The First Day of My Life

Can I live tomorrow like it's the first day of my life...

My life has been very simple; there's only been two phases to it. I call these phases "days".

The first day is what I call the period from my birth to my 'awakening'. I remember it well. That was the time when I trusted people; I thought the best of everyone. And I believed in the world and that the world was constructed to the benefit of everyone. And I believed that the problems of society were acts of random misfortune that could be corrected with a light scolding, a little money, a little hug, a simple prayer.
The first day wasn't a period of ignorance, not totally. See, I knew that the world was not a perfect place all my life. But here was the thing: I was led to believe that it was flawed only in the past, and that the mistakes of the past had been corrected. We talked about Martin Luther King Jr. in past tense. We talked about Vietnam in past tense. We talked about welfare reform in past tense.

Well... the last two we didn't talk about in class. But I knew of them as early as the 5th grade. And when I asked about them, they were talked about in past tense.

The first day, a suit and tie meant the utmost success. The first day, I was never told what suit and tie people built their empires on top of. The important thing was, they looked clean in the public eye. And the public's job was to aspire to look like them.

The first day, I read the Bible and saw that it said to abstain from the appearance of evil. I was never taught to know what the appearance of evil was. At least, I wasn't taught to recognize the evil as much as I was taught to recognize the accused. I was taught that the indicted, the shunned, the contrary and different, as well as the convicted, was always the evil.

The first day, I was so happy. I thought the world would care for itself. Take care of all the people. Things would just work out if I kept my head down and kept smiling. The success of the few would trickle down to all. I mean, who in this world would intentionally cause harm to anyone, right? Villains were only cartoon make-believe...

Are you still in your first day?

In the fifth grade, I took a ride with my cousin and mentor. He played a song by a rap group from Atlanta. In this song, nobody was happy. Nobody was on top. Everybody was trying; nobody was succeeding. And... that simply wasn't supposed to be the case.

I don't know if he knew it or not, but I was learning SO MUCH then. I didn't listen to the curse words, cuz I barely knew what curse words were. All I heard was what was being said between them; stories of poverty, desperation, reluctant crime, racial discrimination, anger, disintegrated families, disease, coping... and it hurt me. That pain was like a bottom-slap into reality at the hands of a cruel doctor. "Welcome to the real world".

Yeah, that was my real world entry--- not that condescending speech of most parents to their teenagers. As a matter of fact, that real world was a joke to me after this point; with such critical problems in desperate need of solution, I found it immature of adults to be so short-sighted and concerned about such things as merely attaining a wife and a white picket fence.

I dunno... the point is, the 'first day' of my life ended when I recognized the unfinished business of those who came before me. And I'd give anything to have it back, except the reality needs me to be here in the 'second day' of my existence. My dream is that my son or daughter can live in their first day forever, and that when I introduce them to the "real world", it will be in a time where there is not a more imminent need.