got you on my mind
Can't ease this pain, so easily
When you can't find the words to say, it's hard to make it through another day
And it makes me want to cry, and throw my hands up to the sky