Matthew Lyle Landsman

Being a father changed me. It made me a better man than I would otherwise have been. It gave me a purpose, a pride, a reason to become and stay sober. Being a father gave me incentive to achieve, get educated, and become the image in his mirror.
Being a son to MY father taught me how what I needed to know to be a good father, gave me the strength, patience, love, fortitude, acceptance…and how to love someone, even when it was hard to like them.
In both being a father and a son today and every day, I am so blessed, so proud, so grateful, and so loved and full of love.
In being an honorary father, Godfather (G-Daddy), step father…I am validated, I am privileged, humbled. I was taught that simply being there, listening, advising, and loving, is enough to give meaning to a life otherwise filled with an essence of absence.
Being a father and a son has given me life.
I thank my Dad, and my son and daughters for keeping me close. Matthew.

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When your life seems to be falling to pieces, maybe it is the universe telling you it’s time to sort out the garbage and then put the keepers back together in a way that gives you a fighting chance and a better level of being. If keeping the ingredients that encourage failure is a habit of yours, perhaps its time to purge…Just because you’ve invested time in people and tendencies and a “style”, does not mean you need to cling to toxicity and parasites…Make some clean breaks. Make some adult decisions. Make some wholesale changes. Make some commitments. Make some hard choices. And make a trip to a different well to dip your life water out of, because the one you’ve been using is tainted and sour.
After a while, the issues in your own life repeating themselves only point to one person, one constant, one fault. The culprit is in the mirror, and the accomplices are the ones behind you most willing to keep you down at their level.
Become your own best friend and learn to love you first. Being lonesome for a while is a small sacrifice to being lonesome surrounded by a lost collection of habits and folks for the duration…
Look in the mirror and embrace the truth.
Success starts within you. Stop blaming and start changing. Although a lot of your issues might not be your fault, they might be faults of yours…Matthew

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Early June. Sunset tonight is about a quarter till nine. Dawn came about five. It will be hot today.
I remember these days from when I was a kid. Glory days. Days when a guy could play until there was no play left in me.
Days when cartoons were not even considered in the morning. A kid would wander out in yesterday’s clothes, last night’s pillow styled and night sweated hair, and roll off on a bike with twenty inch spoked wheels, already five patches on the tubes, banana seat and handle bars set at an angle all your own.
Whether a kid went was off to explore on his own, or joining friends, one could be sure of a few things. A sunburn was in order, a few scrapes and a stubbed toe or two would happen, becoming ‘boy dirty’ (and likely stinkier) was inevitable, and that fun could and would be had for well over twelve glorious hours.
Moms would suggest you getting wet, either in a sprinkler, pool, stream, wherever. Lunch would be served outside, then you would be invited to go off and play until sleep was sure to find you in earnest that night…after a good bath.
The first days after school let out for summer were the sweetest. Till a kid started missing his buds from the classrooms. The summer crowd was different, and life was equally grand. You just had to diversify and go with whatever happened.
There are lots of great memories of the unbridled freedom of such late spring/early summer days. I miss them so.
But mostly I miss summers off, trips to the farm, new bikes, old bikes, growth spurts, a cowlick in my hair, having hair, and last but most certainly not least; my Momma.
And today I have over twelve hours of sunshine to remember it all.
And tonight I will take a bath, grow very sleepy, tuck away my pocket treasures, give thanks for the day…and remember when…and hope Momma might happen by later in the night and tuck me in…and then wash my dirty clothes while I sleep. Love you Momma, Matty.

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