David Addison is a singer, guitarist, songwriter and producer that has played in a variety of rock, progressive-rock and acoustic musical groups spanning decades in and around the Denver, CO area.
David's musical journey began at an early age.
"I used to come up with songs while I was walking home from school in first grade and sing them at the top of my lungs." says David, "Honestly, I was really shy, so I would've been horrified if I thought anybody could hear me. But, I suppose that I was just so 'in the moment' that it really didn't occur to me that there were other people around."
"I remember really wanting to be a drummer. Something about the beat of music just fueled me. Tapping my foot to the rhythm felt so fulfilling and energetic. To this day, I always try to find a beat and follow it. If I'm listening to music, I tend to automatically adjust my breath, pace and movements to the beat - it just does something to me. Makes me feel whole in some sort of strange way. It always has. But, I'm not coordinated enough to be a drummer. I feel like an idiot flailing around when I try to play drums. So, it never stuck."
No formal training.
"I was kind of a geeky-jock kid growing up. I was good in school and played soccer and basketball. I didn't really have my sights on music. I was planning on becoming a doctor - specifically, a neurosurgeon. I was pretty clear about this by the time I was in 7th or 8th grade."
That sounds interesting - what happened?
"Well, it was the late-80's and there was all of this rebellious counter-culture stuff that was interesting to me. I was a bit of a latch-key kid - and as such, was desperately seeking attention. I noticed that all of these rebellious kids were getting a ton of attention - not necessarily good attention - but, it was something. So, I realigned my priorities, stopped doing my schoolwork, quit playing sports and joined a friend's band. I was going to be the singer. The frontman. We were going to perform heavy metal. I wasn't really sure what that meant. But, it sounded cool. So, I went along for the ride, learned 'Heaven's On Fire' by KISS, and thus began my music career. At the ripe old age of 13. We decided to call the band Fallen Saint - such a heavy metal name!"
Was that it? You just flipped the switch and POOF! You're a heavy metal frontman?
"No way! I totally sucked! I mean, I was 13 and surrounded by all of these kids that were like 16-17 years old. I really didn't have any confidence - and well, my voice had just turned like 6 months earlier. So, I started begging my Dad for a guitar."
That seems reasonable.
"Yeah. He was pretty disappointed with me by that point. I had let my grades slip, quit the soccer team that he coached, started growing my hair out. He knew something was awry."
Did he get it for you?
"Yes, eventually. It took a while. I think it was like 100 years in kid time. I had signed-up for a guitar class in school - despite the fact that I didn't have a guitar. The teacher, Mr. Fulte, must have seen something in me - and I will forever be gracious - he let me borrow a guitar to use in class and something about it just clicked. It was so natural. By the end of the semester, I went from barely being able to hold that guitar to teaching other kids to play Metallica's 'One' in 3-part harmony. I had found my groove - for sure."
But, what about the guitar?
"I got it for Christmas that year. It was a Fender Stratocaster, cream with a white p ick guard and a maple neck."
Finding an Identity: The Teenage Years
So, you’re armed with a new guitar, plenty of teenage angst and on a missionto take over the world. What happens next?
“Right… Things start to get a little crazy. I pretty much spent all my free time practicing guitar and pretending to be a rock icon - in private. I was starting to get decent and went up to Iceland for the summer to visit my Mom – and that’s when things really started to get weird.”
Weird, like good? Bad? What’s the scoop?
“Like, absolutely CRAZY. I was so young – you know. I found some friends there and started a band. My grandparents let me take over their garage and set it up to have band practice. There was a group of us kids that would just stay up all night jamming and partying and getting drunk – it was insane! Honestly, I’m not sure how any of us survived. We thought we were adults – we definitely weren’t ready for that kind of lifestyle – but, we certainly tried.”
What are we talking here? Hookers and blow at 15 years old? Or, what?
“Nah, I never really got into that side of it. Sure, we were crazy kids – but, it could’ve been a lot worse. It was all good fun and mostly nobody got hurt.”
“You do silly things when you’re a kid and trying to figure yourself out. This life we live doesn’t come with an owner’s manual, so you just try different things out until it feels right. I spent a lot of time doing that – I didn’t have a ton of parental oversight, so I got to try a lot of things other kids didn’t. Thankfully, I had enough brains to not go any of those deep, dark places. I came pretty close to the edge a few times – but, something always pulled me back. I did watch a lot of friends get washed away into the abyss of depression, drugs and alcohol. It was always a tough thing to watch. I still wonder where some of those guys are.”
“Ultimately, it was a result of standing so close to some of those fires that really began to define who I wanted to be. It would’ve been easy to just latch into the drug-ridden subculture and waste away thinking I was making something of myself – but, I really needed to achieve something. I jammed with tons of different people and it never really felt natural. There was always this competition, this angst that really didn’t allow the music to fall into a groove and evolve. This was the late 80’s-early 90’s, so at that point in time, everybody just wanted to become the next super-intense guitar virtuoso. We were all just running around with the latest Tascam or Fostex multi-track recorder on a mission to show how much we could shred like no other – that was the way.”
“One night in high school, I went to a party with a bunch of other kids. I was kind of new to the school, so I didn’t really know more than a handful of them. Everybody was waiting for the beer to show up and acting stupid like high schoolers do – and, guess who comes through the door with a case of beer… Freakin’ Nuno Bettencourt. He tosses the beer on the counter and immediately sits down in the living room, magically a guitar comes out of nowhere, all of the girls start swooning around him and he begins playing ‘More Than Words’. It was surreal.”
So, you’re saying that Nuno Bettencourt was playing random high school parties and bringing the beer at the top of his career?
“No, turns out the guy that showed up was Noel Hernandez. But, geez, he looked just like Nuno – it was crazy! Noel was already a very accomplished guitarist at that time – so, it wasn’t really a jump to liken him to somebody like Nuno.”
“In any case, that really stuck with me – so, by the end of the party we decided that we should get together and jam sometime. It took a few months – but, once we did – we were inseparable. Noel was by far one of my favorite people to jam with – and also quickly became my closest friend.”
Rock, Rock (‘Til You Drop)
So, you and Noel team up – and, what? The rest is history?
“No, not even close.”
“At this point, all of our friends are going off to college, we’re too young to go to the bar – so, we lock ourselves away in Noel’s mom’s basement and jam nonstop. We take the occasional break to go to Denny’s, Perkin’s or IHOP to drink coffee and debate religion or government with the local vampires.”
“One night, Noel introduces me to a guy named Carl Borsick. Apparently, he is some sort of local keyboard virtuoso trying to make his mark. We head over to his house at like 2am and he plays us tons of stuff he’s recorded and tells us about this band he just joined. It seems that the guitarist for that group was leaving – so, Carl asks if either of us is interested in trying out. We both said - definitely.”
“We show up the next week at band practice and meet the rest of the guys. We all have similar taste in music, so it’s pretty easy to land on a few songs that we can all play as an audition. Noel and I were really both hoping to be able to join – but, ultimately only I was offered the gig. So, I took it. And off I went to conquer the world with Molotov – an over-the-top progressive rock quintet.”
So, what – you just left Noel standing on a corner in the rain?
“Nah, Noel and I were best friends. He was exploring different sounds at that point anyways – I think the band would’ve found a way to incorporate his sound. There was just more of a personality or chemistry thing that didn’t work out. Noel and I still got together and jammed frequently.”
Got it. So, now you’re in Molotov.
“Yep – Molotov was just finishing up their debut album. Gary Wingo was a kind of wunderkind rock-God in the waiting and had put everything he had into recording this album. It was the premier studio, the premier engineer, all of the music was polished, and it was extraordinarily creative/progressive/deep. I was able to lay down just a few finishing touches on 3-4 songs – but, most of it was already done. And it was time to start playing out to promote it. We were going to be famous for sure!”
“So, we packed our gear, kissed our ladies goodbye and headed for the local bar.”
Wait… What?
“Yeah, we all had jobs, or college, or families with kids – so, jumping into a van for the cross-country musical journey that you hear about so much just wasn’t on the table. We played every top-tier rock club we could in Denver – Alibi’s, After the Gold Rush… I can’t even remember the names of all of them. There wasn’t a ton – it was like 5-6 different clubs on the scene at that time. They all sucked. None of them were ever busy. So, it was a series of shows where we were playing ‘Battle of the Bands’ gigs and the only people in the audience were the other bands we were competing against. It was pretty lame, but we did it for years.”
Haha, if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that…
“You’re not kidding. It took a while, but we finally got it through our thick skulls that the clubs were not going to do anything to promote us and people were not banging down the door to hear our originals – despite how cool we thought they were. So, we decided that we should start playing cover songs and pepper in our originals – that way, people would come for sure. It was brilliant, but it didn’t really work – and a couple of the guys needed to start justifying the time spent jamming would help put food on the table – so, we switched to almost all covers. And thus began what I like to call the ‘Don’t quit your day job’ years.”
That sounds like the place where dreams go to die.
“Not really, I think we felt like we were keeping the dream alive – but, in a more practical sense. It was exhausting though. Over the years, there were different iterations of the band – members would come and go, only two of us would show up for a gig, other strange happenings… It was just kind of a jumbled mess of people and places. We were playing every weekend and typically a few times a week. It was great experience. There were a lot of good gigs and a lot of really, really bad gigs that made the good ones seem like they were great ones. But, mostly, there were bad gigs.”
“Eventually, you come to terms with the fact that you can’t control certain parts of what’s going on at this stage of the game and just focus on being as dialed-in as you can get. I’ll call it leveling-up in your musical performance maturity. As Freddy Mercury would say, ‘The show must go on.’ Indeed, the show must go on.”
Makin’ A Mess
So that’s it? You guys just did that over and over again expecting the “Big Break” o come? Isn’t that essentially the definition of insanity?
“You’re not kidding – it felt that way sometimes. Maybe it’s the alternative to being road-weary, you know staying in the local area and playing the same old clubs over and over again. Something’s gotta give – at some point. And it did – eventually.”
“I found myself with a decent job, making decent money – with a dream that wouldn’t die. So, I decided that we’d have to make things happen if anything was going to happen. I really believed in the guys and their talent. By this point, we’d switched out band members a few different times – but, Gary, Carl and I were always part of the gig. We added Tony Gross (Warner), who was a long-time friend of mine. Then, I set out to make things happen. I found this promotion company called “World Entertainment & Management Group” – they looked like the real deal. So, we connected with them as our representation. Part of the deal was for us to record a new three-song demo for them to promote and shop to labels. They really wanted it to be professionally polished – which came with a fairly hefty price tag. So, I ook out a personal loan for $20,000 to pay for the recording time, producer, and some new gear – and off we went – to shoot for the stars.”
What happened? Was it really that easy?
“Nah – I still wonder if that whole thing was a scam from the get-go. We recorded three songs. They sounded GREAT! We spent hours and hours and hours in the studio and every little detail was scrutinized. I watched and learned all about the nuances of the recording process (since it was my money at work). And when we were done, the folks at World Entertainment made a few calls to the local radio stations and got us on the air a couple of times, hosted a few events that featured us – and then promptly asked us for more money so they could promote us to the ‘big leagues’. They also wanted us to invest in recording a video. But, I was pretty much tapped-out by that point – and none of the other guys were making tons of money to be able to throw at this thing. So, we walked away from WEG and things went back to the way they were.”
“Along the way, the guys started to ‘live the Rockstar life’ (if you know what I mean…) and their personal lives were pretty much a total mess. So, we moved things up to the Greeley area – because, why wouldn’t you go to Greeley, Colorado to try to make it big?”
Excuse me? Huh? Wha…
“Yeah – that’s how I feel about it too. It was really so a couple of the guys could get away from the city, their ‘friends’, and the massive amount of drugs they were doing. I’ll kind of cut it short there and say that the reasons behind the move were a total failure. In fact, I’d say that maybe they managed to bring a flood of crap into Greeley as opposed to escaping the crap they were in. It was a total disaster – I just remember everything being an alcoholic, drug-fueled disaster. Everybody was fighting and making up and fighting again. I didn’t do drugs – so, it was just really frustrating to make the drive up there from Denver to practice and just watch everybody self-destruct – so, I started to distance myself.”
So, you left the band?
“Not really. I just started looking for other opportunities. The guys were a total mess – so, we weren’t practicing or playing much anyways. So, I joined another cover band – Waterhouse. It was comprised of Gary, Carl, Chris (Gary’s step-brother), Randy what’s-his-name and myself. Obviously, it wasn’t a way out – but, the flavor was different. It was more of a business venture. It was all covers and the only purpose was to get paying gigs. It was Chris’ only income and Gary was fairly reliant on the money coming in from playing – so, it kind of worked as a way to keep them focused on something productive and non-drug-related (sic). We played mostly early-mid 80’s hard rock – so, the songs were easy and we didn’t have to practice much. Which made it all a bit more bearable.”
“After a while, the flavor of things got very dull. We were just going through the motions. There was no passion, no energy, no love for the music. We’d revamped Molotov yet again and renamed it ‘Taste of Madness’ – something Gary was passionate about – and started to record another album. This time, I was the producer. We recorded the album ‘Time Machine' in my basement. I took all of what I learned in recording the professional demo and put it to work right in my own home using the latest, greatest digital home recording equipment. The album actually turned out pretty well. And – it didn’t cost a fortune to make.”
And so, that was it? Finally, the hit album you were waiting for – and fame – and fortune?
“Definitely not. It was fun to make – and we really got to explore our creative sides without the overhead of every minute costing us money. There was still this whole ‘rock is dead’ thing hanging over us. At this point, it was 2000 – and even alternative was on it’s way out. Music was just a mis-mash of sound and energy with not a lot of fuel behind the sound we were putting out. We had evolved to a sound you’d equate o being ‘musician’s-musicians’ – and everything we played was a fairly complex layering of sounds and melodies that the average person didn’t have the tenacity to follow. I can’t blame them – sometimes I listen to those songs and think they’re too complicated. But, they sure were fun to play.”
“Long story-short, we recorded the thing, released the thing, and then went and played the thing out and about at all the usual places to all the usual faces. Enough said. It was the same old song and dance. No more, no less.”
Moving on then…
“Yep – that’s right. It was just frustrating at that point. We spent a lot of time rehearsing and not a lot of time enjoying what we were doing. I think this is where I starts to develop a side of myself that id decidedly disinterested in doing anything if there’s no fun in it. You gotta live while you’re living – otherwise, what the heck is this thing called life for?”
“Things just started to fizzle out a bit – even Waterhouse was getting boring and the guys were screwing up their personal lives again. So, I connected with Gary’s other step-brother Jerry. He played drums and was a ton of fun to hang out with. So, he and I started a new band called ‘Evil Twin’. It was basically an updated version of Waterhouse. We played later 80’s, early 90’s and recent top-40 rock. We didn’t take it seriously and we had a LOT of fun with it. I think this was the first time, I really felt like I was experiencing something that felt like success in music. We had a ton of gigs, bars were calling us to come play. We were traveling all over the state playing different venues, there were lots of new fans that came to the shows. It was just pure fun. No expectations. Kind of like a one-night stand.”
“I think Evil Twin was the experience I needed to have to just let a little light into my soul to make it not seem like such a chore to play. It had become so robotic after all those years. We still practiced a lot and wanted to sound good. But, we let the music (and our souls) breath a little bit – we all liked each other – and nobody was a drug-addicted mess. It was just four guys that enjoyed music and having a good time. It just click-click, boomed! If any of them ever read this, that last little probably made them giggle a bit. We used to play that song. I still miss jammin’ with those guys.”
Long Way to Love
So, things are going well, you’re having a good time – what happens next?
“Well, it’s funny how you can find yourself and then almost immediately get lost. Or, maybe the better way to describe it is - get caught up in it. I was feeling confident, smooth and bulletproof – it’s what happens when people start telling you that ‘you’ve got it.’ Whatever ‘it’ is – I’ve felt ‘it’, I know what ‘it’ is – but, I can’t describe ‘it’. ‘It’ is a thing. ‘It’ is strange and powerful and wonderful. I am frighteningly aware of how dangerous ‘it’ is. ‘It’ is the thing that I had watched destroy the lives of nearly every decent musician I’d played with. ‘It’ ALWAYS takes it’s toll. ‘It’ is the thing that gets in the way of success. ‘It’ is rude, destructive and unapologetic. ‘It’ will take everything away as fast as ‘it’ brought it to you.”
“’It’ happens – just like shit happens. And boy, did ‘it’ happen.”
That’s quite a buildup. I’m intrigued.
“The higher you climb, the further you have to fall.”
“Everything starts out innocently enough – you’re doing good, you’ve got some success, a good job, a nice girl – and WHAM! You blow it all up! At least, that’s what I did.”
“I had been doing a ton of self-exploration and healing – many years working with a professional to understand why I was always failing in my relationships with the fairer sex. I’d really come to find some peace with it. Essentially, I was finding women that were emotionally unavailable and falling head over heels in love with them – because subconsciously, I knew it would ultimately fail. Therefore, I wasn’t actually risking truly experiencing love or feeling vulnerable with anybody. It was all just the theater of love. What I was really seeking (and finding to some degree) was acceptance – but, only on the surface.”
That’s deep… But, eh – isn’t everybody kind of messed up in that area to some degree?
“Sure, I’ve written songs about that – I think that's what makes things work. We’re all just selfishly using each other on the carnal carousel until we either do something really stupid we can’t get out of – or, get REALLY lucky.”
“I got lucky – but, not yet. At least, not at this point of the story. It comes a bit later. As they say, sometimes you’ve got to find yourself face down in the gutter before you figure out that things need to change.”
“I had a nice, stable relationship, with a nice girl that was seemingly crazy about me. But, that wasn’t enough – it never really is, is it?”
Maybe… Sounds like things got interesting.
“Yep – I turned into some sort of monster. I think it was the ‘it’. ‘It changed me – my ego went berserk. The attention from all the women – well – you know, it can be hard to say no sometimes. Very hard. And very messy.”
Uh oh, what’d you do?
“Just about everybody – that is, anybody with a honeypot that would give me the time of day. It was a series of hedonistic, self-satisfying experiences that destroyed just about every relationship I’d ever had. Slowly, methodically, painfully and completely.”
“I learned a lot.”
“The music was a blur. It was mostly a method to establish the next conquest – and it didn’t matter which or who’s girl. Somehow, along the way I convinced myself that it was all in the name of love – talk about regression! It was rock, and it was roll – and ‘it’ destroyed that too. I found myself with no band, no friends, no job and no future. It was like an old country song.”
“It was time to rebuild – from nothing. I had to learn how to love again. But, this time it was different. I had o learn how to love myself. That was new. But, I didn’t have a choice. I was the only person I had left.”
Time To Shine
So, you’re alone. One man against the world. Sounds a bit depressing…
“It was. I was. Depressed… and lonely. It was a bit of a dark time. I learned a lot about myself during that time. I also learned to live with myself.”
“I’m not going to say that I’m proud of anything I did leading up to this point. Nor am I proud of how I handled myself whilst finding myself. But, everything I did or said, or didn’t say, or – well, you know… I had to go through it. The ‘thing’ that makes us stronger.”
“But, after the darkness comes the dawn.”
“Digging yourself out of a hole can be an arduous process. It’s never easy – and it never goes as well or as straight-forward as you think it will. Sometimes it's because the hole you dug is deep. Sometimes the holes is wide. Mine was both. But, I eventually got out. One breath, one day, one week, one month at a time.”
“I found some self-respect by working with Dragon Comstock to produce an album for him called ‘Draw the Line’ under the band name ‘Mourn My Luck’. Dragon was good to work with. He has written a bunch of vocals and had a sense of the melody for each song – but, beyond that, he allowed me a ton of creative license with the music. There was a ton of irony in it. You see, I had started recording/producing a project with Tony (from Taste of Madness) a few years earlier that he had abandoned. Tony’s album had a lot to do with some deep, dark, intense emotions. Little did I know, Tony was in the process of dismantling Dragon’s life – I’m not 100% certain why. Eventually, Dragon crumbled and spent some time picking up his own pieces. During that time, he had written these lyrics – which told the story of everything being taken away from him. I had the music that Tony had written about taking everything away – and I blended it with Dragon’s lyrics and melodies about having everything taken away and needing to rebuild. It was/is a very cathartic album.”
Wow! That’s cool! What an interesting set of coincidences.
“Indeed. The universe is a strange and mystical thing. Sometimes it just drops things in your lap.”
“Having worked on that album and how cool it turned out was very inspiring o me.”
“Something sparked while I was writing the music for that project. Maybe it was fueled by a little bit of jealousy – or, maybe it was my competitive spirit. I just wanted to get back into the game. But, in a different – more meaningful way.”
“Thankfully, I was starting to be surrounded by people that were a positive influence. True friends. People that didn’t make it feel like there were strings attached to every word, every action. It was refreshing. I was starting to breath again. Then came the girl…”
The girl? Like, the one?
“Nope. Not THE one. More like the one that could cause some sort of chemical imbalance in me and make me do the impossible, the unexpected, and the insane. None of which she was anything she interested in. But, I couldn’t see it – nor did I care - it was beautiful, inspiring, and magical. It was the imbalance and uncertainty that I needed to fuel the passion and desire to play, and write, and sing, and pick myself up and dust myself off. She became my muse.”
“I set out on a journey and with a new found purpose. Songs were just coming to me. Like, I would literally wake up in the middle of the night with a tune in my head and some basic, foundational lyrics – and I would have a complete song (recorded and everything) a few hours later. It was crazy! Things just started to catch fire from there. People were really digging the new tunes, there was a gravity to it. It didn’t take a lot of energy to get people to pay attention. They just did. It was cool.”
And that’s it? History was made and henceforth all good things?
“Hardly. It was still messy, but manageable – I wasn’t really being honest with myself. So, I continued to fight some losing battles. But, there was a new approach. A new energy. I had purpose – a reason to fight – and a battle plan for the things that I felt were most important to me. It was my music, my close friends – you know, the ones that are still there when the party’s over – and my family.”
“That’s when Addison Way was born. It was my way of telling the world that – here I am, and I’m going to do it my way.”
After All These Years
So, the world is your oyster – you’ve got the gig ticking along…
“Yeah, funny how priorities can change so quickly. Maybe it’s fear of failure – or, more likely fear of success. I was at the top of my game (seemingly) – but, unfulfilled. Lonely. Desperate. Tired. Maybe a bit scared – although, I didn’t really know it at the time.”
“It’s always darkest before the dawn. You’re always in your most desperate hour when salvation comes. And, you’ll never hear the shot that kills you. Life is (not really) full of surprises.”
“At the time, I didn’t really realize how close to the edge I was. In fact, I would have described thing as being pretty good. Kind of like a frog would describe boiling water as relaxing or how a lobster might describe it’s flight from the coast as winning the lottery (see Richard Jeni’s Platypus Man for that reference). It’s tough to say what I was on a collision course with – but, experience and hindsight provide enough vision to know that it was pretty catastrophic.”
“That’s when karma, the force, the universe, God – or, something stepped in. I’m not sure why – but, I’m sure there’s purpose for it. And everything stopped.”
Stopped? Stopped?!? But, wait… What? Why?
“Not sure. It just stopped.”
“Well, I mean – like there was stuff that happened. But, I stopped searching. I found what I was looking for. Maybe what we’re all looking for. Peace. Freedom. Self-worth. Self-love - and, acceptance. All wrapped up in one lovely package.”
“It wasn’t like a sudden heart-attack stop. It was more of a gradual I don’t have time for this anymore kind of stop. There are only so many hours in the day – and, when something grabs you fully. You must follow it fully. At least, that’s how I roll.”
“Honestly, I still played shows here and there – for a while. But, the ‘I still haven’t found what I’m looking for’ vibe was gone. It seems that part was the combustible ingredient in the fuel – so, after a while, it was like running out of gas – on the music front. From a career, family, happiness, stability perspective – things were as good or better than they had ever been.”
“The next thing I knew, it’s ten, twelve, fifteen years later – I was successful in my (new) career, married, stable and hadn’t picked up a guitar in years. Although, I still looked at them with longing desire (maybe more like lust). I just couldn’t carve out the time to do anything about it. Life sometimes sucks that way – you have to make choices. Even when you want your cake and to eat it too - something’s gotta give. Music is an easy target – mostly because of the ‘don’t quit your day job’ thing… It doesn’t mean it’s the end. It’s just the end for now (kind of like how my son says he’s ‘done with his dinner – for now.’), there is always the potential for more. So here we are.”
You didn’t mention the kids part. Married, with kids typically spells the day the music died… Doesn’t it?
“You’d think so. But, as much as it could, and maybe has been the excuse to not play. The pressure builds and things still need to escape. So, I look at it as the next (super)fuel for writing new material. There are so many things I’ve learned. So many things I want to pass along to my son – that I can barely contain myself.”
“I look at the world so differently now. My family – my wife, my stepchildren, my nephew, my parents, grandparents all connect now. What I thought was a disheveled mess is so clear to me – after all this time. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t comfortable, and it is far from done. But, what I had sought (longed for) in friendships in my early life was always right beside me – holding me up, all along.”
“These are the things I wish to pass on to my son – and humanity (but, mostly my son). He is the brightest light in my sky. I don’t have any delusions that he will learn from my lessons or anything like that. I want to be able to give him the opportunity to hear what I’ve experienced so he gains a perspective he didn’t have from somebody that will protect him with every ounce of his being.”
“There is new purpose, new life and new energy to share. Maybe the best is yet to come, the future has just begun, and it seems it’s going my way.”
-D. Addison