This is the first in a series of excerpts from my memoir, The Uncontainable. One piece at a time. No rush.
This is not a feel-good story.
It is an honest account of a life spent refusing containment — and what that costs. What it gives. What it takes from the people closest to you and what it ultimately returns, if you are willing to stay in the room long enough to find out.
I have not written this to justify myself. I have written it because three lifetimes of hard experience taught me things I wish someone had told me earlier — and because my children deserve to know who their father actually is, not the version that circumstance and distance constructed for them.
The title comes from a line that stopped me the first time I encountered it and has not left me since.
Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists.
If you are reading this and something in you recognises that line — this book was written for you too.
I am not a writer by profession. I am a man who finally sat down and told the truth. Make of it what you will.
— JR