I’m writing, so you know that means one of two things: my life is glorious, or my life is in shambles.
Right now, the walls of my very nice little life that used to make me feel like I was safe from the outside world feel like a pair of too-tight full-body Spanx, threatening to strangle every possibility for happiness out of me.
Hello, shambles.
First, an apology. I think I got two posts into my 40-day stretch before I forgot about this project of mine. My bad. I promise to make up the three posts I owe y’all. Now, for the random ramblings post for today…
I’m getting married.
It’s Valentine’s Day, one of the most polarizing days on the calendar. For a day meant to magnify and celebrate love, it has become increasingly embattled the older I get. It’s not about Dollar Store cards for your friends and treat bags from your teacher anymore. It’s a competition of one-upsmanship.
“My man loves me more than yours loves you.” “YOUR man loves me more than he loves you.” “Today is about wives and girlfriends; side chicks, you’ll get yours tomorrow.”
It’s sad.
On days like today, I’m ashamed of my womanhood. That more of us don’t rally around one another to celebrate love, to celebrate one another and the loves we’ve found (and lost…some of those break-ups are worth celebrating too). That so many of us think today is about getting ours and give little thought to the men who try hard to please us for the sake of not looking a fool in front of our friends.
The irony: I say this to you as a woman who bragged about getting four dozen roses from my fiancé today, but I ain’t send him a damn thang.
My soapbox suddenly became so unstable. Think I’ll call it a night.
“It’s a waste of time, wanting things…because sooner or later the thing that wants you is going to walk up and tap you on the shoulder. And you might want to be ready.”
-Rebecca Moody, “Californication”
There’s a poster in my classroom: “If you want something, you make it happen. If you don’t, you make excuses.” The Swill has existed for a couple of years, and for months on end, it sits neglected in cyberspace for a myriad of reasons. Excuses.
I’m exhausted. I don’t have time to write. I don’t have anything to write about right now. I don’t know how to put this into words. Nobody reads that shit anyway.
I never pledged, but I hear the Divine Nine have a saying about excuses.
There are a few people ready to put my #30for30 posts in the same category as unicorns and The Detox: a myth that never manifests.
I promise, it’s coming.
And this ain’t it.
I went to see Django Unchained this week, amid all the controversy, and, after seeing it, I’ve been trying to concisely say why I think it’s silly to boycott the film. I think I finally figured it out.
Every story has a setting, and that setting has an effect on the story, but it very rarely IS the story. To make a movie set during slavery without making use of the word “nigger” would be as inauthentic as pretending that slaves were as happy as they were portrayed to be in “Gone with the Wind.” Yes, the word is offensive, but a movie set in 1850s Mississippi without it has no credibility.
Django was set during slavery. It makes several strong statements about the perpetrators, participants, victims and institution of slavery. But Django isn’t about slavery any more than “The Great Gatsby” is about Prohibition or “Of Mice and Men” is about the Great Depression.
If you walk into the theater expecting a profound tale of woeful slaves and evil white folks, you’ll be slightly disappointed. If you expect a tale about the resilience and integrity of black folks in a time of unimaginable adversity, you’ll be greatly offended.
But if you come expecting a story and its most basic elements—characters, setting, conflict, and resolution—you will be satisfied, and entertained to boot. That’s all a good movie can ever hope to do for its audience.
My two cents.
And don’t worry. I’m in the lab cooking up something hot to kick off 2013. Can’t speak for Dre doe.
He looked at me with the most earnest expression he could muster through his alcohol-induced rage. I’d never seen his eyes glower the way they did in that moment. A woman hopes that seeing such a show of deeply seething emotion would be borne of death or dishonor…but a nigga just bumped into him on the way to the bathroom.
After my failed attempt to rationalize the situation and calm him down, he spit at me, “Don’t talk to me like I’m a little BITCH. That nigga bumped me. I’ll fuck him up.”
“I’m a REAL NIGGA.”
In my mind I developed a kind of courage I’ve never known in real life, especially when it came to him. I returned his smoldering expression and spit back at him with just as much venom…
Oh, you a real nigga? Is that what you are? Well allow me to give you your leave, because I don’t need a real nigga. The last motherfucker I loved said the same ridiculous shit. “Real nigga” is what men throw around when they’re too weak to do what’s right, because what’s right in the moment is difficult. Real niggas fight over nothing. Real niggas let their anger rule them. Real niggas are wrapped up in their masculinity, so much so that they choose to assert their physical dominance over their mental acuity. Real niggas don’t give a fuck about consequences, because most real niggas don’t live to see those consequences manifest. Real niggas use their “realness” as a crutch. They use it as an excuse to do stupid shit in the name of their colors, their hood, their set, their borough, their whatever they’ve placed above their own well-being. Real niggas don’t think about how their stupid choices affect the people they love or even how they affect themselves. I don’t need another real nigga. I need a real man.
Yes. In my mind I said these words and walked away, leaving him standing there to pick his broken screw face up off the floor of the bar I was storming out of.
But this is reality. Where I put my arm around his waist, whispered in his ear, “Baby, it’s ok. Let’s just go,” and walked his silly ass to the car.
Day 12 is supposed to be a letter to the person you hate most or who caused you a lot of pain.
Sigh.
This letter had the danger of being redundant. My first instinct was to write to my ex, of course, but honestly, I’m done rehashing that tired old story. I loved him. He loved me. I was young and stupid. He was a horny liar. We broke up. I’m better now. The end.
The truth is it’s hard to know hurt deeper than one caused by somebody you love, so that’s unavoidable here…but you know me. I had to put a different spin on it.
Last December my homegirl Danitra ushered in the era of Dirty 30, and as happy as I was to help her celebrate, I couldn’t help but be a little mad at her. I mean…look at her (in the middle with the black “get ‘em girl” dress on).
This bitch got a baby, but I’m the one next to her looking like I’m two days post-partum.
I left her party with a new dedication to fitness. Well, I suppose I should say “renewed” dedication since I’ve gone through this cycle about three times in my life. The first time was initiated by losing a good 160 pounds unexpectedly (also known as “the ex”) and deciding I might as well keep going. The second round started when I stood on my school nurse’s scale just for kicks and saw a weight that was about 20 pounds heavier than the number I’d been carrying around in my head since college. In 2010 I saw a picture of myself at a grad school classmate’s holiday party and made her delete every image of me from Facebook…and her camera.
Then I met Jemall and fell the fuck in love, Danitra turned 30 and looked good as hell doing it, and I was staring down my own 30th birthday in a short five months. The reasons to do better just kept rolling in. I made a commitment to get it right, get it tight, and keep it that way.
This was me two summers ago being mistaken for the guest of honor at Mona’s baby shower:
And this is me a few months ago, 25 pounds lighter and smaller than I was in high school:
Yeeeeaaaaah.
Whenever someone hasn’t seen me in a while, they will inevitably say two things: 1) Girl, you’re finished; don’t lose another pound, and 2) You gotta tell me how you did it. The first statement always gets the same response: Sorry, but I’m still on my grind. I look good in my clothes, but now I’m tryna look good naked. The second statement…well, I don’t think I’ve ever given anybody a straight answer on that one, so here it goes.
If you’ve been reading The Swill since it’s inception, you know two things: 1) I just be lying every time I say I’m gonna write more, and 2) I originally started this blog with the 30 Days, 30 Letters project.
I never made it past day 10. I told y’all I have problems with commitment.
Anyhow, I was sitting here chastising myself for neglecting The Swill yet again and trying to figure out what to write when I remembered that I never finished the project that started it all. I figured that would be a great way to get me back into the groove.
So here’s Letter 11: To a deceased person you wish you could talk to.
My boyfriend Jemall is in the military and stationed in Hawaii. This is a fact that sucks most of the time, but being out of school for summer vacation makes his living arrangements more bearable—it means I have an awesome place to lounge away some of the days before I return to the madness that is teaching.
We’ve been dating long distance for 7 months after having met only once, so the two-week visit with him that ended today was basically our second date. I’m sitting in Honolulu International Airport looking like my mama just died. The last time I cried about leaving someone, I was 21 and we were breaking up. I’ve shed more tears over leaving him in Hawaii to go home than I did over leaving a negro for life.
Before I left, I wrote Jemall a goodbye letter, but being the narcissist that I am, I couldn’t just leave it for him to find and call me about later. I had him read it before he took me to the airport so I could see his initial reactions in real time.
He ain’t got no printer anyway.
When he finished reading it, he looked at me and said, “I love it. That’s the most genuine letter I’ve ever gotten. You should put it on The Swill.”
Is there any guess as to why I love the hell out of this man?!
This isn’t the letter exactly as written to him, because some of the stuff I said to him is none of y’all’s damn bidness, but the essence of the lessons I’m learning from him are all here. I hope you enjoy it as much as he did.
And pass a bitch a Kleenex.
