Cee-lo has a track where the hook says, "If u don't know me the record can't tell ya. Cause I'm the great Pretender." I've always felt like I was the great pretender. I've always been able to fit in to every environment.... so much so that if someone from any of my worlds saw me in another environment they would think it was an act. I've always wondered where do I fall. Who I am. "Not judging a book by it's cover" has never been so appropriate. I am constantly comfortable. I am just as comfortable on the block as I am in a board meeting. My swagger is as high in a Kenneth Cole suit as it is when I rocking 501's and a v-neck. I have just as many friends on parole and probation as I do with degrees. I'm The Great Pretender. I went to college but didn't even think about continued education until the 12th grade. When most of my friends in college would go home to visit family I would go home and hit the streets so that I could come back to school with the same things their parents bought them. And I know when some of my friends read this they are going to be shocked but I bet they would be even more shocked if they knew I had friends that were shocked when I told them I was going to college. I am the great pretender. If u see me with my brothers you wouldn't guess that we were anything alike. But if u talk to my brothers and I u would realize that I AM MY BROTHERS. I am dying to become a father.... although I didn't grow up with my own. I'm The Great Pretender. I have been in many relationships but my wife is the only woman that I have been faithful to. I've often doubted my commitment to her.... questioning if this was something that I had become or just an act. I mean, doing right in the beginning feels strange. I would often tell Al my fears of failure and bad decisions because after doing wrong for so long even now I feel like I'm closer to failure than I am to success. I'm The Great Pretender. I can remember times when i would cry and pray to God to help me become the person that everyone "THOUGHT" I was.... imagine that. Maybe they see what I am or maybe they're seeing what I project. I'm The Great Pretender.
Now my wife and I have been together for seven years and married for almost three. We have a relationship and life that is so different from anything that I have ever seen growing up. Yet we move through it like it came with a manual. Sometimes I look at the lives of people that I was so close to growing up or looked up to and just marvel. Marvel at how times have changed them or atleast has changed my perception of them. And I wonder if I look different to them. Do they see my growth? Do they see my commitment? Do they see my struggle to be what I want them to see? Or are all of these images and stages only present to me and in my mind. What if the mirror reflects what I want to see. What if I'm pretending. What if I'll wake up tomorrow and all of it is gone. My life and my wife. What if.... Or what if I never struggled growing up. What if when I told u I grew up middle class because I knew people who had more AND less than us really was true. Regardless of what my college economics teacher had to say. What if I was pretending when I ran the streets fighting and doing what I thought my brothers wanted to see. What if they were pretending when they told me I better go to college. And what if when I visited my brother in prison and he told me if I didn't marry Aliceson that it would be the biggest mistake I had ever made he was pretending. What if..... I really don't know who I am sometimes or which life is real. But I borrow pieces from my past and my present to bring what u see.
I love. I fight. I care. I write.
I've had. I've lost. I've learned. I've taught.
I change, I grow, I see. I know. I know..... I'm the Great Pretender.
