A man who never spends time with his family can never be a real man. – Don Vito Corleone

I’ll tell you up front, this is me rambling…

Last night I had a dream about one of my exes.   The one my homie describes as my ‘Trying to Fix My Childhood’ Ex…funny because it’s true.  Anyway I walked into her office and (much like real life) she was cold and distant towards me.  Didn’t even look up when I came through the door.  Then finally she stopped typing her notes and looked up and smiled at me, and WHOOSH!!!!  All those old feelings passed over me again.  She was the way I think I’ll always remember her in my mind; gorgeous and proud on the outside, vulnerable and sensitive on the inside.  One of the few women I legitimately thought I was going to marry at a certain point in time.  But things happen of course and you move on.

Only my chosen few really knew about this at the time, but a couple years back, while I was on the tail end of another serious relationship, I started having these massive panic attacks.  Me being me, I had to be a little silly about it, but the best way to describe it was I’d be minding my business then all of a sudden my heart would start pounding out of my chest, my eyes would start bugging out, and I was looking like Cutty (for all you Wire fans out there).  This happened a few times as I was driving home, but usually popped up right before I went to bed; when I had time to myself to think.  For the various Batman jokes I invite and encourage, it was the first time I ever remember feeling like, “I can’t be alone.  What if I don’t wake up?  How many weeks are going to pass before someone comes knocking on my door looking for me?”  To be clear, I wasn’t nowhere near suicidal, just…panicked.  I’ve already dodged enough DUIs to last a lifetime, so going back into the bottle wasn’t an option.  I just needed to be around people.  So I started popping up at the homie’s houses.  Not just on weekends, but like…Tuesday nights.  Thursday lunch dates.  You get the gist.  One of the cats suggested I see a therapist, but for all the respect I have for medicine, I live by the adage, “Brothas don’t do therapy.”  I just manned up, prayed a lot, hung with all my people here in L.A., made all kind of calls back to K.C. and everywhere else where I got folks until I calmed the hell down.  And as always I got over the girl, met somebody new and life continues.

There’s a common thread between those two stories.  Not remotely by coincidence I think, the dream I had about one of my potential wives was caused by the news that one of my close friends has brought another life into this world.  For a short while it seemed that I would beat him to the punch in building my biological family but God has other plans.  He also happens to be someone who has a strong spirtual base; the Bible I still use was a gift from him, the inscription inside reads ‘To My Brother From Another Mother…” Phrases like that neither of us take very lightly. 

It struck me as odd (and a little off) today that I know the birthdays of his kids and many of my friends and their kids, but have trouble now knowing the birthdays of many of my own aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews.  And I don’t hate my family at all, but we’ve just steadily grown apart (outside of Mother, Father, Sister).  You can throw at me the quote about how we don’t choose our family but we choose our friends (and I couldn’t agree more), but I do wonder what type of precedent I’m setting as a potential husband or father.  These are the types of things I think about when I’m not just being completely silly or writing about black films and TV Shows.

The End.

(I told you up front this was a rambling rant…)