Stay Strong & Stay Positive

"Life is Harsh and Ugly, so Don't Reject Me..."
-Nas

For the most part, June has been a disturbingly unattractive and ugly month for me and quite a few of my close friends. First, I have dealt with more financial hardship than normal. Now more than I've had to deal with the situations I'm going through, I've been making an extraordinary attempt to be a "Great Friend" to quite a few in my life.

I realize that as many problems as I think I could have that I must remember, what I am going through is nothing.

*I am not dying
*I am not incarcerated
*I am not homeless
*My children do not hate me
(even if I can't see them all the time/everyday)



Hmmm, I just realized that making that list was harder than making a list of positives. It was actually difficult for me to phrase the negative situations that were not happening to me. I kept wanting to say everything positively. I wanted to say...

*I am Alive
*I am Free
*I have a Place to Rest My Head Every Night
*I Love My Children & My Children Love Me


We must all remember to be thankful for what we have and not what we do not have. We must not confuse tough times and hardship for definite end of the world catastrophe.

I have watched many people in the most recent years across America and the entire world face incredibly discouraging and entire life changing, destructive odds.

Earthquakes, Floods, Tsunamis, Tornadoes and Hurricanes and through all the pushed forward.

We lose our homes and our cars breakdown. We lose jobs or our medical coverage is cut. We even lose family members to death and disease. We also must remember that there are a great number of people in Joplin, Missouri and in the country of Japan who this year have lost everything I just named in the same hour. People who have faced great devastation and had to muster the necessary strength to keep going.

I have been trying to figure out what is it that keeps people going in those outrageous circumstances. Is it mental or spiritual? Is it a biological gene bred and passed through many years of family bloodlines? Could it be social-psychological and/or cultural upbringing that since birth has been installed into every child with-in their society eventually creating great adults? I think it could be all of the above and that many of the those next to me need to figure out how to tap into these powers and begin to prepare ourselves and our children on what the true definition of "Strength" really is...

Stay Strong & Stay Positive People

Hopeless, Open, Heart-n-Soul Powered & Moving Forward

It is Monday morning and I have not left my house since Saturday evening when I got off of work. I truly know what cabin fever is now. I have been in conversation with an old friend lately who has been around since the beginning of this year. She has helped me out of many tight situations over the last few months and I truly appreciate it. I have been considering an actual relationship with her but because of past incidents and history I am not sure if that would be the correct choice. We have known each other since we were in high school over 20 years ago and dated a few years outside of high school when we were 20 and 21. I desire more with her and she lets me know daily that she would love to have more with me but once again I must state that I just do not know.

There has also been some communication with my ex-girlfriend. That has been difficult because though we only dated seriously for a short time (less than 2 months), I have had the darnedest time completely moving pass that relationship. I am not sure if I liked the thought of having a woman that I had complete attraction and desired for or if I was really wanting a relationship with her. It is wild because I would have thought that they were both the same but I am realizing now that I really know how to romanticize a situation.

I learn something new about myself everyday. My most recent discovery is that "I am a Hopeless Romantic" and I'm not sure if I like it. I simply see that it is easily a larger component of what makes me a poet and capable of true love but it also makes me vulnerable for heartbreak. Another dimension of "The Gift & Curse" I must endure through.
Good. Bad, and the Ugly drama that must proceed when every fantasy becomes reality.

I had quite a negative break-up with my ex-gf and turned very ugly and disrespectful when the relationship ended. I would text her outrageous messages over a 2 day period, letting her know what I felt about her and how much I could not stand her. Obviously, half of it was not the case, I really did like and appreciate her but I was hurt and I could not see past that. The statements I was making that were truthful, were delivered with such anger and resentment for the way I was treated that they could never be taken in their true context. I am constantly apologizing to her everyday for being so disrespectful and hope that I can get my Honor as a Good Man back.

I would Love to repair my ex-gf's pains and sorrows I caused and also the ones that were there before I arrived. I know it is not possible to turn back time and if you could and I was limited to the amount of times I could perform that fantastical trick. I know that this most recent event would not make that top 25 of my historical mishaps and blunders I wish I could go back and repair. This does not mean I will not try everything in my powers to move forward with bringing new positivity to an old negative. I know I want to Heal and I want her to Heal.

"You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you." -Brain Tracy

Okay, time to eat some chocolate cake, ice cream and a few chocolate chip cookies, my all-time favorite comfort foods. So Yeah, don't usually hear men speak of comfort food very often do you? Guess that is the Hopeless Romantic in me. Would anyone else would like some of my goodies?

Smith Family King... Happy Fater's Day

I Love My Father...

He is a Real King...

Happy Father's Day Papa...

Reality vs. Experience

I stumbled upon a profound quote many years ago. In an instant it dictated an etching on my eternal conscious that will last 9 minutes beyond eternity.

"We don't see things as they are,
we see them as we are"
- Anais Nin

If you truly know me then you are aware that I have experienced a great many things.
My Reality.
You know that I keep an universal view of reality that evolves with every sensation I experience just as everyone grows in some way or another by what they touch, taste, see, smell and hear. Although, to know me means knowing this process is in complete over-drive in every moment due to my Adult Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder & an emotionally spiritual passion so great that if our sun had begun to burn dim, I would bury my heart into the ground so it could give our earth the power to continue to rotate. Now that is exactly what I describe as beautiful passion, though some may rather refer to that as being emotionally unstable. To which I say... "Yes, stability never creates, it only stands still & God choose me to move mountains into the seas and make waves. Why else would he call me his Sun?"

Now let me have a minute or so to work my way backwards through this all. I want to touch more upon this powerful quote that has stayed with me for the better part of 10 years now. I have always held to the philosophy that "personal experiences shape our realities." Although, recently this philosophy has been experiencing more of the "which came 1st, the chicken or the egg" question.

I do believe that every experience we have in every moment of life is creating a new understanding in our reality. Now we take the new reality into the next experience with have in the next moment, create a new reality and there our reality cycles roll. Every moment of everyday our reality cycles gain momentum. Spinning a cyclone of experiences into a whirlwind of realities. What I have most recently realized is that because we take our own reality into new experiences, we also pull a total different reality out of the same exact experiences. The outrageous part of this all is that it seems so easy a concept to understand but the application is nowhere as easy to imply.

Here is a simple example. I have a conversation with someone I am dating over dinner. We are both experiencing the same surroundings, smells, courses in the meal but experiences that universally same reality in much different ways. I may think it went great from beginning to end. She felt it lacked luster and intellectually stimulating conversation. She may feel like I spoke to much about myself and not asked her enough questions. We both have a reality we walked into this date with, experienced the same experience but left with the completely different realities just as we came into it with.

Now the reason I wanted to expound on this particular subject today is because as individuals I feel it is important we understand the position and/or plight of the next man or woman. We are always so quick to judge and hold someone responsible for their actions but we must realize that they only can grab a reality out of every experience by how which the way they experience it. So do not judge their realities by your own because as many times as you can explain your reality, they are experiencing something different.

God's Will vs. Salaam's Will

It is the Wednesday before Father's Day & of course that time of the year that a brother really starts feeling down...

Unfortunately, this Father's Day is becoming even more & more difficult to deal with do to several relationship changes I have faced in the last 3 months. The ending of a 15 month relationship with my ex-girlfriend, Julie & her 4 children is hard. When u begin to compound that with the absence of Jade & Ayden from my life does not make it any easier. And finally you add in my most recent relationship defeat between Patricia & I with-in the last 72 hours you have a mix that is hyper explosive...

Now, I always try to think optimistically about the future but today it is becoming increasingly more difficult to look towards brighter tomorrows. I am not young anymore & have come to the realization that I will never have a child that is biologically mine, which means that I will never have the rights that so many fathers ignore. I will never look into the eyes of my son or daughter on their 1st day of school or on their wedding day. I will never become over run with joy on their birthday in the hospital & I will never experience knowing that my father's name will live on. I will never see these things.

I am not sure what the plan is that God has for me but I do know what it is I desire for myself and it is not to just be a bump in the road of everyone else's family journey & success. Every year at this time I begin to feel more and more like Job and Lot from the Old Testament Bible. I feel as if God is making an example of me or testing me by destroying everything around me. Every relationship I have fails for one reason or another and in the wake of these great devastating demoralizing defeats are children that I have become attached to when their father's are nowhere to be found. Every year another Father's Day rolls around and I am forced to remember what I will never have. I remember the 1st one, the Father's Day I had to deal with great loss.. A birthday that would have fallen about the same time as Ayden's in October/November that will never be. She/He would have been 12 years old right now if my baby was not aborted on my birthday, July 9, 1998...

I ask God to return to me a positive outlook on what Father's Day can be. I think of Him and my father, who is a great man although he is not always perfect. My father fell in love with my mother after returning from Vietnam and took on the responsibility of raising 4 children that were not biologically his & then creating another son after marriage which is me. We do not discuss this in my family for many reasons.

I Love My Father and Admire the Sacrifices that he continuously made and makes to this day. I think many forget what he has had to persevere over the last 40/45 years. We are quick to remember the bad decisions he has made with finances and maybe frown when he is not as willing to leap from his easy-chair and accompany us to a movie or basketball game. I however, do remember every day I have disappointed him. I remember the day he told me that I may not legally change my name to Salaam when I was 21 years ld because I am the only way his name will leave on in purity as I am his only biological son. I feel I disappoint him everyday, whether he himself still feels that way or not. I do remember every headache I have had to cause him when I had to seek his help in repairing the disasters my over-active mind conceived throughout my 37 years of living.

I know God has a plan for me, the same way he had a plan for my father. My only concern is that he delivers or reveals a positive part of it to me before I am to weak to continue on to the day that it will be fulfilled.

Happy Father's Day to All the Real Dads & Step-Dads Out There Busting Their Humps for Their Children & remember to let God's Will Be Done...


also read: http://unclesalaam.blogspot.com/2009/06/my-fathers-day.html