First Time

This is my first entry on vocal. I find it fitting that I am a person who celebrates my first of most things. After reading through just a few of the amazing post here, I feel my voice may seem a bit different from most. The image above is my first time at Botanical Gardens. It’s amazing how many first we can have in a lifetime. I often say that it is my goal to be appreciated more with repetition. Every experience is better than the last. I am so excited to share some of my simple truths. I hope that my post will be received as a day in the life of who I am today. I have always loved words. In fact, I call words my first true love. Truthfully, it was an arranged marriage orchestrated by my father as a form of punishment that proved to be reward. When I was growing up, I survived a lot of trauma. Most people don’t know unless we actually engage in a conversation where my experiences must be disclosed for understanding to be achieved. My mom used to tell me that I was supposed to be dead three times before I was born. The fact that I am alive, meant I had a purpose. I’m going to try and navigate through this as best I can. I’m so excited and eager to tell the right stories and post them in the right places to enable someone, only God knows who, to read and exhale.

So, my father was very abusive. The kindest of things he did was make me read and write anytime I used words that I did not completely know the meaning of or how to use properly. He used to say to me, “This is a Man’s world and the world is not going to make things able for me to understand. It is my job to make sure that I do.” Any type of directive given by him that didn’t result in the taste of blood in my mouth was one that I knew would not be repeated in the same way ever again.

I often tell people that the hardships that I survived made me into a man I love and am grateful for daily. I am free of judgment, hope, and endurance. I wonder in what way my appreciation for first times on a date, kissing someone special, going to a concert, masturbating, or cooking a dish can be accredited to something that happened horrible in my childhood. I’m a textbook child of inner city very non tradition family raised by a single mom and the baby, the oldest, the only child, and the middle child. I’m sure most wonder how. I hope we get to reveal in my contributions here on vocal. So, here’s my first and I hope you like me. I don’t plan to proof. 😘