The Great Escape (1963)

Do we all want to escape our pasts? Maybe the more important question is even if we could … would we want too?

It’s my firm belief that everybody had a messed up childhood. Our chaotic upbringings are the very things that define us later in life. Shape us into the people we will become as adults. I’ll bet you that most people you know could point to at least one event in their past and proclaim that because of it “they were scarred for life.”

Most times though it’s not one pivotal and life altering event but a series of lifelong abuse or neglect or whatever that has shaped us into whom we have become. How we react to others. How we treat ourselves and the people in our lives. How we function in relationships. If we even like whom we have become. All of the image and esteem issues we are dealing with now stem from how we were raised then.

The point here is that if I wanted to (or I can only assume if you wanted to as well) I could tell you plenty of sad stories about how difficult my life was growing up. How messed up my home life was or horror stories about things I have had to do to protect my family or myself from harm. But really what’s the point. Odds are pretty high that we could exchange tales of sad sack lives all day long. But does that mean we should allow those events to predetermine what happens to our lives or how we feel about ourselves now?

I have come to realize that without those events in my life as a kid I wouldn’t be the man I am today. I wouldn’t have the wisdom of a hard-knock life (or be able to reference the musical Annie while writing about a painful childhood) that I have now. I wouldn’t have made the decisions that I did as I became a man and met the people I’ve met in my life.

Sinatra sings about regrets and how he’s had a few. I don’t know that I could agree with a sentiment like that. I mean I know that I sometimes wish that things had worked out for the better. I know that there have been times that I wished I had never met someone or chosen a certain path in life.

But I really feel that when I look back now I know that those choices have all enriched my life. Even the things that have left me heartbroken (only twice in my life) and seemingly worse off than I was the day before have meant something for me. I have learned and grown from all of the missteps in my life. I think that most of the time the wrong choice teaches you more than the right one ever could.

To be heartbroken means that you were once in love. There is no low on this or any earth that can match the high of being in love. There is no pain that could dream of matching the joy in feeling like you have met your one and only. I once said (and still firmly believe) that when it comes to love the risk is truly worth the reward.

Life has taught me that we roll the dice every day with each decision we make. I only hope that one day I am willing to take the gamble again.