I’m sitting in bed as I type this when I should be asleep, and the only thing I can do is try to find a way to get out of my head. This book release is three weeks from today, and I’ve stressed over this particular project more than I’ve done in the past with any project, and it has me just all over the place to the point where I feel like I’m rambling on this damn blog post.
I could blame it on all of the stuff that has happened over the past few months, especially when we’re in the middle of a pandemic that is literally taking thousands of people out all over the planet, and I could try to chalk it up to the stress that has come with it and maybe it will make me feel a bit better, but at the end of the day, as I sit here, I think it boils down to one simple fact:
This is yet another year of firsts.
This is the first book project I’ve completed since my father died from lung cancer last February. I’ve sort of found myself in this headspace that I don’t really understand, and I think that is what has been pissing me off, like, really irritated with myself because while I know that his transitioning has had an effect on me, when I got to the point to where I began writing the acknowledgements part of the project, I froze.
Maybe it was hard because I couldn’t acknowledge the fact that he really is gone. I can still hear him in my head, even in the midst of this pandemic, yelling and cursing and telling us that we should have prepared over the holidays because he knew that this was coming and that “son of a biscuit-eater in the White House” ain’t worth a damn and the only thing we need to do is prep and isolate and we’ll be all right.
I’m actually laughing to myself as I think about it. My sister and my mom and Beloved were joking about all the things Dad would have been doing and stockpiling just the other week, and I think that was the thing that really caught up with me. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of talking it out or typing it through to figure out what the hell is really wrong with you, and the fact that I’m in a level of self-diagnosis and finding my own level of therapy because when I’m writing, it’s my solace, in a manner of speaking. It’s the one space where I know I’m in a zone, at peace, almost Zen-like, where everything sort of fades to black.
The wildest part is that I still find myself doing and saying a lot of the things that he would say and do. Funny as fuck, right? I remember reading somewhere that when a parent passes on, a lot of their characteristics and quirks and mannerisms can sometimes pass on to their children. Maybe it’s true, or maybe it isn’t, but it is funny to me how I see things through the prism of his former purview.
The more I type this, the better I’m feeling now. I guess that’s what happens with ramblings and rants at God awful times of the morning, you just need to purge, and I guess that’s what I’m doing.
If you’re reading this, I promise I’m not completely losing my mind, but I needed to get this out of my head because it’s been sitting there for the better part of a week, and the more I watched different shows that reminded me of my father, the more I realize that I miss him a lot.
Anyway, I’m really looking forward to this new book release, and I’m looking forward to the next one I have rattling around in my head, and the one after that, and the one after that, because this is still my passion, something that is in me, and something that I don’t expect to leave me anytime soon. My father, and my grandfather, put too much time and effort into cultivating this God-given gift for me to not continue to do more with it.
All of this is to say, thank you for letting me rant from 2 am to damn near 2:30 am tonight. I feel a lot better having done this, and who knows, maybe I’ll do this some more in the future.
I'm going to bed now. All this purging has me tired LOL
Holla
Shakir
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