Earlier this month I went to a J. Cole concert with my brother and while the crowd around me was amazed by my brother’s ability to match Jermaine’s pace word for word, I was fixated on Jermaine.

During his performance of HELLO something stuck out to me. As he’s describing his thoughts of “The one that got away” he realizes she has kids & says “…cause if we ever got together. I’d have to be them N!99@$ step-pops forever.” I froze. In all of the times I had heard this song, this time was different. Something about hearing it live, just, just touched my soul.

I thought of how even though things hadn’t worked out between Step Dad #1 didn’t work out, I still consider him my stepfather. He went on to prove to be just that. I took a trip to Ohio to attend my stepsister’s college graduation and due to unforeseen circumstances, my lodging plans fell through. And my Hilton Honors membership wasn’t seeing eye-to-eye with my budget.

The night before my trip I took to Instagram with a photo captioned “When you should be sleep because you’re driving to Ohio in the morning but you still don’t know where you’re going to sleep once you get there #ImGoneSleepinMyCar #WhereImGonShowerDoe #FigureitOutOnceIGetThere”

When I got there, I visited my family on Buddha’s side first, and while there Step Dad #1 called and said “Did you make it yet? Here’s the address to the hotel, you can stay here with me and my mom.” I didn’t even have to ask, he offered. All off an Instagram post. His relationship with my mother ended before I hit double digit birthdays and here I am nearly a quarter century old and he’s still looking out for me.

On that same trip I was once again reminded of Jermaine’s words “I’d have to be them kid’s step pops forever” when I heard a tiny voice refer to my cousin as “Dad”.

Ohio’s pretty far, but I talk to my aunt often enough to know her son doesn’t have any 6 year old kids just running around. He even made it his business to remind me he’s “damn near 30 & on his first kid” unlike some of my other cousins.

But here he was with these two little boys walking around calling him “Dad.” And low & behold he’s not even really interested in being with their mother for the long haul. Which causes me to question *How long should a man be in your life before it is ok for your kids to call him Dad?*

Does a man who never had a solid father figure even comprehend the seriousness of a child bestowing upon him that title?

I’m just blessed to have two stepdad’s that look out for me despite the foolishness I’ve learned through their shortcomings.

Shout Out to my sister’s father aka Step Dad #2 for keeping me on his health insurance.

Is it harder for a daughter or a son to grow up without a Daddy?

I visited my brother this past weekend. We’re officially the same age, until my birthday this fall. In our 24 years of life, this is the first time we’ve spent a birthday together.

It’s funny how we grew up in different homes in different states with different mothers and still essentially ended up the same person.

We both inherited Buddha’s talent as a writer. He writes song (and sings them) and I write poems. We’re both extremely talkative, which our mothers never hesitate to remind us of and often interrupt our stories. And we’re both beginning to find our own voice at 24.

I watched my brother snap at his mom for the first time this weekend. I was shocked, but I empathized with his frustration.

He was telling a story and she kept interrupting him. I had a recent blow up with my mom because I finally stuck up for myself in a similar situation.

On the evening of his birthday I sat beside his mom on the couch swapping stories with his aunt, a social worker, about my experiences as a teacher and as an observer in a mental health clinic.

We shared how our thoughts on motherhood and language changed based on the things we’ve witnessed. How phrases like “I love you” make children uncomfortable because it may remind them of abuse. How my brother’s new friendship with a deaf person has shaped his appreciation for his senses & how we both have a new found respect for homeless folk.

On Sunday, his mom left for a day trip and I should have been back on the road to get home at a decent time to prepare myself for the work week. Instead, I chose to stay and get a few hours alone with the brother I love the most and see the least.

He opened up to me about how in his perspective it was harder as a boy not to have a father.

He spoke of being a fifth wheel on his friends’ Father-Son Fishing Trips. How he wanted to be a pitcher, but had no father to play catch with. How he knew, even though his friends’ fathers wanted to help him, they would never help him be better than their sons, so he trained and timed himself. We were interrupted by his girlfriend’s arrival, but it felt good to just listen. In the eight years since I met him, we never really discussed Buddha & I never knew a son’s perspective on Dealing with Daddy Issues.

My sister had her baby on Step Dad Number One’s birthday. At the hospital we talked about how my mom jinxed her. ‘Yea, Ma said she was gone be born on Daddy’s birthday.’ She always called them Ma & Daddy as if we completely shared them. I had no problem with her calling my mother Ma, almost everyone did. I even liked that she referred to him as Daddy & not ‘MY Dad’. It was like an invitation to share that I had never RSVP’d for. I didn’t know how.

Well that was about Step Dad #1 but what about Buddha?

My younger sister, or my father’s daughter as I’ve grown accustomed to calling her was pregnant with her second child at this time. We had spoken about a week before this hospital experience…and she said to me ‘Daddy asked about you…’ Well this set me off for two reasons. He’s always been my father, but I’ve NEVER called him Daddy. Why was she so comfortable calling him Daddy when to my knowledge she had only seen the jail bird three times in life? Why was she so used to calling MY father Daddy when I couldn’t formulate those words to address him if I wanted to?

How is it that a woman who didn’t know he was her father for the first half of her life could call Buddha Daddy yet it made my face cringe every time she tossed the term in my direction? “Daddy asked about you?” It was almost reflexive for me to ask “Who?” as if momentarily forgetting that he was the tie that bound us to begin with. In such a short time she developed a relationship with him that I decided at 17 that I didn’t even want. My notes on the manner continued.

This brought me back to a time years ago when my youngest sister was about three years old and she realized my father & her father weren’t one in the same. Thinking back that’s odd to me that a child so young could comprehend such a complex situation, but I guess because I always addressed him by first name she knew what was up. I remember how hurtful it was to have a three year old tell me “You don’t have a Dad’ & respond ‘Well how come I’ve never seen him?’ When you quickly negate their observation. As blunt and hurtful as her preschool words were I remember how in her Sour Patch Kid attempt at redemption she said to me ‘It’s ok, you can share my Daddy’ Nice offer kid,but I don’t want your Daddy I want my own.

I was thirteen in that exchange with my youngest sister. Yet 10 years later the memory of that moment still haunts me. I don’t like listening to “Daddy” by Beyoncé, or other songs commemorating positive relationships with one’s father. I can’t connect to them. They make me feel uncomfortable. Remind me of what I didn’t have. My notes on the “D” word ended as follows

I don’t want your Daddy. I want my own. I barely want the one God assigned to me, but the feeling of possession was something I desired. I wanted my own Daddy and I was about 20 years old when I realized that I had never even called anyone Daddy. (7/27/14 9:02 am)

My thoughts on the “D” word are morphing at every exchange with my siblings. Every opportunity to examine other people’s relationships.These were the truest and rawest reflections I had on my own experience & just the surface of where my Daddy Issues began.