Sharing too much

(copied from a facebook post today, which i deleted shortly after...)

I shared a little too much at work today..talking about the past. Sometimes that whole "i=dont=give=a=shT" attitude bites me in the ass. I forget that most of my closest friends are all from the time I came back to Lubbock from college. And they know me well. They just dont know how I grew up...

geez, i seriously dont know what comes over me sometimes- this overwhelming need to tell the truth.. it just gets me in trouble

I actually told a group of women at lunch (thank god I dont eat lunch often) that I could count the friends i grew up with who WERENT criminals on one hand...

Todd is my oldest friend. He knew me when I was just me- back before Jr High hits and you get all caught up in all the bullshit. And I am the same guy I was back then. And he is too, i believe. But life picks you up like a west texas wind, and sometimes you just dont fight it enough.

And I'd like to say I still talk to All my old friends... And they are all here on FB. ... But, the crowd i ran with... well, we werent future=oriented, i suppose. Some are locked up. Some are dead. A few are just- gone. Hell, some of them I cant even find on google. Shit, you are worse than dead if you cant google yourself, right?

Out of the limbo years, 13 thru 18, Shawn Henderson is the only one I still see with any regularity. And, sometimes, its a tossup which one of us should be in jail ... but we managed to avoid it, somehow. Cant tell you how. He's got a wonderful wife, and a beautiful little girl. And neither of us really know how we escaped it all. Least of all us

I mean, I know. I gave it up. I had that one last scare, I saw one too many idiots go down for the stupidest shit. And i managed to half=ass stay out of trouble ever since. And avoid the big trouble that you cant ever walk away from. It was my boys that saved me, at first. And later, my girls.

And I'm a good dad. It keeps me from self-destructing. Every damn day.

And i'm gonna delete all this shit shortly and i'll have exorcised this stuff from my guilt ridden heart one more time, and that'll last me another little while, and everything will be alright

Todd replies: I think you survived by a combination of Dumb Luck and the influence of a great woman, Paula.

Me: I cannot argue with that. She always liked you. Like me, she was a very good judge of character