Sunday Music: "Pree Me" By Burna Boy (Rising Above Your Haters)

Nothing like standing in a Verizon store trying to get a new phone only to find out an old identity theft is still thieving. All’s good now, but, come on Saturdays, do better for me. Suffice it to say, I’ve been thinking about enemies lately. Bad guys. Not the comic book kind either, the real life kind.

Enemies are a sign you’re doing it right. They’re a sign you took a stand, ideally for healthy reasons, and somebody disagreed with you. In the best case scenarios, you’ve forgiven them and moved on, but won’t forget the scars, and you’re at peace with having released them into the cold, black ether of space where they’re not your problem anymore.

I had a reminder of a s*** person turned enemy, from a ways back in my life, that cropped up again about a week ago. Kind of a sneakily planted rusty nail in the sole of an old shoe that, even if I wasn’t wearing those shoes around anymore, just finding this planted nasty nail reminded me of the risk, frustration, and pain this SOB caused me.

My wife saw me getting upset when I found it. And, she was upset too. But then, then she reminded me of a Ted Lasso quote from Sam’s dad (Ola) that I had to go look up later to get right,

OLA: Anger will only weaken you. If you really want to piss off the people who did this, forgive them. Forgive them. Big whoop. … Don’t fight back. Fight forward.

It had to be the Nigerian connection, but ever since that moment, I’ve had Burna Boy stuck in my head (FYI: Sam and Ola, the characters, are Nigerian - this is just the way my brain works). My lived experience, my wife’s reminder of the Ted Lasso bit, and then my own ADHD - they all work together these days. When people turn on you, when the ugly in life turns up, don’t fight back, fight forward.

“Pree Me” is a song about friends turning on you. It’s a song about fight forward. The expression, pree, basically means previewing or considering or stalking, and maybe more accurately, pre-judging something in anticipation of an action or opportunity. When he’s talking about people like, “dem a pree me,” he’s saying they’re stalking him to take advantage, and over a very danceable beat, he’s telling them why they can’t.

My rusty nail reminder, dem ah pree me too. I was a mark and just didn’t realize it at the time. I made myself easy to take advantage of, and I was, until I made it stop. A reminder doesn’t invite it back in. Forgiving my own past but not forgetting the scars, well, a lot of therapy and finding out who my friends are made all the difference in my life. Forgiveness isn’t amnesia, it’s a state of at peace awareness.

The hardest part about heartaches, of all varieties, is admitting they taught you something. Burna Boy wrestles with this as hard as Sam in Ted Lasso. I’ll trade none of my worst experiences in either.

Yes, I’m throwing those old, nail-busted shoes out when I find them in a box, but while those boots were made for walking, these feets are the ones doing the job, you know? Like Burna Boy and Sam (and Ola), I’ll keep watching who in my circles genuinely wants me to get somewhere, scarred by my former opposition, and understanding that enemies are just signs you’re on the right path, so long as you know, in your heart, that path is honest, fair, and noble.

Fighting forward is keeping it honest. Fighting forward is keeping it fair, to me and the people I love and want to protect. Fighting forward is keeping it noble, and never forgetting there’s a higher purpose I internally strive to rise towards, and that is out of the muck of small, petty, BS (of which there’s a lot of it, in all of our lives).

They can pree me now. They will, I’m sure. But I’ve learned a thing or two on this journey. Not the least of which being that I’m still on this journey. Forward.

And this is the energy I’m going to keep fighting forward with. When Burna Boy says,

But I wouldn’t change anything / Not even all of my bad luck

I feel it, in the sole of my shoes, and the depth of my soul.