Track 22: You Can Call Me Daddy

“My name is Preston, but friends call me P or Pres, pronounced Prez or Press… but you can call me Daddy.”

*record scratch* Freeze frame.

I know. You’re probably wondering how I got here.

Because truth be told, that line started as an introduction on Jack’d. A little nerdy humor to match the confidence I carry when I walk into a room.

However Comma,

Somewhere between the joke and the truth, I realized that word had been sitting on my chest for a long time and not how our folx use it these days.

Daddy.

Not the version people like to sexualize. Not the aesthetic. The real one… Father.

When I was a kid, I was so clear about what I wanted out of life. I knew I wanted to be on TV or famous in some way. I knew I wanted to get married. My Mommy was going to live with me and my wife in our house, and her room was going to be right next to mine. And I knew I wanted to be a daddy. As I got older I started planning out names. I knew what orgz they would join befor I ever put in an application. I knew what sports and activites I wanted to put them in. It was one of the few things I dreamed about that felt real.

Then life started lifing.

As I grew into myself, things shifted. When I came out as bi, I was still figuring it all out, but I never felt like fatherhood was off the table. Not yet at least. But a few months later, I was diagnosed HIV positive, and just like that everything got quiet. I convinced myself no woman would want me. I told myself having a biological child was no longer an option. I didn’t know what the future looked like anymore, but I knew it didn’t look and feel like what I imagined as a kid.

Later, as medicine evolved and I learned more, I realized it wasn’t impossible. Just expensive. And in a different way, still out of reach. So I did what a lot of us do when something feels out of reach. I rewrote the story. I told myself I didn’t want kids. I said I was good. I blamed the state of the world. I talked about how cruel everything feels. I told myself if I believe I don’t want it, I can’t be disappointed that I don’t have it.

That logic will save you and rob you at the same time.

Then I met Shobe. And like every real relationship, we started having those conversations about what our life could look like. Kids came up. It wasn’t a hard no from him, but it wasn’t excitement either. He had already done a version of parenting, helping raise his sister's kids. He understood the weight of it in a way I hadn’t lived yet. And then there’s our age gap. By the time I might feel ready, he’d be 15 years older. By the time the kids are growing into themselves, he’d be stepping into

Paw Paw territory. That reality mattered. So I adjusted again. I tucked that version of myself away a little deeper and kept it pushing. Believing that it wasn't a big deal.

But the truth does not disappear. It waits. It simmers.

The first time it really came back was in 2023 when my Dad passed. Something about that loss stirred up a different kind of urgency in me. It made me think about carrying on his name, about legacy, about what it means to have my own family. It made me realize I would want to show up differently than the men in my family. More present. More intentional. Breaking cycles instead of repeating them. And still, even with all of that, I found ways to talk myself out of it again.

Then this past Sunday, I was at my Spec’s house for game night. Good energy, good people, real conversation. We ended up talking with two Gay fathers. Two Black men with two completely different paths. One had his children through surrogacy. The other had what we jokingly call a baster baby with his best friend. And listening to them, something in me woke up. Not loud, not dramatic, just enough. Enough to remind me that I had been faking the funk for so long I started believing it. I started believing I didn’t want kids, when really I just didn’t want to be disappointed.

Because if I’m honest, I do want legacy.

And not just in the ways people see. Not just music, not just art, not just blog posts and visuals and events. I want someone to call me Daddy and means it in a way that carries beyond me. I want to teach, protect, spoil, pour into, and show up for someone who is mine in a way that is deeper than mentorship. They are truly the fruit of my labor.

And the wild part is, I already am a father in a lot of ways.

I have my Sigma kids. Young men I pour into, guide, check on, and celebrate. I have a gay son that I inherited when I got with Shobe, and I take that responsibility seriously. I know how to nurture. I know how to lead. I know how to show up. I know how to create space for people to grow into themselves. That part of me is not hypothetical. It’s lived.

And I’m sure there will be more. More young men, more lives I impact, more people who find home in the guidance I give.

But if I’m telling the whole truth, none of that fully satisfies the vision I had as a kid. There is still something in me that wants to see a little version of me walking this earth. Something in me that wants to make sure they have everything they need and most of what they want. Something in me that wants to experience that love up close, every day, in my own home that shapes me in a way that changes a man for the better if he opens his heart to it.

And yeah, I joke a lot to conceal my feelings. I say I’d send my kids away for the first five years so they can come back potty trained and I can just dress them up and spoil them. And yeah, that’s funny. But underneath that joke is a man who knows he would love hard, show up fully, and probably be wrapped around his child’s finger the moment they grab mine.

People tell me all the time I’d be a great father. For a long time, I brushed that off even though I know it's true. Now I’m starting to wonder if they see something I’ve been trying not to look at directly.

I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know what that path looks like for me and for us. I don’t know what timelines, finances, biology, or life will allow. But I do know this.

That desire is still there.

Alive. Breathing. Waiting.

“My name is Preston, but friends call me P or Pres…

…but you can call me Daddy.”

Maybe not today.

But one day, I hope to answer to it. To look back one day and see this and be reminded of the family I manifested.