On the topic of: Create your day, Brave hope, Birmingham and the matters of life: An essay.

Someone asked me a question today and it triggered this whole day long, roll through self inventory of who I am? I've come to a few conclusions after some serious contemplation, rest assured, I'm just as messy and interesting as I've always been but I feel like I'm starting to be the kind of person I totally want to be. No time like the present right? I mean for the longest it's been all about figuring out who that is, that's life right? We're all just trying to live and be who we are. The vast majority of people want to be someone they can and want to look at in the mirror. Growing up I feel like one of the messages in my family was to be better, we had to be. It's taken me thirty some odd years and a world turned upside down by history repeating itself in the most combustible of ways, for me to really grasp why that message was so important for me. In finally, fully, recognizing the meaning of that message and it's link to who I am. The message wasn't simply that you had to be better but that people would always kind of be looking, friend or foe, somebody cared what we did. Fear. Fear was ingrained in this message, and I have always tried and wanted to be fearless. So you can imagine what kind of struggle this can become for a kid who is oppositional defiant to begin with. 12 year old me didn't have a clue when to be fearless, to be brave or when to shut up and listen, watch and learn or shout at the top of my lungs with purpose. 30 something year old me, is still trying sometimes, more frequently than others and harder than I ever have before (2 bonus life points for you if you even picked up that super obscure aqua teen hunger force reference!),  to know the appropriate times for any of those options as well as a plethora of other additional life skills of varying degrees of importance. Most times it comes across as awkward. Sometimes I'm a big dumb scaredy cat about absolutely silly things and if I'm being honest I think that's just to distract me from the shit I'm really afraid of,  because then I'd have to acknowledge how silly I'm really being, and then I don't have to be fearless, if that makes any sense at all. It doesn't really need to make sense either way though, because it's bullshit. The world around us is kind of crumbling in a million different directions and I'm more hopeful and aware and afraid and excited but still moderately concerned than I've ever been. Yet still I'm trying to be fearless, I'm doing fearless the best way I know how and that's trying. That's growth and work and stumbling along the way, but for me being fearless and being better have the same motivations.
I'm no better than anyone else, I get foolish and human and act like I am sometimes, but I'm not any better than anyone else.The only person I really want to be better than is myself, yesterday, and the day before that and maybe a little extra better than whoever I was the last time I acted like an asshole like earlier today. When I bugged out at a security guard for one of my least favorite big dumb banks of america who advised me I couldn't park in their mostly empty parking lot for more than 10-15 minutes. That version of me was definitely a crazy person. She sucked. In that moment I was a tiny little human throwing my own tiny little tantrum and I truly hope in that moment the security, parking attendant, guy getting paid maybe 12 and hour by someone prevent their parking lot with plenty of spaces, I hope he laughed at my crazy ass behavior. That's what I want to do every time some one does something crazy in my presence. I want to laugh, because why not, if a spade is a spade why not call it a fucking spade? Imagine if that dude started laughing not at me right in front of  me, not a mean laugh just a gentle hey relax what's up kind of chuckle, I might of calmed down, I might have gone ahead and continued to be a big mean jerk. I don't know. What I do know is we don't get do overs. We just get a chance to learn from that moment and maybe if we are very fortunate not repeat that behavior. In other words be better. Grow. Learn some important shit. In that moment I was a jerk and this time it didn't take me weeks of feeling shitty and continuing to be shitty to realize I could be better. It took maybe 2 minutes. (Which I feel has got to be a personal best and I do totally believe that deserves a little horn toot of the persuasion my own.) Within 2 minutes I knew I was being an asshole for no real reason, I mean don't get me wrong that parking lot was empty and I did need more than 15 minutes and I wasn't trying to catch a train which rationally thinking about it has to be why this establishment was so territorial about their parking lot turf that they would pay a guy to sit and be and asshole really It is either super cheap (Probably) Or genius (also kind of) but rather than pay a tow company to be on retainer to tow cars, wich is likely more expensive and requires maybe a permit or two, these guys pay a guy, to sit all day and tell people they can't park there. Keeps their lot free. I mean I could dig deeper into that hypothesis but it's not a hundred percent relevant. Point is this dude I got all crazy aggravated towards had jack all to do with anything aside from doing his job which I'm certain he barely makes a liveable wage for. If I'd just been human and honest towards him and said hey I'm NOT going to be here more than an hour over your fifteen minute rule is there any way you could cut me some slack I have something really important I'm trying to do and If you can help me I'd really appreciate it. I believe that would have, could have changed that entire interaction. But because I didn't within 2 minutes I was able to laugh at myself and pin point where that interaction went wrong. Later In my day I would be reminded again how much I really have to learn. and then in that same conversation, how far I've come. Those are the conversations and Interactions I want more of, that was the conversation that triggered today's thoughts. Only my second very short interaction with this person and she is someone I believe, I could learn how to be a better human from.
You see that conversation happened exactly where and how it was supposed to happen and for the first time in 5 months and some days, but longer than that really, I'm remembering some of the most important things about me. I didn't learn them over night. I don't learn anything overnight. I have to practice and do and redo. Sometimes shit knocks you down and it takes time to get up but if you pay attention and learn from life, it gives you life and you can get up and do the right things for you, which also turns into doing the right things for others, because, well, happy people are just plain nicer. I had to have that 2 minute realization to put myself in check but also so that I could ease my nerves and realize that even if I mess up there is progress in that. That was exactly what I needed today, a reality check, a reminder of who I want to be. I'm hoping it helped. I'm hoping it was evident immediately after  in my oh so important that I acted a fool over my plans (before realizing I had a solid and workable back up plan), moment. I'm hoping eventually today is just a funny story I get to laugh at with this really interesting and seemingly, happy, functional, feel good magical human I got to meet for a sliver in my life so far. I'm hoping that because my gut says that's worth hoping for, my instinct is, I'm on to something that works for me if I can just learn how to harness it for the better.

There we are back to better. Fear tells me my gut could be wrong, but experience tells me it's worth a try and my heart tells me to just be kind and do the right thing, to and for myself and others as long as I can, the best ways I can. That and try harder to be brutally honest with myself as to why i'm doing what I'm doing at any given time. Is it who I want to be, Is it the best person I can be, am I acting like a snickers commercial, am I taking care of myself? That shits important. I feel it should be important to all of us.
I also feel we all get distracted from this on a daily basis, by life and its bells and whistles. Everyday in this world we are faced with choices and information. Every day we make a bad one or two and every day we can ask ourselves what it's about and learn from our mistakes and mis-steps and grow into a person we like, It's all a choice to learn or not to learn, to grow or not to grow, to open ourselves up to a better standard of living, together. To find out if we can, in fact, be better.

A little over 5 months ago someone who loved, lived, questioned and felt, fearlessly made a grand exit from this world, we all have our demons and while part of me believes we all make choices the other part of me is learning to accept there are things we all have trouble controlling and sometimes it's harder with certain things than with others. Life is more complex than all the questions could ever answer. After years of trying to figure out who I am, I am the composite of my best lessons, a work in progress and still seeking to find my most important parts. What I do know so far is that sometimes within our fears is where we find our strongest voice. I am black and I am white. I am fierce and strong and sincerely afraid of failure to be a better human being than I was yesterday.
I am also fully aware I am going to fail, in some way, somehow each day. It is my belief that being fearless is knowing there may be failure and trying anyways. We can ALL stand to be better. Being taught from birth that you HAD to be better, always be better, that's some shit that fucks with a persons head. Knowing WHY it's important, that, that is the difference between being the best version of you. It's what I like to think we're all on this big ole planet for, and if we're not trying to be better in the real and raw sense of just living good lives and being good to each other then what the fuck are we really doing.

Growing up we were taught we had to be better, because my parents fight could not be allowed to be our fight. They protected us with hard knowledge and cold truths, taught us how to think for ourselves, how to be resourceful and how to live through what they knew would be hard. I'm certain they never knew our lives would be anything like they were or are. I'm pretty sure they're proud of us, somewhat sure they're still scared for us and I have no idea if any of it's at the right things, but I know they did the best they could with the tools they had.

In the time leading up to the death of the more lucid of my grandmothers she told me many harsh truths about the world, some helped, some hurt but they all taught me a piece of who I wanted to be and opened the door to a path of understanding I may never have found without the pain of her deathbed honesty. She showed me her full deck of cards and she told me in those weeks and days and moments so precious at the end of her life, why it was so important that we, my brother my sister and I be better. She loved us, I believe that because I felt and saw that too in my time with her. She also believed we were a bit of an abomination. She feared for her offspring and she feared for us, and at the same time I believe she was afraid of us, Not really of us but of change and what it meant our lives would be like. You see we had been taught we had to be better for many reasons but growing up in a world like ours we are all so often taught, to fit in and early in my life it was made clear that we were different. Not by our family but by the world around us. My grandmother had lived her life afraid for others and she was good where she could be and she tried when she could to be better, sometimes for the right reasons sometimes not.

My own grandparents struggled to see my life as ever being happy, not because they knew me but because they knew the world I would be living in. We were mixed children. Black and White. We heard questions about who were were long before we knew anything about who we wanted to be. We learned the best way to fit in was to observe, learn, trust our gut instincts and if we still had questions to look it up. We were happy, made from love and cared for but we were a social experiment too and that meant we had to work. We had to turn out ok. I mean I'm flawed as fuck, but I think I'm turning out ok. Beyond anything else I feel our skin and what some consider our disadvantages have been our advantage. We knew we had to be better and we each in out own ways have grown into people who are trying regardless of how flawed we may be at any given moment, we had the advantage of learning early, with honesty and eventually with clarity why we had to be better humans.

I am the whitest black person I know, really though,I am just myself. The skin I'm in and the color of the skin I'm in stopped mattering to me a long, long time ago. In light of recent events in this country, I am forced to confront the cruel fact that while I may see myself as just a person trying every day to be the best me I can be. There will always be people in this world who see brown, before they see ME. That is why I have to think smarter, learn more, prepare more try harder and be better any time it is possible, because sometimes it won't be enough to be myself, sometimes I will only be what people see first and while I see a growing, living breathing opportunity for a better world, while I hope everyone can see that in my eyes, in the way I present myself, how I carry myself, in my words and when I speak. 33 years after my birth, some people in the world we all have to live in together, still see the color of a persons skin or sin before they truly observe all the things that make up a given situation. So I can't always be fearless, I cannot always be alright, But I CAN always try to be, progress. to learn from the best parts of the people who have helped me to see myself.

I am alive, and therefore able to keep trying. What I know so far is I can be happy if I just keep remembering what I learn along the way and putting it into action. Eventually, I'll do all I want to with my life, from finally finishing at least one of the letters I've started to write a friend to being completely confident with all of my decisions regarding just being myself. to maybe doing something that helps the world we live in progress to better than how I found it. For now though I just keep wondering how we change anything if we don't start with ourselves, if we aren't willing to be honest with ourselves and each other, to laugh at our mistakes, apologize when we should and stand up when maybe we shouldn't. I want to be told (in the kindest of ways) when I'm fucking up, honestly and with a chance to fix it, to compromise when it's right and question it when it' not. I want to learn and I think we all should. It's the most human thing and I fear we are losing that. I fear if no one stands up and says hey how did this work out last time we just keep repeating bad behavior, as individuals but also as a society. Which is why people should act on love and work their way up from there. On the off chance we fail, keep trying. Life is too short to give up. That we live only matters if we live to our fullest potention and we just aren't doing that if we stop looking. At ourselves and each other, with honesty and trusting past the obvious.

For a Slammy...

It's not everyday people come into your life and just fit, they click, they get you and understand or at least respect, how you love, live and grow. I've been fortunate in my life to meet enough of these kinds of people to know how truly great the world can be. We don't get a second chance in this life to make certain decisions about who we are going to be and at the same time it's my belief that if we work for them, we get all the chances, all the opportunities, we wake up every day with a chance to be better, do better and learn from the person we were days months years ago. The people who have helped me grow the most have no fucking clue how they've changed my life and shown me who I wanted to be. I think people have forgotten in ways we may not fully realize as a society, until it's too late, how important that can be for someone, gratitude, genuine love and appreciation for the exchange that is friendship and companionship with each other, fellow human beans(yea, I meant to type beans, like MAGICK!). The times we are living in give us this false sense of security in the way things are. A perception of how it should be, according to a whole lot of people who don't know shit about the life you've lived and the story your scars may or may not tell. A perception of who you should be aligning perfectly with the scale of miserable to happiest person on earth in just such a way that nobody's happier than anyone else because we're all miserable together. I don't feel secure in those ideas at all but I know they're out there. I know there are people pulling strings and pushing buttons because "It makes them feel better" or gets them where they want to go. I know that the world we live in is filled with people who will push you down just to get a better view. I also know that people are capable of so much more. Imagine a world where people truly strive to just be better. A world where there's always someone you can go to and talk to because they'll always make the time because they have it, because they're able, because they know time is something worth spending with a friend. In the words of a great man, that shit would be, Radical.

I try to live my life in a way where the people I love, know it.The people who help me to get through a day, a week, a year, a lifetime aren't forgotten in the movin and groovin of everyday life. Sometimes, I fail at this. Frequently, like anyone else I say to myself "I gotta call (Insert name of friend I haven't seen in forever but really miss at that moment cuz of some weird memory only they would appreciate....), then like a human who hates the impersonal nature of the interwebs I try to think of the best time to call that person where we might be able to actually have a conversation of substance. Then, inevitably, I fail. I get too busy. Too stressed. Too full of bullshit excuses and 3 weeks to three months later I still haven't called whoever it was, and by the time I get around to having time it's generally a few months later. Not because I actually didn't have the time, more because I simply didn't make the time. We don't always realize what's important, what we need to make time for and what can wait. As we evolve we gotta stop, take a minute and recognize that we are nothing if we forget those that build us up. It's some pretty profound yet fundamental shit.

 We are nothing if we forget those who build us up.

The world is full of people who help us become better versions of ourselves. Not all of them can be repaid their kindness. Not all of them need to know how deeply they've touched our lives. If you feel moved to tell some one, in whatever way you can, then fuck it, don't look back just tell them. Be it in actions or love or words. I feel like it's the ninth secret of the universe or some shit and we've all just been fucking it up for centuries, ponder it. Simmer on this shit, people, telling each other ya know, that they give a shit about each other! I know right!?! WOW!! What kind of crazy hippy idealistic bullshit am I selling here! Think about it though, it's super basic, like a pyramid scheme and shit. People are nice to each other, it spreads, they get confident about being nice to each other and branch out now being nice to strangers who then repeat the kindness and it continues to spread! Crazy. Utter nonsense. But it could happen. If we made time. to think about how little it really takes to change someones day, attitude, life.

Today Slammy would have been 31 years old. I met him through a friend I haven't spoken with in years, he walked in on movie night and we just chilled, he was funny and real and full of fucking energy. We quickly started hanging out, he told me his story and I told him some of mine and we were friends, it was automatic and simple. No bullshit. We told each other what we thought, laughed, talked about all sorts of crazy shit. He showed me some of my favorite places in the state of Connecticut, some of the most breathtaking and beautiful views I have seen yet in my short little life. He was an explorer, an adventurer a liver of life and one of those friends you could talk to for hours about nothing or everything. He was a friend. A friend who helped me survive living below the poverty level, while unemployed and finishing an associates degree that I knew would get me a job still doing nothing I liked. He encouraged my writing helped me with algebra and showed me how to find the laughter at a time when everything was so ridiculously serious and intense and ultimately painful. He used to walk into my apartment on a Friday or Saturday night after clubbing or partying or whatever crazy shit he'd gotten into and at the time I could easily be found on either evening, watching Reba, in my house sweater, on the couch like a finely tuned 90 year old woman. Sometimes it would be just him, sometimes he'd have guests and we would mute Reba so he could tell me about the night he'd had or just hang out and be ridiculous, He'd then come back the next day and drag me out to go hiking or have a beer if either of us had the dolla dolla bills. (It was more likely hiking at the time.) He got me out of the house and out of my head, taught me more than I will ever remember about how shit grows in this world. I called him my biologist, he loved that shit, plants and nature. He loved, nature and his friends, his family, his siblings he loved a good story and a good time but mostly he loved people. He loved so damned hard, like with his whole heart and shit.

A few days ago Slammy, lost his life, I lost a friend. A mother, lost her son. Siblings lost their brother and the world lost someone who could have changed it. A biologist, A spirit, a lost soul who still had a chance. Until he didn't.

Everyday until you die you make choices. Choices that effect you and those around you, and everyday you live with those choices. Meaning every fucking day of your life you have the opportunity to choose better, for yourself. The only person who can make those choices for you is you. If it makes the majority of people around you hurt maybe it's a choice you should re-examine. If it will ultimately make your life a more positive one, fuckin go for it, fuckem if they can't see that, but if you happen to be spiraling into the abyss of whatever bullshit you're selling yourself and the world around you, maybe take a moment and check yourself. Life is just too short. If you completely stop asking yourself "Hey are these good decisions?", if you stop making time for a friend in need before a needy friend. If you stop recognizing the good in people or reaching out for those who truly love you, If you forget who you are, find a friend. One of those real ones and ask for a little help getting by, because a true friend will build you back up and help you however they can as long as you keep it real, whether they've known you 6 months, a year, or a lifetime.

Perhaps I'm overly optimistic, but I'd like to think everyone has at least one true friend they can call when the going gets tough. Perhaps I'm a hypocrite or maybe I've just been here before but I don't have it in me to watch people I love dive head first into oblivion. I've learned the hard way to step back, I'll be around if you need me but I won't watch anyone spiral out. After spending many years being someone I didn't like, I began the swim out of my own shit and despite each of our struggles being so completely different, Slammy was there. Building me up. Sometimes because he saw that I was a hot mess and other times he had no idea, but he helped me grow into a better person and for that I will forever be in debt to him. Of course this means in his passing I find myself feeling all the feels of regret. I find myself sad over all the things you're sad about when some one leaves this world way too soon and frustrated with myself because I didn't call more, I didn't make time. Thought about that twinkle eyed motha truckin fool at least once a week but sold myself the lie that there would be more time later. I'm currently fighting my guilt with the idea that the phone goes both fucking ways and my number hasn't changed in almost 15 years now. Doesn't make it right or easier but it helps me keep perspective. At the end of the day if you need a friend, find one, if you are a friend, be one, because you never know when it might make all the difference. I think if everyone did this, if everyone just lived this, people would know they could and a whole lot of shit might be a whole lot better.  I really and truly believe we can all be better. Ain't that some shit...

Dear Slammy,
Wherever you are, it's coasters for you when we meet again. Coasters mothafucker. It's the fourth fuckin commandment and ya broke that shit so, Coasters. In the mean time, If there is an afterlife I'm sure my people have found you by now tell em Large Marge sent ya...
Love, peace and chicken grease, Slammy