Today

Fuck me. Not literally. Well, unless you are Diane Lane. In which case, feel free. (I am joking.) I don't fucking understand people. I just don't. I am sitting here typing this with a heavy heart and tears in my eyes. Yep, I admit it. I am crying again.

What the fuck is wrong with people? They take a look at one small instance of someone's life and judge them. Suddenly, from 2 hours of meeting with me, you know who I am? Bullshit. You dont know the first thing about me. Why? Because you didn't want to know me. You had your pea-brain mind made up about me before we first met. You were so smug, so smart. You knew everything.

Newsflash: you never know everything and there is always someone smarter than you. Yep. We all have to learn that lesson. I learned it when I thought I was smarter than my dad. I really did. Dude had a PhD in pharmaceutical chemistry and I was so sure I was smarter than him. (It turned out he was flawed though, he couldn't tutor me in high school chemistry where I got a D. Yep, I got a D in high school chemistry with a father who was a research chemist for the first 7 or 8 years of his working life and who had a Ph fucking D.) Turns out, I was wrong. I was so sure I was right. I knew everything. I was 15 years old. Turns out 15 year olds are idiots - a lesson I learned again last night.

So now someone thinks that they are so smart, that they know who I am. I know who I am. I am a father, a husband, a man (as of this week), a son even if my parents arent here anymore, a brother to a sister who has died and a brother who doesnt talk to me, and I am me. I am a good person. Fuck you if you don't believe me. You don't matter to me. I dont fucking care what you think. I did. I admit it. I spent most of the last 2 years caring what you think. A lot of good that did me.

I hurt because I care. I fucking care too much some times. I care about my friends. I care about my family. I care about my clients. That is the death knell of an attorney. We aren't supposed to care. Well, guess what, I do. I get personally invested in their cases. Its why I can't take cases that I don't believe in. Hell, I care about the homeless guy who was sitting outside of Starbucks last week on a cold evening. I bought him a cup of coffee. Its just simply the right thing to do.

So you think of me as the devil. You find me evil. Fine. You don't know who I am. You don't care to know who I am. And quite frankly, you don't deserve to know who I am. I have made mistakes in life. Let me just be perfectly clear about this: I AM SORRY. If I have hurt you, I am sorry. If I have offended you, I am sorry. If I have done something that bothers you, I am sorry. I don't think I make the same mistakes twice though, which means I learn from them.

But those mistakes don't define me. Those mistakes shape me and my successes in life define me. I shouldn't be sitting here today. Not literally. I shouldn't be sitting here as a college graduate or a law school graduate. I got kicked out of the 7th grade. Yep. I made it through high school - barely. My guidance counselor told me not to bother applying. I was on the speech team. Some kid from New Jersey with a funny accent who wasn't outgoing and couldn't talk for 2 minutes. I was told I couldn't make it through law school at night. Hell, I was told I couldnt earn my CPCU. Maybe those people were right. But I persevered. (I saw myself in my youngest son on Saturday when he kept falling down ice skating and kept getting up. The kid was going to skate.)

I am not a failure because of my mistakes. I am not an idiot, a moron, a bad person, the devil, evil incarnate or anything else. I am a father. And while I screw up, I try. I am a husband, and while I know I screw up as a husband, I try. Look, I didn't have the world's greatest role model. (You think that doesn't hurt to say?) But he tried like his dad before him. My dad wasn't around a lot. I learned from him. So I screw up, but I try. I try hard. No man in my family has ever claimed to be perfect at parenting or being a husband. Hell, I wasnt even a great son, and that should be pretty easy.

But I am true to myself. I know what I stand for. I believe in all of those things that we think are idiotic. I believe in our system of justice. I sure as hell know today that our justice system works better than other systems. I believe in people. I think people are generally good. I believe that if we all did one good thing a week, the world would be a better place.

So, fuck me right now because I am feeling sorry for myself. This too will end. And probably before another hour passes. I do know that I am a generally good person who stands up for what he believes him. I know that I generally put other people first, whether I should or not, I don't know. I know that I care, that I love, that I try. So, get to know me before you make bold pronouncements of who I am. And then if you still dont like me, fuck you.