But for the grace of God go I ...

Had a visit from my mom this weekend which is always a good time. Anybody else out there ever go through TWO seasons in your life where you think your parents are wrong about a lot of things? Okay maybe it's just me :) Anyway I digress ... we had a good visit. Talked a lot about the "old days" around home. Which I guess as you get older, those old days come up more and more often. I'm not sure since I'm not old ... ahem :)

As I do get "more mature" though, I'm finding out many things about my family that I'm glad I didn't know while growing up actually. Perhaps this blog isn't a good place to share some things. Perhaps though I will anyway and you can just stop screaming at me to not write it ok? Sheesh. Pushy.

Well back to why we were talking about the "old days". Basically it was Halloween over the weekend in case you missed it. I started talking to mom about how I actually didn't miss grandma and grandpa's house (or mamaw and papaw's house actually). I was saying to her that I didn't miss it because of all the strange things that went on in that place. I have some tales which would curl your toes out there (and you know who you are). I mean you'd be so scared you'd end up perched on someone's head like a cat! :D

Pretty much, just growing up in that house was a mini-scary movie in itself each time I'd wake up from a terrible nightmare to see/hear things in the house that weren't mamaw/papaw/mom. Let's leave it at that shall we?

In talking about that house, mom opens up to be about some things that went on in her childhood at her house. Honestly I'd never heard those things from her before and won't repeat here. If mom wants to blog about that she can. She did tell me that my grandpa was diagnosed as a manic-depressive schitzophrenic, at one time. Well, that was news to me. I knew his mom, my great grandma, had mistreated him badly and HER mom had killed her husband way, way WAY back in the day. And the story just gets better as we get closer to me. Read on true believers.

See, my dad left before I was ever born. Not an uncommon tale nowadays which saddens me to say. But when I was growing up in the 70's, it was a bid deal to not have a dad around. Nobody to be that male role model; nobody to play catch with; nobody to teach you to use tools; nobody to give you those father/son talks; never feeling dad's arm on your shoulder. Just trying to bring all that home for those of you who grew up with dads. It IS a big deal to not have one. Sons need their fathers.

When I was around 10, my mom got married to my step-dad and for the first time I left "home". This guy had never taken any interest in me and I was a super-shy kid; needing someone to pull me out of my shell. After that I'd be fine but I wasn't one to come out and make new friends; much less new fathers. Sheesh does this sound like "As the World Turns" or what, right? Well the dad I'd hoped for ended up being a jerk and abusive to her, me and my half-brother. Don't worry; it wasn't physical abuse. It was mental, so that's much better right? Dark humor there kids. It was during all this bad stuff happening I developed my now deeply rooted sense of humor both dark and defensive; the cutting type of humor that can be silly as you please but for those that need an "adjustment", it can also be really hurtful. I used to revel in the hurtful type of insulting humor. And man I was good at it; I thought about it all the time. Planned my comebacks based on several different conversations I'd script out in my head. But that road leads to nowhere pretty quick. So when I was around 15, I gave that dark/mean humor up (even though its still a temptation now and then) and stuck with just silly humor. This was mainly because it was at that age, I found faith and started attending church. But don't worry I'm not one of those preachy types :) I've stayed fairly normal, lol

So. Why did I share all this. Well for one, I need to get this out. I've never really totally shared it all before. Have certainly never seen it in print and I wanted to see what it looked like. Certainly I've skipped many details. Another reason to share this is that I also have friends on here through the magic of the internet that even though I've never met them in person, they've still become very dear to me. So I wanted them to know about it. Its what good friends do. They talk about their stuff that's happened. Sure hope they still hang around me after this though.

So having been through all this shhhhtuff, seen all these things, and primarily from not having a Dad; it has instilled in me a super-strong desire to be a good father/husband/family kinda guy. Do I make mistakes? Oh yeah. Have I messed it all up at times. Probably no worse than you though so don't get cocky :) But the title of my article is true. For some reason, whatever that is, I'm different than most in my family. Now don't read that as "better", it's not what I meant.

The thing is, we have all done things we're not proud of; and learned lessons both publicly and privately that we wish we could have learned without the pain that problems bring. But the primary factor between those of us that "make it" and those that wallow in their problems, waiting for someone else to bail them out is this; a willingness to get back up when we mess up and a willingness to change when we realize we're wrong.

Mamaw and papaw used to tell me to "stick to your guns kid" and so often in these past few years, their words have rung in my heart. I hope if they are watching me somewhere, that they are proud of me and I hope someday to get to see them again. There are much different questions I'd ask them now if I could. Much different conversations I'd have with them. I miss them. But the things that I saw in their lives, no matter the mistakes that they made, I tried to take the best from them, ignore the worst and make a better life than those before me, for those ahead of me.

I think, for all intents and purposes, that is the purpose for all of us here. I could be wrong though. I have been before :)