not yet abused by time.

A good friend texted me the other day, “I really wish you’d fight more.” It bothered me for a minute. “How dare he say that to me?” Everyday is a war in my mind, a torturous exchange between the defeated mind and the rebellious spirit. Frankly, if I didn’t fight, you wouldn’t hear from me. But in a sense, y’all haven’t. I stopped writing. The one thing I was good at, I quit. Maybe I didn’t admit it to myself because I’d really been trying to write. But I did. With school, work, and finding the willpower deep in myself to live everyday, I often found myself trapped within the cage of Twitter. I was armchair quarterbacking writing and the state of the art I’m in love with. I was defeated. But I never stopped fighting. I was just losing.

I think back to that week when I was more confident than I’ve been in my entire life. New clothes, new shoes, new haircut, I was rejuvenated. I wrote a little bit of an interview I’d been sluggish about for months (hopefully I’ll make y’all proud there when it’s done.) I may have not had a ton of money or been as healthy as I aspire to be but I was slowly becoming the man I always wanted to be: chin up, chest out, not letting depression dictate who I am. It was easier said than done. Getting a stupid speeding ticket pushed me in the dirt a little bit. But life insisted on shooting me while I was down. It’s why I’m here.

In the followup text my friend sent, he said, “You’re so fucking talented man, it’s been breaking my heart to see you struggling the past few months.” I was stunned. I was still aggravated at the idea I hadn’t been fighting hard enough. But I froze. “I’m breaking your heart?” I naturally dispose of the idea that I’m worth anything to anybody. If I disappeared, what would it matter? As is the case with anyone who ever passes, no one agonizes over losing you forever. They have lives to live. It feels like I’m the only one ripping my heart out of my chest everyday for the people and the things I love. I’m hellbent on giving the flowers people deserve because they deserve to know it. More than anything, I don’t want them to feel as neglected as I feel. Validation is essential to me. So when I read that the fact I’ve been losing my battles with these demons broke someone’s heart, I kept thinking about how I got to this point. All I could think of was Blu on “In Remembrance” saying, “We was full of youth, not yet abused by time.” Time has a lot of descriptors and occupations. Time as something abusive was something I hadn’t fully processed. How did it get to this?

This year has ravaged me. Grief has left me battered and bruised. Depression rears its ugly head. It has made me angrier. Surely, by this point, you’re reading this like, “get this dude a fuckin’ therapist” or “what’s the point of all this?” Honestly? It probably holds no real value. But I’m not writing for you. It’s why I can’t stand addressing the reader; I don’t create for you. This is the only way I can make sense of everything happening in my life. I’m writing out of a sense of desperation. When I can’t muster the answers, I write. So the purpose isn’t to project some pity party for an audience to read. More than anything, I hope there’s something to gain from my pain, my agony. Maybe there’s some themes to take. Ultimately, I want to tell the people who give a shit about me what’s going on.

My granddaddy taught me about identity. My mom used to tell me this story about when I was born. Pops swears against it so who knows really? Regardless, it starts like this: I got a white, redhead mom and a Black dad. When I was born, I guess Granddad looked at me in bewilderment. “That can’t be my grand-baby.” In fairness, it makes sense. This outrageously pale, alien looking infant came out of the womb, defying any logical eye-test and how people understand genes to work. Maybe Granddad was expecting some Drake looking baby to pop out. Instead of waiting or celebrating the birth of a newborn baby, Granddad was hurling accusations that Mom was cheating on pops, that none of it makes sense. He demanded a DNA test. The results come back and confirm what my mom knew: I was the right baby for the Catlin family. My granddad jumps for joy, elated at the discovery. “I done created me a new breed of Black baby!” That is not how that works. But regardless, he took some ounce of credit, I guess because he birthed my pops into the world. But even though I looked different from any of my aunts, uncles, or any of my cousins, Granddad treated me like I was his crown jewel. I was assured that I wasn’t any different than the rest of the family. I was still a Catlin. I never had to question whether or not I belonged with the family, even if I stood out from everyone.

My granddaddy helped me fall in love with music. At some point in ’05 or ’06, I was riding with my nncle Justin, my mom, and Granddad helming the wheel of a Lincoln Navigator. Kanye West’s “Touch The Sky” came on the radio and Granddad gets HYPED. Not because he was some massive fan of ‘Ye or that he was some old ass backpacker hip to Lupe Fiasco. It was the sample, Curtis Mayfield’s “Move On Up” that led Granddad to let out a loud ‘woo’ that rivals Ric Flair. Granddad is a country Black man from Birmingham, Alabama. If anything was going to speak to him, it would be old soul records. He takes a quick look to the backseat, yelling, “What you know about this grandson?!” The smart ass who watched way too much 106 & Park and music video countdowns told him it was Kanye. “No! I’m talkin’ about the song behind the song, the one that he used! That’s that Curtis Mayfield!” Granddad had no clue how sampling worked but I hadn’t seen a bigger grin on his face, white teeth dazzling in the rearview. It was little moments like these that defined how I digested music, the emotions it brought to the people I loved, and my instincts to attach music to every story.

My granddaddy taught me the game. When me and mom were living under his house, he made it a point to instill his most valuable teachings whenever he could. As a kindergartner, I naturally didn’t digest all of that shit. I was a bit too busy eating chicken nuggets and watching SpongeBob and BET. But he made sure I wasn’t outside moving like a square. One night, he told me I had to walk with a purpose and with a strut. “Show me how you was walkin’ again.” I demonstrated like the naive 1st grader I was and he shook his head. “You gotta put a lil pep in your step.” He showed me this strut he worked with, like he was in Black Dynamite or some shit. But he did it with an unmatched confidence. You couldn’t tell him shit. “Do it like that.” After a few cracks at it, he cackles, shouting, “That’s my grandson!” I looked goofy as hell but it was fundamental in giving me style.

Similarly, he taught me single handedly how to talk to girls at school. I was really shy but I didn’t believe in any of that ‘cooties’ bullshit. Hilary Duff was the first woman I loved. Meagan Good in Stomp The Yard was my everything. It naturally translated to girls at school. He’d frequently ask me, “you like any of them lil girls at school Caleb?” I’d always blush and he’d always inquire. He taught me how to be smooth, to approach with confidence. It didn’t stop me from being shy, confidence issues had been ingrained in my psyche for as long as I remember. But he always told me, “What’s the worst they gon’ do? Tell you no?” He’d try and give me pickup lines like an old pimp. It always sounded weird to me as a kid because of how bold and brash he came off. But that’s what he kept trying to teach me. Be you and stand on that shit.

The past couple months I’ve been thinking about the memories I have with Granddad and what they taught me. I also think about how he treated my mom, how he treated the women in his house generally. The night me and mom moved out was when he clocked my mom upside the head with a milk jug. I was in the basement watching Dragon Ball Z with uncle Justin. She just told me it was time to go. I didn’t see my Uncle Justin for years or what he ended up becoming. I didn’t see Granddad again until 2010 when he briefly lived with pops and his new family. I wasn’t really sure how to process someone I loved and who always protected me would talk and treat my mom like that in that moment. More than anything, I was just upset I was moving again. I’ve heard many conflicted reports about my family’s conflicted relationship with Granddad. He wasn’t invited to my aunt Danielle’s wedding. Some of my other aunts are cold to him. But they always spared any real detail. They saw how close he was to me so they ensured my perspective of him was shinier than their own. My dad has always been closest with him. Recently, he took a flight over to New Jersey for a few days to see Granddad. I had no idea he was there or why he was there. The last time I saw him in person was in 2016. I’d only heard from him in awkward phone calls where pops would shove the phone in my face and hang around. I never really got to talk to him in a meaningful way other than when he’d ask how I was doing with the girls at school. He’s always been that ladies man.

When I picked up pops from the airport and asked him about it all, he was notably brief. My dad generally keeps a good poker face unless his temper flares up but he almost seemed shook. He saw Granddad and quietly wished he stuck around a little longer. But he knew he needed to be home with his family and he didn’t want to overstay his welcome. “He’s as good as he can be for someone that’s basically on a death sentence… I just hope that isn’t the last time I see him.” I hadn’t really grappled with the idea that he’d be gone, that I wouldn’t get to hear a phone call from him again, asking about the ladies and him telling me to ‘shave that rug off your face.’ It’s one of the few times I felt my dad was genuinely bothered, stirred from his demeanor as the funny, charming but stern and conservative family man who served as protector of the family.

I’d wanted to call Granddad but I overheard pops talking about his visit with his wife. It takes a lot of energy for him to talk nowadays. But I got to hear a story that told me a lot about the man Granddad was. He was originally in an arranged marriage, slated to be in charge of an insurance company. As miserable as it sounds, it was an honest job, something he never really had. But he figures probably would’ve been a drunk, unhappy in an unnatural marriage. Instead, he chose the streets and became the hardened con-man he was. It recalls Marvin Gaye’s Trouble Man, another artist granddad adored (he could never believe I loved Marvin, felt like I was pandering a little). “There’s only 3 things that’s for sure: taxes, death, and trouble… Come up hard baby, I had to fight, took care of business with all my might. I come up hard, I had to win.” It’s a sort of desperation that this country incentivizes. It’s built to starve out and exploit men like Granddad and drive them to the worst versions of themselves. Instead, he chose to win, whatever that took for him, for better or worse. I can only take what I learned from Granddad to become a better man.

May 31st, I was going to throw everything away. Hearing your mother cry because her boyfriend beat her and her only family wouldn’t listen to her and did her dirty, it awakens an unshakable rage. There’s no worse feeling than the worthlessness of not being able to stop what should’ve never happened. For all my mother’s flaws, she’s the strongest woman I’ve ever known. She’s the definition of a fighter, too stubborn to call it quits on this life. I get it from her. I was at work and I took that step outside to hear about everything that happened. I could zoom in on the details of what happened but it’s inappropriate to even ponder and share when it’s so fresh. All that needs to be said is that men need to stop putting their fucking hands on women and there needs to be some basic level of empathy and a support system for the people we claim to love in our lives. It made me think about what kind of woman my mom is, flaws and all, the stubbornness, the Job-like perseverance, or some combination of the two that keeps her fighting.

Anything my mother has done or been through is directly tied to her brother’s death. Watching him die in front of her changed the entire trajectory of her life. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the path life led her but I always feel like she’d be a happier, more well adjusted person without the trauma she went through. It’s a lot to place on myself and certainly mom would say she’s grateful I was born, like any mother would. But I know what losing her brother meant for her. It gave fuel to every demon buried inside, depression and anxiety takes hold every waking moment. I saw it happen when I lost my best friend Assane. Wherever the grief was buried, you try to bury it all over again. That’s how I figure my mom started drinking, just like anybody else starts drinking heavily. Something’s wrong and you don’t want to grapple with it anymore.

My mom drank for suppression not for fun. For every man that put their hands on her, for all the crippling anxiety and depression, for all the grief that lingers in the heart, even just the daily stresses of being an adult in America, she drank. She couldn’t nap all the time, no matter how hard she tried to sleep it all off. I didn’t get it as a kid. Despite the beers and the countless Newports and the ass whoopins’ and scolding that would fuck me up, she always tried her best to shower me with love and keep me shielded from the harsh realities of the world. But her support group always let her down. We’d get kicked out of houses by family or we’d move when dudes in her life proved to be vile scum. She wasn’t easy to deal with when she drank. But it was used as flimsy excuses in place of the proper empathy and understanding every person needs.

One night, my mom and this dude she was seeing were fighting and it had gotten ugly. She told me to protect my sister and hide in the bedroom. She always told me I was the man of the house. I was only in the 4th grade but it was a job I felt obligated to fulfill. So when I heard everything happen, I kept thinking, ‘I should be protecting momma.’ I saw a pocket knife and I just kept thinking I was going to make that move. But my little sister was curled up and I knew I’d be in trouble if I moved and I’d regret leaving her alone. So I stayed and fear consumed me. I was frozen. I kept telling her it’s going to be okay. In reality, I was telling myself that to try and keep myself leveled.

When my mother called me a few days ago when I was at work and she was crying in agony and frustration, anxiety and betrayal, I was ready to make a rash decision. Drive across the country and handle business. It’s only so many times you see or hear your mother crying until you’re ready to end the root of all that pain. My neck started to rash up from the anger. I was unable to be the man of the house, to protect that side of my family. The fear and the hopelessness I had when I was a kid started to consume me again. I was able to make my mom feel better but I hit rock bottom. I couldn’t enact revenge on the man who laid hands on her. I couldn’t do anything about my uncle who betrayed and blackmailed her. I failed.

When I was heading into the 6th grade, my mom sent me to my dad and his new family. She kept my little sister — she’s my half sister technically so she didn’t have anywhere else to go — and I was on my way to Puerto Rico. I always adored my dad because he always made it a point to see and call me. But I was accustomed to visits. I’m supposed to be the man and now I’m being sent away from the people that needed me and the people I loved the most. I grew to resent my mom for it. Not in that stupid Eminem, edge lord way, filled with anger. But I was hurt. When I didn’t always make the call or I didn’t always want to talk, she’d make me feel bad about it. It was shitty but I also barely had myself figured out. It made her feel like she ruined our relationship. It broke my heart when I heard that. Now I’m the only one she can depend on to really listen to her. It rips me apart.

Writing about DMX last year gave me a lot of perspective. Thinking about how he trusted his mentor and set him up for a lifelong bout with addiction, how family would abuse him. Love was the leading reason why he kept persevering. I kept thinking about my mom when I wrote it. I think about the happy moments with my mom, the smile she has and the loud cackle she’d let out. She helped fund my love for music, even when she didn’t have it. She knew how important it was for me; it’s the reason I’m still here. She’s not defined by pain, just like DMX wasn’t. It was those moments of pure love for others that made them. In spite of time’s ruthlessness, my mom remains.

This year has brutalized me. Many times, I’ve felt like I’m slowly losing my mind. Many nights, I wanted to crash my car into a ditch, to swerve off into a wall. My mind would flash visions of me diving off buildings like Jeff Hardy to my doom. Every time I’d park, Assane would be sitting in my passenger seat, telling me I have to keep going. When the grief was still raw, I’d break down in tears those nights, staring at the sky in pain. ‘Why would you leave me with such pain?’ Pleading with God led me nowhere. Nowadays, those nights happen and I don’t cry. I just let out an exasperated sigh. ‘I’m trying man.’ I fell in love with country the last year, not because I’m some fuckin’ cowboy. I know the country very well but that was never me. I was never hunting and fishing, wearing camo jackets and taking trips to Bass Pro Shops. Rather, there’s a withered, defeated effect to the best country records that sticks to my spirit. The kind of music you sit on the porch and stare at the world in weariness. R&B serves that effect too. They all come from the spirit anyway. It’s the most potent version of the Blues. That’s a color, a feeling I’ve grown really comfortable laying in.

What depression has done to me is indescribable. It gets worse every year. It’s hellbent on taking everything I’ve ever loved, it makes me lash out at the people I care about the most. Knowing life isn’t supposed to be this way and yet it remains, leaves me feeling like a ghost of myself. It even took writing from me. It has made me feel worthless, incapable of doing the thing I did and published 80 times during the thick of the pandemic. Now, I can barely put words to the screen anymore. I’ve only written in low stakes affairs and the one review for Saba, exercising my criticism and the art I’m in love with. Writing leaves me in agony, aching so much to do it correctly that I’m paralyzed. It pains me that the only thing I’m able to write is this massive epic of torment only a few of you will fully read anyway. Y’all care for me but damn near 4000 words is a lot so I understand.

This all brings me back to that Blu line I wrote earlier. ‘We was full of youth, not yet abused by time.” Such simple writing left me sobbing. It used to be easier. It’s the only way I could describe all of the stories in my family and what’s going on with me. Time won’t take its time with us. I used to write through these kinds of feelings and leave with some semblance of hope. I can’t sit here and lie to you. This shit is going to happen again and again. It’ll probably get even worse. But I’m trying.