The Next Episode


It’s difficult to appreciate things in the moment. It’s difficult to take a step back and acknowledge all you have until it is gone.

On Super Bowl Sunday this year, I found out I had two sisters that I had never knew even existed. My father, Julian Oswald Wyllie Sr., had a previous relationship in Saint Vincent that my immediate family, including my mom, was not aware of.

My father and mother split in the year 2000 during a heated custody battle. We were living in Brooklyn, New York and I was caught in the middle of this conflict. From what I’ve been told, the situation dragged on for months until the judge pulled me aside and asked me to choose who I wanted to live with. This is because my father told the court that my mother abused me, which was a complete lie, but could not be proven one way or another.

I do not remember any of the court’s proceedings but I was told that my response to the judge was “Abuse me? No way. My mommy would never do anything like that!” Apparently, I earned a laugh from the judge and the lawyers. A final decision was made that afternoon.

Since then, I have not seen my father and I have only spoken to him twice over the phone. He tried to buy my love back with a laptop computer in the sixth grade. He still asks me to call him “Dad” but I will not do so. All we share is a name and DNA, nothing more.

Now that I’m more than 15 years removed from that situation, which is not at all unique for black boys growing up in inner cities, I find myself in a strange mental abyss.

This school year, I made the mistake of trying to cover up my depression with a reliance on Bombay and rum in order to stay functional. I put myself through mental hell as writer’s block, family matters and pressure related to The Collegian forced me to withdraw from society altogether. I was present physically, but my mind was elsewhere, lost, battered and confused.

I internalized everything and everything, and blamed myself for the smallest of mistakes, the tiniest of imperfections.

Each time I thought things would change, something else would happen. I was not at all focused. I hated going to class. I resented having to spend time working at jobs I disliked. I hated myself for allowing silly things to make me feel inadequate as a human being.

But something hit me in the middle of March. It hit me hard as fuck. It hit me harder than anything in life ever hit me before.

I woke up.

I realized that I was completely missing the good that could come of all this.

I have few friends in this life. Moe Simmons is one of them. As much as I love to clown on him, he’s one of the most influential people I have ever met and I was too busy to realize that until it hit me that he would be studying abroad in Australia and I would not see him for at least five months.

I realized that I was missing out on great times with Lavell Dean, Ashton Mitchell, Daniel Williams, Cam Alford, Joel Fuller, Kyle Messer, Jeff Ferguson and our extensive crew that attend other schools all over the midwest.

The people I listed above were my friends long before I became editor-in-chief of a newspaper and I am ashamed of myself for ever underestimating the impact they have made on my life since my freshman year in 2012.

Not only that, I am ashamed of myself for not appreciating every waking moment of my life and the people who make this world more enjoyable for me and others.

I have grown to appreciate my time working as a camp counselor at the Jewish Community Center, a place that taught me the values of making a difference, no matter how small. I applied this principle to my work for The Collegian, which was centered on giving the best product to students first and foremost.

I have grown to appreciate my family more, the few of them I have left that I can trust, because my family is all that I have and I owe them for giving me life and an opportunity in this country to succeed, go to college, and become a more knowledgeable person.

I now can honestly say that I appreciate money, because I don’t have it, and when I get some to spend, I’m not blowing it all on crap that doesn’t matter. I now put my money aside for things that can help me connect to others more, like music for example, and late-night excursions with great friends on airy spring nights.

I’m also appreciative that I live in the 21st century and technology allowed me to keep in contact with someone that means a whole lot to me, Katie Goodrich or Kate as I prefer to call her, even though she’s been in Rome, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, London and Dublin since January. I cannot express how important she has been to my growth as a person this past year and I will never be able to thank her enough.

But above all, I am appreciative for life. That is it. I am appreciative that I am still here. I owe it to life as an entity in and of itself for sparing me on many occasions because there’s no guarantees once you step out of the door each day.

In any given moment, death is staring you right in the face. I don’t mean to be morbid, I simply wish to be honest. But even if that sounds bad, I don’t think it is. What I have been trying to prove today with all of these words is that goodness can come from the darkest places.

The goodness in life belongs to those who believe.

With that said, I want to thank everyone I know, have known, don’t know, met, touched, spoke to, or heard from for this opportunity to address my thoughts and feelings.

I am meeting them head on and right on the bridge of life’s nose. I have confronted the demons that tainted my soul and I will effectively eliminate them from this day forward.

And even though I’m sure to confront more things in the near and distant future, I now have the tools to win the war. I now have the perspective that will ultimately give me peace.

I love you life, as fucked up as you can be, because you are never wrong. You have given us all a glimmer of light.