"Since someone has to do it I will be / Myself since I am best at being me"

Being Me

I

I am embarrassed to seem a failure
When so many had been expecting me
Or maybe it was just my family

To have made them proud might have been the cure
But they were honest and they said they were

And now they have all gone into the light
As I have gone further into the dark
I will live simply and sleep in the park

Although a failure is what I might seem
I am still here now and I can still dream

II

If poor and sick and uncomfortable
Having made rather a mess of living
I am not one of the irritable
Who seem to prefer getting to giving

I give away such as I have to give
Which could be why I have so little now
Having hit bottom deciding to live
Against bad odds and good advice somehow

Everybody knows what is best for me
But I have to follow my destiny

III

My grandma thought it was I was too smart
She and her doctor were worried for me
Life broke my mind just like it broke her heart

I think my mother saw how it would be
But she married my father after all

My grandpa was not my grandfather but
With that perspective could see that my fall
Would lift my people up no matter what

What they all wanted was to make it right
But ran out of time as day became night

IV

My children love me and I love them too
They watch me curiously anyway
One eye made proud one blind by what I do
I think one or two of them might still pray

The future is impossible to see
In fact the present is pretty hazy
As the past slips slowly from memory
Every now and then someone goes crazy

Since someone has to do it I will be
Myself since I am best at being me

+Steven Curtis Lance



Copyright MMVII