I raised a whole entire kid and didn't kill him or nothing.

Note: I wrote this on my son's birthday a little while ago. I didn't post it then because I felt it was too personal. I was right.

A long time ago, I knocked up a girl. I don't even remember where we met, probably at a party. She was gorgeous, I thought, a true cinnamon girl with dark skin, brown hair, brown eyes, very pretty feet and beautiful legs. She was taller than me, which gave me pause at first. Not because I didn't want her, but because I didn't think she'd want me. Girls like guys to be taller than them usually, which is why girls should avoid calling guys shallow because we're all shallow at first. We all go by looks.

So I went after her and got her. She was a brainiac and up until that time the smartest person I had ever met. She was also hilarious. A brave girl, she was. Many females are afraid to be funny or silly, but not this one. She had me rolling and I knew right then she was beautiful.

We hooked up and had a whirlwind romance. Our first "date" was me moving in with her. No lie. We started living together on our first date. Clearly, it was going to last forever, haha. It was a sizzling, sexual thing and we became inseparable. Also, during that first month, pregnant.

Now that was the first and last girl I got pregnant, and it affected me profoundly. So profoundly, that I changed my life. Up until then, I had been a fuck-up, doing nothing much but partying. I drank, I smoked weed, I worked in restaurants for beer and weed money. One time, I even became homeless, but it was summer so I was ok with it.

Now that I was going to be a father, I figured I should do something, so I went down and got my GED, which I very literally aced. I got into college and our little family moved away.

Our relationship disintegrated quickly after moving. She wasn't ready to give up the party lifestyle quite yet and she missed her friends and family. We were in a strange town far away and our relationship was over. We had a little boy who was about one and a half, and she took him with her back home.

I remember the day they left. I remember falling on the floor bawling. Seriously, I literally fell like a tree that had been cut down. BAM! I'll never forget that. I'm not sure, but I may have actually fainted, kinda.

So I was in college and completely devastated. I couldn't cope, and dropped all the classes I was in. I had about 200 bucks and had to move from the trailer we had lived in to a place that was called The Big House, because it was a little tiny one-room shack no bigger than a cake box. Just kidding. It was an enormous house. It had once been an old folks home, but now it was a young folks home, full of college kids.

I moved in there and met some great people, people I am friends with to this day. I started to get my old self back, I started to heal. I registered for the upcoming semester and decided to soldier on.

Then one day my X showed up with the baby. It had been almost two months since she had left. "I need a break. Can you take him?"

"Absolutely."

Long story short, he's been with me ever since and today turned 18.

It was by no means easy being a welfare dad. We had some very hard times, but also some very good ones.

He was the best mistake I ever made and worth everything.