Define Yourself! (PART ONE)

Greetings to all of my fellow readers. This is TheePhoenixPharaoh and this is the next installment of my Blog. Today I'm going to take you all on a journey inside of my mind so you better understand all of the things I've done up to this point in my life as well as how I feel or what make logic is in regards
to me defining who I am. Even more importantly, I am going to break down my journey and some of the most essential ideals and individuals in helping me get to my destination of self awareness of who I am.

Now let's take it from the beginning. As a kid I've always felt like something of a sore thumb amongst other kids. Don't get me wrong, I've always been pretty likeable and cool amongst my fellow students at school but I still felt very much, well, "different." Now I'm aware that this tends to be a stage that all kids go through as they grow up, but for me it was twice as worse because when I came home from being around primarily white adults and children I felt like I had no business returning to my community which was filled, primarily, with black people. As weird as this songs though, the youth of the black
community had a huge part in making me who I am this very day. How you ask? Well I'm not going to even "sugarcoat" this response. The black kids I grew up with always made sure to make me feel like someone who didn't belong and had no place amongst them. I get that I went to Catholic school and I used "proper" english when I spoke, was a good student, and was an obedient son who never ran the streets or did anything I knew would upset my parents. I was a model young citizen but it was more than just that. There was something about me that they saw and hated about me.

I tried to fit in with them and replicate their behavior but they saw right through my facade. Whether it was listening to Power99 FM and reciting rap songs or singing R&B songs from the 90s they never fully accepted me. Now don't misunderstand me, I am black and I shared some similarities with them
in terms of cultural common interests like playing football, basketball, etc. The big difference was that I never restricted myself to only participate in one particular activity or another to validate my identity as being black. In fact, I did the exact opposite. The intangible "X Factor" they seemed to see in me is the same "X Factor" that made me who I was then and makes me who I am today.

Let me go further by explaining that this "X Factor" is something inside me that always refused to limit myself in the name of being something or someone that society envisioned me being. Thus when I had heard Stone Temple Pilots for the first time in 8th grade nothing inside of me screamed out, "This music is for white people! What is this shit!?" In fact, it was the exact opposite. I was fascinated and thus they began the first Alternative Rock group whose album I purchased. Following that I borrowed the
soundtrack for the first Crow movie and there was no turning back. I loved it.

I understood I couldn't and wouldn't ever be like the other black youth in my community.

Once I realized this and stopped beating myself up for not being like everyone else, once I stopped trying to pretend being something I wasn't, once I found the inner strength and courage to embrace my true self and uniqueness I freed myself. I went from cursing myself and feeling sorry for myself and wanting to be someone else from finding a new found purpose. Now it wasn't easy by any strength of the imagination.
 

It was hard as hell actually. For years other black youth laughed at me, made fun of me, and criticized me. During these torturous years my countless bad experiences with black females resulted in my vow to never be in any kind of intimate mental or physical relationship with them. I had been verbally and emotionally to the point I couldn’t find myself attracted to any of them the older I became. Now while I do not want to say whether this was the wrong or wrong approach I need to say that this was my way of creating closure on that chapter of my childhood. Following this my confidence grew because instead of asking myself why they hate me I embraced the theory that the black youth that didn’t like me they were jealous of my potential as a free thinking  young black man. However, what I didn’t realize was that I was trading one form of shackles for another because although I was freeing myself from my own self doubt I was taking up the burden of having a vendetta against my own race for the persecution of my inner child over the years. It wasn’t until later in life I had come to terms with the negativity burning in heart and through finding the love of my life and mother of my little girl, I was able to let it go. 

I’m sure some of you might be wondering how I got myself through the harder times of my youth. Well I will answer that for you. As a boy my father gave me one of the greatest gifts a parent could ever give to a child; the gift of showing them how to dream.  You see, my father worked a lot to be able to send me to Catholic school as well as my sister. Even before my sister was born my father explained how he used to read comic books about Thor and told me about all of the fantastic stories of his favorite childhood heroes like Thor, Black Panther, etc.  You see, back in the day, Marvel was actually cheaper than DC comics so my dad couldn’t afford to buy comics like Batman and Superman.  During those times as boy my dad introduced the worlds of heroes. As I got older I found my own favorites such as Superman, He-Man,  Batman, etc. Little did I know back then my father had enabled me to be able to dream that there were heroes out there that could save the day. This became the foundation of my imagination. 

The reason I said it was the best gift any parent could give to a child is because my father didn’t have a choice in terms of growing up before he was even a man. He was working at a very young age and is still working to this day. While he did raise me to be the best man I could be in terms of values, manners, and ethics but he still allowed me and encouraged me to dream and use my imagination. He never forbade me from reading comics he encouraged me to do so. He supported me when I began to draw characters from the issues I would save my pocket money to buy. This made a huge difference in my life because, for one, instead of idolizing rappers and other negative influences I was more inspired to emulate all of my favorite superheroes and heroes. Yes, these are fictional characters but what they stand for is very real. I believe my father knew this and also knew that while I may be somewhat naive in terms of my ideologies he also knew I would, no doubt, adopt some of those same values and beliefs that made all of my heroes who they were.  My father never rushed me or pushed me into growing into a young man because he knew once I grew up there was never any turning back. He sacrificed so much so that my sister and myself could remain children when we were supposed to be children and that is one thing I will never forget.  I will always be eternally thankful because he protected my inner child instead of destroying it. 

You see, I am a firm believer that one’s inner child should be cherished and protected at all costs. It is no secret that childhood doesn’t last forever and we must all answer the call of adulthood when we hear it. Even with that said, within your inner child, is an innocence that once lost we almost can never get back. This is why we should never lose ourselves in adulthood and forget that we were once children. All of our inner child lives deep down inside of us. I feel that God made that part of us so that we can still remember that the best things in life are still for free. With this said, I quickly came to understand that those who had the same kind of interests as myself was known in society as a nerd or geek. Most of you may think that I was offended or outraged when I figured out that I was one of these individuals that, for the most part, are mocked and made fun of by “cooler” or more “popular” individuals within the social food chain so to speak. Honestly, I had no problem with it once I knew I was one of them. I had gotten to the point where I was proud of what I enjoyed listening to, reading about, learning about, etc. For the first time in life I feel like I belonged, ironic, isn’t it? I feel like I belonged to a group of people who are always socially known for NOT belonging amongst the status quo. 

The second part of my self-definition came when I met my best friend in my first year of high school.  Before comic book heroes and culture became “cool” we found a common love and appreciation for all comics and anything comic book related. Since that day he’s been my best friend ever since.  With our friendship as the foundation I have become an extended part of his family through the birth of my daughter, whose mother, happens to be his cousin. Despite all of that, it is true when they say to careful of the company you keep. I think we helped build each others confidence up through the years and did what all best friends should do for each other by having each others backs and supporting each other through the good and bad times. The strength of our friendship gave me the strength in character I needed to discovery myself, if that makes any sense. I wasn’t afraid to find out something about myself for fear anyone would disapprove. Through my best friend I acquired a surrogate family who always treated me like one of their own.  Within this family I discovered other like-minded members in my same age bracket that I ended up going to the same college with and the rest is history. During our time together in college we all knew that it was safe for us to be ourselves.  As I said, we all had similar tastes and interests but we were all nerds in some shape or form. This was without question. Knowing this we all did our best to stick together as a crew and enjoy everything we all brought to our collective group. During our college years, I can say that I had no doubt about who I was, not anymore.  

(TO BE CONTINUED IN PART TWO...)