I spent a long time not telling this story.
Part of that was because I didn’t think anybody would care. The other part was because some stories are easier to carry than they are to explain.
For most of my life, I was moving too fast to look backward anyway.
I was a runaway, an addict, a gang member, a firefighter, a husband, a father, a business owner, a college student, a social worker, and about a hundred other things depending on what year you happened to meet me. Some of those titles I am proud of. Some of them still make me shake my head.
The truth is, this isn’t a book about addiction.
It isn’t a book about gangs.
It isn’t a book about recovery.
It isn’t even a book about redemption.
Those things are in here, but they aren’t the point.
This is a book about a kid who spent most of his life looking for a place to belong.
A kid who made a lot of bad decisions.
A kid who hurt people he loved.
A kid who survived things he probably shouldn’t have survived.
A kid who kept getting second chances long after he deserved them.
Some people will read these pages and see a story about failure.
Others will see a story about perseverance.
A few might see pieces of themselves.
I hope that’s what happens.
Because if there is one thing I have learned, it is that pain is rarely unique. We all carry ghosts. We all have chapters we wish we could rewrite. We all have moments that still wake us up in the middle of the night wondering what might have been.
This book is not an attempt to make myself look better than I was.
In many places, it will probably accomplish the exact opposite.
The people in these pages are real. The mistakes are real. The consequences were real. Time has blurred some details and sharpened others, but every memory has been written as honestly as I know how.
You won’t find a hero here.
At least not in me.
The heroes of this story are the people who stayed when leaving would have been easier.
The friends who carried me.
The mentors who believed in me.
The people who refused to let me become the worst version of myself.
Most of all, the woman who kept standing beside me through enough storms to sink a fleet.
There are stories that didn’t make it into these pages. Some were too personal. Some belonged to other people as much as they belonged to me. Others simply didn’t fit the story I was trying to tell.
Because this book isn’t about every event that happened in my life.
It’s about the moments that changed its direction.
The moments that broke me.
The moments that rebuilt me.
The moments that taught me that redemption is usually less dramatic than people think.
Most of the time redemption isn’t a lightning bolt.
It’s showing up.
It’s staying.
It’s trying again tomorrow.
If you’ve ever felt lost, broken, forgotten, or convinced that your best days were already behind you, then maybe this story is for you.
And if not, that’s okay too.
Either way, thank you for opening the first page.
Now let me tell you how we got here.
— Clint Wilson