Him....

I never thought I would bring myself to write about this, but I guess it was only a matter of time. Over the past few nights I've been falling asleep to Will Smith's Just The Two of Us and it got me thinking about my situation with my father. I've been wrestling with the history and future of the relationship between me and my father for quite some time now and I think its time to finally let some of this out.

I really don't even know where to begin...... When I was younger, my mom had split custody with my father for me. I would spend time with my father every other weekend. I think those weekends were some of the worst Saturday's and Sunday's I ever had. That man tried to discipline me as if he were raising me everyday. And that did nothing but confuse me because I only saw him every other week. To me, it was like being hit and yelled at by a complete stranger. I developed a mild discontent for my mom because she would allow me to taken by this man with regularity and every time I got in that car, I knew it would be trouble for me. I never really enjoyed myself with my father really. Me and him were never compatible. I think it was until I was past the age of 10 when he started to take me and my little (half) brother out. All I remember from those days was that he showed a lot of favoritism with my little brother over me. Back then I used to think, I'm the oldest, the first born, why does he get treated better than me?

That used to upset me a lot. But I think what hurt the most were the empty promises that my father gave me. He would promise to come see me and take me shopping the following week after he had seen me. And before the day would come that I would anticipate seeing him again, there would be some voicemail on the answering machine and my mom would have to bring herself to tell me that he wasn't going to make it. That hurt a lot. Especially as a young boy. My father constantly excited me by promising these wonderful trips and every single time he would let me down. The worst part of that was, I never understood why he kept doing that to me. Finally, my mom decided she couldn't see me hurt and disappointed over and over again and she told my father to stay out of my life if he was going to continue to treat me this way.

After a while, I finally got over it. I learned to live life without my father. The constant disappointment definitely dealt a blow to my feelings and my psyche. But I came to understand that that was just how my father was. And I had to accept that. I did. But now that I'm older, I really think about it differently in retrospect.

I think right now, because I have a better understanding of what it means to be a parent, I'm even more hurt by the way my father neglected me when I was a younger child. To hell with a female, a potential employer, or an audience rejecting you. Being shunned by the person who created you is the worst type of rejection. It really hurts. When I think about it now, all I can say to myself is that this guy really didn't want to be active in his son's life. How can you do that? How can you not want to be a part of your own seed's development? How you can walk around, living, knowing that you have a son on this planet that you know nothing about. You have to be completely unconscious to live that way. He's my father......and he didn't want me. It hurts like hell to accept that.

When I first saw Drumline, I loved the scene when Devin (Nick Cannon) goes to the train booth that his father works at in the subway station and hands him his graduation ticket after the ceremony was over. I thought that was beautiful. When I was a senior in high school, that's all I thought about doing. Finding my father and throwing everything that I had accomplished in his face. But I think better of it now. I think it would hurt him more to see me accomplish my dreams and know that he wasn't a part of the journey that molded me and my success. I turned out to be a fairly decent human being and he missed out on that. I give all the credit in the world to my mother who did everything she could to raise a decent young man despite the culture of Brooklyn, New York could have on a young impressionable mind. Thanks mom. I Love You.

I've had people in my life who've told me that he's going to come back one day. I have a cousin who had a father that he didn't know. His father came to see him at his house a few weeks before he would then past away. My cousin embraced him. When I heard my cousin's story, all I thought about was how I was going to react when my father finally steps back into my life spontaneously. Who knows.... I don't know how I'm going to respond. I have so much anger, frustration, animosity and a few other choice words for him. I don't know if I'm going to be able to channel it properly. I just know, that's going to be one hell of a day for me and my family. One thing I that used to be puzzled about, is why I never grew to become like my dad. I didn't become as tall and muscular as he is. I don't share a keen resemblance with him nor do I have a remotely similar personality. I don't think I was supposed to be anything like my father. And I'm glad for that.

One person I have all the respect and love for is my stepfather. He came into my life when I was 11 and he's been there for me ever since. He didn't have to take care of me. I was not his responsibility. But I think he showed the ultimate kind of care and love to take a child who wasn't his and raised him as his own. And my stepfather caught me at a very interesting age. I was just beginning to develop as a young man. I think the kind of person I've become has a lot to do with him. He taught me a lot about life. He taught me how to have a certain cognition about people. He helped me develop an intuition that I now depend on everyday. Me and my stepfather have a beautiful relationship. We had our growing pains, but thats only natural. Now we both enjoy and look forward to each other's company. We've added a dimension to one another's lives that seemed non-existent for a while. He became my father-figure in life and what I had missed out on for 11 years, he provided for the next 7. I also became the son that he never had before. All of my accomplishments in high school made him feel like a proud parent because he was a part of that. And now, he's a proud supporter of the Tar Heels and we enjoy many conversations about Carolina sports. I may be a first generation graduate, but both of my parents are Tar Heels in my eyes because they were the catalysts who created the foundation for me to get to UNC. It's a beautiful thing. I have an official Carolina family. And that legacy starts with my parents. I have an ever-growing respect and love for both of them.

My hope is as people become parents, they take responsibility for their children. I can't wait until I have children. I've had dreams about having fraternal twins for a while now. I hope that comes to fruition. I'm extremely excited about the parenting skills I'm going to implement, though I haven't considered the views/belief's of my potential wife, but I'm sure since she'll be my wife, she'll share a lot of the same beliefs I have. I've grown to really envy the Wayan's Bros. When I see those guys show the kind of affection they have one other as brothers, it makes me want to have a better relationship with my own little brother. But because of strained relationships within my family, I was never afforded that opportunity. The idea of being the primary of source of influence on another human being's life excites me. I've had this reoccurring dream of me (as an older man) walking into my twins' room. Both of their cribs are opposite one another and are sidled against the wall. I stand at one of their cribs and just stare at them for the length of the night. And out of the corner of my eye, peripherally, I can see my wife standing there in her pajamas smiling at me because she understands the joy and excitement I have in my heart at that very moment. It's a beautiful dream and I love when I have it. It excites me. I think I'm just really ready to be the kind of father that mine never could bring himself to be. I'm still young and there's going to be a lot of time before I have children. But when that day comes, I think I'll be filled with a happiness that will be incomparable to any other.

I'm seriously too young to be thinking about all this. Oh well...

Parting Thoughts:
I don't really have any. I just needed to get this out.

Oh yeah,
If you have an opportunity to affect someone's life in a positive way, take advantage of it. It could be as simple as giving a stranger a compliment. You never know what you can do to help another human being. There's nothing that makes people feel better than seeing the warmth in others. Peace.