Men and not quite men

"I'm hard to love, I'm hard to love. I don't make it easy. I wouldn't do it if I stood where you stood."

Am I hard to love? Some days it seems like that but I am not.  I am fortunate that in these moments I can reflect on Manyo or De or Hodge or  Niume. I am not hard to love, I have plenty of evidence.  I'm easy to love. I'm hard to hang on to. So is that me or is that you?

I read a statement the other day where a man was quoted as saying that he would never propose to a woman.  He would wait for her to bring it up and go with the plan. I was told the other day that a friend's crush wouldn't pursue her because she had physically experienced other men and he would always worry that he couldn't measure up. I have been told that as much as my past makes me interesting it's "too much" to handle. Huh? All of it- huh?

I'm trying not to make generalizations like- men these days are wack.  Maybe just those men are wack. I don't know, I was raised surrounded by men who were not afraid. My white dad married my black mom with 3 kids. I don't understand a man who doesn't have enough love in his heart to love the kids too.  In my estimation that's not a man. My uncles married my aunts. Women strong and full of attitude. They, the uncles, are quiet and laid back. They don't talk purposelessly but when they speak, my aunts shut up. I don't understand a man that couldn't handle a strong independent woman. In my mind that man isn't a man. My cousins can pull women like the masses inhale oxygen but they all eventually end up with one that has the strength to hold them down. To me a man understands the value of one woman vs collecting them by the handful. That's easy. A player isn't a man.

I go into the world with these examples of what a man is and I am disappointed with the ones I observe. I am not hard to love. I'm hard to hold on to. 'Cause I'm going to run and if you can't run faster I will leave you in the dust.  And then be relieved that I dodged the bullet of an unworthy challenger. Or if I'm feeling kind I will point you in the direction of a nice watered down version of me. One that you won't feel intimidated by. One that is easy and won't run. I will smile and be glad I made it out of the foxhole to run another day.

So then what? Well then I change Pandora from the love songs of Chrisette Michele, India Arie and Alicia Keys to Common, Mof Def, Talib Kweli and Pharcyde. Stop my sway, get my boogie on and keep it pushin.

Here's to the chase. To the victor goes the spoils.

Dewb

Nuclear Families

Some days my life dictates that I be surrounded by nuclear families. I realized yesterday how painful that is for me.

I remember vividly at one point while married being surrounded by nuclear families and thinking, "Thank God.  I finally fit in." My marriage was painful. Our lives were falling apart around our ears but that one thing seemed to make it all worth it. That's crazy right?

Somehow it hit me only yesterday that people get married so that they don't have to be lonely. They have a guaranteed plus 1 for life's adventures. In the predictable and predetermined there is stability. There is a constant.  Maybe I'm nuts or a bit slow but it never occurred to me that that was the whole point of marriage. I now understand why marriage has been a challenge for me. Even alone I'm not lonely. Ergo my nature defeats the purpose of the institution. Maybe that's a cause for celebration. Maybe that's a cause for tears. Maybe it's a curse. Maybe it's a gift. Usually it feels like a gift- like I'm a bird and the sky is my limit.

The only time it feels horrible is when I'm surrounded by nuclear families. To be real I don't envy their marriages. I don't. Marriage is one of those things that when the stars align and the moon is in the right place it is fantastic.  The rest of the time it is... is - well, work. Some people look at it and see romantic possibilities but one womanizer plus one alcoholic later and I'm disillusioned.  I am jaded but not bitter.

The thing that I hate the most about being surrounded by nuclear families is that it is clear that I missed the "in need of life partner" gene.  I'm a hybrid. Less gas, less maintenance, vastly complicated. Most days I am grateful. When surrounded by nuclear families I can't help but feel like a bit of a circus side show attraction.

Oddity- Successful Single Mom whose kids like her, has a interesting career, speaks multiple languages, is emotionally together, financially stable, physically attractive, spiritually balanced and happy. Look now before she realizes that she really is a freak and disappears. P.S. Hide your husbands.

Lol. That's funny. But that's how it feels.  Like I should apologize for my life. Like I should apologize for not wanting to fit the mold, for not even understanding the mold. I mean seriously- who has time for mold?

They do I guess. Me, I'll take my sky.

Then I get the comm-estions.  The poking and prodding to see if the oddity has an achilles heel. "Wow! You must have so much more energy than everyone else." Read: obviously you have a disability like ADD or ADHD to get so much done. "Well your Son, HE'S doing really well." Read: You can only get one kid right.  Probably your daughter is a mess. "So whatever happened with that one guy??" Read: Yeah, you can get a man but you can't keep one. "I would love to travel/explore/shop/ go out like you do but my husband would never let me!" Read: you may be free but I got a man. Ha! I win.

Fortunately I have fielded these questions long enough to know how to answer them well. "No, I just have a really good schedule." Read: Really?! You waste how many hours a day on Social Media?? You DO realize that life happens in real time right? "Yeah, they're good kids." Read: My daughter plays her hand close to her vest, like her mother.  She must really not like you. Note to self- ask her why. "Which guy?" Read: Lol- your facial expression is funny. Thought you had it. No, you don't know anything about my life. "Ah that's so sweet, obviously he loves you a lot." Read: if that's a win you need- take it. Keep it. You'll be busy thinking about what you can't do and I'll be busy doing it. P.S. Even if you were dead 1,000 years I wouldn't look twice at your husband. My tastes run to the elusive and elite. Birds of a feather and all.

Possible solution- When life dictates that I land amidst the mold makers I will remember to look up and feel good in knowing within a short time I will be aloft. Other possible solution- after living through the circus act call single friends and go out. Fumigate the mold. Move to Club Med.

Bleh. Time to shake it off.  Fresh air here I come.

A

A Rant on Double Standards

I am many things: loud, opinionated, competitive, stubborn, hot- headed. But I am not a hypocrite. Some nights I blog because I am not sure what I need to say.  Some nights I am unsure of whom I need to say it to.  Some nights I blog because I really want to tell someone about themselves and I can't because my razor sharp tongue will fillet you when provoked and I'm trying to be a better person. Tonight is one of those nights.

It started where it usually starts when I get really pissed off- Facebook. (I bemoan the fact that I still have a Facebook.  Let's just not talk about it.)  I was on Facebook doing what I do and I came across a post.  It was a post of a bunch of kids, all under 10, and they were being presented with different dolls. One black, one white. Same mold, same clothes. They were asked which was the "good" doll, "pretty" doll, "bad" doll, "mean" doll etc. Anyone well read can guess the results.

Time and time again the clips were shown of the kids saying that the positive traits were associated with the white dolls and the negative traits were associated with the black dolls. I want to go on record as saying that I have taken enough statistics classes to know that you can make any set of numbers support your theory. Ergo, who knows what clips were edited out.  I saw no numbers, just sad clips. But whatever.  The reality is that the societal image of beauty does overwhelmingly look one way.  Any Black or Brown or Beige girl can tell you that.  Said person went on the say, "This is a serious problem."

The thing that pissed me off is that the person that posted this has an affinity for the cultural norm of European beauty. And he is not European (I won't say where he's from but it rhymes with Pafrica, and I ain't talking American Black). Now look- love who you love but be real about it. You can't on one hand say that it's a serious problem that kids value the standard of white European beauty when you also choose that standard. A standard strikingly different from what you happen to be.

It's a double standard.

I am EOE. I was told I am a "connoisseur of all things male" and that is a factual statement. I find beauty in them all. But I am raising a boy and a girl- and we have many conversations about the complexities of race and stereotypes and what the media sells as beauty and what makes a person really beautiful. I try to help them to see that the right person will see their value and they in turn should see beauty in all different flavors. I'm getting off topic....

If said person had not implicitly told me that while they find all women attractive they "really like White women" I wouldn't be angry.  I don't begrudge them their choice. I begrudge them the right to appear to reject a stereotype that they buy into. That's asinine.

I really can't stand a hypocrite.

Said person might or might not still read my blog.  If you do- well I imagine you're about as pissed off as I was.  But seriously- take the post down.

You have no right.

A

Journey

"Life is a journey, 

Not a destination, 

There are no mistakes, 

Just chances we've taken

Lay down your regrets cause all we have is now."

-India Arie

We are told, emphatically and often, that life is a journey.  We all logically believe this. Yet we usually act in the polar opposite direction. I have had a lot of time to think during my life reset.  Think about who I am. Think about what I want. Think about what I don't want. Think about what parts of myself I've lost touch with. Think about what parts of myself that I needed to leave behind.  I have done a massive amount of thinking.

I think that my conclusions have boiled down to something simple. That the above is true. And that I can't be afraid to live as if the above is true. A journey is defined as an act of traveling from one place to another. Synonyms are an expedition, excursion, trek, jaunt, wandering or odyssey. How many of us actually think about our lives as an expedition? We don't. We are in a rush to get to a place. To achieve a status- relationship status, parental status, economic status, professional status. We are sold the fiction that once we achieve the status we get a golden key of happiness. The synonym for fiction is a lie. That is a lie.

We are told that both the journey and the destination are the means of happiness. But they are diametrically opposed so both can't be true.  I have achieved many status titles- Wife, Mother, Stylist, Teacher, Girlfriend, Director, Boss, Home Owner, Business Owner, Financial "stability". All of these roles in my life have been important but they do not, in and of themselves, make me happy. They are my fragments. They are the result of who I am because of what I have done. Where my journey has taken me.

I realized how easy it would be at this point of my life for my story to be written. I could easily slide into the epilogue of what is my story- with a great book already written. But that would mean that I have arrived at my destination.  That would mean that there are no more treks to be made and jaunts to be had. That would mean I'm ready to lay down and die. Obviously I'm not. 

That means that I have to, that I had to decide what I want my next segment to look like. I had to determine my expedition and prepare accordingly.  I think maybe that's why adults stagnate. The are afraid of the work of preparing for the next journey. After all a good expedition takes planning, maps, the right gear, the right knowledge and so on and so on.  As people age they are afraid to embrace the unknown. Arrogance really- to think that we have it so figured out. Or practicality- if I go back to school I have new student debt. If I move to a new land I have to sell my house and start a new mortgage. If I change anything it means I have to start over. However the term "to start over" indicates that you think you've finished and that goes back to the whole destination vs. journey mentality.

There are probably a type of person that wants the destination. That craves the stability and the predictable. That is content with working 5 days a week and gets excitement from yearly vacations. I hold no judgment against those type of people (unless they pretend to not want it when they really do- everyone should be honest with themselves). I simply am not one of them.

I am excited by what is next. And what is next after that. I am internally driven by the journey. All of this thinking has brought me back around to that. To the idea that my life will be that of an epic odyssey. An epic- used correctly. It is no surprise in retrospect that I was starting to feel smothered by my life. It had turned into a destination. 

So now what? Well- start preparing for the next adventure. Another synonym of journey is globe trotter. There is a lot of globe for me to cover.

I better get packing.

A

Life Reset

... and if my Son samples this I'm charging a royalty. Find your own inspiration. Millennials- ugh! ;)

I decided that I needed a life reset.  If you are old enough to remember when you needed to "reboot" your computer because it was crashing you'll remember that you needed to press 3 keys simultaneously and hold.  After a while your computer would unfreeze, shut down, then either re-start or you had to press the power button to turn it back on.  It was a manual override to an overload of information that had caused the computer to stop working.

I had a rather trying month.  Won't bore you with the details but I decided that like a frozen computer I needed to step back and - well at the time I couldn't think beyond breathing. It's funny how life can snowball on you with no encouragement on your part.  When you preform a computer reset you hit 3 keys.  A life reset dictates that you also hit those same 3 keys.

Control- When life starts to spiral it is a result of the fact that somewhere along the way you have lost your locus of control. And maybe you don't even realize it. The job you took starts demanding more and more of your soul. The relationship you are in decides they want a deeper investment. The toys that you bought can't play with themselves.  The friends that you have can't function without your input. These things start to crowd each other and eventually overlap. Their sides bumping and pushing and layering over each other until the part of you that is uniquely you loses her voice. Loses her space. She is no longer the driver but a passenger being billowed about by the whims of the demands that are asked of her. A life reset demands that you take back control of your time, your choices, your financial/physical/emotional investments and take stock.  You have to coax your voice back out from the layers and then wait patiently while she remembers how to speak.

Alt(ernative)- As you are taking back control you have to start looking at alternatives. There is a reason that your life spiraled as it did.  In order to avoid a repetitious cycle you need to be open to different paths.  A true life reset is not a life break or a vacation.  You don't walk away just to pick it all back up.  You make changes which take unconventional thinking and the ability to embrace alternatives. I think in life we may convince ourselves that our path is set in stone and it must look one way.  This is a fallacy. We have as much or as little choice as we determine.  Gifted with free will, especially in this country, the choice is ours for the choosing.  Catch is  you have to be willing to ante up and pay the cost. There is no magic bean. No life algorithm that equals success.  There are cliques that people like but only because it makes them feel safe. Cliques like "Beggars can't be choosers" or "Time heals all wounds" or "Everything happens for a reason." These things are simply not true.  In life no one story has to be your story. You get to ditch the script and take up pottery whenever you want.  You just have to be brave enough to leap into the abyss of alternatives.

Delete- I mean, right? How often in life do we purge our homes, our cars, our closets?  Why don't we purge our lives?  Maybe it's because we feel guilt for acknowledging that we have outgrown a relationship or career or hobby or status. We think that since our past has shaped us we owe it a shrine, even when it's draining us. Why? A life reset necessitates a deletion of things that no longer serve a purpose.  Ouch right?  But don't be hasty. That teddy bear that you have from 1992 does serve a purpose.  It reminds you of a lighter more innocent time.  You can't help but remember all of the tears that it's soaked up and you know in the back of your mind that if push comes to shove you'll pull it out to cry in again. Some things in our lives serve a covert purpose, one known only to ourselves, and that's ok.  I'm talking about the things that serve absolutely no purpose- or that require more time, energy, and effort than they are valued at.  The things that drain. They need to be deleted.  Why? Because they're using data and are bogging up the whole system. No one needs that. Hitting delete takes courage though. Deleted things do not go quietly into the night.  They beg and whine- try to induce guilt.  You have to carefully weigh what you want to delete and then keep that button pressed.

As with a computer reset a life reset only works if you hit all three buttons and hold on for a bit. Yet it does seem to work. I am a few weeks into my life reset and the clarity that I have stumbled across is astounding. The sleep alone has been worth it.  Do any of us realize how tired we all are? How intently under pressure? How much what we feel like we should do causes us to do what we don't want to do? Gotta step back man. Gotta fight back.

I can't say that I've found any answers, actually that's not true.  I have. A lot. I think that what I didn't realize was that in some cases the right answers don't match the questions.

So you have to throw the questions out.

A

The blackest parts of the night

There are days when you get that feeling.  The one that feels like your throat is closing and something is sitting on your chest and your eyes tingle then burn.  Some days are like that. All you can do is wait for it. Wait for it to resolve. Wait for the sun to come back up. Wait for the silver lining to appear. All you can do is hang on to hope.

Hope is a rather elusive thing.  It's a mindset really.  In order to have hope you can't have yet attained the thing that you are wishing for.  It has to be just beyond your grasp. Maddening, that. Many times the things that you hope for deflate.  And you have to console yourself in knowing that there is still something else to hope for. It seems to be a paradox. Can't have what you want.  Have to find something else to want. If I had more energy it would anger me.

But I don't. Instead I will sit on my hands and curl into a ball and try very hard not to move until the sun comes back up.

At the same time...

Coulda been worse

Sometimes

Sometimes my words get stuck. Like too many people trying to enter the elevator at once or exit it.  They bottleneck themselves and adhere to an all or nothing free flow policy.

Sometimes some of the best stories are best left untold. Sometimes they can't be trivialized or marginalized or shrunken down into two dimensional characters created by 84 keys. Many of my best stories make their appearances only in my mind, in the moments between my sleep and my wake.

There is something to be said for the sacredness that is born of knowing a thing by touching a thing. I could describe the smell, the texture, the look, the color in vivid detail.  But some things demand more honor than that. Some things deserve no less than to be experienced.

I have a box at home. I call it my box of special things. The box itself was a gift and through my life I have added things to the box that I intrinsically value.  I open the box periodically.  Handle each thing.  Allow myself to remember all of the moments I've lived that have made my life uniquely special. Then with love and care I put them back.

Sometimes I do that with my words. I am verbally stingy with the things that matter the most.

Interesting side note- on more than one occasion I have had people that know me say, "What?! I didn't know you were _____!  I didn't see that in your blog." I find that humorous.  My blog is not my leather bound. It's my space to vent, my echo. Much like FaceBook isn't the proper venue to play out your relationship. It's cyber space.  Life happens in real time.

I think this point in time is one of those sometimes. These words have gotten stuck because they know that they hold a value too deep to be relegated to an echo of an abyss. They know that if they get shared, when they get shared, they would be allowed to breathe the same air of you and I.  The kind that carries energy and life and love and laughter. The kind that is only gifted in real time.

Therefore my stories move on.

Dewberry