Life. Success. Death...encounters with three old friends

So last week I three very different experiences with three people from my childhood.

The first friend I’ve known since she was born. We grew up together for the greater part of our lives but she moved away when I got to high school and I haven’t seen her since my freshmen year of college. Last week I found out that this friend was pregnant. Shocking but not really. I mean I’ve really been desensitized to a lot of things and girls getting pregnant are one of them. She hasn’t been to Charlotte in years and I don’t talk to any of our mutual acquaintances from the past but it was burning me on the inside not to tell. I had just seen her parents for the first time in years the week before that as they made a “special appearance” in Charlotte and its just so crazy to see that they too were in on the “cover up” I guess you could call it. I guess that gets me is it seems like not long ago we going here and there and drawing in church now she’s pregnant and married and I’m well, doing what I do.

Friend two was a dude I used to play football and basketball with at the YMCA when I was real young. Now he’s a Carolina grad, pledged up there, doing his thing in the real world and he made me think that so many of the people I knew as kids are kind of what you expected them to be. Nobody really broke the mold; the people that were hood when we were younger do hood shit now. The girls that were fast got kids, the kids that were kind of geeky are pretty successful and take me, I talked all the time and now I get paid to do just that.

Friend three died a couple weeks ago in a car accident. We grew up more or less being brother and sister because of how close our mothers were but like the other friends in this story, the families grew apart or moved on. I’ll never forget that she was the first girl I ever kissed (I was like 7-8 and pullin’ em back in the day) the funny thing about this situation is that I got the news and I wasn’t phased. I was walking to class when my moms called me and I kind of took the news like Damn…that’s crazy but I wasn’t hurt, I wasn’t grieving, I wasn’t shocked, its like I’ve been desensitized to everything. I don’t feel like I go through the “proper” set of emotions when I get bad news. I didn’t go to the funeral because it just felt like man I haven’t seen her in so long, spoken to here family in so long, it would just be awkward to be around them while they were grieving. I forced myself to believe that my presence at the service would only make her parents think back to the days where me and her would hide under beds and in closets and play tag to play of flirting. I was on MySpace later that day and saw her picture everywhere and it was so funny to see all these new faces attached to her. I was happy to see she was pretty and popular and that her life had touched so many other lives. Rest In Peace Gab!

My uncle died a couple years back, I was playing Madden when my moms told me. This was my favorite uncle but I still had to fight the urge to unpause the game and keep playing because I knew it was poor timing to do that while my moms was clearly hurt. I don’t know what it is with me. I can’t cry at funerals, I don’t see the good it does. I’m able to internalize my emotions. I never been the type to hover over the casket at funerals but its like all I wanted to do was see his face one more time and I had closure.

I’m worried that I will be going good one day and just breakdown from all the stuff I’ve managed to forget about. I learned a long time ago that a “good cry” could make things a lot better and give you a new sense of clarity on things. I don’t think I’ve had a “good cry” since 2002-2003 maybe. I haven’t broke down since I got to college, something in my psyche won’t let me.

I see myself as a leader ya know. Leaders can’t let their emotions get the best of them. Can’t let their followers see a chink in their armor. I get that from my pops. I’ve never seen him cry. I’ve never seen him emotional. He is the epitome of the strong silent type and that makes me wonder where he puts it all. He more or less saw his pops die when he was 9. He is the youngest out of all his brothers and sisters but the most responsible by far. I mean its crazy to see how he turned out and how he could have turned out. Basically, when shit hits the fan, they turn to him but any other time he gets the little brother treatment and he’s in his 40s. That’s crazy to me.

Back to the original thought. Life, success and death are three stages of life that I see myself going through. Life is your struggles, your climb to the top, it’s what makes your success story a success story. Once you get your success, you enjoy the spoils of all the hard work and LIFE you had to go through to get there. Success is the good LIFE. Finally, you die. It’s inevitable, but what you do in those stages make the difference on you being just another footnote in the history of the world or a headline. I'm dealing with life right now but trust me, I'll be a headline.