At my mom’s house I look at all the pictures of us, myself, from ages ago: I smile happily from beneath the brow a Yankees cap that is still new as I lean back on the couch.
In my head, I still look like this 35 year-old guy. Bright and ready. Confident. But I know my head is a liar, because my shoulder aches and when I woke this morning plantar fasciitis had me limping to the bathroom like a cowboy with a broken hip.
I also think about what I believed then — more often than I'd like to acknowledge (yet, not all the time) — that I was ugly and damaged and needed to struggle to prove myself. All for reasons that happened decades before the camera's shutter caught the image I see today.
I close the picture album hoping I can help my boys see themselves without the kinds of distortion I brought to myself and curved my life invisibly.
I want them to see themselves as they are: beautiful and good and worthy.
I start by getting up and finding the baseball gloves: Hey, guys, want to toss the ball around?
