Priorities...

Once upon a time, it was all about catering to desires like swagg, looking fly or cute, getting flava, serial dating, getting laid, the one-nights stands, the occasional high, the excitement in the urban nightlife, the unprovoked youthful anger and resistance, the indictment of ways you saw differently, the goodly street and left-wing speeches, like some good old Marxist professor, except in deed.

Fast forward to when the mind's now all ripe, bodily growth completed, licit reproduction close to its right time, a rewarding economic role secured, a more productive union shaped, mom's eager to see her grandkids, homies and playas who are seemingly trapped in the game soon start getting retorts like: "Dude, grow up! I ain't into that anymore; I have a home to take care of."

Now responsibility is taken, bills getting the better of you, the division of attention to not only the needs of your own family, but of the extended family, and even the extension of the extended family, the exercise of good judgment and prudence, the random recollection of your past, of that youthful identity and your delusions of grandeur back then, the regret in your artful evasion of reality and of things worth doing sooner... but that's all right. What I am trying to depict is that indeed, priorities do change.