Who and What I am

 

I apologize. 

 I have been through some serious self-discovery. 

Whenever I think of my life in its totality I think of the Coldplay song that begins “When I counted all my demons…saw there was one for every day….”   The words are so fitting because I have been dragging around the same emotional garbage for a little over a decade and it has wreaked havoc in every corner of my life.   

It was time to let that shit go. 

What some don’t know about me is that I left school early.  Its nothing I’m proud of.  Someone on twitter (@_itsjas) wrote”  College is for fucking up…well I fucked up.  Short story:  a woman.  Long Story: another post.  When I left school my foster mother was very clear about my future, and this is a direct quote:  ”You’ll be stuck in some dead end job and taking orders for the rest of your life. You’ll be a loser, period.”    This came from the woman who plucked me out of the hell that was crack-era Harlem and thrusted me into the jew,  jewy,  jewish world of Teaneck, New Jersey.  Teaneck.  Home to Bischoff’s Ice Cream (need to go back there), empty parks, little league baseball, and silence.   Hell to heaven in a little over 6 miles and I only had to cross a river, not part one.   I suppose I should be thankful,  at least she didn’t tell me that I would be ganged raped by a pack of diseased animals and fucked with a clap-infested dildo, I mean that might of have hurt my feelings and scarred me for years to come.   

Actually, that’s exactly what they did.

In my determination to show her I wasn’t going to be a failure, I failed to count my defeats as lessons, hung onto to them too long, and internalized them.    I gave too much power to people who didn’t care about me falsely  believing I didn’t deserve better.  In my determination to prove her wrong, I took jobs that were beneath me and allowed others who I was more talented than to move ahead of me.   I behaved in ways that were equally so and gave many a false impression of my real character.  In my determination to prove her wrong, I shifted blame from myself to others and failed to claim personal responsibility.  How the hell could any of this be my fault? I didn’t ask to be poor?  I didn’t ask to go to school with holes in my sneakers, dirt around my ankles, lice in my hair. I ain’t suppose to have shit anyway because I come from shit.  I was a black and poor from Harlem.  I was a kid who used to be happy to have a roof and something to eat and I held on to that impoverished way of thinking as an adult.  I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE SHIT BECAUSE I COME FROM SHIT.  My foster mother did everything she could to inspire me to greatness. Even her words weren’t meant to discourage me  The only way she could have succeeded is if she had at birth me herself.  By the time I got to her, I had already convinced myself that this was the way it was supposed to be.  

Most of the “aha” moments in my life involve my smile.  Or the lack of it.   When I met my wife, the woman who gave me my smile back, I knew,  ”aha” I found my wife.  And I found a temporary salve for my unhappiness.  I say temporary because I unfairly attached my happiness to our relationship.  Fellas, don’t do that.  Dumb shit.   

With the onset of a new season, I decided enough was enough.  It was time to admit that I wasn’t happy and nothing and no one was going to change that.  When you are as unhappy as I was you tend to look for happiness in other places like marriage and kids, but that is unsustainable because at the root of (un)happiness is you.   If I was going to be happy, I would have to claim that happiness from within.  This “aha” moment came when I looked at a baby on the train last month  and turned away in disgust.  Who does that?  Everybody smiles at babies, why the fuck was I so angry?   I used to bop the streets with my smile.   My smile has been known to make panties grow wings and ish….Why the fuck was I giving everybody the “Nigga, I will fuck you up” look????   

I had a talk with my wife this weekend, well actually, it was more like a listen, she did the talking.  She told me I had not identified a passion of mine to her because I had not discovered them within myself.   “You are a strong black man, with so much to offer, you love writing, sports and politics.”  Why have you just dropped it all?   And therein laid the answer to the question that has plagued me for years, why?

I went to church on Sunday, asked for forgiveness…I wasn’t sure I was going to make into the building, and thought I saw lightening.   Do expect setbacks?  Yes.  Do I expect to move forward?  Hell yeah.  What’s the most important thing you’ve learned from this? 

There is a little voice in your head that tells you who and what you are, don’t talk to it…listen to it. 

You, my friend, are fucking great!