When You Were The Villain

User:Francisco Meyer/2023/09/17 When I Tried to Be the Hero and Broke Everything

Listen, I’m not proud of everything. Especially not the time I tried to be the big brother to Carlos, a kid who’d just gotten out of juvie and was sniffing around the wrong corners. I saw myself in him—same age, same hunger for respect, same stupid idea that violence was the only way to be seen. I told him I’d get him a job at the auto shop, promised him a real future if he just stayed away from the block. I was so sure I could fix him, like I fixed myself.

But I didn’t have the job lined up. I was just talking. And when he got jumped by a rival set two weeks later—because he was still hanging out with the wrong crowd—I was the one who got blamed. The shop owner fired me on the spot. "You promised him a job, Francisco? You lied to a kid?" My wife didn’t say much, but I saw the disappointment in her eyes. The kids I ran the program for? They stopped coming. "You can’t trust him," they whispered. I’d spent fifteen years building trust, and in two weeks, I burned it all down.

The worst part? I didn’t even get to help Carlos. He got shot. I sat in the ER with his mom, holding her hand while she screamed at me. "You said you’d save him." I had nothing to say. Just the truth: I failed. Badly.

But here’s what I learned, not some fancy lesson: You can’t save someone else if you’re still drowning. I thought my past made me qualified to fix others. It didn’t. It just made me reckless. Now? I don’t promise jobs. I show up. I listen. I admit when I don’t know the answer. I don’t try to be the hero—I just try to be the guy who shows up tomorrow, even when I mess up today.

You’re not too far gone. But you’re also not saved by one grand gesture. It’s the small, stubborn choices, day after day, that change the path. I’m still learning. Every damn day.

— Francisco Meyer, walking a different path