In the search for my childhood, I selfishly missed my daughters. Her first steps, her first words, her first day of school all of the events of a child that a father should never miss. I was to selfish chasing after my lost childhood. I could not hold on to the memory of it, the very moment I had a firm grip around it, my mental anguish would pry my fingers loose one by one until I slipped back into the abyss. Only the lingering feelings of isolation and loneliness were left and haunted me throughout my teens and my adulthood.
The ghost inside me chased me as I chased after my identity. Searching for my father, I denied my daughter hers. A Fatherless father with no clue how to be one; it took until my thirties to realize my errors in thinking, it was time for me to grow up. It is a full out war going on in my subconscious: little Joe acting out when he doesn’t get the attention he needs and big Joe losing control. It is time to stop being so selfish, and start being the father that my daughter deserves, the father that I was meant to be.
Joe's Journal 