My name is Jerry McMillan. I’m now in my mid-forties and have few regrets about my life. I’ve done good things, bad things, and things I wish I could just forget. However, and in all honesty, I like who I am, and those things I’ve done, tried, or didn’t try are what makes me who I am…and I’m finally comfortable with this person I call me. I must admit though, I’ve had one small desire for quite some years now, and if you are reading this, then I’ve reached my goal. 

It’s been over ten years now since I began writing my story. However, my intentions have morphed over the years from wanting to tell my mother’s story, which I thought was really quite interesting, to telling my story, which I feel is equally interesting. Hopefully this book will bear the fruits of my labors and experiences well as you continue reading. I too hope, if only but for a short while, that it will allow you to walk in another’s shoes and to gaze at the world through another’s eyes, albeit eyes that are now a little weary.

When I began writing my book, I was consumed and wrote at a feverish pace for about three months. Then a peculiar thing happened. It would seem that I found another purpose for writing; a purpose other than for the gratification of telling a story. I found it to be quite therapeutic and genuinely liberating; it was as if in my writing I had thrown off the yoke of self-denial in which I had so regrettably adorned my own neck with through the years. However, the story I was going to tell then is nothing like the story I’m writing today.

My original writings were much more dark and morose, and, to a degree, sophomoric. Back then I was searching my soul for the most miserable, vile, and despicable things that had happened in my life. I wanted to cut them out like an ugly cancer and didn’t care if it was with scalpel precision or butcher knife crudeness. I just wanted the disease out so I could throw the whole mess onto paper then offer it with pride and glory to the world as the story of my worthless, self- loathing life. But in coming to accept the person I was, the person I now am, this wasn’t to be.

I believe what occurred was that I’d unintentionally freed myself from the chaos I so dearly wanted to write about, and in coming to grips with my own self I felt the writing experience had served its purpose, so I put down the book. I wasn’t so interested in writing anymore it seemed. But I’ve always known I have this wonderful and sometimes unbelievable story to tell; something to say to everyone, but not preachy you know. To wit, the writing bug had bitten again, and this time I’ve paid it some serious attention.