Burning Question: Do you remember the first time someone said they were proud of you?

Do you remember the first time someone told you they were proud of you? I don't. Although, I am very familiar with the concept and feeling of pride. I have always felt that I was surrounded by outstanding people, people who inspire pride in me.

My father in his younger days was a hellion and a lady's man. He joined the original Black Panthers in San Francisco even though he's from the backwoods of East Texas. After raising hell against the local racists in Texas he joined the Navy. In the Navy(song cue), he was such a pill to the brass he was forcibly volunteered for a special training program that would eventually become the preparation course for the Navy Seals. The direct result of this training on him was unexpected: he became one of the relatively few Navy sailors qualified for frontline and behind-line ground combat. For mutliple tours he carried a Browning Automatic Rifle(BAR) through the worst fighting The Vietnam War could bring. He was never injured and came home to his wife and son, my older brother. Stateside he gained employment with a local paper mill factory and stayed there as a master welder through all the buyouts, racist practices, and impossibly long shifts. He did this to provide for family that eventually included a daughter and another son. He also did this because he was proud of his abilities, his strength, and his own judgment. All the hard labor and hard to earn paychecks fueled his pride. Growing up I didn't see him as much as would've liked because he always seemed to be working, but when I think of him, the first thing I always feel is pride. I'm proud to be the son of a former hellion and race activist who was a tower of strength and reliability for his family. I'm proud to my name which is the exact same as his.

My mother was a former gang member who loved her mother and seemed destined to marry a certain hellion and race activist since she first met him as a little girl. Even though she was attracted to the wildness, she was not and is not the type to put up with such foolishness. So after my father's adventures beyond the international dateline and a short stint in Hawaii, she forcibly moved him back to the hometown in Texas and rooted him there firmly. She obtained a job at the local Social Security Office and stayed there. She moved up the ranks steadily, maintained a beautiful house about 6 blocks from her childhood home where her mother still lived, and raised her three children with the mix of abundant love and abundant discipline that all those who have experience with black mothers are quite accustomed to. Over the years she took care of her children and several others as they would come to us from time to time. She also became the rock the older generation could count on to handle things when they finally became to advanced in age too handle it themselves. A part of me was always a little resentful that she moved her man back to Texas from someplace exotic like Hawaii. I was slightly miffed that she tamed the wildness. It wasn't until I was much older that I began to understand how truly incredible she is. She protected us from the pain my father brought back from the war. The drinking, the much harsher than we were used to discipline, and the rampant philandering never really touched us as kids. It's now, in hindsight, that I'm able to feel the full measure of pride in my mother's strength, her loyalty, and good sense. I'm proud of her.

My wife was born without a middle-name and always describes herself as unremarkable. I first met her in 10th grade but, as happens in these small Texas towns, I had actually had a class with her in 7th grade, we just never seemed to cross paths then. We locked eyes in health class for the first time, and truth be told, neither of us thought much of the other. She sat down next to me because I happened to be near the Italian exchange student she to whom she was actually interested in speaking. Despite that we struck up a friendly conversation that gradually became more intense until she asked me out, a fact that she will NEVER let me forget. We became an item at the age of 16 and have been through the ringer together. We went long distance during college where she graduated early. We married, moved back home, hated it, moved to Virginia for seven years, and had our first kid. During this time she maintained full-time employment and gained 2 master's degrees. We moved back home where we had a second kid seven years after the first one all while she earned her doctorate degree. Throughout it all she has supported me and our girls in every way possible but remains almost pathologically humble about her accomplishments. Very few people would even be able to attempt a THIRD of her a rear-viewed goals, and I am unapologetically unabashedly proud of her every day my life.

I had/have great potential. I attended university on full-scholarship which I lost after the first year. I have a degree in physics which I barely used in the workforce and a near-completed master's degree, I did not complete a thesis for reasons I'll have to write about another time. Since my wedding day I have been gainfully employed sporadically at best by comparison to my parents and my wife. I have had bouts with alcoholism. In my thirties, I did manage to buy into one business and start another, both of which are still alive but neither of which pays me a dime today. I have had accomplishments. I have set goals in my life and attained them but I take almost no pride in these. I can't. In my opinion my life to this point is still a study in, what is now, near-wasted potential. While I'm certain my wife will tell me she disagrees with me, I don't really think anyone else is particularly proud of me either. I'm not sad about it. I'm not mad about it. I'm numb to it. I'm writing this for the world to see because I don't think I'm the only one who feels like this. In fact, I would wager there are quite a few of you out there who feel that the promise of their life was deferred at some point and no one seemed to care. We feel without purpose at time. I also suspect there are people around you, like my wife, who would be quick to disagree with the idea that you don't have anything to be proud about. I propose, my brethren, that we choose to believe these people instead of our own cynical selves. I think that perhaps, at least for some, the pride has to come BEFORE the purpose. Maybe if we start having faith in ourselves the way we have in others, we can finally tapped into a bit of that limitless potential we know is still there, just under the skin. I don't know if that's true. But I'm willing to try something different now.