I lost my innocence early on in life growing up in the Bronx. Somewhere between my father despising me for caring more about clothes rather than football and practically being raised in a bar, my chances of growing up normal were slim. Life was fast and unfair, but I somehow made it out; all for a price of course. But in the end, after all the bloody noses, razor cuts and hiding my pain behind cigarettes and cheap beer, I would end up finding myself, and myself was good enough for me.

I had to grow up fast in the Kingsbridge neighborhood of the Bronx where I was born and raised. My family was lower-middle class and broken from drugs, alcohol and bad genes. Before I was eighteen, I watched loved ones die, lost friends to suicide and was the victim of physical and mental childhood abuse; which would all play a major role in my very own and quickly blooming alcoholism and addiction problem. I was depressed and reclusive, choosing to congregate with only a few select friends, so when it came to finding my own identity and ultimately being happy, I was constantly on the edge of losing it all.

Growing up I was never the kid who impressed his father. He wanted a manly son, someone to catch a football and talk about girls with. He wanted me to wear my school’s varsity Letterman jacket to prom and watch baseball with him on Sundays. Instead he was stuck with a son who dressed like Michael Jackson when he was eight, wrote his first micro book about cats when he was eleven, and skipped prom at seventeen to graffiti the walls of the Bronx at night. I opted out of the Letterman jacket and went with a red and black grunge flannel instead.

My father started to pay more attention to me when he thought I was gay after my best friend Frankie pierced my ear and then months later I came home with a second piercing. Concerned about the future of my sexual orientation, he started to bring me to his favorite neighborhood Irish bar, J.C. Macs, when I was seventeen. All afternoon I would hang out with him and his friends. We would eat pizza, drink rum and cokes and shoot pool in between placing bets on the racehorses via the bar Bookie. All of my friends were either grounded or doing homework and there I was, hanging out at the local bar with a bunch of 40 somethings, drinking and illegally gambling. How could I not be impressed?

He always said that he was teaching me life lessons, which was something that I couldn’t learn in school. “You’re a man and this is what men do. Some days are going to be good and some days are going to be bad, but you have to be tough. You know what makes you tough, son? Blood makes you tough. Crying is for pussies. Just have a drink. Vodka makes its better.” This was one of my father’s bar philosophies he regularly preached to make me a better man.

Although the bar scene was alluring, at the end of the day, I wasn’t impressed. I knew his philosophies were backwards and if anything, the atmosphere at the bar only influenced and fueled my need for drinking and drugs.

If I could go back, I wouldn’t have spent so much time trying to impress him. I would have spent more time observing the people who made an impact on me, the people who were honest and true to themselves and who weren’t concerned with the opinions of others. A lot of those people lived in right in my own neighborhood. They didn’t need designer clothing and they had no desire to own an expensive car to show off to the neighbors. They wore what they wanted to wear and talked as loudly as they wanted to talk. Some were drunks, addicts and thieves, but they were all beautiful to me and I still looked up to them no matter how unorthodox their lifestyles were. They just simply lived. They were honest, and honesty in self-identity is an important trait to have when you’re trying to find your place in this world.

It’s been thirteen years since I’ve seen my father and whenever I think of him I don’t get mad. Without my him even knowing, his poor life choices gave me exactly what I needed to become the man that I am today. I stay away from bars, I write my poetry and drink coffee with my wife Andrea and that’s all I need.

I learned from some of the best and worst of people in life, sometimes more in bars than in school, but I did learn something. I learned how to be myself and I can honestly say that I can thank a bunch of crazy New Yorkers for that.

I wouldn’t trade anything for the life I had in the Bronx. I learned how to survive. I learned what real love is and I learned how to love myself, and there is nothing more valuable than you loving you.

*The opinions and ideas expressed are solely those of the author, and may not reflect the opinions of The Bronx Brand*