The Jackson Effect

I have made my impression on my family and friends.

It's cast in concrete; indelible.

For better or worse, they have their opinions, their criticisms, their appreciations - based on decades of me doing what I do. My opinion of what their impressions are might not sync with their reality, but I am not happy with what I believe those opinions to be.

Jackson is ten months old. I can make him laugh. I can hold him and hug him and love him. This is the easy stuff - he's not discriminating yet.

I do believe we have made an emotional connection. I love intensely; it springs from my heart and soul with a ferocity that cannot be misinterpreted. I am sensitive and empathetic with a dizzying earnestness.  

That's just who I am - the King of Emotion. And I think Jackson has picked up on that. When I hold him and talk to him and make funny faces for him, I feel like he just knows he's being loved, that he is safe, no worries, no fear, no doubt.

I could be mistaken. I could be full of shit. I could be perceiving what I want to perceive. I could be wrong.

But I'm not.

Reality is looming just over the horizon, though. Won't be long before he gets to really know me, and he will form opinions.

I don't want him to know the me I am now.

I am fighting really hard to change my life right now; it is all I can think about. I don't like parts of it; I'm finding it harder and harder to live with myself as is.

I have very little time left. If I died right now I would be pissed at the impressions I left behind. I would be roasting in hell thinking how badly I wasted my one shot at life.

And The Devil would be laughing.

Jackson is a fresh, new, and precious life. He is my grandson. I will be around for only a small part of his life.

I want that part to shine, to blow him away, to make him think and talk about me with respect and love and amazement when I'm gone. 

I want him to remember me as a force of nature.