"The joy of learning how to stop asking Mr. Wrong for the right treatment."
~januarie
Us women learn the hard way sometimes. It's probably more of a human thing than a woman thing, but I'm speaking solely from a woman's perspective. The above quote was a fbersation that took place based off of a meme similar to the one in the picture. There can be so many contributing factors as to why we (women and teenage girls; and sometimes prepubescent girls) accept and love the men that we choose: missing fathers, present but emotionally absent fathers, distant or unavailable mothers, environment and peer pressure. The hows and whats of our behavior is an endless list and often a list that doesn't get confronted until we are well in age. But we are tested, at times on knowledge we don't rightfully possess, throughout the majority of our lives. For some of us, learning the hard way means repeated visits at the same closed off door until one gets tired of not receiving that hello from the other side.
I'm calling this 'missing the turn at Albuquerque'. My buddy BB will illustrate how many times I've missed my mark:
Step One: Missing the Turn:I've been on this journey of love since I was a young teenager. I started early because I yearned early. I wanted to connect with masculinity in some way although I never quite understood why. I thought I could do it sexually and that basically messed up my teen years. There were rumors about me in the neighborhood. Some true, lots not. People picked fights with me, harassed me, bullied me, stole from me; it got so bad that I had to switch schools. I hated walking in the neighborhood sometimes. Scratch that...most times. I don't say any of this for sympathy. I'm outlining how early and hard this mission began and was. I've been in several 'long term'ish' situationships and potential relationships, as shown by this blog. I've tried love as much as my heart could handle. I set sail on the road to find the place my heart belonged to and it has driven me every since. Carelessly I have gone top down, hair blowing, pushing pedal to the meddle around mountains.
....As I imagine this drive, I can see rocks and boulders falling in my way. I forgot to keep count on how many I actually dodged, how many times I stopped for repairs and how many times I was smashed underneath piles of hard Earth. But failure after love failure couldn't stop me; I've drug my bruised muse of a body to the car, hopped in and moved towards the Sun again and again. This has been a relentless journey I've so wanted to abandon many times over .....
I cringe at how hard I've yearned for it.
...And how many left turns at Albuquerque I've missed. I can see it as vividly as Bugs Bunny up there. Me, popping out the ground with my suitcases of heart and heels talmbout "I've arrived". Only to find out I've landed on some misfit's doorstep that don't know shit about reciprocity and is only good for adding to my luggage.
Every relationship, every "Parked Car" space that I occupied for longer than my season was the hopeful romantic in me trying to hold onto the string belief that someone was out there for ME. What I didn't realize is I was exhausted. This entire journey through the abyss of my heart has been exhausting since the first step I took during my teen years. I've entered adult relationships as an exhausted child, hopeful that the person I'm with is the person I will die next to. I've been seemingly a passenger in the car on this quest.
Watching my blood father take care of so many other kids but not me left a stain on my mirror that Windex and newspaper couldn't get clean. Not being able to emotionally connect to my stepfather gave me a feeling of inadequacy. Knowing I had a brother yet not being able to maintain a lasting bonded relationship with him opened a 3rd gap to be filled and all this happened before high school. There were holes all over my body. There were needs untouched and unspoken for; and a teenage brain that thought she figured it out. I was in counseling at age 12 and I opened up a lot but I don't think it helped. I was 12. I wasn't having sex yet so it didn't address the worse situations. And it didn't fill those gaps. My choices as a teen didn't fill those gaps. As a matter a fact, both widened the gaps. I started to feel ugly and only good for sex. I wasn't the girl people asked out. I was the one who's ass they looked at and who they tried to sleep with. And sometimes, just being honest, it worked...in their favor.
On my end, my thirsty behavior breached the chambers of my heart and left voids that needed to be covered in dirt. I needed something a seed could grow in. I needed growth that I didn't know I was even without. And unfortunately, no one was telling me to do anything different.
By the time I was an 'adult' my exhaustion levels had peaked. If it could have killed me to be run down and worn out from chasing love, I would surely be dead. I was at the very least, mentally dead and I needed every relationship I got into to be 'it'. But of course they weren't. I was in a relationship for seven years with a guy that I knew within the second year would not be my husband. There were echos in the space where my brain should have been. My relationship prior to that (#MuseRaggedyAndy) was a dual-physically abusive gauntlet of drugs, sex and danger. At the end of our relationship, I was tired enough to have let him kill me. And that's how I knew it was time to go. I hadn't stopped fighting; but I had stopped fighting for my life. Every one of them (3) was a man that I just really needed to be the one. To kill the search and let me catch my breath...finally.
After the inspiration of this blog settled in, I started to think that maybe I missed my mark with #MuseSlevin....let that sink in yo.
I started to think... I ...Januarie York. The same woman who wrote and countless times professed "I am too much woman to be loved in a measuring cup". I, SHE, started to think I lost out by not giving #MuseSlevin the chances he begged me for. He got married. And I started to mourn with curiosity. "Was it really him?" A man who couldn't love me properly at 21? I started wondering at 34 if I missed out on something. Lol. L OH to the emm effin L. I started questioning if I missed out on a downgrade??? I mean, I'm sure he's great for his wife, but he was never for me. Maybe my self esteem hopped out the car and hit that left turn like the Kwan or something. In hindsight it's a frightening epiphany to say the least. I was a repeat offender of looking for the wrong man to give me the right love. How Sway????
These are missed turns. That whole situation there is a missed turn gone wild. This is like driving a roundabout and not knowing how to make that left turn without crashing, so you just take the next street and hope that you end up where you're supposed to be....only to get there and realize you should have made that left turn at Albuquerque. Some times, the places we end up are places we overstay our welcome at. Maybe we're too hopeful. Maybe we're stupid as some would say. Maybe we're just tired...and wanting to make this one somehow turn the dial and be better than anything in Albuquerque. It's as dangerous as drinking and driving. But the most dangerous part is this: Not knowing that a big part of this missed turn is the person looking into the rearview mirror.
Ever feel like you're trying to turn left on a Rights Only street? Sheesh, that line needs to start a blog about being Black in America, but for now, I will digress it back to this blog. That gif has been my love life for YEARS.
Step 2: Crown Fumblin': Someone should always tell us we are royalty. From the time we arrive onto this place called Earth, there should be someone, somewhere constantly telling us and reminding us in both words AND action that we are of Royalty. Because if not, it can be real easy to think you are a peasant that is deserving of peasant pooridge and bread crumbs. And that's exactly what you will accept. I didn't know that I had low self esteem AT ALL! Women wear so many masks on a daily basis that it can get hard to even think you are lacking in reconizing your worth and magic. Think of how often we get our faces beat and go out. And who we are at work. Who we are (or try to be) for family. The rock for our friends. Its simple to buy into your own hype and not realize you don't even really believe it. YOu don't believe you are or can be a rock. You don't see the beauty beneath that beat face and fresh hair. And that was me.
Off stage, when it was just me at home, I didn't really see my beautiful anymore. I questioned my value or my worth of having the type of love I felt like I deserved. These feelz started when I was a teen. I think it started with watching my father take such excellent care of other children. It always made me question my worth. We act as we believe. I had to reconfigure myself again. My self esteem has gone up and down like body weight. But this last time had to be my last. I'm too old not to sustain the notion that I too am black girl magic gone free. I survived the wrath of 2014. This blog will forever be proof, just in it's evolution. Shining all over 2015 was a must do. And by shining, I mean shining up mirror. Taking a good look at who I am. No wing tips half right, no filled brows. No poems. No man. No hurt. I had to rebuild. I had to love me all over again, reinvented. Every day you see me or read a post from me is me in this constant evolution of myself. I've learned life will sit you still if you won't voluntarily do it.Maybe it's not so much us missing that left turn as much as it is us not being ABLE to take it. We can't advance to Albuquerque without knowing the Queen within ourselves. Until we awaken her, until we know her, respect her, love her, shout her out, indulge in all of her....we can't make that turn. At all.
Final Step: Conquering AlbuquerQUEEN: The air here is lovely. The wind is calm, the presence of tropical fish swimming in oceans that are presented crystal clear for Queen eyes is a lifetime lullaby. The fruit is plentiful. The men are buffcakes. The food is cooked to order and served piping hot. There are no reality shows. LOL. Ok I quit...seriously, the air here is lovely. Finding AlbuquerQUEEN is the greatest gift you'll ever give yourself. I believe I was always seeking a love for myself, given by myself. This whole time and through each fumble of a relationship and seemingly missed turn, I was searching for something within me that I thought had to come from somewhere else. I mean, the feelings of inadequacy were gifts from others. I was inadvertantly raised to dislike myself. To see something wrong with me. I wasn't loud enough or tough or enough. I wasn't kid-enough or pretty enough. There weren't enough streets in me. No one ever actually said these things...this is what my mind filtered the rejection of my father and stepfather as. This entire journey until now has been me finding the true Queen in me. Hell, the GODdess. I had to tend to my own dysfunctions and still am. Sometimes, it's not fun at all.
But once I started pruning...and I mean really purging the leftover demons and self pity parties and 'i'm not pretty enoughs' from my system, I couldn't stop. I started having less moments where I felt ugly and more where I felt beautiful, no matter if I was beat or not. Which was new. Sometimes, I look in the mirror and expect to see someone not that attractive staring back and I surprise myself by being pleasantly shoulder dusting by the time I walk away. The aura emitted from me is free. Talk about setting the caged bird free.....and THAT is how I learned to stop asking Mr. Wrong for the right treatment. I first gave it to myself. I REALLY gave it to myself. I treated myself to myself and indulged so much that someone took notice of the glitter party and said 'heyyyyy, can I join?' And that someone was the first one to EVER meet me and want to indulge in me as much as I have myself. But this isn't about him or this new love.
My point of this whole blog is to say this: We as women ask Mr. Wrong for the right stuff all the time. We beg Mr. Wrong time and time again to make that left turn at Albuquerque for us. We think that we 'turn' Mr. Wrong into Mr. Good Enough. Or that we can turn ourselves astray from the 'right treatment'. I recently read a comment that said 'falling in love is a choice.' That's something I didn't believe until recently. But you know what? It IS a choice. We meet, we like, we fall. But in between the like and the fall, we have intuitions. We CHOOSE to listen or not and anything that follows is a direct result of that choice. We cannot adhere to our natural instincts if we haven't fallen in love with the woman who bears them. If I don't love myself, why TF would I trust my gut? What is my gut but a place where food goes to be enternal? You have to love yourself beyond what you THINK is loving yourself. That means if you believe your self esteem is good or at least fair and you still find yourself in relationships that are require you to be a lesser version of yourself, then it's time to up the ante. It's time to revisit your love for yourself. It's time to go stand in that mirror and really take in all that you see. Let go of everything you think you are and rebuild yourself on the spot. There is something missing that you need to confront, so do it. Truthfully, it might take the rest of your life. But what better way to spend your days than building yourself UP? And don't stop until you see your reflection wink back at you.
Control your journey. Realize that you are NOT in the passenger seat ma'am so steer this thing already!!!!! Make that left turn and change how you love and who loves you back....
Find AlbuquerQUEEN.
It's the first left after you finish loving yourself.
Change what you receive forever by how you perceive what you see in the mirror. #AlbuquerQUEEN
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