30 PLUS volume one

i woke up this morning at around 5am and looked into the bathroom mirror. i couldn't believe it. i am 36. now this may just sound like an age to most people but to me it was a very big deal. i look back at where i came from and how i grew up and the odds that were aginst me and found myself at 36. i felt proud. its still hard to believe sometimes. the kid that was born to a single african -american mother and a father who didn't give the square root of shit whether i lived or died. i guess i can say that i felt that i had the odds stacked against me from the beginning. i can remember my grandmother telling me as kid that i would go on to do alot of good things in the world and here i am 36 married with two kids. wow man!

its funny i can look back at 29 and i see myself walking out of gbmc hospital with my wife lisa ann barnes and our first born child elizabeth ann barnes. it was crazy because i was no longer that guy that was up in newyork and philly partying all the time. i was a married man with a child. and this i never saw comming. it was really cool at first because i was married. i had someone to come home to and i never had that before. we would actually go out on dates as if we were a two teenagers, playing pool, movies every weekend and even playing air hockey. but now at approaching 30 we were about to become parents. and i must admit i was nervous. i learned how to change my first diaper and i actually was able to clean up poop without getting sick. i had my first scare when elizabeth fell and i learned to make bottles and everything. everything was awesome it was great. i was married with my first child in my career and nothing could stop me. but then it hit me. BILLS! I had so many bills even my bills had bills. i never would have guessed that daycare cost 220 a week and formula was costing me about 80 bucks a week not to mention diapers and clothes and everything else baby elizabeth needed. i was barely able to afford anything for myself. but it was worth it. i was a husband at a dad and now 30 and i felt like my life was comming full circle. then things beagn to change and the real challanges began.

a good friend of mine who was sort of a father figure to me told me that its easy to get married but harder to stay married and boy he wasn't lying. the honey moon phase was over. our life now revolved around bills daycare expenses groceries and clothes for elizabeth. at one point we were working just to pay for daycare. you see i didn't have that supporting cast that most people have. you know, mom and dad watch the baby so i can go out and have a life. no way! me and lisa had this child and we were determined to raise her. it seemed like the bills would never end because everytime i blinked there was something else due. i wanted to complain but what was i going to say, i'm not doing it? no way was i gonna be like my father who i never even knew. that in itself drove me to push harder to be a better husband and father. but don't get me wrong it was a round trip ticket to hell and back through the process. i can remember looking at my paycheck saying yeah i make lots of money. then the bills hit and i was like yeah that shit should have read pay to the order of the fucking bills. i gotta laugh because everytime i got mad about the situation i would look at my daughter who slept with one foot up in the air and thats why we named her feet and we still do to this day. its funny because when i call her feet most people don't get it. but she really is feet lol. i guess you had to be there to see it.

anyways things started to improve we both started to make more money at our jobs and our marriage had survived 2 years things were looking up , then the bombshell hit.

next chapter age 32 lets go!