A Fly in Buttermilk
The answer I kept for myself, I'm now sharing with you.
If you’re new to Raising Myles, Welcome!
I write letters every week to my son, Myles, sharing my journey as a first-time dad and spreading the love I didn't experience myself. If you’ve been here before — thank you for coming back. If you’re new here, below are some good places to start:
Recently I decided to dig a little deeper and explore some topics around fatherhood, my own upbringing, and what it means to be raising a Black son. For the foreseeable future, I’ll be keeping all poems to Myles open to free subscribers and his Monthly Mylestones too, but I will be paywalling some of these letters and slowly archiving past letters. You can read more about this decision and my thinking in the letter below I sent last week to all readers.
Appreciation time: I want to say thank you
, , , , and for recently becoming paid subscribers and joining me in this journey on going deeper. Special thanks to , who became a Founding Member. Grateful for you all.
Recently, I was interviewed by NYT best-selling author,
, about mental health for his publication, . I am incredibly grateful for Chris reaching out and asking some tough questions. You can read the whole interview here.The questions were simple but felt incredibly difficult. One question, in particular, took me a week to respond to. I found myself writing two responses: one I would keep for myself, and the second one I would send to Chris for the interview.
Below is the response I gave Chris. The one I kept for myself and turned into a letter for Myles, I am putting behind a paywall as it details some of the mental struggles I experience as a Black father and writer.
The Question: What’s difficult for you right now? What are you struggling with?
My response I sent Chris:
I never cared to be remembered. But Sherman Alexie wrote this that really captures how it feels now that I’m a parent.
When I die, I hope that my sons are too elderly to carry my coffin. - Sherman Alexie's Life SpanI am so full of joy and love that I think about not being here to see it all through. I think about my own mortality—a lot. The average lifespan for a man is 77 years old, 73 if he’s Black—this means if God is playing statistics, I have less than 40 years left to see this all through.
I want to be here when my son starts to walk and talk. I want that moment when parents hide their tears on their child’s first day of school. I want to be there for the part where the seeds of imposter syndrome start to fester, so I can hold him and let him know that he is enough. I want to come home every day for the next twenty-something years, so I can ask him how his day went. I want to be there when he has to deal with the weight and beauty that comes with Blackness. I want to see him walk hand in hand with the person he chooses to do life with and have them over for dinner. I want to babysit his kids, and laugh with them when I show them his diaper pictures while he’s on vacation. I just want to be here.
Even though he’s not even a year old yet, I write him letters weekly because I am trying to write myself into a future I cannot guarantee I’ll be in.
The response I turned into a letter for Myles:
47 Weeks Old
I have spent years trying to iron out the crease in my tongue formed by words I never shared. I hope you never have to fold your tongue — for anyone.
Dear Myles,
If my mental health were an entrée, the main dish would be anxiety, with a side of imposter syndrome, simmered in the sauce of Du Bois’ hickory-smoked Double Concussions.