impending

you have to put yourself out there. YOU HAVE TO! otherwise what reason do i have to believe that you ever ever will..........

i may have found out recently that one of my very good friends has more feelings about the feelings of our friendship situation than i have been willing to..........accept. i can't say i didn't know, although that's absolutely what i'm claiming to alllllll of my other friends trying to get themselves in the middle of this hot mess..... i wasn't willing to accept it because i think i feared impending danger. i still do. i always do.

the question is, is it worth it? is the fear of the unknown, of a lost relationship with a friend, and not just that friend but the entire social network that connects you.......is it worth the risk? sometimes, i suppose it absolutely is. i've heard those happily ever after stories. i know they exist. but this kind of relationship is already equipped with the added pressure of everyone else expecting magical things to come of a union that is.....or may seem to be.....so "meant to be."

so i denied it. and i said things to drive the point home that if this was in fact what i suspected it might be, it wasn't something i was aware of.......or interested in? but now i fear i've done the wrong thing. you don't realize what you have until it's gone.......or until somebody else gets it. like a fabulous dress for prom that you see in the store window, but decide to wait on......to give it some time to think it over. next thing you know, some bitch from your 8th period english class has her boyfriend hauling that shit potato-sack style out of macy's. fail.

and this is what i fear........that i've waited. that i've done the wrong thing. that it's too late for me say what i think now that i know what i have probably known all along. i should've done something. something. ANYTHING.

so the question isn't really whether or not the risk is worth it; it always is. ALWAYS. the real question is........is it too late?

we call truth.

the older i get the more i realize that i am my father's child. my mother has always told me this; i have his attitude, his biting sarcasm.....even the cleft in his chin.

last week my parents went to visit my dad's family in north carolina. we don't see much of them because my dad doesn't really get along with his brothers and sisters, and both of his parents have passed. however, i've spent the majority of my life believing that it was everyone else's fault that i didn't know an entire half of my family. not because i believed everything that my father said, or that he was the most upright and truthful man i have ever known - believe me, he is not. but it's the only perspective i've ever known, and i never really bothered to find out more.

it wasn't until the past year when i've begun to physically and emotionally and spiritually feel myself growing into an adult, that i've been so curious as to what my patriarchs are all about. so......back to north carolina. our entire family was invited to the wedding of one of my dad's cousins, who i have never met and my mother has never met and my dad hasn't seen since his childhood.......my parents were the only ones to attend, and i'm so disappointed in myself for not taking the opportunity.

the stories my mother told me about the interactions and conversations she and my father had with his family almost made me weep. i am them, i thought finally. this is where i come from; this is where i belong. i consider myself to "have a brain" as my close friends and i call it. untrusting of the media, disillusioned by the government, unbelieving of the so-called "american dream". we are out of patience with the majority of the world, who follow popular culture like sheep, and have no free-thinking cell in their body. it's terrifying, and when it's time that the revolution time finally arrives, there is going to be a very, VERY small majority of people who will be physically, emotionally, and spiritually prepared to fend for themselves. what some call a conspiracy theorist, or just plain cooky off my fucking rocker, i call truth. we call truth.

so it came as less of a surprise and more of a revelation when my parents came back from their weekend in north carolina, telling me tales of my cooky "conspiracy theorist" cousins...... they're pretty crazy, is what my mother told me. they are mine, is what i told myself. it's like knowing your whole life that you are adopted, and finally meeting a part of your birth family for the first time. i felt refreshed; invigorated. like what i believed and the path that i was on was not by mistake - this was, in fact, who i was born to be and my very own father had pried me and my family as far away from those "nuts" as he could. but he couldn't hide them from us forever. and not that i know.............oh, just like every other piece of knowledge one acquires........once you know the truth, how do you ever live your life the same way again? you can't.......that's the answer. you cannot go on any other way. you have to speak the truth......you have to SPEAK UP. even if your voice shakes. even if no one wants to hear it........you must speak. no one will hear your silence. ignorance is poison.