22 Years

The earth has known of me for exactly 22 years today. These years seem to have gone by more expeditiously than an hour and a half of math class. It's funny how time works that way. In retrospect time always seems to have passed us by fleetingly. That hour and a half in math class seems to me as eons of merciless torture. I could travel to the next star in the time it takes to find the derivative of a 9th degree polynomial, but 22 years since my birth have gone by rather swiftly. It's quite puzzling.

What have I learned in 22 years of life service? I've learned to love, I've become adept at not knowing anything and questing to know something, anything. Like most of us (I hope). The once hot headed, egotistical, selfish, teenage ball of raging hormones, and illimitable potential has become a humble man. I would say that I'm intelligent, handsome, more mature, and responsible than Chief at 18 or even Chief at 21. I could also say that illimitable potential that I mentioned still exists, but I'd rather just remain a humble MAN. Emphasis on man, as denoted by the bold, CAPITAL, and italicized spelling. Now is that being humble?

Another thing I've learned is that the scope in which human beings measure reality is very narrow. I haven't known a father for 22 years, it's an impossibility of the mind to fathom an A-sexual birth outside the compass of lets say virus' or bacteria (lets leave religion out of this)? I've never known a father. As far as I'm concerned I don't have one and was conceived without one. How do you measure reality? By what you know or what you're taught? I guess that's the big question. It could be that I'm bitter as well. Similarly to my African origin I don't know my biological origin either. It's fitting.

It's also a testament to the strength of a woman that my mother could raise a man. Not only one man but three men and working on a fourth. I used to believe that only a man could raise a man, but my mother contests that. 22 years on this earth and I'm still alive, still growing towards death, still learning, laughing, missing, kissing, fucking, dunking, sucking, hating, making, and loving. Most importantly, I'm still loving. Still loving you and yours, still loving my people, still loving my family, still loving my friends, still loving humanity, still loving the earth, and still loving myself.

Wishing you love unlimited, The Big Chief November 19th, 2007 at 22 years of age.

Happy birthday to me.