Six Influences From My Father

Figuring out the stored experiences. And the overall story.

I feel myself running away from myself this morning. And I can’t blame her. Sometimes just sitting can feel like a fire.

But I think that I’m starting to calm down now. And writing this will help me. It feels bad when people pass me as I’m walking and normally ask if I need a ride. It actually affected my day. But I’m applying for jobs and continuing my fight. So I will succeed. Even though I woke up this morning feeling bad.

I am working on a dance tape later today and am very nervous. I will work on the details a little more after this to write out the preparation. I’d recorded this once already.

I hope and pray that it goes well.

Today is not a piece that I want to publish anywhere. I should want to publish it and submit it but because it’s stream-of-consciousness I will post it to my publication here. Really a public journal for ideas that are okay being published.

Today is to talk about how my father has influenced me.

I’m still trying to figure out what my experiences were in the context of everything. I think it’s another article to talk about trying to understand. So I don’t know if this is good or bad.

I am 34 going on 35 and don’t know as I get older if I will accomplish my goals. Especially around people who are younger who had more guidance it seems, or resources. This can make me feel awful and inferior.

But let me say.

My father came from a difficult background. My grandmother who I think didn’t have the tools to XYZ, she was very young when she had him. I think maybe 14. And she never finished even elementary school because I’m guessing it was normal to leave school to work for a family because of racism somehow in Phenix City, Alabama.

Well, I don’t think I know my grandfather or he knew his father. With this being said, I think that these things were trauma. And it hurt my father. And I’ll get to this, how it resonated outward to us.

He wanted to be a doctor and didn’t have the resources I feel either (financial, family-wise), even though he didn’t pass medical school? I don’t know the details 100%. Either way, he ran. Understandably, he runs. So I think I ran too or sensed when I did. I am NOT running. I am standing here.

Some of my experiences aren’t my fault. From one occurrence of childhood abuse from my father — and I don’t know if he also experienced abuse as a child. To other things, I seek out help.

It’s not our faults for our experiences, but if we want to live a healthy life, we still have to find a way to help ourselves and that means going to others who can help us sometimes. I can’t help myself obviously. A fallen or sick person can’t make themselves well, but they can seek help.

He ate well. Ran a lot. I have his build kind of, I observe. I remember when he and my mother were together, they both had a healthy lifestyle and eating habits.

One thing that I will give my father in this regard is that he talked about where he came from so I understood more about the present. He needs help I think still (just as I seek it out).

But I do like that he’d said that he was ashamed of where he had come from. That he grew up in the bad part of town. I mean, going back there I got so sad seeing the nice green areas where white people lived, versus the ghetto/hood areas, where he was from and black people lived. So this was grounding for me. And how he was the first in his family to go to college.

My grandmother cannot read either and with racism and things, I think this is a big deal for growing up in Columbus, Georgia in the environment he grew up in from when I visited.

Some of the music I like it bothers me sometimes because it’s blended with difficult memories and experiences. But he liked Babyface. I like Babyface generally. And other music. I don’t know how to extract the memories sometimes from this. It is a double-edged sword for me.

My education came in a hurtful way. And now I realize that it was my mother more probably. But I do observe that considering the roots, it is something to mention.

So this is what I want to say here.

I mean my father I don’t know. I don’t know how to put into words everything. I don’t know how to put words to when we went to an Atlanta Falcons game when I was in elementary school, me and two of my siblings, with a woman named Ms. Burger. She wasn’t my mother. I don’t know. Did my father cheat on my mom, or why did we go with her to this you know?

Or how he would not pick my mom up from Avondale Train Station on MARTA, at night. He was supposed to and she would walk home late at night. Like past 11pm. And she wasn’t killed or something. Who does this?

Or that he resented that my mom had two children before they were married. He didn’t accept them fully because they were not his biological children, his step children and talked negatively a lot. Among other things, too. Why marry her and subject them to this then?

So this is to start to put words to things that are really stored energy right now. I have talked more about my mother and she didn’t talk a lot about herself. But that’s okay. One step at a time. I know enough and am uncovering unsolved mysteries too.

And when I look at people I am around now, even when they have bad experiences, there is stability that I didn’t have. So I talk now knowing why I feel my skin running.

But it’s still now.

Let me go and move onto the next part of the day. Thank you for listening.

Onward.

Gaa n’ihu.

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