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I will never ever, ever......

Man, I woke up one day and looked in the mirror and I still saw the same old me. I look in the mirror every morning so I wouldn't notice any quiet changes. One morning I looked in the mirror and thought...."Man, I'm 30". I took a pair of tweezers and yanked a gray hair out of my goatee. Too early for that shit stuff man. In the grand scheme of things thirty is pretty young, I don't have to get up during the middle of the night to ease my bladder. My list of prescriptions doesn't boast viagra in its membership. But, I realize that there are so many things that I can't do now. Even though I never thought about some of those things before and I never had the money, talent, or time to embark upon them there is a feeling of finality when you say out loud. I will never be a professional athlete. I will never be rich. I will never be twenty-something again. I will never be a full-time student again. I will never...gulp! have an entire summer to myself. I will never be carefree again. What brought this on? Hell, I have no idea, I thought about this when I was dropping my children off at school and daycare today. Slowly, surely I have become my father. Of course that is not a bad thing by any stretch. I definitely don't have the romantic street stories to fall back on when I fail. Every black man in the world says, "I never knew my daddy" as an excuse for fucking messing up in life. I had it rough man, my dad was ALWAYS asking me where I was going, what I was doing, how my grades were, what time my games and practices were, whether or not I had done my chores and everything. To quote the popular street vernacular, my folks were always up in "My business my businaaaaas." I look back at all that they have done for me and I have to think to myself. "They did so much for me and my sisters that they had to put things that they wanted to do on the back burner, and I never even thanked them for it." I guess that is what parenting is about. I have two now, and I am anxiously awaiting the third on August 23rd of this year. That will be it though, finito, no more kids. Not because I don't want them, but because I want to be able to care for what I have properly. I will never, ever have another child after this one. I will never have free time like I used to when I was a single man with no responsibilities. I will never, (at least for the next 10 years) be able to sleep in on a Saturday without Bugs Bunny and the road runner blaring at 7:00 in the morning. I will never not have someone to worry and pray about daily. I will never be the most important person in my life ever again. I will never do a lot of things, and I am so grateful for the reasons why.

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