Blogging While Black version 4.0

The funk.


It has the mitigated gall to follow me, showing up in places I would never expect. It haunts my thoughts and makes me feel less of a man. It has the damned nerve to be at my office, sitting in my chair, undoing everything I’ve set up to represent me professionally. All up in my conversations and shit. Causing me to make mistakes missteps. As much as I love Bootsy Collins and the JBs, I hate the funk. I have to find a way to make it stop.

I don't know how and when, but I’ve been infected by the funk. It has taken over all that I posses and all that I come in contact with. It depresses me, causing me to detach from work, family and friends. I cannot explain why I feel this way. I do not know how to reverse this feeling. Sometimes I have the notion to want to end my life, but I'm a coward. Thank God. For the past week, I haven't had the desire to eat. I haven't had the urge to drink anything either. I can't watch TV or listen to music. I cannot have conversations with co workers right now, my tolerance for bullshit and fronting is very, very low. I wake up, feed my cat, go to work and occasionally instant message a friend or two. I give the 'look off' to those that might want to say something to me as I commute to work. Sometimes I drive, other times I use the commuter train system. Out here in the suburbs, the train system is nice and quiet. I'm sure I ruined a few pleasant rides for a few due to the sour look on my face.


I don't know what’s wrong with me. I lash out at those that feel like they want to help. I am not bipolar, am not afflicted with anything mentally impairing. I have no food aversions, and of course I pray and meditate. Yes, God is top priority with me. I feel the need to damn near get an exorcism. I feel inhabited by another entity. One that pulls me down and steals my desires to do regular stuff. I call it 'the funk' and right now it has me. I really wish I didn't feel down like this, but a year ago today, my best friend and closest family member left this plane and things haven't been the same since. It was a blah day just like the others. I can't remember waking up or preparing for work. I was on automatic and I glided to work, oblivious of anything else. I was in the office and was very efficient that day. I took a break around 10:15 that morning and something urged me to check my personal voice mail. Damn... All I heard was an incoherent message from my sister. She was sobbing and yelling into the phone, but for some strange reason I understood every word. My aunt who was only months older than me, the same woman I shared damn near all of my childhood experiences with, the woman whom I shared an apartment with on two occasions, the lady who needed me to check a couple of unruly boyfriends and a momma's boy of a husband slipped away in her sleep in her new husband's arms. She was a sickly kid, hell she was a sickly adult and it was fitting that she would not have to suffer, but for me life hasn't been the same since...


The funk has had me since this day and death was the catalyst, but from my research there is/was a void there before this even happened.


So my best friend's death is not the void. Something else is missing and God is telling me this. I don't know if it’s a person or me being in a certain place. I'm not hanging out, so I have no influence by the company I keep. Maybe I need to get some friends and have them influence me. Maybe I need to eat. Maybe I need a drink. Maybe I need a grudge fuck and then call it a day. Maybe I need some professional help. Maybe.


Nah, fukdat! I'm gon' stay in prayer. I'm gon' keep getting up every morning and doing the damn thang, whatever that may be. I will not seek medication from a shrink to help me get over the hump. I'm going to fast and pray, go see my chiropractor, get a full body massage, have a drink, get my ass back into the gym more than twice a week and go hang out with my guys. I got people displaced from the hurricane living DOWN THE STREET!!! Just seeing them sacrifice to live normally in a foriegn land sort to speak humbles the shit out of me. I got good health, money in the bank and people that give a shit about my stank ass, and I need to hang out with their ass. Fuk the funk. I will not let it take me under.