Mandaris Moore

I was driving over to the post office to drop off my unemployment papers and I was thinking about my father. I do respect and love my father, but sometimes I see the scars that life has given him. There are moments where I see the bitterness seeping out of him.

Although I lived in his house for more than half of my life, there are many things I don't know about him. I don't know all the troubles he lived through and there have been times when I've wondered why does he feel a certain way about different things.

There have been many times that he's ranted about something and I've thought he was crazy. The thing is that's I feel that he's right to a degree, but the way he talks about it doesn't help his argument.

The thing is, I don't know much about my father outside of being my father.

What is important?

Is it important that I know everything about my dad before he became my dad? No. The important thing is that he loves me and that I can trust him.

The reasons I think about this is that I wonder if he is happy. Is he proud of the majority of his choices in life and whether he's accomplished all of the goals that were truly important to him.

Are we going anywhere with this?

There are many times in my life where I've forgotten that how many sibilings that my parent have and what's their names are. I do know that my father has a brother... His name in John. I don't know if it's Jon, Jonathan or John... For a couple of years I thought it was Robert.

Last week, I was driving in the car with my family and I mentioned my brother.

My oldest daughter asked, "You got a brother?"

This weekend, was good to me. I managed to spend sometime with my family, get some rest and look for a new job without feeling that I was cheat so other important goal. Still, I don't think that new job is going to fall into my lap, but I'm optimistic that if worse comes to worse, I can find something to keep the lights on and make sure that my family isn't hungry.

I believe in myself and I believe in the power of family.

When I write it down it does sound like and affirmation, but I don't see that as a problem. What is wrong with having a positive attitude? It seems that a lot of people don't feel the need to grasps the importance of simply enjoying the moment. Like they are saving all the happy moments for some grand retirement in the bahamas.

Well, I can tell you this now.

Nothing is guaranteed and -honestly- nothing is "deserved".

Not the retirement. Not happiness. Not even that career for working your ass off in college. People change, plans change. If you haven't heard this yet, I'm sorry to busrt your bubble and be that guy.

For example, I was always told I was smart. I was told that I'd go far in life. I played by the rules given to me and ultimately my career has not come to fruition (just yet).

The only things in this world that I have at this point in life is the love of my family and friends. It is partially for them that I'm able to get up in the morning and I'm grateful.

Sure, it isn't guarunteed that the will be in the greatest of moods, but there is love there.