Solitary No Confinement

Just as it takes a village to raise a child, I am discovering it takes a diverse group of friends to keep you balanced.  I've often marveled at girlfriend friendships.  In fact, there were times I'd watch sitcoms like Girlfriends.  Movies like Waiting to Exhale or Sex In the City and envy the closeness between those women.  Through ups, downs, boyfriends, breakups, husbands, ex-husbands, times of plenty and hardship, the relationships had the resilience to remain against all odds.  Well, at least for the most part.  For there were times when the friends were at odds.  Truly upset with one another.  Not speaking.  Not getting together.  And it forced the other girlfriends to manage times with one and times with the other.  Drama, drama, drama, yes.  Emotional overload, I'd prefer to call it.  Maybe that's the order of the day when you get more than one woman in a room for too long.

Sadly, our society has become so uncomfortable with intimacy and true friendship until innocent caring between two people is seen as something weird or perverted.  I've sat back with puzzlement at the questions about Oprah and Gayle King's relationship.  Maybe it's rare that people of the same sex can be soulmates without lesbian tendencies.  Heck, if you saw me with my friends Gret, Debbie or Sharon, you'd swear out we were too.  We hug, kiss, touch each other and are very comfortable with public showerings of affection.  And two of them are happily married!  Go figure!  And if we want to go Bible, I bet our society would have had a field day if they had observed John, the beloved disciple, resting his head on Jesus' chest. Scandalous! Yet, for all the screwed up political, social and spiritual views of Old and New Testament characters, there is no inference of homosexual tendency in that relationship.
 

The more my mind and heart clears, I am finding myself taking stock of my surroundings.  This includes my friendships.  I am blessed to have long-time friendships with my sister and college chums.  Though I seldom have conversations with my college chums there is a depth to our friendship that has not been duplicated in these 28 years.  Then, there are friends I sustained during my single-parent phase of life.  They were there to listen and to help. 

Since that time, my friendships have expanded.  A rainbow coalition of sorts.  I have my friends who nurture my authenticity.  They are the ones who truly get me.  My soul finds rest in them.  But if anything woos me to not be real, they won't let me get away with it. They know how to probe gently yet persistently.  Ironically very different, there are friends whose interaction with me is solely church related.  We worship together.  We sing together.  We experience the corporate experience.  Then there are my hanging buddies.  The ones who are like my Sex In The City girlfriends.  They make sure the fun-loving Suzette comes out to play.  We share, we eat, we argue, we shop, we laugh, we hang out.  I have biological sisters whom I adore, yet still there is a sisterly accessibility that they bring to my life that I have been missing.  

Under normal circumstances, I could easily fall right back in step with things.  But right now, I feel awkward.  Furthermore, my emotions betray me. It feels the same as when a wound heals on the outside, but when you bump up against it it still smarts!  Ouch!  Some situations feel like fingernails being scrapped down a chalkboard!  It is true that I feel the zest returning.  Maybe I just need something new.  Or maybe I need to better manage my life.  Discern when I'm ready for what and how much I can take at that moment.  My heart is open but it's not strong yet.  It's not aching but anything too intrusive is draining.  Zaps the energy right out of me.  Right now, I need lots of warmth, coziness and TLC.  

  

So today, I enjoy my alone time with my Boys To Men CD.  It's raining out which is the perfect backdrop for my cozy day.  No claps of thunder, no flashes of lightning, just smooth, steady droplets of water.  I write.  I listen to music.  I watch movies.  I eat.  I pray.  I breathe.  Selah.  

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Yay!

Thank you, Jesus!!!!!  I woke up this morning with absolute joy.  For the past few days, I've awakened sad and teary.  Maybe part of it is that I been dreaming about my ex.  Caught me completely off guard.  It's been happening Every. Single. Night.  And if I didn't see his face in my dreams, his presence was alluded to.  Dang the subconscious!!  But today...I repeat, today....I don't feel sadness.  Ahhhhhhhhhhh, Suzette is coming back!  It's not just a hope, a prayer, a goal, but I feel it.  Yay!

If that wasn't enough evidence, here's something else quite telling.  I just finished listening to Brian McKnight's Christmas CD.  If that thang ain't sexy?!  And you know the vibe, it's all about romance.  Normally, listening to something like that would tear at my joy and leave me in a teary depression.  Not today!  None of that residue, experienced or imagined, is on me this morning. 

I actually WANT to go out.  Not to work, mind you.  For the first time in a month and some change, I want to  get out...socially.  You know, BE among others.  I feel like a light has brightened inside and wants to shine.  Before today, I have pushed myself to get together with friends.  Sometimes it was uplifting.  Sometimes, not.  Everytime though, I felt anxiety about leaving my cocoon of an apartment or the comforts of isolation. 

Without a doubt, we females can't help talking about men.  I think it's in our DNA.  Either it's our hopes about men, frustration with not having a man, frustration with the man we have, planning something involving a man.  We are men junkies, I tell you. Normally, I am a card-carrying member of this club.  But after a breakup, you want to cut your card up and bury it. 
Everything's a reminder.  Movies, commercials, billboards.  Romance, sex, relationship is constant chatter.  P-a-i-n-f-u-l....except today!!! Yay!

With none of this emotional angst, I've rechecked my emails for upcoming meetups, social gatherings and invites.  I'm looking forward to this weekend.  I feel like putting on my makeup, throwing on something striking, putting on some sexy shoes and just strutting.  So much coming up!  I feel like I'm breathing again.  I feel that glow from the inside.

Okay, okay.....doooooown gurl.  Take it easy.  Wisdom says enjoy yourself but ease into it lest you should have a mad adrenalin rush and crash afterwards thereby plummeting back into depletion and sadness.  Okay, I hear you, God.  I'll just smile a lot, strut alot and breathe alot for now!

R.I.P. William McKinley Randolph

For the first time in about a week, I didn't feel sad when I woke up.  I laid in bed and pondered that for a while, praying intermittently.  Feeling a familiar bathroom urge, I got up.  Knowing that it required a little reading, I grabbed my book, EAT PRAY LOVE. 

Chapter 28.  "It is this happiness, I suppose (which is really a few months old by now), that gets me to thinking upon my return to Rome that I need to do something about David.  That maybe it's time for us to end our story forever."  Time to end our story forever.  I continued reading.  "Last spring David had offered this crazy solution to our woes...we could spend our lives together -- in misery, but happy to not be apart."  Being apart.  How I hate the being apart.  Maybe that's why I clung so hard emotionally.  Being apart has been terrifying for me for as long as I can remember.

My dad use to work out of town in a place called Nashville when I was, ummmm had to be 3 or 4 years old.  I know now that it was Nashville North Carolina, not Nashville Tennessee, though it felt like the latter.  Waiting for him to come home was e-x-c-r-u-c-i-a-t-i-n-g.  I remember the anguish of my little heart who missed her daddy and couldn't wait to hear his big voice.  Somehow, I equated him being home with peace and all things being right again.  "Alice Lee!" I heard.  It's him!!!!!  I rushed towards him and jumped into his arms.  That's the day he gave me my new tennis shoes.  I swear I walked in those shoes for the rest of the day and would have slept in em had my mom not taken them off.
   

Before I met my guy, I felt that same anguish.  Unknown to anyone, I would whisper to God nightly to please send me someone.  I had read somewhere that women tend to choose men like their fathers.  In fact, while writing this blog, I did my infamous Google search on the subject.  I scrolled down until there it was--tah daaah!--an article in CNN Living entitled "Why you're likely to marry your parent."  Comfort in familiarity, I read.  That sounds about right.  For you see, my prayer went something like this.  "God, I realize that I can't help being attracted to men like my father. Despite everything I've done to educate myself otherwise, I keep picking unavailable men.  I don't trust myself.  So, would you please pick for me?  An available man this time...who prefers me.  Who ain't gettin over nobody.  Who WANTS to be in a relationship.  Who ain't heavin and hoeing about the costs.  But most of all, who  has character.  Somebody I can respect who WANTS to be with me....Amen."

Let's see, dad died December 29, 1996 (or was it 1997).  I get confused because he died the end of one year and we had the funeral on January 1st of the next year.  I miss my dad more than words can say.  It doesn't hurt as much or as often, but oh how I miss him.  Maybe that is why I was so fascinated with my guy.  He was just like my dad!  Honest!  So similar until it was almost scary.  A man's man.  Self-determined, forthcoming, highly opinionated and yeah, a bad ass of sorts...lol.  Underneath all that gruffness though, it hurt him if there was a need and he couldn't help. He pondered and felt things deeply which made it difficult for him to release hurts.  He didn't need alot.  Just knowing that his family was okay was enough for him.  He LOVED working. Good, hard, physical work didn't scare him at all.  Very protective, faithful, consistent, true.  When my dad walked in, everything wrong got right - quick - cause my dad won't having no mess.  He and my dad were twin souls, I tell ya.  Maybe that's why I was so drawn to him that I couldn't walk away, even when he infuriated me.
 

When I'd see my guy with his children, I saw how my life would have been had my dad been available.  Sadly, he spent most of his life struggling with alcohol and fighting his demons.  When I met my guy's daughter and saw them interact, I saw me.  The giving, secure, compassionate woman I could have been had my dad been emotionally accessible.  I guess subconsciously something inside of me needed a do-over.  A righting old wrongs, the article called it. 

Now that it's been a month since my breakup and some of that emotional smoke has cleared, I ponder.  My agenda for my relationship was someone to do things with and go places with.  As it progressed into a relationship, my desire was for it to be healthy.  I told my guy that I wanted us both to have a good experience regardless of the outcome.  Could it be that the past nine months haven't been about that at all?
 

Grief has so many nuances.  Mourning a loss is  so intense at first but ultimately, according to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, one comes to a place of acceptance.  A counselor friend of mine would call it that point when you say, "I hate that you died, but I will live on."  Conversely, there is something called complicated grief.  It's when grief is severe or prolonged.  For me, my dad was the first death that hit so close.  It was so unbelievable that even after the funeral, I would feel this overwhelming need to run down anybody who reminded me of him.  I recall such an incidence where an old man who wore his hat and clothes just like my dad walked into a room where I was sitting.  I lost it.  I cried uncontrollably and even asked this elderly man if I could hug him.  He was very kind to me as I explained that my father had died and he reminded me of him.  Though I don't have those impulses anymore, it's still hard.  Since his death, our family has not been the same.  It wasn't until he was gone that I realized he was the glue that held us all together.  When he died, everything fell apart.
   

God, once again, you heard not only my prayer but the unresolved pain in my heart.  You sent me my guy and I thank you.  With his help, you've gently brought me to this profound moment.  A moment of enlightenment and clarity.  There is one thing still to do.  I have to go back and bury my father.  So here we stand, You and I.  You're holding my hand as I bend down and kiss my dad for the last time.  Ashes to ashes.  Dust to dust.  We stand together as I watch him being lowered into the ground.  Goodbye.  Rest in peace, William McKinley Randolph.  Your kneebaby is okay now. 

Stamina To Wait

"Hope deferred maketh the heart sick." (Proverbs 13:12) As Pastor Stepney said these words today, a light came on.  Like a child who is told to wait when he asks for a cookie, our enthusiasm wanes when what we hope for is delayed.  A woman can have the greatest of self esteem but if she wants a long-term relationship and keeps having false starts, she either starts demonizing men or begins to question her own value and her own worth.   We're in an age where ladies are exhorted to "be successful."  We're told not to wait but to go for what we want.  We tell our daughters to pursue an education and a career - first.  "Men can wait," we tell them.  "Don't get involved with a man.  He'll only hinder you from where you want to go."  Do everything that you dream of doing now because when you get married, it'll be too late.  Though I'm all for self-actualization and girl power, I wonder if we are leaving out something just as important.  For once they've attained success and are ready to get married and have kids, they can't find anybody. Nobody told them that you can't set relationship goals like you do other goals.  You can achieve education and a career independently, but you can't have a relationship without the other's consent.  Men are not subject to our timeframe or our biological clock.  Oh, how it makes the heart sick!    When my relationship ended, the first question on everyone's lips was "what happened?" I think I had a different response to this question with each person who asked.  My responses changed with my contemplations.  And though I pride myself for handling the break up maturely, I still was left with the same questions that countless women ask themselves.  Why wasn't I enough?  Is there something wrong with me?  Should I have done this differently?  Comparisonwise, I don't know what's worse.  Having a man who treated you like his queen and the relationship ends or having a shiftless man and the relationship ends.  Let's face it.  If you had hopes that weren't met, it makes the heart sick. "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.  They shall mount up on wings as eagles.  They shall run and not be weary.  They shall walk and not faint." (Isaiah 40:31) The sermon today offered us a remedy.  Stamina to wait was the subject.  Pastor Stepney said that when hope is deferred we need strength to wait.  Waiting on the Lord offers strength in four areas:  inner strength, upward strength, outer strength and onward strength.  Inner strength speaks of our emotions, our mind, our thoughts.  It strengthens our heart. It helps us to support ourselves, not turn on ourselves or others. Upward strength allows us to soar above your circumstance.  Like the eagle, you see your surroundings from a higher vantage point.  Stamina suggests outward strength.  The waiting is parallel to a runner who is training.   At first, he might only be able to run for a little while before resting.  The more he runs though, he builds stamina that allows him to run further, longer, easier.  Lastly, God gives strength to move forward.  I was inspired most by this onward strength. Part of grieving a breakup is revisiting and replaying what led up it.  To magnify what they did, said, how they acted, all that is normal.  Remaining in that pondering state, however, can make the heart sick.  Perhaps, we need the onward strength to get us unstuck.  It's not that you excuse the other person, their contribution or their contamination of the relationship--or yourself, for that matter.  Onward strength, to me, allows you to put all to rest so that you can accept your now and move on. It takes time, yes.  I believe it also takes work.  In my case, I'm seeing a relationship coach.  And though anger triggers was my main reason, we are finding out that everything is interconnected.  I am challenged to examine my values, my lifestyle, my boundaries and areas where there are incongruities.    Soooooooooo, rather than blaming the other person and closing my heart, I am inviting my friends and my God to support me.  I want my heart to remain open and pliable.  One of the members of the church said something that resonated with me.  She said that both "Taps" and "Reveille" are military bugle calls where the same third notes are played.  One could say, they are the same song just played differently.  Taps is played at military funerals.  It is also a bugle call at night signifying "light's out."  Reveille is played to wake up the troops and inspire them to action.  "It's your choice," she said.  You can look at your life and hear Taps, grieve and be sad.  Or you can hear Reveille, a call to something new.    I don't feel Reveille yet.  I must be honest.  But I'm doing the work.  I'm putting myself in a space that supports me, heals me and inspires me to move on.

A Wound-Free Heart

In September 2006, I wrote this article.  Little did I know that it would help me at this time in my life.

"Some lofty soul once said, "the best way to get over one man is to get under another." In fact, it was one of the characters of the romantic comedy, DELIVER US FROM EVA. Though that was a Hollywood production, it's surprising how many people really believe this is the answer. Society even confuses a new relationship as evidence that a person has moved on. But, it's not that easy...READ MORE

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My Joy Remains

As I sit here at my computer, watching Oprah, I am amazed at the joy I still feel.  I woke up and felt such joy until I asked God if I was Bipolar.  Really, I did.  I didn't know if I needed to prepare myself for the crash to despair. 

As I ponder this, I remember the last time I felt grief was Sunday at church.  A spirit of praise ignited in morning worship and while everyone was dancing around me, all I could do was walk and cry.  I felt such sadness.  The tears running down my cheeks and a lump in my throat but there was a yet praise.  A yet praise is being thankful regardless of what you're going through.  I remember saying "thank you" and though I was in pain, there was gratitude in my heart.

I didn't feel relief immediately.  I still felt choked up at times.  Monday came.  I felt a little better.  By the end of the day, I was almost prancing cause I was sooooo happy to be on vacation.  My joy remains.

Every single moment of Days 1 and 2 of my vacation have been full of gratitude and joy.  It's like the weight has been lifted and I am just...glad.  Today, I feel on the other side of grief.  I can recall fond memories without feeling sad.  I grin and even catch myself giggling.  There's a song I've heard a gospel quarter sing that says "Jesus tooka my burden.  I could no longer bear.  Jesus tooka my burden in answer to my prayer.  Anger and fear subsided.  My spirit was made strong.  Jesus tooka my burden and He left me with a song."

I'm stepping out of my corner. Stepping out of my sadness.  Not only stepping into the Light but being filled with that Light. Thank you, God! 

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Today I Smiled

Today I smiled
Thoughts of you filled my heart
With the rising of the sun a brand new start 
Tears of yesterday done
No cleaving
No grieving
Just joy
Unexplainable joy

Today I smiled
Stumbling, standing, growing, landing
At my destined place is where I'm standing
Cares of today none
No debating
No hesitating
Just free
Undeniably free

Today I smiled 
Stronger, happier, I now see
Forever changed by you and me
Fears of my future gone
No hiding
No denying
Just me
Unapologetically me

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