My life has been no picture perfect journey of roses. In fact, I have deep-seated memories of being struck unfairly, being shouted at unfairly, being treated unfairly.
It started when I was younger than 5. I don't know when, but there are instances in my life that I can trace right back to when I was barely a toddler.
My dad was an angry man -- he had his own struggles. When I was a kid my mum and me bore the brunt of his anger when he was around.
Yet I'll spare you the grievances because this is not what I want to talk about today; this is about being fractured and becoming whole.
This, I rarely talk about and is my offering to The Flame.
You see, in my 30's my father died.
It pulled at every single fibre in my body -- not because I wanted to scream and hit him, I had already done that in the past. But he was leaving me on this earth with not much guidance, not much advice.
The little he did give me was not enough, and now he was gone.
For the first time in a long time, I felt alone.
Of course my mum was and always is there for me, ready to step in when times get tough and difficult; she had always been my guardian, but this was different, more deep, more primal.
The small smidgen of safety my father provided for me by just existing, no longer existed.
I now knew I had to learn to be a man on my own.
This.. was scary.
Before dad died I made my peace with him -- that was probably the most comforting thing I ever did in my life.
One of the very last things he said to me was that he was proud of me, something my dad had never said to anyone.
I think he meant it.
But grief does funny things to people. It's seductive, and charming, when the anger and the rage comes it can often be hard to walk with a clear head.
That's why I started talking about him in my writing -- because he was a way to process my feelings whilst also give the millions that were going through the same a comfort blanket.
But my family found that writing and now I don't talk to some of them because of it.
Those were his relatives too and whilst my writing was my sanctuary it was a hell scape for them.
If I could do it all over again I would not have listened to those people and wrote for myself and no-one else.
But mistakes we must live with them and learn from them. I am one step wiser than I was 10 years ago when I used my grief to make a living; something I recommend none of you do.
It rips apart families and support networks all in the aim of pushing an agenda for a larger corporation.
Something I'll never do again.
Here we birth hope.
Anyway, my Father in law took the reigns. My wife's dad. I now know how to fix things with wood and glue because of him.
He's now the reason I'll go to Screwfix instead of calling a Plummer. He showed me love when he really had no reason to.
I learned about what being a man was all about from him.
And what a great man he is.
When he dies I probably will weep great tears of sadness like I never have before. He showed me the softer side to men, the caring side, the protector side.
I saw this as weakness at the very beginning and now I only see it as raw power.
And that right there I've seen as the failing of modern men. Not through their own fault but as a society that absolutely gives zero fucks anymore.
Men are bolstered on what they can earn, what they can do -- not what they give.
Teach a man to give with love, and he becomes whole.
That's what I learned to do.
Sure, at the beginning I was seen as weak because I wasn't the stereotypical man of old; stiff upper lip, strict, and commanding -- I was soft, gentle, and caring.
And in my early days life was tough for those men; the world, it toughens you up to life quite a bit. Most men you meet tend to think that you need a "good kicking" to mould you into shape.
There are men though that curl around the softness, take refuge in the gentleness -- perhaps they see something in me they have never found themselves -- those men I have grown to know as friends.
But life, it has taught me to lean into that gentleness.
I was always scared of it in the beginning. Childhood taught me to fear it, my love life before my wife taught me to hate it.
I would always run away from anything that required feeling and soul.
Yet my Father in law has taught me that strong men aren't just physically strong, they are strong in heart too. They give when not asked and provide refuge when needed.
And the world, it lacks this.
The world extracts, it takes, it eats up.
In a debt based society all there is are the hollow fragments of men that once were great. Throwing themselves off bridges in numbers that would shake people to the core.
But no-one cares anymore.
We are all looking out for our own purse, our own bag.
Who cares if a few men throw themselves of high rise buildings? It's the small price we pay for these grand riches.
Alas,
I say no more.