Jul 26 (edited) • Q&A
Fuck this shit.
Greetings, brothers. I'm not the type of person who shares his life with a bunch of strangers online, but I want to open this with my current mental and emotional state. Apologies for grammatical errors and poor sentence structure — it's been a while since I wrote freestyle like this. I want you to examine my thoughts and call out my bullshit. Help me see something I'm avoiding. Here goes nothing.
It's 12:36am. I dropped my son off with his mother at 6pm CST after one day with him, abiding the fucking court order. I fully enjoyed our time together. Going back into my house after — where he was playing, dancing, eating, sleeping, where his toys and clothes still are — is hard. The absence of his presence creates a void, and I'm scared of feeling it. It reminds me how shitty this part of my life is right now. So I sit in my car, watch YouTube, listen to Gene Keys. Find a way to escape, distract, numb myself from that void. I have other coping behaviors too — not healthy ones — that need their own dedicated space and time. Another note, another day.
I know I'll see him again soon, but my attachment to my son is primal, deep. It's one of the hardest things to loosen my grip on, but I have to. Not in the sense of giving up on him — in the sense of trusting he'll be okay. My prayer to the Gods and the Universe: bless him, protect his soul, protect his life. May God lighten his path and his journey on this earth. I want to protect him, make sure he's okay, always — but at some point he has to learn his own way, with or without me. I can only do so much.
According to fucking Carl Jung, my inner protector is trying to protect my inner child from the outside world. I'm projecting this shit everywhere. It's like my phone's autocorrect — a.k.a. "the protector" — thinks everything's incorrect and starts fixing it before I even asked. That old Swiss man said:
"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate."
Maybe he was onto something.
Some background: communication with my son's mother is close to zero. Everything runs through lawyers. The exchanges happen in a Starbucks parking lot — like a Mexican standoff in a comedy-action movie. I'm recording her, she's recording me, and if I'm even a few minutes late now, the police are recording it too. My son is two years old. He doesn't understand any of it — he's smiling, happy to see whichever one of us is there. But some part of him knows these two people don't get along.
It wasn't always like this. It used to be beautiful. I fell for this woman at a community table tennis tournament. She looked amazing from day one. I loved her deeper than I'd loved anyone before — (Trump accent, hand gesture) — never loved anyone like I loved her. Relax, nobody get political, I just think the accent and the hand thing is funny. Anyway — my baby mama drama. Amazing pianist. Great mother. She had a son from a previous relationship — his father, also a musician, wasn't around. There's more to her story, but it's hers to tell, not mine. They were living in a rough apartment, rough neighborhood, Chicago.
My stepson is smart as hell. Knows over 200 country flags. Plays cello like a pro at eight years old. Photographic memory — it's real, I've seen it. Beats me at chess sometimes; I have to let him win or he cries (wink wink).
A few months into the relationship, I built a house for us. We all moved in together. I love who I become when I'm in love — love is fucking powerful. I'm a computer nerd by day, and somehow I built a house. Learned electrical, plumbing, carpentry. Learned how to call bullshit on contractors who assumed I didn't know shit. We lived in that house together for about two years.
I told her I loved her every day, sang to her off-key. No regrets. And yeah — I know I'm still fishing for that external validation right now, typing this. "Ooh Chinzo, you're such a good man." Hang tight, I see it too.
Living together meant I wasn't just facing my own shadow, core wounds — I was facing hers too. She was a hell of a mirror, reflecting back everything in me I hadn't healed. Stuff I was carrying without even knowing it.
Looking back now: I like being needed. My worth gets tied to how much I can provide, regardless of what it costs me. After my dad died, I had to step up as the oldest son, in a foreign country. I loved providing. Loved being needed. Loved paying the rent, knowing I moved the needle in someone's life, loved being seen as the guy who lifts people up. That external validation — "we'd be fucked without you" — made my small existence on this revolving rock called earth in universe feel worth something. I loved it so much it became part of my identity.
I love listening to 2pac "dear Mama". It speaks to my heart.
Let's actually examine that. Picture bringing back the best mammoth meat to your freezing, starving tribe in the Ice Age. Watching everyone eat, get warm, get happy — that gives you a high. Makes you want to go back out and hunt more. Sorry, mammoth. My family comes first.
I feel all of this, and I'm dismantling it — piece by piece — through contemplation, meditation, plant medicine, and more:
- I have to hold everything together for others.
- My worth comes from what I achieve.
- I can't let people see me struggle.
- I'm responsible for everyone around me.
And here's the core of it: if there's no one who needs my help and no more mammoth to hunt, if I have no one to provide for, I feel empty. Aimless. Purposeless. Let's face it — the world will move on just fine without me. It will.
I want to be the source of my own worth. Without needing anyone else to hand it to me. As I release this shit, weird new identity, living without fear, almost like remembering who the fuck I'm. Really who am I ?
Coming straight from the heart, Chicago, no ChatGPT.
Peace, y'all.
3
6 comments
Fuck this shit.
skool.com/elemental-brotherhood
A community of men dedicated to healing and mastering themselves to rise into their purpose, mission and leadership.
Leaderboard (30-day)
1
+11
2
+6
3
+3
4
+3
5
+2
Powered by