The Other Woman: #MuseButter #20001002

Today's soundtrack is Justin Timberlake "What Goes Around Comes Around"

Major relationships…..hmm….what constitutes major?  Love? Or is it the amount of time? Or the things that you shared, or wait –

Is it the age? I don’t have the answers for that one, but I know there were three guys prior to that day I pulled up and wrote a poem at Pump 2 that would ultimately leave my fuel tank depleted.  Three different men that I spent time, age, dreams and love with. I won’t speak on their love for me….particularly because I believe each one did love me.  That doesn’t mean it was a healthy love, but I do believe at some point, they all loved me.  But much like #SirWeasel stated in one of our last text messages to each other “our loves just didn’t match up” ( I wish I could smack his bitch ass with each letter individually…shrug…still got some healing to do).. …

Since me and #Weasel didn’t have a relationship that existed outside of my personal mirage-creation factory, I won’t ‘count’ him as one, but I can say I recklessly have fallen in love with four different men, who in turn, tried to emotionally kill me.  Sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose. At least one of those men tried to kill me physically…..but we’ll get to him in the coming weeks.

But these failures….failed relationships, fantasyships and friendships, all have ONE common denominator. ME. I can’t be in denial about that, as that is the truth.  I am the one moving factor from relationship to relationship. …in blogging about the men that helped shape me for the hurt I experienced from #Weasel, I would really be remised if I did not include some accountability on my part, and being three or four blogs in, I think it’s a good time to step up to the plate and make sure it is known that I do not BLAME these men for who I am, what I have allowed, how long or how bad I hurt. I blame them for being dicks, liars, cheaters, abusers, users, iLL Fated Muses and for hurting me in general, but not the woman I am.  They HELPED, but I am the driver of this car. I have the right to say no. To stop things, to prevent hurt and God forbid, to LISTEN TO MY INSTINCT…….and often times, I have done none of that.

But by the same token, sometimes, I wonder how much of this is Karma?

Let’s go backwards……lets go prior to ALL these relationships and see if we can find a ruffle in the wave. Let’s set the scene:

Year: 1999-2000

Age: 20-21

Setting: Sunset Strip

I was young. I was dumb. I was the epitome of ALOOF about life, relationships and living, but I was trying my hand at ALL of that.  I don’t know how long I had been working at the Sunset when I met #MareReed  but at some point, we were introduced just by way of the business…..he was a ‘customer’, I was a ‘worker bee’ …..it was my job to meet these dudes and talk them out of their money, but I was never a hustler in the common sense. I was lazy. I would sit back and wait for money to make its way into my lap. I was too shy and too introverted and lacked the self-esteem that would have allowed me to place myself randomly in front of strange men and ask for money for a dance.  I would later learn how to become more proficient at this, but I still predominantly let the money come my way.  In my mind, you know what you want….and you will get it, IF you want it bad enough. That thought process remains even today.  Dayshift at the strip club is interesting; it’s quiet, low key, business men on lunch breaks, censored music and beers. At least at the time that’s how it was.  Dayshift is like the Christian Strippers and Night shift are the seculars, if I can put it bluntly.  I started on dayshift.  I met #MareReed on dayshift.  He was handsome. Dark chocolate smooth skin, a simple gold open face tooth that didn’t look like a ghetto drug dealer gone wild, but rather reminded me of how golds and teeth used to compliment each other sometimes.  He was handsome. And he took a special liking to me.  And I him.

I have NO IDEA all these years later how we actually got started, but at some point, I became the single stripper and he became the man I would involve myself with.  But he was married.

And that was a problem.

And it was a classic case of ‘I’m not happy’, ‘for the kids’, ‘gonna leave soon’, 

blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhforeverblahhhhhh.  * shrug * It wasn’t that I was ‘falling’ for the things he said. I was just really passing time and not thinking about how I was passing it.  I knew him being married was wrong, but sometimes, your environment helps shape how you think about consequences, reactions, actions and the ever-so-present Karma.  I just kinda had this attitude of nothing will happen to me AS LONG AS WE DON”T GET CAUGHT.  In total, it was about a yearlong affair.  He swore he loved me and I would return the sentiments to him, but I never really felt love for him in a romantic capacity. I don’t think my mind would allow my heart to love in such a manner.  But I did lie about it.  * shrug*

We took our affair all over Indy.  We went some places sometimes; we hung out A LOT, with friends or by ourselves.  He would come over, pick me up and I would jump in his car like it was nothing. His best friend passed during our affair from getting drunk and falling asleep in his car, in the garage.  The rest was history.  I had met his friend many times at the club. I used to call him DeWayne Wade because they looked so similar.  He was CRUSHED.  I can now attest (via 2014) what that crushed feeling is, but I couldn’t then. I just knew he was hurting and CAPITAL-I wanted to be the one who helped him through it. Although, I knew I could only be there to a certain extent. Rumors were running back to his wife. She knew of me. She knew my name.  She knew where he was and what was going on. She also knew I was a young stripper who was just out here doing the most. IF it was today’s time, she probably would have facebooked me, and then blasted me.  But back in those days, before cameras on phones and instant messages that existed beyond AOL’s dial up service, there simply was a hush mouth pattern that was normal I suppose. So we never had words or so much a conversation. But she knew.  She knew it at the time of his friend’s death. I could tell by the way she looked. Not necessarily at ME, but just around the room. She was scanning the church for my face, but unaware of what it actually looked like. But I knew hers. They naturally sat together at the front of the church. She consoled her husband, as a good wife would do. And the jezebel in the back looked at them both and wished she could scoot in between them. Not because I was in love, but because I just wanted to be IMPORTANT.  Something that just seemed to escape my grasp…..

I walked past them at the final viewing. I think he and I caught eyes briefly. I never said anything.  Neither did he. I left the funeral a concubine stripper who probably had to work later that day. He stayed in the church, a married man, being comforted by family, friends and his wife. As he should have.

Somehow, we managed this affair that disrespected his vows in more than one way. I was such a disrespectful little twat. Seriously, the things I did that I thought were cute are hard to imagine as a fact today.  I went to their house. The house they bought and hadn’t begun living in as of yet. She had been there to put up décor and there was only a little furniture in it, as it was still undergoing some changes.  He took me there and idk, I could be wrong, but I remember him speaking on the house, me and him and all the possibilities in between. I think I may have even bought that lie prior to hitting the floor with him and leaving my pussy juices all over his wife’s fresh floors. So disrespectful and reckless.

I hate to even type that, but what’s the point in not being all the way LIVE and honest about it * shrug * It is what it was.

And it was wrong.

I was wrong. I forced tears for him sometimes in hopes that he would grant whatever my wishes were. But he wasn’t much for that. He wasn’t breaking me off money by the pound or re-carpeting my apartments.  He didn’t outfit me in new clothes, shoes or furniture. He didn’t DO anything to be honest, except tell me he liked me, and then one day that he loved me. Reminds me of my dad.  That’s about it.  I was just going with the flow because it seemed like it was ok. I had justified it somehow in my head, and as I sit here typing, I cannot figure out, remember or come up with what those reasons may have been. I just know I had an affair with a married man when I was 20 to 21 years old.

And today,

I am a childless, unmarried woman who has had THEE ultimate worst luck in the love department. What is Karma exactly???

How long does Karma make you pay for what you’ve done? How deep of a hole do you have to dig in order for karma to pay you back forever????? Are there levels to it?  How does one know when they have reaped their karma or all of it OR is ever done? 

These are all questions that I have randomly asked myself in the ten plus years since this affair ended.  I don’t remember how it ended. I think I just got tired of being a whore with a title. Orrrr, maybe it was somebody telling on me. I think someone told on ME.  Not to his wife….to my family.  The rumors came our way (my family).  LOL.  I can’t really be sure; I just know it ended at some point.

Today,

As it stands….i have cheated, been cheated on, been almost killed, almost shot, beat up, beat on, punched in my stomach at full force, punched in my eye at full force, forced out of a car at gunpoint and left in Detroit with no shoes on my feet for HOURS, at 230 AM…..I’ve been lied to, I’ve been psychologically raped, I’ve been lost, confused, hurt, shamed, bruised, ego shot, I’ve been played with, toyed with, treated like a slut, treated like sex on legs, treated like a nobody, a nothing chick, a loser, a woman without a vision or a goal for life, I’ve been assumed about, talked about, fought, jumped, and it all came to a head January 1, 2014, when I would be once again in the same life, PUBLICLY humiliated.

Is this my karma? All those descriptions have taken place over the last ten years and they don’t even begin to tell the story as a whole. But, how much of that did I LET happen? How much did I go back for? How much was karma? How much did I have coming my way?

When my ex put a gun to my head for the first time, there shouldn’t have been a second or third time. But there was.

When we were locked up in our apartment for four days, stuck together, with matching black eyes that ironically came from NEW YEARS EVE (2002 or 2003…have to check the journal), I shouldn’t have lived beyond that with him. But I did.

That was a CHOICE. When he left me in Detroit after forcing me out of the car, which came after publicly humiliating me in front of club full of people standing outside by calling me names for trying to stop a fight between him and a man who was  trying to ‘holla’ at me (and further complicate my life), guess what I did ?  I walked and walked and walked, with no idea where I was going (his brother, who was with us, witnessing it all, got out the car with me and he left us both).  Two hours later, he found us. I got in the car, went back to the room with him and its possible we had sex.  My worth of myself has always ALWAYS been a challenge.

I could blame my father.

Or my stepfather.

Or God. Or the Son.  Or the Sun or the moon, but the fact remains that I’VE often made POOR choices when it comes to men...and I've been in complete CONTROL of these actions and choices...my inner voice and instinct have always had a voice, but to say it was snuffed out is an understatement. Who has time to listen to that when the music is loud, the money is good and life is but a runway on a stripclub stage??? 

Men have ALWAYS been my weakness, my kryptonite, my challenge, my fixer-uppers……and as a result, I’ve been on the losing end a lot.

As a result of my own actions.

My own road paving .

My own creation of Karma.

So one can’t help but to wonder how much more must I reap for all my past transgressions before I have a slate that is clean enough to have someone love me, the way I would so love them. Despite all the bad and poor choices and decisions I’ve made, MOST (not all) of them were coming from a place in my existence that desires, craves and yields to and for LOVE. Romantic love.

I’d be a lie to say I don’t STILL want it. I do.

I don’t believe in it AT ALL for me anymore…..but I do still want it.

But I would honestly rather be alone and deal with occasional loneliness rather than let Karma kick me in my coochie with dicktoe boots on again. FTS. 

Sir #Weasel didn’t break me. I was broken before we met.  In my breaks and cuts, I made a musical only fit for emotional hell’s consumption.

Jan. 1, 2014 was the day the fire ENGULFED me completely. And it’s been a foggy haze trying to put it out since then…….

…..but now that it’s simply ‘smoldering’, do I have to STILL fear karma?

Will I pay again for #MareReed and our adventures in the Guinness Book of Disrespectful Actions? IDK……I really don’t.

But the fear of my karma,

The knowledge of the things I have done, both mentioned and not, scare me just enough to NOT give love anymore tries. 

#AMuseFor #Myself #MuseButter #AMuseDNumber#20001002