Feeling Myself, And Not In That Manner...

When was the last time you really 'felt' yourself?


What I'm asking is, when was the last time you really felt good about everything? Like all your circuitry was functioning at optimal capacity and there wasn't some sort of spiritual breach or mental sag in your daily ya dig, you know... When was the last time you felt like you were on point?

Hell, it's been so long for me that I really cannot remember.

Now that's not a bad thing, but I look at what I have left and see that although my window is shorter in doing things that are impactful, the appreciation of accomplishment is that much more pertinent to my overall basket of happy. What I'm saying is that it would be a large favor from the universe to have me live more years than I have already, so time for me is short if I wanna get some real stuff (well, to me at least) done.

Now I'm satisfied with what has happened so far, and my laundry list of complaints are probably like everyone else's, but I know that I have more inside that I can pass on and I know that there is more for me out there somewhere all wrapped in a bow, just waiting for me to stumble across and claim.

I don't know if that is a person, a place or a thing.

Damn... I just realized that I just described a noun when I typed it. I hope it's that simple.

Oh! I remember the last time in my life where everything clicked and seemed perfect:

It was a few days before Thanksgiving back in 1991. I was in the Army living stationed at Camp Casey which is in Tondecheon, South Korea. I had just gotten a promotion and I was living in a double room in the barracks with no roommate. I was an Intelligence Analyst working in battalion headquarters processing security clearances and dispensing communications security to the soldiers in the Signal Unit I served in. It was a cushy job. I had my own office and workspace and was left alone with my paperwork and radio.

Let me set things up...

I was in impeccable shape mentally, especially physically. I'm talking bodyfat at 12 percent and hitting my two mile run right at 14 minutes. I was putting down 3 to 5 books a week and reading damn near every magazine at the PX because I was so homesick. Das Efx was the rap kids on the block and Gerald LeVert was telling us about his private line. On weekends I would go down to Seoul and get on the trains and busses. I would just lose myself in Korean culture and get lost in their life and customs.

I was writing my whole family and calling my girl weekly, who was doing her thing at Bradley U. I paid every bill on time and had no outstanding debt. I was buying 20 to 30 records a week and practicing my cuts on these cheap-ass belt driven turntables, practicing my on-air radio skills because I knew I was going to be a radio and club DJ when I got out. I had also took enough classes and Central Texas College (conveniently located on EVERY Army post) to have earned my associates and enough Army correspondence courses to gain another promotion in 90 days after getting my most recent one. I was a machine, y'all.

Sensible diet, 5 miles every morning, chill-ass job, hobbies, the excitement of living overseas, active social life with the cats in the barracks and this cute-ass Korean chick named Song and her American infatuated sorors. Something about them fit ass military brothers... My Jeans West slacks fresh from the US were hot to def and I was rocking them thick soled shoes with the metal on the toes, accesorizing it with the floral print shirts that was rocking 2 for $22 and the fold over belts with the metal tips that made the early 90's hot. I could've been a dancer on Nia Peeples' Party Machine.

I was that fly.

I was on top of my game, and things couldn't be better. I had the support of my family, being in the military was a good thing and I had healthy, stress-free relationships with everyone I called friend. Even my adversaries were in the pocket. I knew where they stood and they I. I believe athletes call it being in the zone. You know, when the ball looks to be the size of a head of lettuce for a baseball player , or the hoop seems eight feet wide to a basketball player. Nothing was out of place, all of my parts worked perfectly and nothing could possibly go wrong for my young, gifted, upwardly mobile military ass twenty-six thousand miles from home.

Until I got a phone call.

Like I said, it was right before turkey day and I was ready to celebrate with the cats in my unit seeing as I couldn't get home to do it. I remember it was cool out side and not yet winter. No coats or anything, the temperature was in the 60's, perfect for heading into December. I had a great day at the office and worked out that evening. I bought a mink blanket at this market not far from the base and I had taken a liking to sleeping under it with my windows open. My ritual at that time was to just chill and think out my day in the dark right before sleeping and I did that usually listening to Anita or Sade. This night was Anita. I was in my bed, lights out under the blanket feeling this beautiful breeze on my face when the phone jolted me out of my meditative state. It was about 12:30 and I was reviewing my state of being. I was at my calmest and I was thinking at that moment how blessed I am to be in this place at this time. It was no deal to get up and answer the phone, everything was perfect and although no one ever called me after 11pm or so, this had to be something extra special waiting for me on the other end of that line. What more could the universe give me? I was already at my happiest. Any more blessings would be blessed overkill.

So I hear the voice of my first seargent (a Boricua cat, instant bond... tanto como mi parte posteriora de la familia casera) and he had tears in his cracked voice. My grandfather had died. He spoke with my mother and it was already arranged for me to hit a 6am plane to Chicago to make it there. From what he didn't tell me I knew that things were falling apart in Chicago. Although the military doesn't let folks go home for funerals of family outside of immediate, my grand parents were my legal guardians because moms was a career student when I was a kid. She had given birth to three before she was able to vote, and the success of my entire family depended on her getting an education because she was the oldest. Since my granny grands were legally my parents, I got a chance to go home.

It wasn't my grandfather's death that changed my life. It wasn't the fact that my grandmother, aunt and I got into horrible car accident the night of the funeral. It wasn't the fact that now my grandfather's wife, who was now in the hospital with a broken neck wearing a halo would die six months to the day (she healed from the neck injury, but died of a broken heart. Forty years is a long time) and that visit was the last time I would see her alive, It was the two visits I made from Korea, one to bury Pops, the other to bury Mamma that actually changed up my flow.

It was the energy of the survivors that changed me.

Although I went back to Korea to finish my tour, I went back the first time a little twisted from the experience, the second even more effed up and it wasn't because my beloved passed away. I learned that I became a product of my environment. The energy in Chicago hasn't been right since that time, and I exited the military at the end of 1992 and came back to even more dysfunction. I sopped it up like a sponge and applied all of the effed up methods, ways and means of my family and others. I didn't realize I was replaying all of the alcoholism, verbal abuse and uncaring ways I learned from my environment until I had broken up with my third long-time girlfriend broke, unmarried and childless with nothing tangible spiritually to take away from any of my situations. My people aren't bad people, some of em' just aren't good examples to follow. Some other's blueprints are askew for you, ya' dig?

When I left home for the military, I had to figure things out for myself and although my methods were questionable, they were effective for me. I gave all of that up when I got out because I thought I should learn and emulate from folks that had been in the game longer than I. I shoulda' stuck to my own game plan.

And you wonder why I'm living in Houston right now?

I'm trying to feel myself again. Remember what that felt like?