Kid, let me tell you something about the quietest victories. Last Tuesday, I stood at the sink washing my hands. The tremor’s still there, the one from the years of whiskey and bad choices. I’d spent sixty years hiding it – turning my palms down, clenching my fists, pretending the shaking wasn’t part of me. Took me fifty years to realize I wasn’t hiding it from others. I was hiding it from ''myself''. This time, I didn’t flinch. I didn’t cover my hands with the other. I just watched them move – slow, steady, ''mine''. No apology. No shame. Just water running, and the quiet hum of a man who finally stopped fighting his own skin. Here’s what I know after 78 years: Self-acceptance isn’t a grand finale. It’s the moment you stop trying to erase the rest notes. You learn to play them too. That tremor? It’s not a mistake. It’s the rhythm of everything I’ve survived. This tiny thing – standing still with my hands in the light – proved I’m not still that scared kid in the back room, waiting for the next fall. I’m the old man who finally stopped counting the cracks and started hearing the music in the spaces between. You don’t rebuild a life by fixing every scar. You rebuild it by finally letting the scar be part of the song. And today? I sang it without a single apology. ''— Roger Jackson, still playing''
— Roger Jackson, finally at peace with the man in the mirror