The Difference between Bears and Boo boos.

I can think of a great many experiences I had when I was young that, at the time, felt like dire situations. When I went through them, I felt like they were the most awful and painful circumstances one could ever be in. Looking back, I've come to realize that those very situations that I dreaded being in are the ones that made me who I am today. My life is proof that anything that doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Still, I'm now a parent. Being so puts a completely different slant on the who "that which doesn't kill you" bit. Anyone who has kids will tell you that there is this almost undeniable instinct that crops up as soon as your child is born. Its this undying urge to protect your child from any and every hurt and pain that the world has to offer. Although that instinct is helpful when fighting off the bear that sneaks into your cabin on your weekend camping trip, you can see how it might be problematic in other situations.

Every parent goes through this. Watch brand new parents. When their baby girl falls, mom and dad run to her aid. They kiss the boo boo, no matter how small and meaningless it might be. They give her hugs. They sing her songs and console her. Then watch a parent with several children. When their baby falls, they don't even get out of their chairs. They barely look up. They've figured out that that scratch will heal. More importantly, that fall will teach the baby a valuable lesson. So, they let it happen.

The thing I'm learning about being a parent is that, just like I did, my children have to take their lumps. I can't fix them all. I can't rid the world of all the broken glass on the sidewalk. I can't run background checks on every boy that knocks on the door. Even if I did, it wouldn't do much good. They need those scraped knees. They need that broken heart. There are times when I should go into superdad mode and beat up the bear. But there are also times when I have to let them get that boo boo. The lesson learned from it is more important than the tears they will cry in the process. The hardest part, for me, is knowing the difference.

The Unspoken Rules of Voyeurism

It's an interesting thing having a blog like this. I know a girl who has a blog about hot dogs. So, I often talk to her about hot dogs. There are people who have sports blogs. There are gossip blogs. My blog, though, is about my life. Its the rough, unedited thoughts I have about my existence. I sometimes write before I even think. I made a promise to myself that if I made this blog public, I would continue to write it as if it was private. Thus far, I think I have. But the interesting thing about having a public blog about my private thoughts is that, just like I do with the hot dogs, people tend to talk to me about it.

It shocks me to have people talk to me about my blog, because I imagined that there was an unspoken agreement. I imagined it to be a lot like getting dressed every morning with the blinds wide open. I notice the neighbor watching. I see her. She sees me. I don't mind that she's watching, because I rather like the attention. But when we see each other in the street, we pretend as if our intimate daily encounter never happens. Its as if she knows that acknowledging seeing me naked every morning would force me to close the blinds.

As I said, I imagined that my blog readers understood the unspoken rule. Keep looking in the window. Don't force any awkward moments, and I'll keep the blinds open. Clearly no one else saw the same soft core movies on HBO that I watched when I was a kid, because no one seems to understand the rules. People send me messages saying, "So I was at work reading your blog and...." or "I think your blog is really interesting Rueben." To be honest, I don't mind those comments so much. When they come from people outside of my daily life that just wanna let me know they were reading, I actually like them. Its the only way I know someone is looking in the window. But when people close enough to me to think maybe I'm talking about them say, "So was that me you were talking about?" or "I see from you blog that you......" I really kind of hate that. Its that awkward moment while my neighbor and I are grabbing our newspapers and she yells over the shrubs, "SO I SAW YOU NAKED EARLIER. COULD YOU MOVE A LITTLE TO THE LEFT NEXT TIME? THANKS!" Not cool.

I say all that to say this. If you wanna let me know you're looking in the window, great. I keep it open for a reason. But if you start asking me about that mole on my left butt cheek, I'm gonna have to close the blinds.

The Long Ball

There's a moment in baseball that I love. I love several moments in baseball. There's one that I love more than most. If you've ever watched a good hitter at work, there's this great moment that happens now and then. He steps up to the plate, the pitcher delivers a pitch, and the batter swings. Not an "I'm gonna crush this ball" kind of swing. Its just a nice clean swing. Then you hear the bat find that ball right in the sweet spot. Crack. Right at that moment, while most fans are standing up, watching the ball sail, waiting and wondering if it's gonna clear the fence, the best place to look is in that batter's eyes. See, he already knows. He felt it. He felt that ball meet that bat. The right pitch. Just the right spot on the bat. The perfect swing. It all came together. It's a matter of physics. That batter doesn't need to wonder if that ball has the distance. He's not looking for it at all. At that moment, he looks down at the grass in the infield. He tosses that bat over to the dug out with absolutely no urgency. He already knows that when that ball lands, its gonna be rolling around in the cheap seats. It's gone.

Life is like that sometimes. Sometimes it just goes right. Sometimes you just catch hold of that fast ball that the pitcher's been whizzing past you all game. Why? Who knows? Who cares? At that moment, the only thing that matters is enjoying that leisurely stroll around the bases. You don't run, because you want it to last a little while. That pitcher has had your number all game. This time, you had his.

It doesn't happen all that often, but now and then you knock one out the park. I like that moment.

If Danny Names Her

My buddy and I have a system. Because I’m single, it’s not at all rare for me to call my buddy, Danny, to talk about some girl I met. It might be a pretty girl I saw as I was walking the halls at school. It might be a girl I had a date with last night. There are a myriad of reasons I might see fit to mention a girl. So, there are a great many girls I might mention in the course of our conversations. Most of those girls get mentioned once or twice and never rise to any level of importance. Occasionally, though, some girl is particularly interesting. In order to keep this information straight, Danny has come to put these girls into a set of categories. Most are filtered out. He never asks their names, because he has come to realize that it’s not worth learning them. It only creates clutter and confusion in our conversations when he has forgotten or confused some girl’s name. So, if I mention a girl and he predicts that I may never mention her again, she just becomes an anonymous girl. Sometimes, but not often, I mention a girl and Danny decides that she cannot be anonymous. Usually because he believes he’ll need to mention her again, or because I’ve mentioned her enough times to prove it necessary, Danny will decide she needs a name. Not her actual name, mind you. She gets a nickname. It’s a sort of honor, really. He has deemed that she is important enough to need a name so that he might refer to her accurately in our conversations. Usually having something to do with geography, but sometimes referring to her career, Danny will use my description of the girl to create a name that we will use as code when talking about her.

There was Morgantown, because I met her at school in West Virginia. There was Jamaica, because she was originally from Jamaica. There was Sweden. Not that she was from Sweden. I met her immediately after Jamaica. The most significant difference he could find was that she was white, so he named her after the whitest place on earth he could think of. There was the teacher, because she is, well, a teacher. We couldn’t use geography there, because she lived too close to home. It would have been too confusing. There was New York, because I met her during a trip to New York. She actually became special because she was so pretty. She has become our measuring stick. If I mention a girl and say, “Danny, she’s so fine,” his response might be, “Okay but is she New York fine?” This is the system we have. One might say that the perfect girl would be cool like Morgantown, as fine as New York, and…… I digress.

There is, though, one other category. It’s rare to reach it. If a girl rises to the status of being considered a fixture in my life, Danny learns her name. It takes some time. In fact, there are only three girls in my adult life that he actually refers to by name. I married (and divorced) the first one. The other two were significantly long relationships. That’s it. Those three. Everyone else has had a nickname. It’s a predictive system, I suppose. Danny knows me. He is rarely wrong. If she gets a nickname, she’ll probably be mentioned a bit.

So this morning I’m talking to Danny. We are talking about girls, of course. I had realized that there was a girl I’d mentioned a few times this past week and that we hadn’t agreed on a name. I think I had referred to her by her job, but it hadn’t really stuck. So I asked, “What are we gonna call her?” He responded, “I think this one is gonna have to be called by her birth name.” Of course I protested. It has only been a week, after all. Seems a bit premature to me. But, it’s a predictive system, as I said. “Its like that?” I asked. “Just like that.” I guess we’ll find out.

Doin' What I Gotta Do

I heard a young brother, one whom I know and love, say, "Doin' what I gotta do." While I can understand and appreciate the sentiment, I'm afraid it's a trap. We young brother's get caught in this trap pretty easily. Our lives are hard. Our struggles are longstanding. In our attempts to deal with our circumstances, we do what it takes to get by. Or do we?

Do what I gotta do is one of those catch phrases. It means I'll do whatever it takes to get out of this situation I'm in. The problem is that it has also become an excuse. Folks have found lots of ways to overcome a great many obstacles in life. Some are hard. Some are easy, or so it might seem. But we naturally gravitate towards the ones that feel easier or faster. A quick fix is a good fix, right? Maybe. But often times, those quick fixes are not the best choices, all things being equal. And that's where the catch phrase comes in. As a justification for doing the wrong thing, we say, "Doin' what I gotta do."

But, there's a problem with "Doing what you gotta." See, when you "do what you gotta", you are essentially insuring that you will be required to do it again tomorrow. Why? Because the quick fix is never a lasting fix. Its like telling a lie. When you lie, you have to remember the lie so you can tell it tomorrow. Tell enough lies and the burden of those lies becomes far more problematic than the original and perhaps uncomfortable truth.

The trick is, when you chose an action as a solution to a problem, that solution shouldn't create new problems. If it does, those problems should, in theory, be significantly less troublesome than the original problems. Otherwise your solution is counterproductive and therefore a bad idea. Too often, doing "what we must" really means doing what we probably shouldn't, because we don't have the patience and strength to do what we should. When we do this, we put ourselves in the position to have to do these things over and over again. We are not actually fixing our problems. We are putting them off.

I say all that to say this. Young brother, don't do what you gotta do. Do what will change your tomorrow for the better. You are struggling today. Accept it. Live it. But put in work to make tomorrow a little better for you and yours. That way, tomorrow, you won't being saying, "Doin' what I gotta do." You'll be saying, "Doin' what I wanna do."

Rueben and the Pips

You know that song. Gladys Knight sang it. It goes, “If anyone should ever write my life story, for whatever reason there might be……” Well, it just so happens that I did. I wrote my life story. I wrote it because it has occurred to me that, in many ways, my life has come full circle. I lost my father when I was very young. Because I lost my father, I spent a lot of years trying to figure this whole man thing. And now, here I am trying to teach this man thing to my young son who is very close to the age I was when I lost my father. I am, coincidentally, not much older than my father was when he died. My daughter is now 17. That’s the age I was when I became a father. It’s all quite surreal, when I think about it. I think about it pretty often.

So I wrote it all down. My life, as I see it. Just like the song says, I’ve had my ups and downs. Unlike Gladys, though, I can’t necessarily say that the downs have been few. I’ve probably had more than my fair share of bad days. I mean, I was there when my father died. I was seven. How many people can say that? Really. When I wrote all this stuff out, these ups and downs that have been my life, I did it in a relatively matter of fact way. That’s how I think. It is what it is. No frills, no thrills. No artful suspense and colorful prose. Here’s what happened. I guess its because that’s how it all happened. Matter of fact. I’m not one to spice it up or sugar coat it. I lived it. I’m still here. I suppose that means I’m okay. But, when its all written out like that, it becomes clear that I’ve lived some life. There’s no question about it. I’ve earned my stripes.

Gladys says, “You’d be there, between each line of pain and glory, because you’re the best thing that ever happened to me.” Now I don’t know who Gladys was talking to. But as I read through my life, line by line, I know who I see. Her name is Renae Brock. I call her Dre. She hates when I call her that. I started when I learned that the Spanish word for mother was madre. I shortened it. It stuck. And in my life, so has she. Every time I’ve fallen, she’s caught me. Every time I’ve gotten up, she’s been there to pat me on the back. From beginning to end, she’s in there.

Lots of people love their mothers. Its human nature. She gives you life. She’s the first person on earth you meet. There’s a bond there that can’t be denied. But this one is different. She’s something special. She made three kids who shouldn’t have been okay, be okay. She made us stronger than most, in fact. One guy put it in perspective for me when he observed, “Y’all ain’t just doing okay. Y’all don’t just have good jobs and whatever. Y’all tearing sh#t up!” Maybe that’s true. If it is, I blame my mother.

After writing my life story for the world to see, one thing has become clear. Maybe two. First, I love my mother. Second, I owe her everything I have and more. Thanks Dre.