This week while Gayle King was interviewing Lisa Leslie she asked and assertively pursued a line of questioning in relationship to the allegations of rape against Kobe Bryant. The clip quickly went viral. Folks were deeply offended by the line of questioning, with Gayle prodding Leslie to acquiesce that Kobe was indeed guilty and that his legacy was tarnished. Leslie held her ground and reinforced that her friend, Kobe Bryant, would never have engaged in the behaviors that he had been accused of(The case was ultimately dropped). Folks are BIG mad at Gayle. Snoop Dog took to instagram to call Ms. King a “funky dog head bitch.” He went further to say, “Respect the family and back off before we come and get you.”
End scene.
I only added the above paragraph to provide context. Although, I am not convinced that context is actually necessary to say what I am going to say next. We could insert any name into this interaction and my interpretation and response would be the same. It’s just that some folks start acting exceptionally obtuse when they are called out because the very delicate fabric of their moral slip is showing.
This isn’t about the allegations of rape made against Kobe. This isn’t about if Gayle King was right or wrong in her line of questioning. I have opinions about both. They do not matter.
When death comes to visit, it can be so devastating. All we feel is loss. We feel that our heart bank is in the negative, but that’s just our pain. Grief is really just an overabundance of love that doesn’t have a receptacle to receive it. Think of a bottle filled with your favorite beverage poured right onto the counter… The beverage is amazingly delicious and refreshing from a glass, but when you pour it onto the counter it makes quite a mess… an inconvenient, unpretty, unpredictable, nasty mess. The drink… is amazing when it has a place to go, but when the designated vessel is missing— the drink… the love… the thing that once brought so much joy suddenly hurts like hell. That’s grief.
I choose to believe that in each loss, when someone is taken from us… something is left behind.
I don’t like belaboring anything. I work hard, in fact, not to do it because it’s rooted in ego; not understanding… annnnd I don’t like it done to me. I am a person who will travel to a far away land in my mind if someone keeps saying the same thing repeatedly after I’ve demonstrated understanding. However, there is a distinct difference between belaboring and reminding or reinforcing.
*Stick with me. This isn’t a thesis.
Belaboring speaks to continued talking for the purpose of self-aggrandisement after the point is made and understood. It’s for the speaker. Reminding and reinforcing speaks to bridging the gap between knowing, understanding and execution. It’s for the recipient. Belaboring is punishment. Reminding and reinforcing are tools of continued learning.
I said all that to say, personal evolution is hard AF, and not enough people understand this.
The world would lead you to believe that it is impossible for women to share in loving, productive, symbiotic relationships. I think this is particularly true in portrayals of Black women, buuuuuut it’s fair to say that women of all races get a bad rap for how they interact with each other.
Blame misogyny. Blame patriarchy. Blame media.
For me, I think it is important to cast out these negative and false accounts regarding relationships between women. These accounts that portray us as overemotional, drama filled and in constant competition. I won't lie, I have had a bad interaction or two. However, over the course of my life it is my relationships with other women that have lifted me up and held me down. It is my relationships with women that have provided covering and protection.
I can’t sleep. It is currently 2:06am and ya girl is sitting at the kitchen table talking to you. Not that I don’t enjoy y’all, but you know. The room is the right temperature, my bed is super comfy and I’m freakin sleepy. Not to mention my handsome, lightly snoring husband is up there. Buuuuuuut so is my toddler. So there’s that.
It’s raining cats and dogs, which usually equates to excellent sleep. Not today. Today I am awake. Because this rarely happens to me— I know something is up. I’ve always been a night owl, but this ain’t that. I am not currently choosing to be awake. My mind is trespassing. It won’t stop wandering over my life.
I wasn’t really mad about the letter itself. I was initially alarmed, but not mad. I became annoyed and irritated when the rep wouldn’t own that the letter was dishonest. What I quickly understood was that even though I was right; it didn’t matter. Also, Conner didn’t have the authority, awareness or capacity to apologize and I couldn’t make him. My feelings about this ultimately inconsequential situation were really about other people I have encountered in my life who are quick to deflect responsibility and refuse to own their mistakes and shortcomings.
I allowed myself to be triggered. I became angry and frustrated because I have not healed the places in my heart where people I have been in relationship with wouldn’t be honest and own their shit.
I returned to my thoughts from the funeral I attended days before. Why are we more compelled to spend time celebrating a persons shell rather than the actual living person? How are we showing up in the lives of people we say we love while they are still living?
I guess I just want us all to think about the cost of being too busy. Too busy for a phone call, too busy to visit, too busy to have lunch, too busy to sit a while longer, too busy, too busy, too busy…
KD Bowe, an Atlanta radio personality made a Facebook post, on 1.24.13 following the death of his mother. I will never forget his words. It reads in part:
“At this stage in my life, I just stay busy. The ironic thing is I did in death what I could never seem to find time to do in life … I made time to come home for a week.”
I imagine his mom would have preferred he come home for a week while she wasn’t laying in a casket… he clearly does too. This is no indictment on KD Bowe. No shame. No guilt. He is living his choices. Still, it begs the question…
Why do we make time for dead people and excuses for the living?
We need to talk. I’m not even sure where I’m going today. I just need to get this out. I want to talk about acceptance in friendship. Like, really accepting people for who they are. I don’t know about you, but I find it truly inconvenient. I have always been a person who had a strong sense of right and wrong. Not in a self righteous way. I’ve done plenty of wrong. It’s just… If people would just live life the way I think they should everything would be so much easier.
I love to see people live their best life… I believe in treating people well and I expect reciprocation.
The older I’ve gotten the more rigid I’ve become about what I am willing to accept in terms of integrity in relationships. Maybe that is in part because I have so much more to give now. These years have given me so much insight on how to be for others.
The entire cast is stellar, but I absolutely do have my favorite characters. Randall and Beth, otherwise known as R&B, are my dream characters. I see my husband and I in both of them. And isn’t referring to them as R&B, i.e. Rhythm and Blues, totally appropriate? Yesssss. Because sometimes marriage is all Ain’t Nobody(Chaka Khan) and other times it’s more End of the Road(Boys II Men). You feel me??
The last few weeks have almost exclusively focused on Randall and Beth. I’ve had some loving, harsh words for Randall recently. I love him SO much, but bruh has been T R Y I N G it. I’ll admit I lost faith in faith in him. I wasn’t sure his love for Beth was greater than his need to be seen and valued by the masses. His abandonment issues have always left him striving for worthiness outside of himself.
I’m so happy I was wrong. The sigh that escaped my body was definitely audible when I realized the two would find their way back to each other. They found the door. Even as a fictional couple, I understand the impact of authentic representation.
Then, something broke in me as I approached my 40’s. I remember telling a dear friend, “I just feel so open.” I didn’t even understand the extent to which I was open and how my life would change as a result. I just felt the opening so strongly. And it wasn’t that I didn’t care what other people wanted or thought. It was more that what I wanted and thought was finally my priority. It was as if everything I was suppressing refused to remain submerged. My heart and mind insisted on BEING in the way God initially created me. I remembered who I was and I refused to abandon her again.
Social media in theory is an amazing tool for enhancing relationships. Too many of us are using it as the canvas for our relationships when it should only be one of the brushes we use to paint. It’s one way to manage relationships; not the only way. It’s supposed to bring us together, but the truth is that it does the exact opposite. It gives a false sense of unity because you can see what’s going on in the lives of others even when you’re not an active participant. Some of our friends are at the end of their proverbial rope and we don’t know because we’re using Facebook pictures and posts to determine their mental and emotional well being. You think you know what’s going on, but you really have no idea.
Smiling faces tell lies.
For me, it’s the difference between shopping online and walking into the store. From the comfort of your device you can see the color, size and fabric. That is good information. But… You cannot feel the weight of the material, the vibrance of the color or how it fits on your body.
I have worked in corporate America. I have worked in inner city classrooms of Chicago. Being a SAHM is still without question the hardest work I have ever done. This is in part because being a parent is more difficult than anyone lets on. My understanding of parenthood was incomplete… at times I think it still is. Being a stay at home mom is a 24/7 endeavor. From the time I wake up until I close my eyes, I am meeting the needs of someone who is not me.
Please don’t consider this a declaration of my unhappiness or complaint. On the contrary, being a stay at home mom is a gift. But it requires compartmentalization and understanding. There have been many days in this social political climate that I was grateful I didn’t have to go to work. Hell, sometimes I don’t even go to the grocery store because I don’t want to see the world. So, I know I would dread going to the office.
This isn’t complaining. This is me, sharing pertinent information. Also… listen carefully, I am not ignoring or minimizing the plight of working mothers. Most of them do what I do while working outside the home full time. For me, what I noticed and miss most was the drive to and from work. You know? Those small periods of time when I was alone to make uninterrupted phone calls or listen to music that is inappropriate for children who can talk. #JudgeYourOwnSelf
As I began to reflect; expectation boiled down to two things: Vulnerability and Trust.
We have previously discussed vulnerability. I have written about its’ importance and the strength we find when we embrace vulnerability. Yet, here I was beating myself up for being vulnerable… for opening myself up to disappointment. This is why I say, “I’m not here because I’m an expert. I’m here because I have experiences.”I’m no master at this. I’m struggling and growing and learning just like you. I stand out only because I share my experiences; not because I’ve mastered them.
It’s time for some self-reflection. Hold up the mirror and hold that person accountable for the negative emotions felt when other people experience happiness you think belongs to you. The real problem might be that you spend too much time watching the moves of others when you should be making your own.
We need to re-contextualize strength. Like, what does it even mean to be “the strong one”?
Because it is NOT the absence of fear or pain or desire or disappointment. I believe that we have, in error, taken a patriarchal view of strength and applied it to our emotional sensibilities in an effort to make us appear less weak. They told us that strength and weakness cannot dwell in the same space. Men, for too long, set the expectation for tolerable behavior for women. Women are killing themselves to meet it. And women are cosigning this behavior. It must stop.
I am trying to negotiate an understanding of literal strength, figurative strength and the reality of my actual strength. What does it look like? What does it feel like? How have I previously misunderstood and in turn misrepresented strength. I am currently being forced to confront these feelings of wanting to be strong, solvent and also having to embrace that pieces of me breaking.
Isn’t this what often happens between women? Particularly in the workplace. Men pulling strings that shouldn’t exist. As we often say…. It is what it is. I guess I can get with Angela deciding, initially not to work with Nuri. *slight eye roll. The truth is— Angela hit her #ChooseYou dougie on Nuri and I didn’t like it. Her behavior indicated that she was the most beautiful, powerful, worthy person she knows. We MUST fight the urge to begrudge women this right because it does not fall in line with what we believe we deserve. There is enough of everything we desire for all of us. You might just have to wait your turn.
As usual, the problem occurs when we don’t communicate our feelings. Instead, we go dark. You cannot articulate your feelings and you won’t try because you think it actually sounds kinda petty. We don’t make calls and we don’t take them. Too busy either feeling sorry for ourselves or refusing to give people who love us the benefit of the doubt. Although…. If you’re feeling some time of way the onus is on you to communicate those feelings.
I’m serious. Call me old fashioned or whatever. In the new age of the “pick me” woman who’s willing to pay a man’s rent and leave the tip and wash her own car to prove that she’s worthy… be the opposite. Maybe I’m what’s wrong with women today. Perhaps, I have been brainwashed by misogyny and patriarchy. If you are not independently wealthy or are unemployed; you cannot afford to date. How can you even find the time? Where I’m from even when you don’t have a job you have a job… looking for a job. My parents taught me this as a young woman. I’m sure they impressed it upon my brother even harder because he's a man. For the record, I don’t think broke women should date either. It places you in a place of vulnerability where you do not belong. FACT.
To be clear, social media doesn’t really make anyone hate their life. You hate your life because you hate your life. You continue to make the same choices, revisit the same places, roll around with the same individual and wonder why nothing in your life is different. I believe Einstein had words to say about that kind of behavior. He called it insanity. Einstein was correct. Imagine that. Unfortunately, you haven’t heard the wise words of the late great Einstein. So, you stay on the ferris wheel. Professing to hate every minute of it. Screaming to get off. Yet, never removing your safety belt. Never standing. Never being miserable enough to stop the revolutions.
I have learned that true restoration comes from being mature enough to hold yourself accountable without attempting to buy or overlook the healing process. Healing can’t be bought and overlooking only suppresses the pain. Shout out to my mama for always loving me!
