Even I Don't Know

So, I've been missing in action because I met someone new and after the very first date I sort of moved in with him.

Sadly, it all comes to an end today and I don't even really wanna talk about it.

Moving on to other things, my best friend just sent me some pics of Britney Spears smoking a cigarette right next to her son Sean Preston as he so politely and childlike plays with the lighter and cigarettes.

This takes me to a flashback of when I was three. My parents were in the den and I was in their bedroom playing with the lighter which had a pretty palm tree on it and their Kool Filter Kings. Next thing they know their bedroom is on fire and their child is in the master bedroom on the other side of the item which is on fire. Yep. As usual here comes my dad with the S on his chest only to learn that I locked myself in the bathroom because I was scared that they would be angry with me. Yep that would be me: child full of mischief. Now Britney should know darn well that the courts just allowed her to have some rights to her kids though K. Fed has sole custody of the kids. Hmmm...I'm so not sure.

In other news, I was happy to visit the Essence website where Malinda Williams is chronicling her wedding planning. Check it out sometime at essence.typepad.com! I am so excited to check it out.

Moreover, about this new man in my life. He's fab. He's a little older than me and has some extra life experience which is always great. Likes R. Kelly, loves lazy nights in, movies, and let's me have bubble baths plus he makes me smile and laugh all the time.

Just a reminder for everyone to check out CNN's Black in America: Women and Children tomorrow night featuring Soledad O'Brien! It's supposed to provide an intimate look at being black in America so everyone will know what we go through on a daily basis I can't wait!

Strange time slot though, it's going against such black shows like Family Foreman, Run's House and Tyler Perry's House of Payne. I am excited to see all FOUR shows. I am going to catch everything and give a report.

The Road to Hell

Is paved with good intentions. Now I have a man whom I love more than anything. He is plagued with so many problems that it does not make sense. Is it fair? No. Definitely not because he's a good man. I love him, as Pablo Neruda would say, as certain dark things are to be loved between the shadows and the soul. Sometimes being with him and being without him is like being between a rock and a hard place. Sometimes it seems every time I open my mouth it is insulting to him. It hurts him. When he's like that I don't think he realizes that I am hurt too. He does not hear my heart when it cries out for him. Maybe he does I don't know. I want the absolute best for him. I always have. Somewhere in history I think we loved before. I was his queen and he was my king.

At this point, I am starting to think we have to go through the things. We've already been lovers and we were good at that. I was a good woman before him, a fabulous woman with him and now I still got his back and I'm learning to be his friend. Songs seem to fit my mood tonight.

Love is a part of our story.
Hate is a part of our story.
Making up. Breaking up.
It's all there.

We just have to learn to deal with it. I have told him before about my feelings. He knows how I feel...knows he's my heart. Understands my essence comes from him. He reads me as I do him and on some primal level we understand each other. Sometimes I feel that the love we have for one another is on such an odd plane that even we cannot comprehend it. It's that unselfish kind of love, the kind of love that makes you wanna do what is best for the other person, even though it is crushing you. It is putting up with their bullsh*t because you know they will put up with yours. Then, at the end of the day you can go to bed and wake up knowing that you've accomplished something you've made them feel loved. When they lay down at night they know you're gonna be there the next day. Sometimes they things you go through are little things. Things that you can move past that day. Sometimes it takes a week, sometimes a month. And like I said before, you don 't learn that someone loves you in between the sheets (or wherever you do things) but you learn it when you feel like you're in hell and that person is there with you. They don't leave you. They go with you. They take your pain and hold it in their hearts. The funny thing is you don't have to go out of your way to make them feel your pain. They feel it anyway. They see it on your face and they hear it in your voice. When they sleep, they sleep with your burdens and dream of a day when they can be fixed. I just don't know what to say other than the fact I am in love with someone whose mind is so burdened he sometimes feels like he can't go on. He loves me, I know that, but how can I go on everyday in happiness with a smile knowing he feels miserable?

I can't.
I have to.
It's hard.
I pray for perfect peace for both us.

-Peace Destroyed

I don't even know where to start...

I have so many things I want to blog about...every time I take a breath there's something else to blog about!

I guess I should start with where I left off yesterday...I ended mentioning Martin Luther King...but where I was going with that was the following:

People keep comparing Michelle Obama's class and style to Jackie O...Now I love me some Kennedy anything, BUT what about comparing her to the wonderful Coretta Scott King?

Here's a black woman who endured so much pain during her life because her husband was one of the front runners for the civil rights which so many of us take for granted today.

Well, here's what I think: if you are going to compare a strong black woman to anyone you should probably compare her to another strong black woman in history. Someone who, if she were alive, would rejoice in what is going on, who would give advice on everything from how to decorate the White House to fashion choices and even how to stand by him when he messes up (yep...Martin messed up). Kinda reminds me of what Jackie O did for Hillary as she moved into the White House in 1992. Someone tell me you can see the connection I am trying to make here. :) Anyways that's that.

Furthermore, I attended church last evening for Bible Study. I really enjoyed everything that the women's group discussed as well as the general Bible Study. It was my first time setting foot in the church and they were all so welcoming and nice. I learned that I must be obedient to God and his will. Also any trials and tribulations that we go through can come from many different places, we just have to be prepared for all of them. The pastor also said something which warmed my heart....he said many of us think someone loves us because of things that don't really matter. "You don't find love on a hot July night under the sheets, you find it when you go through things and that person stands by your side". He is absolutely right. I know for a fact that I found love when my health was not what it should have been. The love of my life stood by my side through my problems and I am going to stand by him during his regardless. That's what Coretta would have done. In fact, that's what she did. She stood by Martin no matter what he did. She stood by him no matter what things he might have done or been accused of. Yep-that's the kinda woman I'd like to be. I have to say it is difficult sometimes, because you want to put yourself behind them.

I don't know why I feel like that but I seem to always feel as though it is my job and duty to stand behind those I love. Even when it isn't easy. I agree when the going gets tough the tough get going. In my time being loved the way I should have been along I have been told so many things that I cannot believe. I have learned my worth. It is far more than that of diamonds or pearls. It cannot even be described. I think when you realize this, lose it and realize it again, then and only then are you well on your way to learning you...being flawed and trying to fix it.

So even when you totally mess up and hurt everyone around you, especially those you love the most you never, ever lose your sense of being a good woman. You learn that you are and trials will always happen you just have to know when to ask for help. In other words, know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em...and I can't even play poker ;)

-In Peace and Joy

Learning to Be You...

I recently read an article discussing Michelle Obama's experience as an undergrad at Princeton. The article details how her white roommate's mother was enraged at the thought of her daughter having to live with a black woman on a campus which up until very recently had been mostly segregated. But Michelle Obama never let that get her down. She has not visited Princeton's campus since she graduated and later went to Harvard to gain her law degree. But how do you separate yourself from the general racial views of your specific institution of higher learning?

First check out the article about Mrs. Obama.

Being that for the majority of my life I have attended predominantly Caucasian schools I can definitely attest to the each institution's need to help white students over blacks. I cannot think of more than two things put on a campus specifically for us and if it is there it is something we have to constantly fight for. Nothing is ever designed for us and our direct benefit.

Which brings to me to a situation currently happening at my institution. There is something there for the benefit of minority students. It has existed almost four years. It took twenty years to get it and now the administration wants to hide it. Hide it or hide the colored faces that peep at you from the full glass windows. Now...if the students take a stand..I mean really work toward getting it together and coming to the administrators and say we don't think this is right why ignore them? You get their tuition dollars too! Yet, if a white girl told you she did not feel comfortable with something you'd blanket the entire campus with it and make everyone feel that pain.

Let's not forget that in any given academic year how many racial incidents can happen. At this particular institution there have been numerous racially charged incidents. HUGE incidents...yet and still they still have no plans to stop these incidents. There was even an incident involving a benefactor for which they escorted him out, sent a ridiculous e-mail and that was that. Yet you want to get rid of something that benefits multi-racial and inter-cultural students? I think not.

Furthermore, we have always had to conform to what they think is the standard of beauty is. We have straightened our hairs, some have even bleached their skin, or slimmed the width of their noses. I saw we no longer have to do that. We can just wash and go...just as they do-straight, curly, kinked. Our skin is beautiful...cafe au lait, bronzed, chocolate, so dark almost purple does not matter. We're all beautiful. Just because we're not exactly what they want does not mean that we are not what we should be.

Everything has to be exactly as they think. Not until this year has a magazine devoted itself solely to black beauty. Italian Vogue is featuring all black models...what a blessing in 2008. Forty years after Dr. King's death...which brings to my next post...

-In Harmony

Mhm...

I am watching this play on BET right now. Now before people start tripping out on me their Sunday afternoon plays are often very good. It's about three couples and the men who just don't have their act together. Now a new man moves into the complex and manages to charm all the women making them all feel special in a very unique way. Now one of the women asked him he has a better half. And he tells her no, because the way he sees it a whole man deserves a whole woman. Because if you are a half and something happens to the other half then you become a quarter and in his mind there's not a whole lot a man can get for a quarter in this day and time. First off, I hope I got the math right and secondly I think he is right. As a woman, I don't mind being that complementary part but I don't know if I am going to sit there and be supplementary. I just don't think I want be a half. I wanna be a whole. I wanna be something so complete and fly on my own that when something is missing I can put my finger on it and I know, on my own, how to fix it. Now that said...I also want to be so whole on my own that when I need to give to that special man I can. I can give to him without it being taxing to me. If something is wrong with baby, then yeah something is wrong with me, but does that mean that I have to crawl up in a big ol' ball and cry? I don't think so. It means i have to stand firm and flat-footed. I will support him, but what I am not gonna do is be his momma and bandage all his boo-boos.

Now yesterday on a blog that I like I read this little thing about how to please a woman. Yes! You have to love her, wine her, dine her, excite her, you know like the Christmas Victoria's Secret commercials...give her everything she wants and nothing she needs. Now every now and then women need to feel like that. We need to feel like you give us what we need everyday, so then you give us what we want.

Finally I got a little question...is a good woman more like a house or a car...I'll answer that later or tomorrow.