The People Who Shaped Me

Before the world knew my name, there were people, places, and experiences already shaping the person I would become.

I grew up in Fort Smith, Arkansas, surrounded by family, love, complicated influences, and circumstances I wouldn’t fully understand until many years later.

Some memories still make me smile. Others have taken most of my adult life to make sense of.

You can be deeply loved and still be exposed to things you aren’t prepared to understand. You can admire someone without recognizing how their choices are influencing your own.

For years, I carried experiences I didn’t know how to explain. Becoming a father and building a life of my own led me to look at those years differently.

There is so much about my childhood that I haven’t publicly shared: the people who raised me, the relationships that shaped me, what I witnessed, and what I learned too early.

In my forthcoming memoir, The Making of Young Lace, I explore those experiences in much greater depth. This website offers a glimpse into that journey. The book will tell the fuller story.