I remember when you were born. I never knew I could love something so much, I used to hear a lot of people when I was growing up talking about having kids of their own, and a theme that I heard more than I would have liked is that they were too selfish to have them. For a long time I believed the same of myself until I saw you. Watching you grow up has been nothing short of a blessing and it came at me so fast it was like trying to run in a dream. No matter how fast I moved it was never enough, and now here we are. You want to leave me, and I’m not super sentimental and I understand, to be what you believe you need to be, you have to move on. Or so you think, but do you really have too? This is your home, everything that makes you, you. Your first friend, your first kiss, your first love. It is something you will never have again that will affect the way that you operate for the rest of your life. But you want to leave? I know what you think, I know what matters to you, how I’ve watched you obsess over the numerous movies where the childhood loves come to fruition later in life, or friends that were with you since before you could tie your shoes are the people that are prevalent in your everyday life. You will miss it, do you really want to start all over somewhere else, where if you’re short a dollar or two the cashier wouldn’t let it slide because they know you come from a good, honest stock, because your name carries weight due to all of the life you have lived in this place. The connections that you have made and will continue to make are unmatched, and I know that leaving will only reinforce that notion. Can you picture it? Having a family I mean, like when you finally confess your love to the girl next door you have been in love with your entire life. Or the girl in highschool that you pined after but wouldnt know your face if it was tattooed to the inside of her eyelids. For the moment that she actually sees all that you are, and all of the moments that led up to it, it will put you at a loss for words. I know it will because I know you. Of course wherever you are your mother and I will do our best to be there, for the moment that you hold the child that you coveted for so long god forbid it’s a surprise birth and I’m thousands of miles away. I want that just as much as I know that you do. To be a part of yours and your child’s life, to know that if you ever need anything I’m a car ride away. It’s important to me and I promise that it will be to you if you stay. From the moment that I first held you I’ve been completely in love with you. I always will be, but your home is everything that you are and will contribute to everything that you become, if you let it. So please before you go, consider, your na- our name, consider that girl next door that is just waiting to be with you so that you will both be able to witness the next coming of life,love and happiness that happens for your children, who are living in the legacy you’ve left in our town. Please think about everything you’re giving up if you leave, because I have a strong feeling that if you do, you will decide to stay.

For a majority of my life I was deathly afraid of the dark.  Like the kind of kid who would sprint up the stairs two at a time because I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being tailed.  I was also the one who would never be caught dead with my feet outside the blanket with the lights off because in my head that was just an open invitation to drag me away.  As I got older I was able to control these fears for the most part but that was only because new ones had been introduced. I didn’t like even walking out to the car at night because I was scared of the dark.  Well, it wasn’t so much that I was scared of the dark itself because if that were true I’d assume I would be terrified to blink, or sleep for that matter.  I was scared of what was in the dark, what would transpire with near perfect cover of darkness.  I’m not exactly sure when it changed but I started to grow more comfortable in the dark, and I couldn’t exactly pinpoint why.  I mean of course you only get to see the stars when it’s dark and they could be breathtaking but unless you lived in a rural area they really didn’t fulfill their Potential.  So it couldn’t have been that, and it wasn’t that dangerous situations didn’t still happen because as I said before the dark is near perfect cover.  It hit me when I was watching my brother in his room and he didn’t know that I was there, and in that moment he was entirely in his own reality and that was an eerie thought to me that he was more himself in that moment than anytime I’d ever interacted with him, no matter how comfortable he is with me.  But in that moment it hit me, the things I was afraid of because of the dark was the same reason I’d grown to love it.  When nobody is watching, This is the ultimate expression of who your true self is, the darkness gives you the type of cover that it requires to be whoever you really are.  I never thought about it in this way before but, everybody always references quotes that allude to “coming to light”

Or “ shedding light on a situation” as almost being synonymous with coming to terms with your true self. But I truly believe the darkness is what sets us free, I mean maybe that’s why so many of us are inherently afraid of it because it forces us to be who we are on our own terms not influenced by prying eyes. As I said before,If we were truly afraid of the dark we couldn’t go outside or to sleep or even blink. I think the phobia of the dark stems from what’s in the dark or what could happen within it, or who we are when we have its cover. Just take a second and ponder if stepping into the light is just expressing yourself for who people see you as, because this could very well be true, but maybe it’s the dark that gives you the freedom to be who you really want to be.

I think people in general are all to quick vilify, or chastise their parents, or whoever it was who raised them because they realize that many of their “ damage” is directly correlated to their experiences through childhood. Not reaching their true potential is never their fault because they feel jilted in the sense that they seem to become experts on child rearing the day that the bulk of it stops. I wish I could say I wasn’t guilty of this or that I never resented the people who quite literally kept me alive through the time in my life that I wasn’t self-sufficient. But I can’t and I think about how I live my life now and I’m happy with who I am, for better or for worse and that is ultimately related to my parents and the way they raised me. We have had our fair share of battles and disagreements, some of them more epic than others, and I think that I, like a lot of people have grown complacent and taken everything that they did give me for granted. With that being said I want to take some time to thank both of my parents for lessons and qualities that they instilled in me most likely without even knowing. First my mother Erica Webb, she is ridiculous and there are a plethora of words synonymous with how she conducts her everyday life, but within that she taught me so much. Confidence is key. In no way, shape or form would I have ever excelled at anything without her telling me to believe in myself. In the almost eccentric way that she believed in her own self, with no remorse, and no regrets she loves herself. There is no shame in believing that what you have to offer is unique because everybody throughout history has been constantly innovating and adapting. It’s hard to believe you could ever be the one who does something worthwhile. My mom doesn’t just think she knows and passed it on through me. My mom has been through so much heartache, within our family, or dreams that she had to put on hold to make us into what she believed were assets to society and if you didn’t have twenty-four hour access to her you would never believe it. For a long time I thought that was a weakness or maybe that it was a way of being inauthentic or lying, but it wasn’t. It was strength, as pure as anything in this world. From that I learned an appreciation for people not just people in general because I do have that, but for the people who are happy when you see them whether it is ten at night or seven in the morning. To be in good spirits in a world where people die and steal and kill every single day, and there is so much pain. So much reason to be bitter and even still bringing light into a room the minute they enter it. Not because they’re hiding their pain, but because that isn’t everything they are, but it has made them who they are and that is what they show. A person who can appreciate that it does get better and being happy is something everybody deserves. So, my father whom I’m named after is maybe the most serious person I had ever met in my life. Or he was for a very long time and one of the strongest. I’ve been reading between the lines more and more as the months go by without him being easily accessible and so much of the way I conduct myself as an adult is because of what he would do for me or things he would say. My dad used to say that “ If you can’t explain something you don’t understand it” and I hated that with a passion, kids don’t want to hear that. But he was right, and he fueled something in me to want to know everything about everything, that knowledge can get you so much farther than what we really give it credit for. I love that every hair stands up on my body when I see new documentaries being made, or someone explains the origin of something that we use everyday. To be hungry for knowledge is invaluable. My dad is a borderline genuis and the work that he did when I was growing up seemed extremely difficult and I would imagine it was awarding, but there was something missing. I don’t know if he was unhappy or just looking for the next thing that he wanted to pursue and when I was younger I didn’t like that at all. Being content is never a terrible thing but when it turns to complacency it becomes dangerous. Seeing my dad always looking around the next corner taught me that no matter where you are in life, it’s never time to settle no matter how it may look from the outside. He would talk about how when he sets a bar at a certain height the worst thing you can do is meet it because it just raises up and it seems cruel when you’re a child. To never be able to measure up, but it wasn’t that. He was grooming greatness and creating a warrior and without even realizing it, I imagine it wasn’t the road he had envisioned but through all of that he raised someone who was never going to do something because someone else thought it was the right thing no matter the optics. The last thing I want to say that both of them gave me was the self awareness to appreciate love. Of family, of the game or anything really, my parents did so many things that I hated and a lot of them seemed inhuman especially as a child, but they loved so unequivocally there was no other way for it to seem. My parents loved me so much that it scared them, especially my dad. He wanted the best for me in the most desperate way possible. There is no way that it could have been presented in a way that wasn’t extremely intense. So scared that I wouldn’t get where I should be in life because he saw greatness and they both made me come to believe it, even if I didn’t back then. There are plenty more examples but these ones really stick out to me when I creeps into my mind, and it can be jump started from anything, from clipping my toenails and remembering how my mom would always get the hangnails out of my big toes or my dad making sure I always had napkins in my car, the little things are the big things and I am thankful for them all.

If I’m being completely honest, I’m the last person to talk about letting go. I remember how potent and vicious my anger was for so long. I think that some feelings Segway into others a lot more efficiently, and fear and sadness transitions into rage and anger with the best of them. Its strange, I talk to a lot of people more than I’d like to admit and they all are mad at someone, pissed off at a parent, jilted by an ex lover and, the way they tell it they deserve to move mountains with the pain and hatred that manifested from those relationships. I relate all too well with those of us who blame someone for being guarded or scarred or whatever other synonym that correlates with being emotionally volatile. We never realize the severity of our spiral as a result from carrying all this pain until we have decided that we are going to let it all go. So in other words nobody really knows or can pinpoint when they started to spiral, because it just hasn’t stopped. It only put on a different face. A different series of moves or words to ultimately shatter any chance at solidifying a healthy relationship, not that we would know one if it walked up and spit in our faces. I see it all the time and it’s extremely hard to give anybody advice that would actually benefit because once you start, everybody wants to tell you why what they went through is so much different than anybody else in the world, which obviously isn’t true, but those words don’t always come across very friendly. I will never deny that everybody’s pain and experience is unique to them, but at the very core the trauma we are subjected to has all too much in common. It has shaped us from the very moment it occurred, showing itself in all different mediums. If I actually had an audience who couldn’t interrupt me as soon as I start to give my two cents about this particular topic, there are a few things that I would want to say:

When I was maybe 13 or 14 I heard a quote “ the hardest part of saying goodbye is having to do it again every single day”.  At the time I thought I knew what it meant, because contextually it had made sense with the episode, but as I got older I realized how pertinent it became in everyday life.  I tell everybody, or at least I attempt to tell everybody who comes to me with stories about being done wrong, to frankly just get over it.  Which sounds harsh, but when I listen to how they’ve had two good days, or maybe even weeks, but it all goes away because they have one day that’s hard.  

Only you have control of what you think and what you believe. Make a conscious effort to just let it go, to get over it, but to ultimately forgive. Forgiveness isnt for the other person, its for you. To let go all of that anger, because until you do you keep them in control and your life isn’t your own. It for lack of a better word blows when you’re exuding what you’re enduring onto everybody else because even if they say they understand, being damaged doesn’t give you a free pass and make the people of your life feel the same way you do about whoever wronged you. “Damaged” is an ugly word but I feel it’s accurate just in the sense that when something isn’t working the way it’s supposed to, we deem it broken or damaged and that only serves to help us know to either repair it or wash our hands with it. I don’t know that either way is the correct way, but recognizing what’s going on is the only way that you have a choice. If you’ve made it this far and didn’t get pissed off because I said to get over your anger or to forgive who wronged you I hope you take something away from this. It doesn’t happen overnight, and it’s easier said than done. But the reason I love that quote so much is because it applies to forgiveness, because even if it’s one good day or even ten something can always jumpstart the pain and send those feelings flying back, and everyday you have to forgive. Everyday you have to say goodbye to those things holding you back, because, yes it’s made you all that you are. Most likely strong and loving, willing to do anything for people, but that’s only because you understand the significance of what It feels like to be without those things. Use that, and be the person that you wish you’d had instead a product of your reality. It’s everything that you are, but if you hold on to it the way you believe you deserve to, you will never be who you’re supposed to become. And what would be worse? Admitting that you don’t need to be angry anymore? Or missing the most vibrant moments of your life because you can’t see past everything you’ve come from?

I think that I lived my whole life with a sort of chip on my shoulder, I don’t think that it was detrimental to my social relationships or even so much to my relationship with myself. I was loved, maybe not the way that I wanted to, but then again who was? I think that us adopted children feel we have a monopoly on deep rooted parental trauma and maybe that is true, but I feel like no matter how your story transpired or whether you had a loving childhood or you felt like you were treated like an outsider and were punished for not being biological as though you had a say in the matter. We all have one singular question. Why? I think that throughout the years if you really were healthy enough to give it some real thought you wanted to believe that they did what they thought was best for you at the time. Even if you believe no matter where you lived or how you struggled feeling like you weren’t some inanimate thing that could be pawned off on someone else would have been worth it, there is no way to really know. What I do know is that feeling Like there is no escape in the void that is being on the outside of the only family I’ve ever known is a fate I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. As I get older I think more and more about why, it’s not as devastating most days, but the days when it is, it shakes me to my very core. Why didn’t you want me? Were you afraid that I wasn’t going to be smart? Or beautiful? That I wouldn’t be everything that you believed I needed to be to make sacrificing your life to raise a child worth it? I want to know why everyday I had to feel that rejection, every time somebody told my sister that they had my mom’s smile or her laugh. But more so, when someone told me that I had my dad’s eyes and we had to decide in that split second whether to politely correct them at the expense of my feelings, or to play along at equal detriment to my mental emotional state. I was playing a rigged game and I have been all my life and I just want to know why? But not just from you but from me. What I want to know is, why do I still love you with all of my heart. Why do these people who are supposed to be my loved ones and who have treated me like such still compete in my mind with the both of you? Why do I long for your approval that I don’t know that I will ever get or that I am not really sure I want? But I know that I won’t really know until I ask if I ever get the chance to. Why do I love the idea of you when I don’t even know who you are? Maybe because I probably won’t ever get the chance to meet you, I convince myself that you will recognize me because of the way that I looked the day that I first came into this world and you looked into my eyes knowing that it would be the last time. I want to imagine that the image is burned into your brains, but why? I might not ever get my answer but I think If I could actually get the chance to speak to you I might ask a different question. What would you say?

I’ve recently decided that I don’t mind being underappreciated.  I did for many years, but as I near the end of my days I realized that there wasn’t much that I could do about it considering I can’t ever really move from where I had been firmly planted in life.  Myself along with my family are the reason that everybody can live their life the way that they want too.  Whatever way that may be.  And over the years I have grown to love the people who don’t realize they should love me.  The things that I’ve seen have become rewarding enough.  To be there to witness the purity of friends sitting all around me bike sprawled in every which way just sitting eager to be accomplices on the next great adventure of their adolescent tenure, it was beautiful because I always loved kids the way that even as I stand stagnant they could create whole worlds from within me, and how I saw the fear fade from their eyes when they realized that I was there for them even if they fell it never kept them away because they didn’t know enough to be scared.  Which is truly a blessing.  I have witnessed the greatest love stories of all time, or just some time, initials and names forever etched in my body by people that couldn’t ever imagine feeling a stronger bond to someone than they do in that moment.  And I got to be a part of that.  I have seen many people come and go in my time and many lessons have been learned, naturally I can’t share them with anybody because we don’t usually talk, not in the traditional way anyways.  But sometimes the way that I sway, the way that my leaves don’t grow back as voluptuously as they once had, people will pay homage to me.  Not even realize that they’re actively reaping the benefits of just my life.  But I’ve learned that as much life as I’ve given them, they’ve given me tenfold, because what is life without love, or adventure?  I’m sure my time now is near and as I near that end I just wanted to reflect because I wouldn’t want any of my family to not realize that moments that make what we do worthwhile until they become fond memories.  So it is a farewell, from the mighty fort, and the many “our spot” ‘s that I’ve been.

Forever yours 

The Once Great Oak Tree

If I hadn’t loved you with all my heart then I’d hate you just as much.  

I should hate you for what you did to me.  But not just me to your parents to our friends who if you’ didn’t think twice about before you decided we didn’t need you anymore.  

That’s what I should be saying because I do deserve to be pissed off.  Especially in the end where attempted to distract me so that I wouldn’t bring in the Calvary to find you and keep you in your torture.  I know you too well after the first sentence I understood what this was.  And I’m not mad at you.  Well I take that back I am mad at you but not because you did what you believed you had to do but because even though you know me better than I know myself, you decide that instead saying goodbye to Me in person that a letter would suffice like I wouldn’t have a million and one things to say to you before you go.  Like that waking up earlier to pick you up was never a chore when it meant I would get our sacred rides to school in the morning.  That I loved how you wouldn’t let the songs end because you had so much hope for what could be so much more than what was already was, and you were right when you said that it wasn’t about not knowing, it was about keeping something for ourselves that nobody could take from us.  I loved our talks because even though I could see that there was a darkness in you, the way you were with me made me the best version of myself because you showed me that someone who could see the light when it was nowhere to be found is the closest to magic I think I’ll ever get.  What you said about the sky, how it can just be so deep, and that you stare and stare it just gets deeper and deeper without ever changing really got to me.  I’ve started to look at the sky at night and i’ve been searching and there’s beauty in the abyss of the unknown it’s not about not being able to see something it’s the idea that even though we believe if we keep looking there’s always something deeper even if it is just black it’s still never ending.  You did something I can never forgive.  You made me realize how deeply you can love a person that needs you in their life to think about them constantly, how they feel, what they’re going through and I guess somewhere inside I knew that you felt the way that you did but I also knew that for me you would champion through it for me. Because that’s just who you were, a champion.  I would have loved to grow old together and talk about which embarrassing stories you couldn’t tell on my wedding day.  Debating on whether our kids are playing basketball or soccer or whatever else was in the discussion would have been a life that I could have fallen in love with everyday, but it wasn’t in the cards and that’s okay too I mean I guess it’ll have to be.  I’m lucky to have been able to say that I love you because you made me understand what having meaning in life was.  I will love harder, live stronger and hurt more deeply all because you allowed me to love you.  You taught me to live my life in despite of everything, never in spite of anything and I will always owe you for that.  You were right, what we have is in life and in death, but you were wrong about one thing.  I’m not your salvation you’re mine and you will always live in me. And It’s not goodbye but I’ll see you later.  With much more stories to tell and songs to sorta listen to.  And you won’t ever get to read this but this is forever for you, and I will continue to stare deeper and deeper into the sky because it’s a piece of you and I love you in your entirety.

Still here and continually yours.

Your friend.

When I was a boy, no more than 16 years old, I had my heart broken, which I know is such a shock that in the thick of my adolescence I had become unequivocally infatuated with a girl who’s name escapes me so vigorously now that it’s almost laughable at how It had torn a massive whole in the fabric of my reality. Well my 16 year old reality anyway. After I was already shot in the heart I proceeded with caution, I was always very aware of my surroundings and the progression of my own emotions. I would never be caught in a spot where I would feel that type of pain again. I would just freeze in the moment. Between falling a million miles a minute, and being level headed enough to add a sense of realism to situations. I always thought that this was the best way to go about navigating my love life or sometimes lack thereof, but I always found it extremely difficult because I would fall for leapers, or serial daters, someone who knows the ins and outs of what it takes to be in relationships and to thrive, two people as one. I think I admired them because I was just scared to get hurt so I rationalized so meticulously that there weren’t any evident holes in my logic. Which allowed me to for lack of better words, to get away with being afraid essentially. I was prepared to live that way my entire life, just assuming that I wouldn’t be afraid eventually while simultaneously knowing that It wouldn’t be able to work. I think that I found comfort in that. Until I didn’t. She was different, but so familiar, a polar opposite of me I moved so steadily that my contradicting way of operating could go virtually unnoticed, but she disrupted it all, the way that she was so stagnant waiting, feeling, until she knew. And when she knew she was off, throwing her whole heart toward whatever she deemed worthy. I don’t think anything scares someone more than a person who can make you question your very foundation in which you based your thought processes on. Here I was steadily moving along and synchronously deteriorating any chance I had to be happy. I used to sit and look up at the stars because a lot of the time the serenity is the only thing that made sense, that fact that I was looking up and obsessing over this balls of gas that had died so many years ago, literally staring into the past the simplicity of it was beautiful to me. Brought me comfort, and also engulfed me, which is why I didn’t realize that an old man had sat down next to me on the bench that I had an unofficial reservation on whenever I needed to get away, into the past. He caught me extremely off guard when he spoke, “ I was like you a long time ago” he began, immediately my guard went up, he didn’t know me and I resented the fact that he presumed as much. “ I used to want to get away too,” he continued “ its a girl, its always about a girl, even when it isn’t. It always is.” I didn’t say a word, I hated to admit it but the senile looking man had me intrigued, I mean I was at a crossroads, and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t seen multiple movies with a wise beyond even his many years man spits out words of wisdom that changes someone’s life. So I sat there, still looking up at the stars. “ When I was a boy, I heard the story of the Tortoise and the Hare”. Now I was positive any minute I was going to be surrounded by 9 men dressed in white scrubs armed with a straight jacket and white mystery machine type van with tinted windows. He was obviously crazy, but I figured he couldn’t be any crazier than me and If he was going to be tackled and dragged away I might as well hear him out. “ Its not that old nursery rhyme that teachers and parents tell children to help them realize the importance of taking their time. Its the real story and it’s actually a love story.” Well now, despite my best efforts I’m truly interested. “ We were always told that there was a race and because the Hare was so fast he was arrogant and fell asleep and the Tortoise stayed slow and steady and he won. Well. The truth is that the Hare was a she not a he, and they weren’t racing against each other but to each other.” So now my full attention is on this old man at 11 p.m at night on a park bench, just waiting for him to begin. “ The Hare was beautiful inside and out, she had been all over the world because she followed her heart and where she arrived she stayed until it had run its course, and then she was off again, chasing that feeling. That feeling of, being wanted, romantically, physically in every ounce of her being. There is truth to the part about her sleeping though because she moved with such speed and grace she tired easily, and that’s when all the feelings moved in on her, what she wanted, what she believed she needed because when you’re moving as fast as she did there isn’t much time to think or process, so when she took time to stop it was in that time she would dive into the deepest parts of her psyche to really decide if this is what she really wanted, and when she was ready she was off. But the Tortoise, On the other hand, wasn’t similar in any way. He was very slow but he considered it strategic he would calculate every move so carefully that there was never going to be a mistake, but he rarely covered enough ground to truly deem he was moving forward, even though he was. Slowly but surely. He was never one to use his shell because he didn’t want to hide, to appear as afraid of the world as he truly was, so he moved with tact somewhere in his head he believed that it was the best way to have the best possible outcome with the Hare. He had never made a journey like this in his entire life, due in part mostly to the fact that he moved so slow it was over before he became too involved, before he got too close. He wanted love, to be loved more than anything but he was so deathly afraid of what would happen if he was ever face to face with the one who caused him to realize that he was only merely afraid of getting too close, but catastrophically terrified of letting the Hare get away. Making her think that the way she operated wasn’t as thoughtful or meticulous because it differed from his. So he soldiered on. Two forces of nature, one slow and steady but ultimately afraid, and the other moving through the air with such force because she took the time to realize what she was flying towards. The world had never seen anything like it.” The man then takes a sigh and looks back up at the stars. It took everything in me not to explode with dissatisfaction at the potential ending of his story. “So what happened at the end?!” I exclaimed not sure if I was more angry or agitated at how severely the story had resonated with me. The man still looked up, as if he hadn’t just had an entire impromptu story time with me. “ What happened?!” I found myself yelling. He held a hand up, and I’ll never forget what he said next. “ You don’t look at the stars because you know what happens when their lives are over, we only see them on the journey to whatever comes next for them in their life. The journey is what brings us serenity because we have the ability to choose, and with so many things in life out of our control, finding something so beautiful that allows us the ability to control what we can control, like an ending to a beautiful story. That is the serenity, that is the reason we sit, and watch.” I was speechless and in that moment it didn’t take any more than three seconds for me to push myself from the bench and take off running. I honestly had no idea where I was going, because I can’t see the future, but for the first time in my entire life it wasn’t about the destination, I just knew that I was sure it’s where I wanted to go. I needed to find my own ending, whatever it turns out to be.

He used to think that he was weak. That the intricately woven, brilliantly chaotic way that his mind processed the world was a common venture of everyone that he had encountered. That was his fear. To be at war, not with his mind, but in his mind as he watched. An innocent bystander to all the cryptic cross rails that seated his trains of thought. Constantly altering, always creating and destroying until ultimately the lines of travel inevitably sync up and collide with such force it shakes him to his core. This was mundane to him, he believed that he was a failure in that everybody else was in full control of this masterpiece of thought. Intuition is the ability to understand something instinctively without the need for conscious reasoning. But what if he were on par with it? What if he was an adversary rather than the medium in which it manifests? He was magnificently intuitive but, he thought through every ounce of it. Which would explain the chaos in his mind, processing and reasoning everything simultaneously it was a work of art. But he couldn’t focus. Thoughts so deafening, so intense in nature that nothing short of a man screaming in his face would be able to seep through. He was terrified of his own mind. He feared that one day it would get the better of him. But then what? There is a beauty in the chaos, the unpredictability, and in the fluidity of one’s mind. He had the most enthralling tool at his disposal, but he was terrified still. He needed to control it as opposed to letting it take charge of him, because time and time again it has been said. Beauty is what killed the beast.

I remember. I had to have been maybe 15 or 16, the point in our life’s when we decided that we got a handle on the inner workings of society and the people that are involved. It seems almost abruptly so, we are close to getting our licenses and exploring what kind of freedom that entails. I would imagine now, why this is the reason he chose to sit me down. I didn’t know much about my father. We had moved away from his home when we were so young. I wasn’t surrounded by people that looked like me, and honestly I didn’t truly believe that it mattered of course it did to some extent but it was harmless in the sense that I didn’t believe that there was any ill will behind any comments or remarks made to me. A lot of my life I have been told that I “act white” or that I “talk white” and you have to let it pass because if I reacted I was unreasonable. Any reaction would have been an overreaction, and that stifles your voice. It wasn’t until I was older and my sister and brother began to enter adolescence that I realized the injustice that I did to them. I wronged them, and my parents who worked extremely hard to give me the tools to be able to speak properly to feel like I can command a room and that I deserve too. I don’t “ talk white” and I don’t “ act white” . It’s extremely damaging to tell a young black kid or any minority something like that because he values something that traditionally isn’t characteristic of his race. It was the greatest insult that I’ve ever received for someone to tell me that something that I worked for and that obviously isn’t easy is synonymous with someone’s color. I am not without empathy though, I can understand how they truly don’t believe it’s an insult and that is what scares me the most, sports, intelligence, music, literature they don’t belong to anyone person or any group of people they’re all expressions of yourself, free to your own interpretation. That’s not to say that the origins don’t carry significance because they do and they always should. It’s important to know where you come from, but its not all of who you are. We are products of our environment and we use those lessons and the skills to make the most of what we believe success means. If all you see is MBAs and dress shoes your energy is more likely to be moved in that direction, but if all that surrounds you is struggle, poverty, and violence, then unfortunately that is what you know. Of course people have made it out of their situations but it so rarely happens and the children are blamed, accused of not trying or “accepting” the hand they were dealt. The difference for the latter is that success is relative, and everybody who was raised in affluent or “middle class” neighborhoods doesn’t become the president or a CEO, because that would be “rising above” their situation. Staying where they are, not pushing to rise above is accepted more so than the aforementioned. Your situation doesn’t define you but it is so much of who you are. I have been lucky I have no resentment toward anybody because I refuse to let a small percentage of a group dictate the narrative for the whole. All races are guilty of this, even if we don’t want to admit it but that isn’t my point with all of this. Nor is my point to act as if minorities are the only people who struggle, the United States Census Bureau in 2019 estimated that 76.3 percent of the United demographic was accredited to “ White” Americans which I understand is overgeneralizing a race of people but they define it as “A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East or North Africa”. With that being said if one group of people accounts for almost 80 percent of the population I would be ignorant to think that struggle belongs to one group or groups. My point is that if everybody stopped thinking they so badly deserve to claim their hardships if only to demonstrate that it’s not that bad for someone else we would see that we are all contributing to the societal problems that we face and have been facing for decades, its just only now coming to light because with the rise of social media there are rarely secrets kept and situations undocumented. I didn’t want to talk about profiling, or media bias, or other topics of that nature because those all cause controversy and it violently sways us from what we really are trying to say. It has, is,and will always be about everybody, not just one group of people. When my father had sat me down he talked about how I should act when I’m pulled over, how to speak to police officers, not to wear my hood in neighborhoods, but the real message I got out of it all was that we was afraid, and that he hated having to tell me things like this because no kid needs to have their innocence taken at 16 by being told who they are is grounds for unreasonable behavior, so if they are lucky enough to still have held onto it by then any trace dissipates with this talk. Terrible things happen everyday to people but if we don’t learn the right lessons from them it becomes a cycle. Tupac Shakur all though more radical than most he wasn’t wrong with his acronym “THUG LIFE” the hate you give little infants f*cks everybody, and if you notice, there was no mention of race or creed or religion. “Everybody” which is the most important part of the message, nobody is born with predispositions to hate anybody it comes from learning the wrong lessons from those who came before us, but just as easily as those lessons are absorbed the right one could be as well. Not one specific person, not one specific group. Everybody.