Ready to pick up where we left off? Me neither, but here we go anyway.
Saturday.
I remember walking up to those double doors to be discharged, and being encumbered with happiness that I was finally walking out although part of me couldn’t exactly “feel” how happy I was. Not sure if it was the meds or just the entire situation and my brain essentially just telling itself and every other part of my body to be numb. The opposite end of this spectrum was that although I was excited, I felt wrong, I still felt broken. If it’s fair for me to say, I felt that some parts of me got fixed and new parts of me were broken. Just in that short amount of time. So as I’m playing tennis with these thoughts in my mind, going back and forth, the doors pop open and there’s Timber, in her ultra bliggity black gear. We hugged, but i still felt lost, and now I was super paranoid about standing in the lobby that maybe they got something wrong and would tell me to come back in or something.
Timber got me home safely (debatable), and I came in my home and still felt completely lost. What am I supposed to be doing or feeling, I felt I should be doing something. Anything even, but nothing. The rest of the day was a complete fog, I can’t tell you if I ate, shit, slept, or made the banana cry. What I do know is that I didn’t like it. Me being as brazen as I am when it comes to doing what I think is best at times, I decided to go to the gym.
Fucking. Mistake.
There was something about driving that would just send me completely the wrong direction with my thoughts, it seemed as if the spiraling aspect had gotten that much worse. I don’t think I even made it halfway to the gym before I turned around and went back home. It’s a shame too because I took all that pre-workout for nothing.
Sunday
I tried the whole gym thing again, it was a bit better in terms of being able to understand I was at home and that’s where I belonged, but I knew I needed to get back home (mom’s house) to really feel at home again. So as the evening rolled around, I packed a little bag and headed out when it was dark. That actually helped a lot because I couldn’t really see much on the road so it gave my mind the room to slow down as I desperately needed for it to do. Plus I’m almost 78% certain Frankie Beverly and nem’ was in the truck with me harmonizing almost the whole way there so that was comforting as well. I appreciate y’all.
Monday.
Tip and I went out for breakfast that morning at Local Yokel, it was AIGHT, but I also didn’t’ really eat shit so there’s that. Got the food right in front of me and there goes my appetite, and hers was soon to follow. So we both decide to head out and I remember seeing James (James Fish & Chicken) in this new big body Benz and I think to myself “now waynament, this mf gotta be selling more than fish plates to be riding like that” - it made me chuckle and if you know me, when shit is really bad that’s when I get REALLY funny. Trell was the first person to notice that pattern of mine.
So my mom doesn’t like anyone to call or come by before 11am. We pulled up around like 9:45am. You know, real renegade shit. She also didn’t know I was coming or even “why” I was. She came to the door looking crazy as hell (sorry mom) and we walked in. We all sat down and just kinda sat there. I knew what was coming, honestly I think we all did, none of us just knew what it would look like. Mom popped out with the proverbial “you ok?” and a piece of quickly thrown together gameplan went missing. Because I wasn’t ready for the “you ok?” I knew it was coming, which is why I was going there, but I wasn’t prepared. I don’t know about ya’ll but when my mama say “you ok?” It’s time to fall the fuck apart. But no, I held on and just sat there clamoring for a way out of this, a way to just skip this whole thing. Which I was sure it would’ve been easier to pull a greasy string out of cats ass than it would’ve been to answer her. -Sidenote: YTfolk say some really weird shit, this is one of those really weird things that I’ve always wanted to use in a sentence, so that’s why it’s there.
Tip taps me and says “go give your mom a hug” which threw me off because I was so far in my own mind that I actually forgot anyone else was there. I slowly rose to make my way to my mom, she was only 3 steps away but it felt like 300. I gave her a hug and that was it....
I broke.
My mom didn’t know what led me to her that morning and really didn’t have to ask. She did what she knew how to do in that moment, and that was to be a mom and comfort her son. All of the arguments we had, the disagreements, the past transgressions just disappeared. Nothing else matter, because in that hug, I felt safe enough to let go. I felt for the first time something I don’t readily remember, affection from my mom. Immediately she begins to apologize as part of her tough exterior that she’s hastily thrown together is now falling apart as well. I have never, ever, been hugged like that by my mom. Just in this singular act of hugging me continuously, it offered me healing that I needed and have needed for much of my adult life. So we sit there, just crying, and hugging, and crying, and hugging, but again no one is really saying much, but it’s all completely understood. Somewhere in this, Tip joined in and cried, although I’m not really sure when she started or stopped, I just know Mr. Dean was not present in that space, Danovan was. He was being seen, nurtured, heard and valued in a space that he hadn't been before. One thing I had come to understand in the recent weeks and months leading up to these moments, is just how much childhood shit affects us as adults. I mean, when you really peel back this layers, probably about 90% of who you are is a result of childhood shit, especially in how you respond to the negative influences during that time.
So if you haven’t by now, google Kintsugi and take another look at that picture in Act I.
