One can always be a man
As a young boy growing up in the projects, I saw many friends and other boys trying to be heroes in their unique way. Some were gang bangers, drug dealers, womanizers, poets, dancers, rappers, athletes, academics, and make-believe superheroes.
We did not want to be cowards because that wasn't manly, but hero status was a way to fill in the empty void of not having a solid presence or no existence of a father.
But from my personal experience and what I witnessed in the lives of my friends and other boys in the neighborhood, we shared a broken connection.
We were all fatherless. We had no male guidance, role models, or anyone to demonstrate to us the right way. All we had was the desire to be heroes because we did not know how to be men.
We became boys without the courage to face the challenges in life, and some of the difficulties cost many young boys their lives. Some of the young boys lost their freedom to the criminal justice system. Some of the boys lived a scattered life with drug addiction. Some boys made it out through academia, sports, and a steady job. But did we become men?
Some of us may have realized on this journey that we become men when we learn to love and respect ourselves. We can look at the positive males in our lives and learn from them. We can understand that honesty with ourselves is heroic and that being a man is okay. No cape is required.
©soulreal
C