i refuse to raise assholes

to my sons,

sometimes i can’t fall asleep because there are too many words in my head. they won’t stop coming until i write them down. i don’t know what’s motivating me to write this particular piece to you now when you’re 4 years old, but in case it’s because i’m destined to die tomorrow i’m just gonna go for it.

i don’t have plans for you. i don’t have a right to. your path is up to you and whatever higher power you may choose to believe in. having said that, be on alert that while you make your way down that path you may come upon some very tempting short cuts. i’m telling you from experience that they all likely lead to hell. so in an attempt to save your souls and ensure my sanity i am absolutely refusing to raise assholes.

to avoid becoming said assholes i need your commitment regarding the following:

HAVE INTEGRITY

be honest.  the truth is all there is. no version will do. the more afraid you are to tell the truth the more you can be certain you need to tell it. cowards lie. and you two are the bravest bad ass ninjas i know. trust yourself to do the right thing and you will.  follow through with what you promise and be someone people can count on. take pride in that. don’t just let yourself be the truth in your own story. be the truth in everyone’s story. stand up for what you believe is right but be open to accepting that sometimes you may be wrong.

BE A SUPER MAN.

find and believe in your power. the superheroes have nothing on you. remember, without Clark Kent “Superman” is just a costume. get what i’m saying? it’s the guy inside the suit who achieves the greatness. you won’t find your greatness by becoming someTHING. you’ll find it by being someONE. you were both blessed with beauty, charisma, humor, energy and a flame inside of you that ignites with passion, joy and love. Colt and Jett, my “Jolt”, perfectly named. you bring a jolt of electricity to everyone you touch. don’t use these gifts to manipulate, deceive, or destroy. use them to become super men.

BULLIES ARE BULLSHITTERS

they are not worth your time and certainly not worth your thoughts. there will always be people who find pleasure in trying to knock you down. but remember the saying,

don’t dare become one of these people. stay happy. happy people don’t feel the need to hurt someone. they feel good for others who succeed. and feel confident in their own potential for greatness. the only thing worth knowing about bullies is whatever they say or do to you has absolutely nothing to do with you and everything to do with them. and you have 100% power over how much or how little they affect you. no one can make you feel anything. no one can hurt you unless you choose to feel hurt. no one can convince you of something unless you choose to believe it. you have control over how you feel. understand that all words are just sounds that came out of someones mouth one day and somebody decided they would mean something. those sounds can be so deafening they end your world or they can be completely muted. the choice is yours. if you believe in yourself and know how worthy of love you are you will be immune to such poison .

HATE & CRIMINAL ACTIVITY THAT WILL PUT YOU IN JAIL AND ME IN A MENTAL INSTITUTION

the choices you make do not just effect you. they will have an effect on other people most of the time and will always have an effect on me. try to understand the magnitude of the love i feel for both of you. i lay with you at night and the reality of the power of this love chokes me. i’m barely able to breathe and then i suddenly notice i’m crying. and this intense, pretty crazy, emotional reaction happens when i see you SLEEP. in our most peaceful moments. when we are wrapped in joy. now, imagine what the fuck it would do to me to see you in jail?

the only bars i can survive seeing you behind were the ones from your cribs. i know my limitations. i know i am nowhere near strong enough to endure pain when it comes to you two. if i ever have to visit you in jail all i will see is my baby staring back at me and then i’ll go home and tie a noose around my neck.

i know the love you have for me goes as deeply as mine for you. i can feel it. so if you should experience lows in your life where you don’t love yourselves enough to stay out of harms way and are tempted towards destructive choices, please keep the imagine of me hanging from a noose in the very front of your mind.

don’t you dare steal anything. ever. earn everything you have otherwise it won’t matter to you. i guess i should probably stop spoiling you to make sure this sinks in easier. if you are tempted to take something that doesn’t belong to you, take a quick look inside yourself. there you will find riches far greater than anything you are planning to steal. don’t get caught up in what someone else has and make that more important than who you are. i am grateful to have never known jealousy and i pray you never do either. it seems terribly poisonous and unnecessary.

now that i’ve established i don’t want you stealing, i also don’t want you using the hands i made you to evoke pain and suffering. unless your life or your families lives are being threatened there’s really no need for you to be hitting or hurting anyone. Ever. use the hands i made you to please, to create. not to inflict harm on the skin and soul. don’t waste your energy on anger. it’s useless and only distracts.

i realize there are a lot of scary ass crazy bitches out there who are sent here from hell to fuck up your lives. and for a time many can hide their crazy well and you may not see it coming. if you are unfortunate enough to find yourselves engaging with one of these types it may seem only fitting to haul off and throw her face into a wall. but please, allow me. I DO NOT WANT MY SONS HITTING ANY GIRLS!

now boys, so far you haven’t handled the word “NO” with much grace, so i feel it’s important to add a section on rape just in case you continue to struggle with this concept. every time in the past 4 years when i’ve told you NO and then went back on my word and gave in, or let you get away with something after i told you not to do it, i realize i may be fostering the rapists within. NO needs to mean NO. NO MATTER WHAT. i think it’s probably supposed to be my job to drill this into your heads and my failure to do so only means that i suck as a parent. it does not mean you’ve been given a justifiable excuse to go rape crazy. when a woman tells you “No”, let a vision of me in a straight jacket screaming in a tiny windowless room be the very first thing that pops into your mind should you even think about proceeding.

hate and discrimination will suck the very life out of you. it is not for you to judge someone else’s life or choices. if you’re on the correct path you will have your hands full with your own.

if you must look up to someone choose that person wisely and carefully. don’t be followers blindly following the herd. SEE EVERYTHING FOR WHAT IT ACTUALLY IS especially when someone is holding a blindfold over your eyes. you can get into trouble if you fail to do this.

i am a very strong person and i can handle a great deal before i break. i can recover from a lot with minimal battle scars. except when it comes to you two. i have no defense against my love for you, i have no prayer of controlling or minimizing it and i’d never want to. and while it’s not your responsibility to take care of me, you sure as shit should want to do your part to avoid bringing me to a place i can’t come back from. things will happen to us all during our lives that we can not control, but as your mother, i am begging you to avoid putting me through hell by choices you willingly make. i could not survive an hour on this planet without either one of you. that’s not me being dramatic, that’s me admitting i am not strong enough to survive you. i can’t stomach seeing either of you in pain. so please make careful choices! and i will not be able to cope with either of you contributing to the evil in this world. so don’t.

as i type these things to you now i can’t even imagine you ever needing to read them. you are both made up entirely of love and light. colt, you’re the most generous person I’ve ever met. you will give your friends anything no matter how important it is to you in order to see them happy. sometimes i worry you’ll be giving out your organs even though you’ll need them to survive! you are so free and you already know fear is a lie. you are inspiring. and jett, my bite sized CEO. you are right when you insist “it’s my wowd(world)! i decide!” the world you are creating is a spectacular one and we will all benefit from living in it. you both always insist on being the ‘good guys’ when we play dress up. i have every faith in you that you will remain as such.  you both love with every piece of you. and you will do great things. so long as you can avoid becoming assholes.

DRUGS, ALCOHOL AND OTHER DESTRUCTIVE WAYS TO NOT GIVE A SHIT

i’m praying genetics helps you out here. you don’t come from a family of substance abusers. there’s hardly one of us who even drinks more than twice a year. one of my favorite things about our family is we are always having way more fun than every one else and we are doing it stone cold sober. well, minus some occasions once upon a time when i was drunk out of my mind and made every wrong choice possible. and i know you guys probably will too. but don’t make a habit out of it.

if you’re only going to take after me in one area let it be this; find fun and comfort in things you can’t eat, drink, smoke, snort or shoot. i find so much enjoyment in board games it’s ridiculous and i hope you always do too. relying on drugs and alcohol will ruin everything that is you. it will mask your uniqueness, and extinguish your spark. it will make you numb and vacant and terrified. it will make you an asshole. fear, boredom, insecurity and a host of other lies people tell themselves prompts the need to let a liquid or a pill make their choices for them. don’t fall prey to such lies. don’t destroy what i created.

there is no such thing as boredom. if you think you’re bored a substance won’t rid yourself of it but your imagination will. think of how dull a blank piece of paper is and yet what you create on it can change an entire life, even the world. it all depends on how big your imagination is. treat the “boring” days as blank sheets of paper and get to work!

if you find yourselves stuck in some lows that are a struggle to climb out of, before you start popping antidepressants like candy, check in with yourself. are you absolutely certain a chemical imbalance is causing your unhappiness? or could it be the choices you are making and the thoughts you are letting yourself believe about your life and who you are?  try changing those before you resort to medication.

WHORES HAVE HEARTS TOO

okay, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume, given your disturbing obsessions with my lady parts, that both of you will most likely be attracted to women. if this turns out to not be the case, i will write another letter regarding men when the time comes. although much of the same applies to both.

i make a very important promise to you. i promise to never put up with a man disrespecting me. i promise to value myself so that you do not grow up watching a woman back down, or let herself be treated as anything less than an equal to a man. i promise to never give you any reason to believe you should get away with devaluing women.

if you’re anything like your father, the girls you will be interested in probably won’t be born for another 15 years or so but when you do meet someone of interest it truly doesn’t matter whether she’s younger, older or your same age. it only matters that it’s legal and that she is your equal and treated as such.  when you decide to engage in dating and sex, keep these things at the very front of your mind: even if a girl does not respect herself that does NOT give you the right not to respect her. we all have our own journeys through this life, we all have our highs and lows, don’t you dare use another’s low to your advantage. remember, whores have hearts too.

if a girl chooses to send you naked pictures of herself do not make her feel as stupid as she is for doing so by sharing them with your friends or posting them all over the internet. doing so looks far worse on you than it does on her. if this isn’t enough incentive than maybe this will help you avoid such gross disrespect; if you exploit a woman’s trust in you, you can bet your asses i WILL find out about it.  i will come into your bedrooms while you sleep and bring a camera. i will take photos of your penises and i will tag you in them all over Facebook. i am not at all above being creepy as hell for the greater good. try me.

do not make sex videos without the woman’s knowledge and do not share them without the woman’s permission. in fact, do not share them at all. this shit makes you an absolute fucking asshole and i REFUSE TO RAISE ASSHOLES. if i ever find out your penis is starring in a sex tape all over the internet you can kiss that thing goodbye along with your life as you know it.

imagine how you would feel and what you would think about a guy who did the above to me? i don’t want you to ever feel that way about yourselves and i don’t want you to be the reason a woman can’t trust the next guy. if you can find me somewhere in the eyes of the women you are with i am confident you will always choose right over wrong.

even more importantly than having respect for the person you are sleeping with, have respect for YOURSELVES my loves. if you do you won’t put your bodies in dangerous and destructive positions with dangerous and destructive people.

don’t sleep with whores just because you can. i’m sure they are fun as hell, but a girl with self-respect can be a helluva lot more fun and she’s not gonna want you when you are covered in genital warts and there’s green shit oozing from your dicks. i promise you. the whorey ones will let you proceed without caution and i am gonna be pissed as hell if there’s a bunch of girls running around aborting my grandchildren or making me become a grandmother before i feel like one.

someone who doesn’t respect herself will not be able to respect you. she won’t know how. someone who does not love herself will not be able to love you. not in the way you deserve to be loved. she won’t know how.

**this must be said: do not use your identical DNA to trick each others girlfriends into sleeping with you. i hear identicals do this and however hilarious i happen to think it is, it’s just going to cause fights between you guys so probably best to avoid.

THE ONE

choose to give your heart and everything that goes with it to a woman who truly deserves it. do not be blinded by a woman. SEE HER CLEARLY. because i guarantee you i will and good luck getting her through the door if i don’t believe she has my sons’ best interests at heart. she doesn’t have to be perfect. in fact, i strongly recommend against that. you’ll have a terribly dull life with a “perfect” woman.

choose someone who will take pride in her body but will also polish off a cheeseburger without puking afterwards. and don’t you dare make douchebag cruel comments about anyones weight or body. not everyone is as perfect as you are your majesties. and she may be in a low in her life where she’s not strong enough to tune out your words. contributing to an eating disorder is an asshole move. your mommy suffered through one for a portion of her life. know that. i could have died from such self-destructive bullshit. if so, you would not be here. the three of us would have missed out on far too much AMAZINGNESS. what a tragic waste it could have been. don’t stand in the way of the world’s future with cruel remarks. if despite my words you decide to tease someone for their weight i’ll withhold food from you for a week. let’s see how much you enjoy starving.

choose a woman who challenges you to grow. don’t pick someone who obeys your every command. sure that personality trait can be fun in the bedroom but be sure it stays there. pick someone who makes you think and enlightens you and who is not intimidated to disagree with you. pick someone who is Strong. who doesn’t rely on you for her self-worth. unless you become a firefighter or a cop it’s probably not gonna be your job to save anyone. pick someone you can spend your life loving, not rescuing. i realize we are all works in progress and the chances of any of us finding someone who has ALL their shit together are incredibly slim if not impossible. expect to work through issues together but choose someone who has worked through most of them already so you can enjoy the ride together instead of being wiped out by it. remember a relationship will only ever be as healthy as the least healthy person in it. don’t rely on someone to “complete you”. that is not only completely backwards but is completely unnecessary. i still can’t understand why everyone sobs and “awwwws” during that scene in  “Jerry Maguire”. when i saw that part i wanted to throw my raisinets at the fucking screen. you are already complete. you are already whole. you were born that way. we all were. too many of us let the bullshit of life break us apart until we talk ourselves into believing we need other people, or substances to put us back together.

what i know of love i’m learning from you guys. you are the teachers. the older i get the more i learn from those younger than me. you have far more of the answers at four years old than i do at thirty-four. don’t let anyones age fool you into believing they are wiser than you.

if you choose to marry, make her your queen. princesses are for daughters. make your wife your equal. nothing less nothing more. let your wife wear the crown in your life even though i better be wearing it in your hearts.

and should you wonder when the “right” time for you to become a daddy is, i suggest it be at the first sign of life turning stale for you. when you’ve stopped being surprised by experiences, people. stopped being awed by things you see, places you visit and music you hear. when  you begin taking things and love for granted and stop finding joy in EVUHRYTHING. when you’ve stopped PLAYING make a kid STAT!!! you will experience everything all over again through your child’s eyes and believe me, everything is even more exciting this time around. my advice to you as fathers is to take time, a lot of time, to be silent. to listen. to look. to really SEE and really HEAR your children. i know you both catch me doing this all the time. i just stop what i’m doing and stare at you. i do this because i’m memorizing the moment. memorizing your faces before they change again. i’m simultaneously grieving over the child you were yesterday that i’ll never get back, while celebrating the one you became today. you will do this too as a father. and always hold your kids a little longer than they think they want you to.

if some day THE ONE should turn into someone you don’t know or don’t particularly want to know, then you must choose your happiness first. don’t stay in a relationship that makes you unhappy for the ‘sake of the kids’. that does them no favors. if your children grow up with a miserable marriage as their primary example of love, then they will likely seek that out for themselves one day. if they grow up with an example of two people who had the maturity to value their own happiness enough to divorce that will teach them not to waste their life staying in something that doesn’t make them happy. anybody can be miserable, it’s terribly easy. but happiness is reserved for the truly brave.

THE PEDESTAL

don’t put your father and i on a pedestal. its dangerous for you to do so. we don’t deserve to be there. we are human. we are flawed. know who we are, love us endlessly anyway but be careful not to put us higher than we deserve to be. the pain we’ll cause you as we hit you on our inevitable fall down will be too great. we are figuring our way through life just as you will be. you will see things we can not. the hardest words to mute are the ones from our parents. as your parents the things we say to each of you and do will have the potential to affect the men you become. if you let us. don’t give us the power to affect your life negatively. we don’t have that right. take in our good and toss out our bad and be smart enough to determine the difference. every day i am working on being the best mother i can be for you but i will never achieve parental perfection. we will never intentionally hurt you, but as you have already learned; accidents can hurt just as much.

LAUGH OR DIE. IT’S THAT SIMPLE.

how anyone survives this life without a sense of humor I’m sure i don’t know. find the funny in everything guys. it’s the most fun way through this.

your life will be everything you believe it can be. it can be as enjoyable and fulfilling as you decide to make it.

curse a lot. sometimes there’s a word you’re looking for and nothing else will do.

don’t do something with your life, do EVERYTHING with your life. explore every interest you have. have many!

have drive that stems from the inside out. from wanting to be the best you that you can be instead of being driven by rage to prove someone wrong or to prove anything to anyone.

have passion. have intensity. have goals and do some work towards reaching them every day. don’t let money decide what you are worth and be careful not to make it the ultimate goal that drives you. doing so will likely destroy you in the process.

color. frequently.

thrive on talents and exploration and always look towards the light.

let yourselves be vulnerable enough to ask for help, but aware enough to know you possess all the tools you need to climb out of even the darkest of holes.

look out for one another. you compliment each other beautifully. use a strength of yours to help your brother through a weakness of his.

choose an outlet to share your stories and do so without censorship or fear.

say yes, almost always.

and never. never.stop.playing.

you are my gifts to the world. my works of art. turn my work into a masterpiece; become men.

the world’s reached its asshole quota.