[LESS INFO] 2 VIEWS | ADDED 18:57:11 09/27/08
In 1998 at the age of 17, a boy still in school and beginnging to look for his first real job, is approached by his beautiful girlfriend. He is as he always is...happy to see her and to feel her embrace. But this day is different. The young girl tells the boy, we're having a child. All at once he is struck with fear. Fear that he's not ready. Fear that he won't be able to love this child like a father should. He remembers how he was shown love, with a belt, a hanger or a broomstick. He fears that his days of independence are over and that he has to become responsible. So he puts on a mask to fool the girl. – he tells her he’ll be there to help once the child is born. Time goes on and his family is telling him the child isn’t his. At first, he doesn’t believe them, but he is also having trouble with the girl’s family – they didn’t get along anymore – he felt pushed away. He is overwhelmed, confused, angry, tired, scared. He decides to leave...and 6 days after his 18th birthday he is gone without a word. He felt free of worry – he thought his responsibilities had disappeared. He drinks more and more, intoxicated with his sense of freedom which he suspects is just a mirage. But it looked so good he ventured toward it anyway...for eight years. Even after he returns home he still runs from fatherhood. While the girl he left has changed. She has grown. The girl is now a woman and a mother. The boy has not changed. he continues to drink his worries away, in and out of jail, in and out of his child’s life, saying hi, but not goodbye ,again and again. Leaving her wondering when he’ll come back or if he even will. But she continues to show him her love, a love that doesn’t change, doesn’t falter, is unconditional. But the boy worries that this might not last that she might one day grow tired of the disappointments and the hurt. One day he realizes he’s only got one more shot to make a lasting relationship with his child. He decides it’s time to change, it’s time to become a man and a father.
