Well, any good Hollywood movie has the late reveal… like at the end of Star Wars when Darth Vader tells Luke that he’s his father. This post, is not the same because my life is far from a movie, but similar in that I have a late reveal: Within the next month (or so) I’m going to be a father. Yes. I’m having a baby boy.
His mother and I are thinking of naming him Ethan Ezekiel (don’t hold us to it yet) so he can share my middle name (and initials) as I share my grandfather’s middle name. Why did I wait so long for this reveal? Well to be completely honest, I was going through some things. We will leave that at that. But there were several ways I could have written this blog earlier that would have completely changed the way I conveyed this information. If I wrote it when I first found out it would have been a post full of denial, disappointment, self-loathing, anger and regret. If I wrote it a month or so later, it would have been full of bitterness and fear. Now I’m at a place where I have accepted the fact that I am going to be a father even though it is not something I planned, and I am at peace (about that fact alone). As I write this entry, I am still full of fear. Fear that i won’t be a good father, that I am not (and I am not) financially stable enough to support a child. Fear that my son won’t have a good relationship with me if I am far away from him. Fear of statistics…you know what I mean. For those of you who care: No his mother and I are not together, Yes she lives in Memphis, No I do not currently plan to move back to Memphis permanently. No I haven’t changed my mind on wanting children. Nonetheless, life has changed it for me. Actions lead to consequences…maybe blessings in disguise. To be really honest, I don’t know how to feel, I don’t know what the “right” actions for me to take are in this situation. I only know that I already love my son on the horizon, and through all of my fear, reluctance, and unpreparedness, I am looking forward to meeting him. I also know that it’s even more imperative that I become the me that I want to be for his sake, and that I will do all in my power to provide for him and make his life safe and full of joy and opportunity. I could go on for pages about how I feel about the way it happened, what happened between his mother and I.I could ramble on about my fears and mistakes. I could answer all of the “What are you going to do?” questions with shrugged shoulders and a heavy heart. Or I can do what i do best, take life as it comes and try to transform what I have into the best possible version of what it can be. I love to create when it comes to images and words. Here, i have created life.