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Say, you had a retail business of your own, like a restaurant, a bakery, coffee shop, or a book store or t shirt shop, and every week you had new items- cakes or other desserts, new books, new issues of magazines, or tshirts on display, and every week, your support system of friends would stop by and look at the items you were selling in your retail establishment, and every week a majority of them would tell you how great everything looks, but every week, every single week, they would leave your retail establishment without ever buying a single thing, and your cash drawer at the end of every day every week every month  would total $0.00 from the people looking at what's on display and leaving without buying anything ever, 

and some would suggest that you start a retail establishment, 

and when reminding them that they are actually in the actual retail establishment

- what would your response be?

Me: an excerpt (rough draft)

 It's not the job of  a 4 or 5-year old child to help an adult with grown-up issues. 

A child should not have to be concerned about how his mother is going to stretch her paycheck to pay the bills or buy clothes or  birthday or Christmas presents. A child should not have to be concerned about how his mother feels about her in-laws. A child should not have to be concerned about the relationship his mother has with his father.  A child should not have to be concerned about his mother's relationships with her sister, her friends or neighbors.  A child should not have to be concerned about how to change his baby sister's diapers, or feed her or himself. A child should not have to be concerned about making sure that when the little hand is on 7 and the big hand is on 12 that he should go to bed. A child should not have to be concerned about babysitting his sister and himself. 

What you will do is raise a fragile child who will worry about things children should not be worried about. You will create a child who is  overly concerned, fearful and yet protective of his mother; a boy  that is focused on doing and saying anything  he thinks will make her happy or put her at ease which is a difficult task. 

My sister had no idea why I didn't get any christmas presents while growing up. It's because  I knew my mother could not afford presents for the both of us so I asked that she not buy me anything. I was 6. 

A child should not be concerned with the thought that his purpose in life is to make sure he does or says anything possible that would make his mother happy. 

A child should have zero jobs. Zero concerns. A child should be a child.

I was never a child.  

I'm 59 years old, and people wonder why I behave the way I do, towards my mother, my sister, and towards women in general.     

Same Shit, Different Day

 The question is still the same. 

I asked-  What have I done to not be deserving of happiness? 

I was at a poetry reading this evening. Friday evenings I am usually at home watching HBO max, Hulu or Paramount Plus until I fall asleep, but I was told about the poetry reading earlier in the week and I decided that I will not meet anyone staying at home, so I went.  Then my only friend in town ( he told me about the poetry reading earlier in the week. I didn't know he would show up)  showed up with a friend, and he was glad I was there because he was curious about the dude's sexuality though the dude's given him many hints, and my friend wanted me to observe dude's behavior to confirm. My friend doesn't want to make any moves that might cause the dude to want to kick his ass. I didn't stay at the Poetry reading for long because the women there looked ratchet, and regarding my friend and the dude, it was as if they were on a date and I was intruding, so at the intermission, I told my friend I was tired and going home. I said good bye to the both of them and I went home. 

An hour later my friend called me and asked my opinion. I told him the dude was on him like velcro. It's obvious the dude was into him for more than friendship. My friend devoted every second of the time he wasn't talking to me, to him, and I didn't want to be a 3rd wheel.

Anyway, I wonder how does it feel to like at the very least, and to be liked in return?  

How does it feel to be loved, and to be loved in return? Dude was following my friend around like a puppy dog this evening. 

Dear Lord,  What have I done to not be deserving of love, of happiness?  I was told by 2 different people before I moved to Oregon, that I would find my wife there. I was in Oregon for 14 years, looking for her every.single.day.

Did she move away? Possibly to Wisconsin?

What about me?

 Dear Lord,

So many wonderful things are happening to people around me, and I'm happy and I want to celebrate their happiness, but

What about me, Dear Lord?

What about me?    What have I done to not be deserving of happiness? 

The Future

“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”

― Corrie ten Boom

Prior to the pandemic, since I was 50, I had been dying my beard black because I wasn't ready to embrace the grey. Once when I decided to let my hair grow on my head just to see if I could still grow a full head of hair, I saw the gray and decided it would be easier and cheaper to continue to shave it bald. Maybe because I had been shaving it bald since I was in my 30s and my barber said I had the shape of head good for baldness, but besides the grey color, I didn't like hair on my head. Anyway, during the pandemic I was able to work from home and since I wasn't seeing people, I didn't have a need to color my beard at all, and I was thinking; 'I'm 56. Why am I kidding myself? A black man in his late 50s with jet-black hair?'  I decided it didn't look realistic, given my advanced age, and yet, I'm 59 now and the gray is now white. That, I am not ready to embrace, but I guess I have to. Ocassionally I'd let a little grey show, when I ran out of hair dye, and women would say it looks nice. Personally, I hated it and I didn't want women to think I looked as old as I was. 

But I'm 59 now.

I didn't become the person that I wanted to be, and now I'm in the process of re-inventing everything about myself. I'm not going to embrace the white hair though; God-willing I'll wait until I'm in my 70s before that happens. I'm going to find a hair stylist to dye it salt & pepper. Getting old is awful and painful, but the alternative is death, and I chose getting old.

The two things I want more than life itself, I know that at 59, I have to accept that I will never have. I have tried relentlessly but I am convinced it is not in the cards for me. Most likely, I will never find love. I also will not have my own biological children. Periodt. End of sentence. It hurts. I can't think of anything more to say besides, whenever I die, I'm pretty sure I will be alone. In my bed, probably, in my sleep, with my Iphone beside me-