Nik Nicholson's Blog

Welp, that blows. I have to use my phone and Jetpack to sign in. Still having issues… which as a writer that’s tantamount to walking away with my laptop for a moment and expecting me to keep my train of thought… See how I’m writing about this shit instead of what I came here for…

Anyway. I am working on my author profile. I love writing characters but writing about one’s self is so weird. You don’t want to give away too information… do you? I’ve heard this. You want to sound qualified and knowledgeable, you want to blow all the silent whistles for the people who need to know you didn’t just start saying, “I should write about my life.” I actually don’t have any desire to write about my life. I’m going to lie. I’m not telling anybody the whole truth. You couldn’t handle…Nah, I couldn’t handle telling the whole truth.

So, I’ve got a few different versions of my author bio I’m meditating on… Or I might just use the first one. Then use a different one in a different book.

Speaking of books, I am a real crab apple today, Amazon KDP… God. Help.

What if this is the only night the stars will hang
outside your window, soft and reckless, like a secret
you almost shared?
What if you don’t get to press rewind, don’t get
to say the words that burn your tongue from the inside out
I love you, I’m sorry, I forgive, I remember you as you were
before the world chipped your edges?

Don’t wait for sunrise to prove you’re brave.
Let your laughter spill out, wild and ugly and real
build on the joke until your ribs ache and you forget
why you ever held back.
Tell the truth that sours in your chest,
the heavy thing you carry and tuck away for someday,
as if someday is promised, as if time owes you
anything but this thin, trembling now.

Take the risk. Leap before you’ve measured the distance.
Let fear be the proof you’re alive,
not the reason you freeze.
When you mess up—and you will—be the first
to admit you’re lost, but hungry to find your way.
Promise to be better, or say fuck it—
maybe imperfections got its own kind of beauty,
its own crooked perfection.

Love affirms life, so live.
Say I love you, again and again,
until the echo outlasts you;
til it fills the room, the years,
til it becomes the only thing
that ever mattered.

If tomorrow never comes,
let tonight be a feast of words and laughter,
a tender reckoning with your own wild heart.
Let love be loud. Let living be brave.
Let nothing go unsaid.

Describe a positive thing a family member has done for you.

My aunt taught me to draw as a kid. Which has evolved into all kinds of other art forms. I’m thinking about it because I talked to her about it yesterday.

A couple years ago she lost her vision. We’ve been discussing how she can continue moving in her creative power.

I called a friend I’ve known almost a decade. I can’t believe it’s been that long. Time slips by so fast when you get older. Sometimes I have to stop myself from typing stuff like, “I’m going to die soon,” even though it crosses my mind more than I’d like to admit. Self-editing is part of the deal now, I guess.

In case this is your first time reading me, I reserve the right to misspell words, use poor grammar, make up words, and go on tangents. I also reserve the right to start with one subject and get off into something else and never get back to the initial point. Read at your own risk. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

So, anyway, this call. So because I’m an introvert, I’ve been trying to do at least one call a day, I’m averaging about three a week… I actually have a lot of friends to be a hermit. Soooo… I digress. I called to tell her about my book release; something I’ve been working toward since last year. But then I heard it: that tone people get when they don’t want good things to happen for you. Maybe it’s jealousy, or maybe they just want your life to suck. I don’t know why some adults end up like this. Who raised these miserable muthafuckas?

It hurt. It made me think of words like “frenemies” and “haters.” Labels I’ve never really believed in. I don’t think people actually hate you; they just hate something in themselves. I try to hold on to that, hold on to the humanness of it all. Still, I’m sitting here crying as I try to piece together what just happened, and how I’m supposed to move through it.

This isn’t even the first time I’ve dealt with this kind of thing. When I was in my early twenties, I had a friend I would hide my accomplishments from. If I shared something good, she’d get upset. Sometimes she’d disappear for weeks, or suddenly feel like she had to compete with me. I never understood it. I loved her dearly. She taught me a lot, and she always knew the best places to go. She was super outgoing, and I could just float in the background.

But sometimes, if someone noticed me for even a minute, it’d be World War One. I allowed that for almost a decade. Then one day, I was out with a different friend and we were doing something fun, and my phone rang. Without any thought I said, “I gotta go where it’s quiet so she doesn’t know where I’m at.” My friend looked at me and just asked, “Why are you hiding this?”

At the time, the woman calling was my best friend. She didn’t live in the same city, but I was afraid she’d punish me with silence and weeks of abandonment. This seemed totally normal to me too. So I told the friend I was with, in so many words, “She doesn’t like it when good things happen to me.” And my friend, lost, asked, “Then why are you friends?”

The friend ended up punishing me for dating someone who she deemed was out of my league. She actually stopped speaking to me for maybe two years. She wouldn’t return or answer my calls. I did some personal work in the process and ended up abandoning the friendship in her absence…Then one day, out of the blue, she came back, like, “My bad, let’s be cool, again.” Then, I officially ended the friendship. I don’t regret it.

But I am aware of my own human shittiness too. I’ve said and done things I hoped to be forgiven for. Not like that, because I genuinely love seeing my friends win. But I’m not perfect either; I don’t always answer my phone, I’m introverted, I rarely want to go out (but I do want to be invited). I don’t want my friends to say, “Why invite someone who never comes?” Because sometimes, I actually do show up.

This relationship also forced me to question why I allowed myself to be treated this way. First, it didn’t always hurt. I do have some mental health challenges, so I don’t know if something is wrong with me but sometimes things mutual friends pointed out about that relationship I didn’t notice. Also, I have a delayed reaction at times. I don’t always know how I feel in the moment.

Plus when we were in the same city the relationship was beneficial. We were both poets, we liked similar music, and we made each other laugh. I am an only child and self contained. Sometimes, people say only children are spoiled. In my life, it’s been the opposite—if something was broken, I was blamed. If something was missing, I was the suspect. My parents loved me, but they were young and made it clear they sacrificed because I was born. I grew up during the era where children were supposed to be invisible. Being her friend let me fall in that role.

We went places, she didn’t introduce me and I didn’t care cause I barely could keep up with the people I knew. I’d disappear into whatever room we entered. She had big ideas, she liked to join boards of organizations of things we loved. Me, I’m going to show up and help… Do whatever I’m instructed to do, but I don’t want to be in the front. I don’t want any official duties. I don’t want my name on anything. I just want to see the project through to the end.

I ended up being known by a lot of folks, but not really knowing anyone. I can’t remember names anyway. I’m also incredibly shy I recently realized. I don’t know why it took me so long to realize that… accept it. I won’t say how many events I’ve ended up hosting because I forget this small detail, and then someone gives me the mic and I’m like, “Fuck, I don’t want to go up there.”

We’re all messy in our own ways.

Back to 2026, my friend is beautiful and accomplished. We’re all aging, but she’s beyond beautiful. Her life, like anyone’s, has setbacks. I thought she’d be glad to hear I kept pushing through my health challenges and finally made it to this milestone. She wasn’t.

And before anyone jumps in with “maybe she had her own stuff going on.” Nah, I know her. I love odd people. I’m odd myself. I study human behavior for fun. I see the patterns. I wasn’t trying to be petty or sure of myself, I genuinely tried to ignore her shittiness and just keep sharing. She asked about the book, I told her. But spiritually, it felt like I was drowning in her disdain. So I cut it short and asked about her instead.

She rattled off a list of successes, then waved them away because of some minor inconvenience; classic Virgo, always finding the flaw. I let it go.

It’s been almost a month now, and I’m still processing. I’m trying to write the same chapter I’ve been stuck on for two weeks. Procrastinating is blogging.

Unrelated related: I’m finally able to access my online journal from my laptop. Even though initially, even this morning, WordPress told me I wasn’t me. But this time they provided a workaround. I’d started to think I might have to start another blog somewhere else, but where? (walking away from the rabbit hole)

The thing is, when someone you care about can’t be happy for you, it is hard to know why it hurts. It’s easy to tell yourself not to care, or to try to rationalize their behavior, but I’m not sure we should let it go without some kind of change that feels good to our soul. I know most people are just fighting their own battles, sometimes in ways that make them ugly to others. But it still sucks.

I’m learning to give myself grace. To recognize that it’s okay to want community, and it’s okay to be hurt when you don’t get it. That this isn’t weakness. It just makes me human. We literally need community. Most of us are unhappy in the absence of it.

So, if you’re reading this and you’ve felt that sting, when your joy gets met with someone else’s bitterness, I see you. Don’t let it dim your light. Celebrate yourself. Even if you have to do it alone sometimes. (Cause I feel like a drama queen, I need to say this: other mofos are happy for me, and connecting has been amazing. Like I have friends flying in to celebrate with me. Shout out to the crew!!!)

If this resonates or you’ve been through something similar, feel free to share your story below. We’re all out here trying to find our people; and sometimes, that starts with showing up for ourselves.

Thanks for reading. If you want to keep up with my messy, meandering thoughts, stick around. I reserve the right to go off on tangents at any time.

It was a cycle. Your saved password from the browser and laptop you’ve been using is incorrect.

Let us send you a link. Clicks link to email I’ve had forever. Opens browser, your password is wrong. You’re not you. You’ve tried to access your shit with the wrong information too many times. Let us punish you for trying to be yourself.

Months have gone by where I couldn’t prove I was myself from different devices.

For your protection, we are not accepting you are who you say you are.

In an identity crisis

Writer needing to write it

Isn’t fiction but parables

So, I started signing into Facebook

To prove I wasn’t a robot.

Then putting in a separate password for messenger. 

Why don’t we just text? 

Facebook offers me a marketing plan to socially network with my own social network

while my feed is full of strangers…

I wouldn’t call myself a content creator cause I just be talking…

Am I always a consumer because noise can be streamed distraction as Im actively trying to tune out of the moment and in to friends who can’t hear me cause now showing them funny memes cost

Because who’s listening

Because social network became social engineering

And Zuckerman has become a eugenicist

Blue

Check

Mark

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Is it just me, or did Tartar Sauce get sweet? If you are still eating Mc Donald’s, their filet fish, still has the older better kind. Long John Silvers and Captain D’s… I can’t remember which one, but one of them makes their tartar sauce. The other has the sweet sauce in the packets. I never can remember.

Anyway, I made my own today. Sour cream, Mayonnaise, dill, dill relish (overkill I didn’t realize I had dill relish when I bought the fresh dill), lemon juice, white pepper, salt, smoked paprika, chives, parsley and horse radish. I don’t do measurements, but sour cream and mayo should be about the same amount and the most of all ingredients, they’re the base. I used paprika and fresh dill as a topping.

It was so good… It tasted slightly better than the one I grew up eating. Tartar sauce is such a weird thing to add sugar to. If anyone knows why they did it, let me know.

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Today is a regular day. I was listening to some seventies grooves. It’s raining for the real melodrama. I tried to talk my partner into swimming in the rain. There are still songs I am learning the meaning of.

The Chi-lites, Have You Seen Her, started playing. And I could see my dad two stepping singing and disappearing in the song. I mentioned he loved music and this would have been a good day…

We were chilling just listening to music. My dad would have loved to be here with me… I miss him so much right now.

First, I’m grateful I didn’t fall walking up here. That is one of my greatest fears. I want to thank you for standing as I came up. I love us. I love people.

Ok. I want to thank IZ for standing with me when I did not stand with myself. I want to thank IZ for allowing me to reach self acceptance. I want to thank my parents. Sending peace to my father in the other realm.

I want to thank my grandmother for leaving me with her dreams. I want to thank my characters for breathing and being.

I appreciate being seen. Thank you for this moment. Love and Light

Writers’ retreat where I have days to myself to plot and write. Then we come together to discuss our projects or share what we are proud of from our projects. Late night talks about the state of the world. Laughing til I ache… Coffee hot chocolate, cause I don’t really like coffee alone…

Meeting other writers and having an opportunity to bond and establish a connection. Poetry readings, pastries and revolution.

My dad and I were close. I mean so close when I got older he would share his fears. There is a wall… a way parents censor themselves to protect their children. So I can’t say my dad told me everything, but what I can say is he was far more open. At the end of his life, he told me he was terrified of dying. He’d also answer questions I asked about what he needed like, “I don’t really know what I want/need. I’ve never died before.”

Losing my dad, it hasn’t been a year yet and I am still reeling from the loss. I’m still crying some days uncontrollably. Of my two parents my father was the nurturer. He was the one who talked to me about my choices and still attempted to guide me. While my mom I guess was more trusting of my own wisdom or… I don’t know. Without my dad, she’s stepped up and I’m getting a better understanding of her.

I can’t draw any real conclusions. Even now my mother is a mystery to me. There are days when I just look at her and long to understand. I’m also accepting you don’t need to understand people to love them. Compassion can cover this… I use to… I’d given up on understanding or trying to love my mom in the verb way. I love my mom, but I didn’t try to be in her life. We’ve always been at odds.

I go months without putting on makeup. I have natural hair. I think the truth is a gift even when it’s disappointing. I need to love people. My current partner welcomes the opportunity to be held and cuddled by me. I need to love more than I need to be loved. Which is why I’ve considered adopting, but that’s another discussion.

My mom is this beautiful woman who I wish allowed me to take pictures of her in various stages of getting ready. She literally a classic act. She won’t leave her house without a full face of makeup. Me not being so involved in my presentation, pisses her off. LOL!!! I try to remind myself that perception could get a whole town burned down when she was a child. I remind myself, whenever they discuss Emette Till my mom always notes where she was when he was killed and when he had his funeral.

As an artist, I have done spiritual work to focus on what is important to me and not so much what other people think. I accepted I couldn’t control someone’s perception. For work or some event that tells me what the dress code is I rise to the occasion. I’ve got more clothes than I’ve got bodies… I don’t like shopping. Unless it’s food or art supplies. I love a full fridge. We don’t share the same interests and since my dad died, it feels like the my mom is meeting for the first time.

My mom often tells my partner things that my partner thought was common knowledge. I have to tell my mom to listen to me. It’s only recently that she has reached some conclusions about me, which she shares. She tells me I’m always up to something. Like… Instead of paying $300 to get my car key replaced and programmed, I ordered the casing online and used my glasses and jewelry tools to set the key in new casing. Maybe it was five dollars with shipping…

In any case, my dad use to listen to all my theories. He use to test the theories he was learning on me. Like he told me things… I’m trying to focus… That after he has passed, I’m coming to believe were true. I wish we could have that discussion, where I can say you told me. My life is big on accountability and being honest. My dad would tell you the God honest truth in a way that wasn’t offensive or even pushing guilt. He didn’t believe people were always what they’ve done. Hitmen are literal murderers. Someone who hits a child chasing a ball into the street, isn’t a murderer. In many of those accidental death situations, the punishment people give themselves is greater than anything the law can apply. Being found not guilty or not being charged, doesn’t actually make them free.

My dad was a wise man. His wisdom lives in me and is evolving. I could tell how surprised he was with what I knew… And that was a gift. My mom, she wondered why I thought so much… Which is saying a lot cause she’s a Virgo. If you know astrology… Drifting. I’m back.

I started this post, because my mother’s oldest brother called me this morning. He was just checking in to see how he was doing. I was in the middle of writing, but I had headphones on so I took his call. I like to set aside time to talk to him. We could talk a couple hours. I miss him, and dream about when I’m in town what restaurant I want to visit with him. He treats me like a dad, but he’s a little more hands off. He listens and affirms my choices or says why would you do that… LOL!!!

Anyway, last week he sent me a rainbow. He’d taken a picture on his phone in my hometown. The rainbow was beautiful. It also touched me deeply that he shared it with me. Let me lay on the love here. He doesn’t know how to use his phone. He’s got a smart phone, but he also has five smart children, who are tasks with keeping his phone able to take calls. When he says, I’m going to text you, it use to mean they were going to text from his phone. He text me that picture himself, standing out in the world after taking the picture.

Just the thought of him thinking of me and is moving me to tears as I write. This uncle of mine is all spirit. People use to say he didn’t talk much. As I’ve grown, I’ve learned a lot of the ways he communicates is nonverbal. When my dad was dying he didn’t go two days without checking on me… Sometimes he’d come sit with me outside my dad’s when someone gave me a break. We didn’t speak, we just sat, let the breeze and the sun do the talking.

When my dad was refusing to go on hospice, because that meant they would stop giving him “life saving” treatments… I didn’t believe my dad would die. My dad had beaten death at least five other times I personally knew of. I don’t know how many he didn’t ‘mention. My dad lived a full life, I tellya. Even as he was dying he’d say, I had a great life. I had a lot of fun. I did the things I wanted to do. Coming back to the point of this paragraph. I thought, maybe my dad would beat cancer. My uncle would come look at my dad, just speak and then sit with me. My uncle one day said, “You’re dad is going to die. I’m sorry. Just make him comfortable. Don’t argue with him. Don’t nobody want to die.”

I wanted my dad to be comfortable. They wouldn’t give him the meds he needed. My dad was courageous and he suffered for everyday of his life. Pain I can’t imagine and I hope to never experience. At one point, he could barely stand to be touched, but he was afraid morphine which would relieve the pain would kill him. Eventually, the pain was too great and he was forced on hospice… We could argue semantics, I’d say cancer killed him. He’d say it was morphine. He’d say morphine was a serial killer of the elderly. He’d have stories about people getting hip injuries and being treated with morphine and dying.

What I’m saying is, all my life I have been surrounded by amazing men. I have male cousins who amaze me because they don’t reflect the images of Blaq men I’ve seen. They are successful. They have families. Even my baddest (not in the good bad way) has three babies that are thriving.

My cousin on the passing of his father, with a wife and kids, asked if I was going to spend the night. I had to remind him we were in our thirties and he had a whole wife to hold him. But it was his vulnerability, and honest that struck me.

My cousin the other day, told a BlaQ man he’d just met that he didn’t need to get married. The man was a business associate looking at rings. My cousin told the man he noticed his wondering eye and he didn’t even give him the energy that he wanted to settle down. The man admitted that all his friends, were getting married. He’d spent the last few years going to weddings. Thirties, career going, established financial foundation and he was bored… Marriage seemed like it could be fun, shake some stuff up.

Nah, that’s not how you determine if you want to get married my cousin advised him. My cousin is very emotionally intelligent. He’d asked the man questions to ascertain his suitability. I also want to note, my cousin and his crew, which also includes a few of my uncles are activist… Their work is more one on one. They mentor young men, not in any official capacity, but they raise their own boys and any friends, and any strays they need to get together. They get into it with boys and their parents… They get into places where other people just pity a child.

They get into it by doing stuff like, offering to take another child or two to practice. By making sure the other kid is showing up to school and behaving. By challenging kids to walk in their full power. By shaming fathers into doing their job and showing up. By talking BlaQ men out of doing self-destructive stuff. By creating jobs or finding jobs for folks to keep them from being left to their own devices or vices.

So when I come to write, I’m writing about men who send me rainbows. Men who call and have whole conversations about everything but sex. Men who are whole human beings trying to make the world a better place by being their best selves. My cousin barely sleeps now, because he won’t stop staying up late and he has children who get up at five when he’s usually just his REM sleep.

I remember when I moved back home, the cousin I grew up with and who stayed in trouble passed me in traffic with all his youth in the car. How he seemed to be proud to be their to protect them. How when I blowed to get his attention, and said he had the whole crew how he beamed proud of them, and told me how well his son was doing and that his daughter made the honor roll. He wasn’t proud he was there, he was going to be there. He was proud they were thriving. He was filled with love and now that two of his children are adults, when he travels, he makes sure they can go with him and his wife… And he’s been married more than twenty years…

One of my cousins worked as much as he could in the south. He worked ten hours on weekends, and spread the twenty over the evenings while in high school, while maintaining a high GPA. Then when he graduated from high school, he eloped with his first love. That was more than twenty-five years ago. They are still married. For a second they had a Youtube channel, for family only… Because life had gotten crazy, college, work, children and they bought a house. So because they didn’t see us a lot they would post videos to us, send us links and talk to us on posts when they could.

This cousin, upset our elders. Some of my family… Born in the late thirties early forties were not amused. I forgot to mention him and his wife, both eighteen, moved out of their parents’ house and into their own place without discussing it with anyone. Before anyone knew anything, they were married and raising a home together. Anyway, my cousin deeply spiritual AND religious, asked the pastor of their shared family church for a moment…Where he had been a young deacon and mentor to his peers.

Then he stood on business. He told them that his wife was his first love. He knew he wanted to be with her for the rest of his life and if they would forgive his passion, he decided to be a man at eighteen and lead a house and provide. Chiiiiiild there wasn’t a dry eye in the house… His wife was a mess. I think baby one came after that their speech. It was a long speech in that way BlaQ folks orate in church… It was cosigned by elder men, who stood as he spoke in agreement.

When I write, I want the world to see more men who are doing ordinary things with these expansive, evolving emotional landscapes.

The other day my uncle sent me a rainbow. I told my mom and she responded in a way that seemed dismissive. I was holding my phone looking at it and having all the feels… I also am very present. I try to be in the energy, navigating whether to feel it or stay on dry land. So, I followed my mom, and told her how important it was that her brother sent me a rainbow and how much it meant… And how my heart was full. Then she responded, “Pop is a nice man. A sweet man.”

I usually edit… which for me helps me censor. Today, I decided to be open and let all the love I feel for the men who have taught me they are humans. Not to be slapped because they are bigger, more muscle and society says physical abuse is okay against them. Society says these men don’t exist. Streamlining characters doesn’t show the complexities of being BlaQ males. Needing to be strong, fearless and a leader while being feared, erased and told they expendable.

When my uncle called, I decided to be present. I decided to listen. Then I was moved to tell you he exists and so do other wonderful men. Many who are deeply spiritual and involved in their communities.

Forgive errors. I had to leave them so I didn’t hide.