Needing vs. Wanting

I have been slowly trying to get back to me.  I have been praying for the creative muse to hit me like a freight train.  I have been trying to look forward, and stop letting present circumstances affect me more than I believe they should.  It has not been easy, but it's a cause worth living for.  So I pray regularly for a heart committed to positive change and growth, creative motivation and drive, and for me to take the steps I need to take to get to where I want to be. 

I am really trying to put need in front of want, and just as importantly, learn how to better discern the difference between the two.  Like, I want to tell someone that I love them, even though they're an asshole sometimes, but I don't need to be treated with minimal regard.  I don't need to be bothered with nonsense, basically.

Point in case, if you had $5,000 drop out of the sky into your lap, what would you do with it?

So anyway, I came up with this (poem), and figured I should post it, in remembrance of what I hope to be the end of my creative drought.  So many people came to mind on this, and the poem felt like it could have gone in a myriad of directions (maybe it'll become a series...who knows), but this is where I felt it needed to go.

Little Girls, Little Boys

Little girls need their daddy’s
Need them to provide the example of what a man should and should not be
What to expect
What to tolerate
Just as little boys need them to understand how to treat a woman
And themselves
They need their daddy like I need a remedy for this reminiscing
Feeling my love for some is listing
So I’m listing what I do and don’t love
About those I love
When I was a little boy
My dad never showed me how to tie a tie
Or how to hold my hands in a fight
Never told me about the birds and bees
Nor how to separate true intent from smiling faces
So I learned these things in other places
I learned how to be guarded
Regarded any one who chose to get close to me as suspect
While letting those who can care less to be close to the vest
Dad never told me how to love me
I believe he was preoccupied with raising an outwardly strong man
And that some things he just didn’t understand because he didn’t really know himself
I don’t fault him for that
Because his father never showed him either
In truth
Maybe he was never supposed to show me how to do those things
Maybe my journey was preordained to have a certain amount of pain
Enabling me to progressively maneuver and maintain
Sustain myself through deluges of emotional rain
Just so I can change into a better me
Who is to know what will never be?
At the end of the day,
For better or for worse,
We find fragments of father and mother for every one that’s missing at home
And I was blessed to have two fathers by the time I was grown
So I was taught everything I should have known one way or the other
Between older sisters and younger brothers
Aunt’s, Uncles & Grand and birth Mothers
Friend’s that called me on my shit,
And supported me when I needed it
Experience that has helped me to see the folly of prior acts, and the strength of my character now
I bow in humility at the thought of what I know I will be
But am thankful for what I am right now
Pained. Healthy. Flawed. Resilient.
True, my dad never showed me how to love me
And I believe it’s because he didn’t know how to love himself
But we are both coming around to who we are,
And I
Wouldn’t have it any other way

10/23/2008