Words.worth

Outwardly Immobile

T he homegoing celebration of friend was this morning. Yet, I left this celebration feeling not so celebratory. In fact, I was and still am guilty.

This emotion is not because I feel responsible for the loss of a friend (which I do share some responsibility). It is because I did not share my grief with the world.

As I sat in on the ceremony my senses were keen to the way people showed their collective sorrow. There were moans, questions of why, occasional outbursts of disapproval, anger and the most traditional emotional display, tears. This display is one that has alluded me since 2001, when I was at the homegoing celebration of my line brother B-Ash. While sitting inmy seat I even put my head down for a moment just because I wanted those around to know that I was in fact feeling the pain of loss. How bogus is that?

The interesting thing about this is I was hurting for my boy, for his family, for our mutual friends, for his friends that I do not know, for my people and for humanity in general. Yet, my inability to demonstrate this hurt consumed me so that I allowed it to fester and reveal itself in the form of selfishness. I was selfish. Instead of giving my hurt to the room I was too focused on why I could not publicly display that same hurt. That was not fair to all of those that were in attendance or to those who have experienced grief at some point in their lifetime.

Why? Why am I so quasi-emotional when it comes to showing my fear and pain?

Honestly, I feel it just like all other people. Perhaps I have become desensitized from my experiences. I have dealt with a few losses in my lifetime. Granted I know there are millions of people out there that had more adversity than I but, my experiences are mine and they are all I know. Age 8 I lost a five year old sister, Age 14 a close friend, Age 15 a basketball teammate and close friend, Age 16 a close friend while he was incarcerated, Age 18 a friend of the family in a barber-shop robbery and a youth league teammate, Age 20 a motor cycle accident and a prophyte, Age 21 a line-brother and last week at 26 a college buddy. Maybe this is not a lot. Maybe the way I worded it makes it seem like more than it is. However, for me this is too many when I factor in other experiences that have simply came with living life.

Perhaps I feel tougher on a sub-conscious level. I mean as much as women like to exalt about wanting a man that shares his emotions, I know most of these same women would wonder about the masculinity of a male that openly sheds tears. I want to find that balance. I know I will find it.

Perhaps it is going to take something tragic of epic proportions to bring the kinetic cries from my depths. I pray to my creator that this is not what is necessary.

Perhaps I am as I suspect. Sell.fish (selling salt water animals to a freshwater world). Sub-consciously I may simply have a problem with allowing another person to see a vulnerability. Hell that is why I ran from blogging so long. Well I hope the world knows I am working on it. Just like I worked on my explosive temper a few years back and reached a level of "laid-backness" that would rival Thelonius Monk himself. I am going to grow into those tears.

I refuse to be outwardly immobile.

posted by Words.worth @ 5:38 PM