My mirror was smudged and no matter how much Windex I sprayed, I could never get a clear image of myself.
All I could see was what others saw of me and much of that in my childhood was ugly. My box-shaped glasses sat akward on my acne-scarred face. My hair was a nappy Afro mess. And my clothes were no where near fashionable and I still cringe at the rainbow Hammer-like pants I once wore in high school.
But this was more than the clothes I wore or my glasses or the nasty pimples dotting my face. I wished I was someone else because I was not comfortable about being me. I hated me. I prayed to God I was cooler and was the guy girls drooled over like women do over Idris Elba these days.
I wanted to be the man. The man who got all the girls, who knew the smooth words to say to make the hot girl in class I had a crush on smile in my direction.
I wanted to be the man who didn't run from a fight. I wanted to be the one who others were afraid to mess with, whose very demeanor made others tremble like earthquakes.
I was trying to forge out what being a man was all about. My father wasn't around so I searched in church, school and hip-hop for representations I could copy.
The messages were confusing, as smudged as that mirror in my home. Could I be sensitive or should I be Mr. Tough? Hard as a rock. A roughneck, as MC Lyte once rapped.
I sure couldn't cry no matter how hurt I was from the teasing I sometimes got. I wasn't supposed to care that much, was I?
Then one day I smashed the mirror because the mirror was wrong to begin with. I just got another one, one that was clearer, that got rid of the smudges.
And I found that I was fine the way I was, without, of course, the box-glasses and the acne. I grew up into the person I was always meant to be. I had to get another view of myself, a view not fogged up with the perceptions and ideas of others, but one I forged for myself.
Never was I perfect but I wasn't meant to be. I wasn't supposed to be you and you weren't supposed to be me.
Superficial representations of masculinity are just that -- superficial. Trying as hard as you can to do the right thing is what makes you a man. Standing in the midst of chaos knowing that you will not die today is what makes you a man.
And daring to be who you are, with all your imperfections and mild obsessions, regardless of what others might say, is what makes you a man or woman. Being you is the difference between you embracing your humanity and absorbing into a commodified mass-produced death of corporatized proportions.
I am writing my name and no one else. Because no one else fits. Period.
