The Family Business

Nah, my fam ain’t into anything illegal or anything like that, but dealing with family is a lot like a business to me.

But before gettin into all of that, I’ll just run through my day.

I woke up after chillin with my homie Chris last night and I chilled for a min.  After bein up for a min, my moms calls the house and asks me to pick up my lil brother from something that he had to do at school.  I was still so tired from last night, so I asked my sis to do it.  Begrudgingly she left, but as soon as she left, not even a minute later, my brother comes through the door because he caught a ride from a friend of his.  After my sis came back after figuring out that he had already come home, she tells me that she needs to go over to her homie’s house.  Prior to her asking, my mother also told me to pick her up some lunch and drop it off to her job.  Can you see where this is going?  If you can’t, then keep reading…

So, I pick up my mom’s lunch from Taco Bell, grab me something to each from McKeyD’s, then dropped off the lunch at my mom’s place.  After doing that, I drop my sis off at her homie’s place then I went to the library to study Japanese and to read a book that I’ve been meaning to read.  After spending about 3 hours there, I kicked it over to my Grandma’s house in hopes that my sister would hit me up soon so I could pick her up instead of just going all the way back home, then coming back out to pick her up, then driving back home.  So, I end up kickin it at my grandma’s house for about a good hour and a half listening to her talk about how my family works.  And this is where the title comes into place.

If I haven’t mentioned it already, my family is….interesting to say the least.  Oh, when I say my family, I’m talking about all of my mother’s siblings and my mother’s mother and father.  Unfortunately (and fortunately most of the time) I don’t fucks with my father’s side of the family too much.  Because my grandmother has raised us to always look out for each other and to never leave family hangin, I feel as though me and my grandmother are the most similar compared to anyone else in my family.  We share the same compassion for our family members, which is why we both get taken advantage of and often don’t get any recognition for the things that we do to keep our family going in the right direction.

After listening to my grandmother speak about somethings that have been going on since I left home, I realized how family is like a business.  My grandmother is basically the one who everyone goes to for anything that they may need help with.  Family problems, financial problems, etc. my grandmother is pretty much first to know.  And the thing is, she is the only one that’s straight up with me about everything.  Because there is a hierarchy in family like there is in a business, the higher ups tell you what they want you to know while the rest keep it secret from you.  For example, managers will discuss things that they will only tell certain parts to their employees, just like say my mother and her brothers and sisters will only tell us certain things.

Well, my grandmother knows everything that goes on, and she tells me the things that they won’t tell me; usually the other side of whatever it is that they told me that either makes them look bad or something that they don’t want others to know.  Listening to her, I came across some info that directly affects me as a family member.  Now, I’m here trying to figure out how I should handle this certain situation because if I fuck up, things will go badly as if I had never intervened.

While talking with her, my lil brother calls me a couple of times to ask if I can come home and take him to the skating ring, keep in mind that my sister hasn’t hit me up yet (even still).  So, I finish talking with my grandmother and I go all the way home, drop him off, and come back.  The whole time I’m heated and contemplating on this info that I’ve come to know about.  -sigh-

Now I’m home blogging and listenin to Drake because these are the things that seem to calm me down.  I can’t post what it is that I learned today because I was taught that you don’t put out your family business all out on the streets and I vowed that what she shares with me will always be kept secret.  But best believe that I’mma do what I gotta do.

It’s almost 9 pm here and after helping my mother cook dinner, I still have to pick up my siblings.  Shit, I’ve been running around all day taking people where they needed to go and I’m tired as hell.  I suppose to be going to the beach tomorrow, and I need energy to celebrate on my own bday.  In addition to running around to everyone’s beck and call, I’ve been using my mother’s car to get around and I’ve been using my own money to put gas in it.  I originally planned to save 1,200$ from working this summer, but because of everything that I’ve had to do down here I’ll be lucky enough to save even over a lil of half of that.

That’s the Family Biz – everyone gettin it in where ever possible.  Except me.  Every time I go home I hope that I don’t remember why I wanted to leave in the first place, but today that familiar feeling came back.  Every time I have this feeling, I just wanna get away.  I feel so helpless, all I can do is be taken advantage of and retreat back to confines of my own mind.  Many people tell me that I have a lot to say when I blog, but the reason is that I’ve spent, starting tomorrow, 20 years on this earth not having someone to really talk to about everything that goes on in my life or someone to share everything that I think about to.

Everything has it’s own way of working.  When you mess with that cycle, things change, and that fucks with everything associated with that cycle.  As the Joker said “Introduce a lil anarchy and people go crazy”.  When I speak about what ideas are in my head, it usually doesn’t quite go with what the cycle is, which ends up fucking things up for me and the people who are involved.  If I had spoken what was on my mind all the time, I’d be a dead nigga today.

I guess that’s why I have insecurity issues as it is haha.  But I’m tired of talking about this.  I don’t even know how I feel right now, but I do know that I can’t say fuck it.  That’s the easy way out.  I could say fuck you to my mother, my sister, my brother, my grandmother, my aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. but that would only be shootin myself in the foot.  Besides, whether they have wronged me in my life or not, they have made me the way that I am today, and I don’t think I’m too bad off.  “Everything had to happen exactly how it happened for now to happen.”  That’s the way I think and I don’t want to deviate from that.

Yesterday I was giving out shout-outs to the people that have had a major influence in my life, and I am going to continue now.  Like I said, this is in no particular order.

Granville Smith II-  There are many things I could say, but I’m givin this shout-out to you because we’ve been homies going on three years now.  It seems like every time I think I understand you….I just get everything completely wrong.  It’s like we are the same, but opposite.  And I know I haven’t said this before, but that’s kind of like a love/hate relationship.  But you are my homie and you are down most of the time when I need you, so thank you for that.

Willie McNair-  My homie from Math class in my last semester in high school.  We’ve been through so much together in such a little time.  If anything, you’ve had it worse than me and I’m sorry that I can’t be there for you as I would like to be.  This life thing man….it’s tough that’s for damn sure.  But just stay strong homie, life will get better for the both of us.  I promise.

Tameka Pigett-  I just heard ya message on my phone and I realize that you misunderstood what I was trying to say, which has sadly brought me to tears.  You are my bestie, and you always will be.  I’ll leave it at that.

Cody Reynolds-  We have both been going through tough times recently, and even though we haven’t spoken to each other in forever you know that we always have each others’ back.  Don’t forget that homie.

Man, I’m so….out of it that I can’t continue with these shout outs.  I’ll continue tomorrow again.

Now I know that I really need to hit the gym.  I was once told that if I don’t watch it, I may have a heart attack before I graduate.   I didn’t believe it at first, but because of all the stress that I have, I’m starting to believe that it’s a very real possibility.

Lying, Truth, Deception, Caring, Duty, Manipulation.

Is there anything tangible within my life?

I guess I can always count on someone fucking me over as a constant lol

Sorry, this blog is all over the place.

But as you know, this blog is only a minor representation of what goes on in my mind.

Thanks for reading though, I sincerely appreciate it.

Keep me in your prayers please, because I’m pretty sure you’re in mind.

P N B E

James Shonin Kelly III