Humble Beginnings

Well, today is the 25th of June....I'd hoped to send a couple out between my first and last, but I am seeing how difficult it is to be consistent with blogs. A new lesson for me to learn! YAY!

My beginnings as a young man in this world started in the best and sometimes worst place in the world....Southside Chicago! I have a real LOVE-HATE relationship with the southside...Its the place where my family lives, where I learned how to see life, how to read and write. It was the southside that showed me how strong a man is and how strong he isn't. The southside also showed me how to fear life, fear people, fear myself. I know, everybody tells me that don't let the things of this life hold you down and rise above these circumstances. Its easier said than done, and most people who says that are either still stuck in those "rise above" circumstances and weren't even a part of this style of life. Yes, I know, I am speaking in very bitter language but I feel that unspoken and unresolved emotions makes me feel bitter inside and projects outside. I hope that telling my story from whatever point of view, whether that be bitter, exuberant, docile, hopeless, or hopeful, would help me do some soul cleansing and let me then completely walk away from the hurts of the past. Talking again about my past from my lenses brings up some hurts, but I feel that it hurts when the wound happens, it hurts when the would starts scabbing, and it hurts when its in the healing process as well. I hope to heal by sharing. In some ways, I too am excited to see where this blog goes, I want to know how it ends as well, like a spectator watching a movie that's just begun.

Back to the Southside....A love-hate relationship.....Chicago gave me the eyes to see reality as is, but also a heart to relive the past over and over. My mother and father were together for a time in Chicago. I had a father in my life from birth to 11....I believe. We stayed at the "Low End" of Chicago, what is know as the lower numbered streets on the Southside of Chicago, unlike the West Side with the famous "Killer K" town streets or the "Wild 100s" of South Chi-town of South suburbs.

Hmm...I'll have to finish more of this tomorrow, getting late here!