How I Got Over

5 09 2010

You want to begin at the beginning?* I had a car accident today. Rear ended a lady. And to Oprah’s pleasure, I wasn’t on the phone. Lots of brake slamming in front of me, plus general traffic. Just an accident. I’m fine. They’re fine. The cars are mostly fine. Those things happen.

But it shook me a little. I’m calm by nature in those types of situations. I called my insurance company and had them email me a new proof of insurance. I called my dad and we talked a bit. When the officer finally got there, he asked me what happened and I said “Well, I hit her.” It wasn’t until afterward, once I had a sweet tea and few minutes alone, that I came up with my lesson.

I really tried to brake. I’ve actually never had an accident before. But physics wasn’t on my side. I slid into the obstacle. The analogy is consistent with my life. I’ve been staring at the reality of my 30th birthday for a while now. A few months ago, I came to terms with the fact that even though I haven’t done some of the things I thought I’d do by now, I’m still going to turn 30, if the Lord says the same. I’m going to slide into that obstacle despite my attempts to alter the course or slow things down. It’s not really an obstacle. I don’t mind getting older. It’s kind of exciting. But it’s different than I thought it would be.

So what am I going to do? Well, I’m going to work on doing some of the things I wanted to accomplish. I’m going to set some new, revised goals. And I’m going to forget about some of them because they weren’t any good for me. Slowly, but surely, I’ll revise my life. That’s the way this story goes, I think: a constant draft, always in need of revision.

Do you know what today is? I used to say it was my birthday too, but it isn’t. My birthday is in November and this is just another day. That’s how I know I’m getting over.

You know what else? As much as I’ve grown tired of my pursuit of a M.Ed., I did my homework today. I read a book. I’m kind of close now to just stop. That too is how I know I’m getting over.

I guess all I’m saying is that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, in a lot of ways. And that is something to be thankful for.

(*Basically, I’ve made the decision to take punkchu8.com in a new direction and write it as a personal blog. I’m still going to be writing other things and posting them at my other blog, modernjuncture.com, but I thought that it would be good to have a place to muse on this situation I’m currently in. Which is my life. I promise to change the identifying details. )


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Him and Me and You and Her – And that might be okay.

29 04 2010

So I’m not sure that men and women are meant to be monogamous.

What I mean is that I’m not entirely sure that’s the way we’re designed to be, nor am I sure it’s the most productive relationship structure for our day and time.

(Before I go into my reasoning here, understand that I’m not out to change anyone’s mind on the subject and I’m not really trying to argue about it either, though I don’t mind discussion. I like to think that I’m able to challenge my own conventional wisdom and that’s really the only thing I ever hope to do. Everyone has to find their own truth in the world. I’m just trying to formulate mine. It might change, so chill out and take it for what it is. )

In the animal world, very few mammals are truly monogamous, that is to say they only mate with one partner for the whole of their lives. There are many that mate with several other animals for a variety of reasons which include security and natural instinct. We like to think we’re so different from animals, but in many ways, we aren’t. Our natural desires can and often do lead us to become attached, emotionally and sometimes physically, to more than one person in the span of our lives. Because we’re dynamic individuals, we change and our needs change. It might not be reasonable to expect one person to fulfill our needs from the time we meet them until we die. We should also consider that we might not be everything all the time to them. We can accept that people are dynamic individuals that grow and change, but oddly, we expect our relationships to remain static and then we wonder why they aren’t working out. We say things like, “It’s natural to look. It’s even natural to flirt” and many of us can accept that about our partners, but feel as though it’s unnatural to act. In nature, they’re usually one and the same.

It’s become a forgone conclusion that some people are just going to get divorced. Instead of seeing marriage as a commitment that is perhaps mutable, we often view it as disposable. Oftentimes it’s not that the couple doesn’t love each other anymore. Maybe their interests and desires changed and their partner’s didn’t or they just found someone else to love too.  Perhaps this why you sometimes see people marry, divorce and remarry the same person. Because monogamy limits what you can do as far as seeking attention, affection and companionship from other people, divorce is often the only option. But divorce is a severing of bonds and too often the devastation of a family. If we viewed relationships as dynamic, there wouldn’t be as much of a need to sever bonds, but there would be an opportunity to loosen the ropes.

I wrote before about how if something has legs, it can walk. We don’t own anything or anyone. Every day, your partner makes a choice to be with you. Some people say marriage makes it a mandate and that’s why they avoid getting married. They want to make the choice to stay every day. But I say it doesn’t matter. Ask a married person who’s husband or wife went out for cigarettes and never came home – even married people have a choice. However, the idea of monogamy, the way that we often practice it, assumes a type of ownership – a possessiveness if you will. Because we see our partner as our property, it’s hard to think about someone else having what’s ours, or even that they have a choice in where they want to be. But we have so many different qualities as people that are attractive and attracting, that I’m not sure we can look at it that way.

If we were truly meant to be monogamous, I’m not sure we could love another person after we’d met the one for us. But clearly, we can. Some people fall in love 3 or 4 times in a lifetime. What makes you think it’s unlikely it will happen while a person is already in a relationship? While it’s true that some people fall out of love too, most people have someone they will always love. What if you could be in a relationship with that person, but still experience love and closeness and companionship with another person?

I’m not suggesting that people go around cheating. That’s not honest and loving relationships are built on honesty and trust. I’m suggesting that instead of making it a capital offense that your husband has an “office wife”, maybe you can respect that relationship and allow it to grow. On the same line, a husband could respect and allow a woman to have a male companion that meets needs that he might not at that time. It doesn’t mean the two don’t love each other, it’s just that you need different things at different times and different people can provide that.

People generally refer to this as polyamory or polygamy, if you’re married. It differs from polygyny and polyandry in that both the man and the woman in the relationship can exercise the option to have a relationship with other people.  I think that’s important to note, because while some people tout polygyny as the answer to the single woman/ single motherhood problems of the world, I think women are just as apt to need more that one relationship to fulfill them as men are. I think that different models would work for different relationships and different times in life. While I might not be interested in maintaining two relationships myself while I have young children, having a co-wife around might relieve some of my stress because my husband wouldn’t have to depend solely on me for the things he needs while I’m also caring for children. On the same token, I might just need someone else to lean on if my husband is putting a lot into providing for our family, but doesn’t have the time I’d desire to spend with me.

I don’t think it is for everyone. I think that many, if not most, people are going to be happy with one person forever, the end. But I also know that there are a great number of people who aren’t necessarily  happy, so they go out and lie and cheat and mislead their partner, a person who they love, because there isn’t an acceptable way to express the desire to be wanted or needed by other people. I don’t believe anyone really wants to hurt the people they truly love, but I also think that people shouldn’t be boxed into a relationship that they don’t want to discard, but that they need to supplement, without a reasonable, mutually agreed upon way to do so.

Marriage as a culmination to a romantic life is almost an American idea. In many parts of the world, a marriage seen as more of a stop along the journey. In fact,  Murdock’s Ethnographic  Atlas supports that of 1231 societies in the world, a whopping 588 practiced polygamy regularly with another 486 practicing a more occasional form of polygamy or polyamory. I’m not saying they’re right and we’re wrong, I’m just saying that it makes me think that maybe we’re missing something.

Now, I know it seems like I can say all this because I’m so very single and perhaps I just haven’t met the one person I want to spend the rest of my life with. Maybe. But I also am willing to admit that I’ve been in love with more than one person at a time. Just like I love both peanut butter cookies and chocolate chip cookies, I loved them both. There were different things about them that I loved and still love. It would be nice to have both in my life. I’m a Scorpio, I have to fight possessive urges, but I think I’d be able to do it if there were a mutual understanding and a solid relationship to begin with. I guess, to me, that’s the key. If someone is really “yours” ( and I use that term with so much caution) they will return home to you strengthened and renewed to love you more. And if you really belong to them, you’ll do the same. You can’t get to this point without a very solid relationship and that might take a long time. But when you get there, I don’t see a real reason that you can’t enjoy time with other people.

____________________________________________________________________________________

I’d be remiss not to mention Kenya K. Steven’s Jujumamablog:  www.jujumamablog.com Kenya and her husband have a fascinating story and it helped me solidify some of the ideas I was already working on.

Ethnographic Atlas Codes – http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/~drwhite/worldcul/Codebook4EthnoAtlas.pdf

Deflating the Myth of Monogamy -http://www.trinity.edu/rnadeau/fys/barash%20on%20monogamy.htm


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Introspect

6 04 2010

I looked in the mirror recently and saw the years creeping onto my face, settling comfortably, unlike my soul. I still look like myself, but I also look older and smarter and more graceful. When, I wonder, will that gracefulness translate itself into the clumsy situation that I call my life. Up until recently, I felt I spent a lot of time stumbling through the days and weeks trying to connect invisible dots. Not knowing what you’re supposed to be doing makes it difficult to know when you’ve accomplished the goal. I spent quite a while looking for someone or something to tell me what I was supposed to be, who I was supposed to be and how I was supposed to get there. It feels ludicrous to type that. It seems like an absurd thought that I sought an answer for questions so personal anywhere but in myself. But I did.

I don’t have all the answers. You’re looking at the wrong blog for that. If anything, I have more questions than anything. The only difference is that I know the answers to my most burning questions aren’t anywhere but inside of me. Perhaps they lie dormant and my task is to learn how to activate the knowledge of self that’s encoded in my being, my mind and my spirit. Seriously. I’m of the mind that we come with all we need, if we just would learn how to access it. We are intuitive creatures, we can sense so many things if we let ourselves. We know when to be afraid or when to be excited. Most of the time, we know when things feel wrong or right, if we’re being honest. No one teaches you that, you just know it. I think that some of the deepest questions about ourselves, we know the answers to as well. Maybe we ignore a lot of what we know for the sake of getting along or making things go more smoothly, but we know, inside, what’s going on.

I wish I had more answers today. All I seem to have is questions I’m too afraid to answer for myself. On one hand, I want to know. On the other, I already know and I want to pretend I don’t.


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Love Thang…

9 11 2009

LoveThang – Brittany Bosco – http://brittanybosco.bandcamp.com

You and I have bad news for one another.


To think that I’m not going to be with you forever is sad. I don’t know how to express that to myself, but this seems the best way. Our time together has ended and now it’s all staring at the walls on either sides of the bed and waiting to see who’ll move first. Literally and emotionally.


Oh, Gladys. You’re so right.


We keep holding on to hang on. Is that the way to live? Maybe it’s just me. It’s probably just me. See, I’m different than you. I’m in love with you. That’s the way I try to rationalize my own feelings. You can’t understand because you don’t really love me. It’s a lie though. I can’t be a martyr in this situation. You love me too and we’re both dying. We have made a hobby of protracting the pain of letting one another go. As much as we’d like to be done with each other, familiarity and loneliness draw us in. And we’re back to back in bed once more, wondering how we got here again, but comforted by the fact that we are indeed here again.


I didn’t think it would be like this. I love you, so maybe I just assumed it would work itself out. But I’m getting older. I want things you don’t want. And you were honest. You said honestly that you didn’t think you ever would. But I’m comfortable. Like an old pair of underwear with a hole. You know you should do something better, but these are already broken in. We have broken each other in. I’m guilty too. I could go find someone I don’t know. Someone who might learn me and my ways, but I already know you. The thing is, I also know you don’t want to learn me or my ways. We keep each other at a safe distance, divulging as much as we think the other needs to know. I think you need to know that I love you and you think I need to know your favorite song. There is no blame in this; I knew what it was.


The Dramatics were right too, I guess.


This can’t go on. I’ve changed and you’ve changed. You don’t even look at me the same anymore. I am, in many ways, sweeter than ever. Your body lets me know this, but you look at me like a stranger. And I’m starting to wonder who you are too. There will never be room in your world for me. Not at night. Not in the morning. Not in the afternoon. It’s novelty though, rolling around like we did when we were young and this was new. As soon as I hug you goodbye, I remember. We’re not young anymore and what we do isn’t real anymore. We can change positions all we want, it’s not changing a thing. We’re still on opposite sides of a chasm.


I run the risk of sounding angry when I’m not. I used to be. But, years ago, when I couldn’t figure out which one of us I was upset with, I let it go. Now, I’m just trying to find a way out my heart’s maze. It should be easy; you’re there and I’m here. It’s not like we have to be together. We don’t have any children linking us. I want something else for myself, but when I see what’s out there, I’m discouraged. I push you away and come running back when my heart starts to ache. You push me away, but you come back too. How can we be friends but not lovers when I’m always going to love you? That’s my riddle. I guess you’ll have to figure out your own.


Habari Gani?


We’re not going to see each other again, not like this. That’s the news. I knew it while laying on my stomach and staring into the late afternoon. Now we can say we’ve done it all and seen it all. I expect to find out something earth shattering soon. You’re expecting a baby or getting married. Or maybe you’re just sick of me. And I may just be sick of you. That is the bad news. We have become two people who don’t need each other anymore. Or maybe, that’s the good news.


Love you, I do. Every night, I try to forget.


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Cram to Understand You…

1 09 2009

Ju-Just like a test, I cram to understand you.

People aren’t always going to understand you.

We spend a lot of time trying to make people understand us, though. Dream our dreams. Think our thoughts. See our vision. Sometimes others can get an idea about where you’re going. But often they won’t get it at all. They’ll shake their heads and smile blankly. And you know they don’t get it. So you’ll try to explain again. And again. And again.

Stop it.

Don’t stop believing in your vision, but stop trying to explain it to everyone. Because everyone’s not ready for what you’re about to do. The cold, hard fact is that some people couldn’t see your gift if you wrapped it in a box and put a big, red bow on it. It’s not always because they’re trying to be difficult. They’re just not ready. You can’t make them see it right now. Some people can see it and will act like they can’t because they wish they’d thought of it. You’re just making yourself frustrated – quit trying to make everyone a disciple and just go do it.

It’s comforting for people to tell us that they understand what we’re thinking because – in our minds – it means that we must not be crazy. We get scared when other people can’t grasp what we’re trying to do. But fear can be a powerful motivator. When you’re the only one who can make your ideas come to life, you cannot afford to lose. So you don’t. You surround yourself with people who can either ‘get it’ or can live with the fact that they don’t ‘get it’, but support you anyhow. And you launch your ideas into the stratosphere.

Your dreams are your own. Maybe they’re too big for others to imagine right now, but it costs the same to dream big as it does to dream small, so you might as well get the most bang for your buck. When it’s done, when the plans are perfected, when the world can finally see your vision come to life, it will be worth no one understanding right now. You might wish people could recognize all along how important it was or what a great idea you had, but in the end all that matters is that people receive it. And if it’s your gift, your true gift, people will have to receive it. It won’t be up to them. The Divine will make sure of it.


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On being true to yourself…

18 08 2009

Hey! There you are! I missed you!

Last summer, after a few years of being natural (and after a few months of an unintentionally low fade), I relaxed my hair. No one made me do it, I did it myself. I could chalk the decision up to being bored, but that really wasn’t it. No, I relaxed my hair because I didn’t think anyone would find me attractive with it natural. I hated that reason too; it sounded so vain. Who cares what people think, right? But it was definitely the truth. I convinced myself (my grandma helped!) I’d never meet anyone with a head full of naps and while it was a fun experiment, I’d better get back to some Optimum Care sooner than later.

Except, when I looked in the mirror after I’d done it, I didn’t feel like myself anymore. My hair was cute: short, silky, jet black. Just like it was when I headed off to college. It did look nice, I must admit. But I didn’t look or feel like myself. That was the old KaLeah staring back at me. I knew it wasn’t who I was anymore before I did it, but I thought that feeling would pass. It didn’t. I did go on a couple more dates. But they weren’t with anyone worth feeling altering my appearance for. The fact of the matter was that I woke up in the morning feeling like a phony. Not because of my relaxed hair, but because of why I’d relaxed my hair. Pretty soon, I was growing it out again.

Listen, this isn’t a post about why natural hair is better than relaxed hair. I don’t think that’s true anyway. I think the best hair for you is the hair you’re most comfortable with, whatever that is. (That choice is so personal. I hate it when people rail on and on about one being better than the other.) What this is about is being true to yourself and not making decisions based on how you think people will perceive you. When I look at pictures of my hair from 2 years ago, I can’t believe I cut all that cottony, nappy, fun to play with (yess!) hair off and relaxed it. And I can’t believe I let myself get caught up in what I thought people would think if I didn’t. At the end of the day, you have to do what’s right for you. Whatever that is. It’s true with most things in your life. That’s the moral of this story.

My grandma loves me to death and she doesn’t really like my hair, but in the end, she told me that you just have to be happy however you can. She’s 81; she ought to know. But I know, in her heart, she’s holding out for me to at least try a press and curl!



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Focus…

13 08 2009
When I’m looking at the news and I’m seeing the craziness going on at these health care town hall meetings, I can’t help but thinking about how unfocused this whole thing has become. Really, what’s at issue is that there are a lot of people who are uninsured or under-insured. There needs to be a way to make sure they have adequate healthcare. That’s all. People are getting all hamstrung about having their voices heard and that’s important. But I can’t help but think that the real issue is being forgotten about.

Sometimes we get so caught up in talking that we forget what we were talking about. It’s hard because when you care about something, emotions run high. But you can’t lose sight of what’s really important. That’s in anything you do. In my opinion, whether you’re talking about work or community interests or personal goals, losing focus is the number one obstacle to getting things done. I say this because people like me stop paying attention until we get back to the point.

When a meeting is going off the rails around me, you can bet that I’m going to try to get it back on course. My attention span is getting shorter as I age and I need us to get to the action quick.
If that’s not possible or permissible, I’m usually drawing a picture or something. Whenever we get back to the real issue, I’m ready to talk. But until then…

Personal focus is important too. I’m guilty of forgetting what’s important in my life and getting sidetracked with minor details. Everything can’t be on the front burner – that’s why there are back burners. Focusing on the end results of my real personal goals, and not that other stuff, helps me formulate a plan and not become discouraged with the sometimes seemingly insurmountable steps of the plan. A lot of times, focusing on the end result is the only thing that will keep you going.
My feelings about health care reform are not the topic of this post. If you really want to know, let me know and I’ll tell you. I already let my representatives know. The point is that productivity slows to a standstill when we forget what’s important. I’m not sure anyone even knows what the argument is about at these town hall meetings anymore. Enough fussing for the sake of fussing. Keeping in mind the importance of the issue, especially to the millions of people who are uninsured, would help people deal with one another with a lot more respect.

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…and you did it anyway?

11 08 2009
photo credit: artfulwisdom.blogspot.com
I’m a grown woman (see previous posts for more on that subject), but sometimes I do the most childlike things. Last night, I was up sick as a dog because I’d eaten something that I knew I wasn’t supposed to eat. As a matter of fact, I ate a whole lot of stuff I wasn’t supposed to eat – all weekend long. So all day yesterday I was feeling a little shaky and last night I was miserable. It would be one thing if I didn’t know that was going to happen. But I’ve had this issue since I was in college and this year I finally came up with a solution. So I knew that eating what I ate was going to make me ridiculously sick – and I did it anyway.

But how many times do we do that? The relationships we know aren’t any good for us, but we enter into them anyway. Commitments we can’t possibly keep or responsibilities we know we’re too overloaded for, but we agree to anyway. Things that are self destructive and counterproductive, but we justify them anyway. I think the key word here is ‘anyway’. What ‘anyway’ means is that the thing in question will happen at any cost – any way. Too often it ends up costing our sanity, our health and our relationships.

You can justify anything if you try hard enough. And sometimes there are good things to do, but we just aren’t in the position to do them at that time. But when you know you shouldn’t do something or you can’t accept a commitment to the best of your ability right now, don’t go doing it anyway. It won’t turn out the way you want it to. When your commitment is to give the best you’ve got, you have to make some tough choices. Some things might have to fall away so that you can give your best where you can. And if what you’re wanting to do ‘anyway’ is something you know better than to do, giving your best means giving it up completely. When you know better, you do better, right?

I apologize, tummy. I won’t let you down again.


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"I’m talking gift…"

7 08 2009

You did recognize the title, right? OutKast – Aquemini (from my senior year! Go ’99!)

“Your gifts make a way for themselves.” Dr. Michael Beckwith

For many people, discovering your gift isn’t the hard part. Maybe you can sing or cook or organize and you already know that. Others can usually see your gifts and are more than willing to point them out – especially when they would benefit from you putting your gift to work. I don’t think that’s the challenge for most people.

The challenge, for myself at least, is knowing the best way to share or put my gift to good use. You can choose many paths. Some are more self-serving (or appear that way, but maybe they really aren’t), some aren’t. I don’t think either is necessarily better than the other; you have to weigh that for yourself. If was a baker, I could choose to have a high end bakery and only sell to the people who could afford my fabulous tasty treats. Or I could only bake deserts for the hungry so that they could enjoy a tasty treat sometimes too. Or I could do both. The point is, I’d have to find the correct fit for my gift – the best way to manifest my gift, with guidance from the Divine.

There is a way to share whatever your gift is. Sometimes we don’t see it immediately, but when you search for it mindfully, you’ll come across it. Our purpose can’t be to watch the First 48 and eat granola all day. If it were, my purpose in life would be fulfilled already and I could just go on in. There’s more and when you figure out what your ‘more’ is, your job is to get to work doing it. Sharing your gifts with the world, when you’re doing it the way it’s meant to be done, is like wearing a tailored garment. Everyone has clothes that fit. Some fit really nicely. But when you get something tailored, it fits you. Perfectly. And even though things before were close, they don’t fit as well as a tailored piece. Your gift and it’s manifestation are made for each other. They fit one another perfectly.


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Jump with both feet…

3 08 2009

The video I really wanted couldn’t be embedded. (Jaguar Wright – The What Ifs)

But this will work. Just don’t take it too literally. No hidden messages – I send mine direct.

Recently, I did something I never thought I’d do. What it was isn’t important, but suffice to say, it was a big deal to me. I stepped out of my comfort zone and thought I was really making some big waves.

Let’s just say I barely made a ripple.

Sometimes you just have to do it – step out and see what happens. Maybe it will work and things will be all good. Maybe it won’t and you’ll be at home watching ‘Hitch’, wondering if you made a mistake. (Ahem.) But at the end of the day, you can’t always live your life safe. If you do, you’ll always wonder. What if I’d done that? What if I’d said it? What could have happened?

I would’ve wondered. That was the risk I couldn’t take.

When you’re ready to accept whatever happens afterwards, it’s time to jump and see where you land. It might be on your feet. Might be on your behind. But you’ll never know if you don’t give it a try. This life is only going to be what you make it. And sometimes you have to make it interesting.


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