Strip T's

I was sitting on my homegirls couch, stressed out and tired. It was hot. I remember it was summer time and the heat was blistering outside. I wish I remembered what I had on, but I’ve had way cooler memories come in and replace simple details like that.

I sat there, feeling defeated. It had been a really long time since I had a job, and the one job I had at Forever 21 was NOT for me. I am so not a retail girl, yet I have had plenty of retail jobs. I end up hating them and quitting….every.single.time. Nothing was any different here. It had been awhile since I had quite my job at Forever 21 in Castleton. I remember my manager’s name was Kendra and she was a pudgy white woman who on one of the last days before I threw in the towel, had me scraping gum off the floor with a paint scraper. I will never forget being bent over, scraping this gum as hard as I could (it was SUPREMELY stuck to the ground) and trying to fight the tears that were forming. Is this what it has come to? Fuck the fact that I am working at job designed for a teenager (I was about 24 years old) and nevermind the crack of dawn I had risen to get there on time and get the store ready for the 10 am opening….nevermind the stress of inventory, which had only been about week before, where I was counting pieces of clothes one by one; I was effin scraping up gum. Like some type of disenchanted fallen Cinderella of Retail and my wicked boss-sister thought that I was the one qualified to make sure no one stuck to the floor as they moved around the store and got their credit cards hot and steamy. It was all I could take. I didn’t stay much after that, but I did complete the job ……

And then I quit.

I don’t remember if I gave a heads up or just stopped going. I think I just stopped going. That shit took me out of my element (scraping gum).

And now, here I was ….months later, sitting on my closest (and basically only)girlfriend’s couch about to drop a bomb on her that I had hoped it would not come back to…..I had given up and was about to head back to the club, and I wanted her to help me get back on. She was really cool with the manager so I thought she could give him a heads up that I was coming back....either that or I wanted her to feed me some better advice. Either way, I was a young woman with no future, no money, no job and for the most part, no friends.

...once upon a time, I had more friends....but over time and the course of the relationship I was in, I'd managed to put more than an acceptable distance between them and me. He didn't like me having  friends. Period. I have tried to look at it other ways because it's really hard for me to envision myself as someone without friends due to someone else not wanting me to have them. But that was my truth. He had embarrassed me in front of people I hung out with and either I was too embarrassed to talk to them again or they didn't want to really fuck w/me like that...the only person he 'tolerated' around was coincidentally one of the women he would go on to sleep with. ....either way, the once semi-cool ex-stripper girl had come down to having virtually no one, and nothing.

But the one thing I knew how to do and that I knew would bring me monies was stripping. It was one of those jobs that was always open and if for some reason I couldn't start back working at the first club I started off at, I knew St Louis was a hop skip away.....but I needed to start with something steady and at home. I didn't have a car, so I couldn't just hit the road at my leisure or perhaps this conversation would have never happened. So, on this hot summer day, I dropped the bomb during girlfriend chat time..

“I think I’m gonna go back to the club and ask Johnny for my job back”. 


Johnny was the owner of the club. We had an ...interesting...relationship...soo to speak. I never slept with Johnny but from what I heard, lots of girls did. I guess I could see it because he was a cute baby faced white guy with a very nice smile. But there was nothing 'amazing' about him and his stomach was a lil pudgy. He wasn't that tall, but he did have dimples and lots of money. Johnny never tried nothing with me though and it's quite possible that as much as he wasn't MY type, I wasn't his. I remember being surprised the more I heard about him over the years....he seemed so 'innocent'...lol. Kind of like he just happened to own a strip club-type of innocence...I don't know, it probably makes no sense on the out looking in but the nonetheless, I had been fired from this club years prior. Yep, you too can get fired from the strip club! It was a lot of drama. Personality-wise, I think I was the same then as I am now; quiet, reserved and introverted yet life of the party, good time having, bubbly person to those I know and kick it with. TheBasement, or the dressing room, was pretty big, full of lockers and wrap around mirrors that had wood shelving beneath it. That was where girls took shots, did drugs, homework, called boyfriends and children and baby sitters on the pay phone. Then of course we argued and fought and laughed, cried and had damn good times. Some nights got wilder than others and on slow nights, it was no thing to see a girl stretched across four chairs fast asleep. I wonder if the club today is like that? We all had each other's back strong. Yeah we plotted and schemed together but we broke bread and closed caskets together as well. I wonder if the girls of today's strip club world are as close or as connected as we used to be? And with the age of money obsession, I wonder if they are driven beyond the club like so many of us were? Folks really were in school and trying to do better....women DO have goals of quitting and doing more. For every woman there who makes the choice to be involved in 'working' after hours or turning tricks in the table dance room (possibly really happened), there are five more who are sole providers of children or young women (like myself) exploring life's options. You can meet a girl with a pimp or one with a strong savings account. It takes a lot of trial and error to find out where you are supposed to be. For some of us, the trial and error was the club. I know of lawyers, doctors, artists, DJ's, engineers and teachers, public speakers and entrepreneurial go getters that were in the club with me in the early 2000s. They make me proud when I see them and I hope I do the same for them. I was inspired by many of them and still am. And for those who never left or ventured off deeper, I still have mad respect before because I know the game. I remember the life....and true to this blog topic, I know all too well how hard it is to struggle with 're-entry' back to normal.

The feeling of not being able to get a job (due to little to no employment background) or getting one and receiving that first check. Shrew.....Forever 21 was my first job afterwards. First check was less than 200. I felt disrespected. But I had too much pride to go back....at first. 

 I got fired for a rape-situation between some girls that I allegedly bore witness to. #ThatHappened. I'll say this: I never witnessed a rape but I did see stuff pop. Tons of us were fired and moved on to other clubs. I went east for awhile and then I returned back west. But I left again. My last year of dancing was a lot of flip flopping...I didn't know how that would sit with Johnny but I knew how it sat with me: pride killing. When I left there the final time, I vowed to never return. I don't even remember what happened but it was something. I'm glad I did, I'm very damn glad I left and never made it back. I missed seeing a good friend getting killed on the parking lot....the homegirl I was sitting with on this day of confession was there that night. She saw it. He actually stumbled along her car as he fell into his death.

....  ............but that was before this day.
that was before hiroshima hit Brendon Way Drive.

After I confessed the tepid desire to return to my stripper roots, my friend asked a few questions about my decision. She was trying to see how sure I was. And once I heard it come out of my mouth, I knew I had officially given up and was 100% sure. I continued to confirm that I had put a lot of thought into this and felt like I had no choice. I had tried my best to gain decent employment but the sharks were not biting for me. I had even taken an 'Administrative Professional Class'' that lasted for about 2.5 -3 weeks. Maybe even a month. I went three days a week, 8-4 and spent the day at some building out north with about 9 other people. We were being taught how to type (I didn't know how), as well as other 'things' they thought would help us gain administrative work. It was like $200 to take this class and my boyfriend paid for it. His name is #MuseRaggedyAndy. And having him pay that much money for me to do anything was another strain on our relationship. We had been living together for about 2.5 years I guess....but I had been without a job for the better of a year. I told him about this class and that they would help me find employment in hopes that it would tone some of our arguments down. He used to treat me so shitty. Seriously, not trying to be a victim, he just treated me shitty. After months went by and he was footing all the bills (while I helped raise his live in daughter in 100% place of her mom who was not around), he started to treat me like a lesser woman because I didn't have any money. He talked to me like this, called me out about it and laughed at me. I was severely depressed and hurting. I had taken the class and was supposed to receive a certificate but the classes stopped abruptly and they ended up being investigated by dude on Channel Six. Turned out, they were fraudulent and had gotten away with people's money....the teacher taught me how to know my keys tho. I was a heavy pecker on the keyboard, but she did effectively teach me how to learn where the keys were. I still couldn't type good, but I went on to teach myself in all my free time by using my 'stepdaughter's Barbie toy laptop. MuseRaggedyAndy threw it in my face about how I wasted money and still was a broke mf. Lol. By the time I having this conversation with my girlfriend, the r it was my very last hope.....i just don't know if I was trying to save me, or us.

"Well before you come back to the club, there is something I have to tell you"

..............that's when the ball started rolling and by the time it stopped, I was nothing short of killing myself.


TBC....................

Drunk in Love: Musical Chairs

Do you know what it’s like to lose control on something that you truly value as a vital part of your life? Think about it for a minute….think about the losses you have endured but didn’t consciously know you had lost? Has there ever been a time you gave up more than the ghost? Did you give up a piece of you and didn’t know it?

In this instance,

I am specifically talking about MUSIC.  Music to me is what writing is to my left hand: A natural occurrence.  I am tangled up in music….there, within the chords and melodies and lyrics, I tend to find myself in all capacities: Thoughts, feelings, the way I’m looking, the way I love, the way I hurt, etc….. I fall into the instruments one by one and then two by two and at some point, sometimes during the replay of the song I’m feeling at the moment, I find my way in love with the lyrics. Not always – Sometimes a beautiful beat is accompanied by horrific lyrics that don’t make the most sense, and while I might listen to it, I am hardly in denial of the presence of unnecessary or misguided lyrical content. But those songs that hit the mark, both musically and lyrically, are the things my ear dreams are made of. 

So let me pose this question again:

Do you know what it’s like to lose control on something that you truly value as a vital part of your life? I do. I lost my music in 2013 and throughout 2014 in a way that I don’t think I ever had before…..plenty of heartbreaks have left me in musical shackles for a couple of weeks…I wouldn’t be able to play a song or two without feeling reminders of what ‘used to be’….but for the most part, I have always bounced right back or always had a whole new collection of songs to keep it moving to, while giving no thoughts to the songs I was leaving behind. ……but that last time, I lost a lot of music….so much so that I couldn’t ignore that I had lost it. There were whole albums, entire playlists and individual songs that spread life reminders in my ears that I could no longer stand to listen to…. 

I believe a part of it was his/our connection as individuals (and together) where music was concerned….we both had a LOVE of music.  We used to sit and talk about music and songs and favorites…..music is one of the greatest and most important forms of art there is (this of course is my personal opinion).  Therefore, when I mentally associated songs with us, they became US; even tho ‘us’ was actually a figment of my imagination. When he sat on my couch and told me that Outkast’s Stankonia reminded him of us, I had never heard the song before….before the night was over, I had listened to it repeatedly. I kept thinking ‘love is us’, ‘love is you’……LOLOLOL…..i attached that song to us and it lived in my speakers….>WE lived in my speakers and earphones…..i added it to several playlists effortlessly …..and listened to it like it was a brand new release…….by the time we were done and over, when this song that I had never even heard before ‘us’ (even tho I had the album) would come on, I would get that nauseated feeling that made me want to run away from earshot of who ever was playing it and for some reason, now, it seemed like it was ALWAYS playing o.O ………………………………………………………

On December 17, 2013, Beyonce released Drunk in Love.

When I first took a look at the video and heard the song, I felt an awkward sense of Hell Yeah towards the song. On one hand, I thought it was kinda a BS song but I really loved the music and that bassline. But on the other hand, I heard a song about love. A song that celebrated getting drunk off of who you loved and making love until you couldn’t remember when and where you started. I listened a second time and decided I liked it. As a matter a fact, when that spiral sounding rift comes in, I could see myself slow walking a room in a seductive manner towards the man who I felt like I loved…I saw his bedroom and me in it….the chair that sat on the left side of his bed, next to the nightstand…..yeah, the same chair I leaned on when he ‘carrying in the groceries’ that one time. O.O #OOP

When bass drops in just before 1:40 mark, I saw us entangled in each other’s arm locks and salacious smiles…I could hear his voice, I could taste that salty sweat on his neck, I could hear what we were saying to each other and the way our bodies would roll when she says Surfboard. It all made sense….the black and white moving visuals of Beyonce and Jayz loosely swinging bodies and arms around an empty beach made me want to make suggestions to him. It was December and cold and  Christmas was literally right around the corner…..i wanted to fuck to this song. I wasn’t quite interested in making a slow winding love groove to old Tony Toni Tone songs; I desired to act up and act a fool w/each other. I mean by that point, we had long crossed boundaries that should have been reserved for that person ( foolish of me for thinking they were)….within 24 hours, I had added the song as its own playlist until I could figure out whether to start a new one or add it to the existing playlist entitled “Slopfest”. 

* Shrug *

I was already sold and gone and dickmatized (as Jill Scott would say) from the faux affections of this man, so it really didn’t take much for me to find yet another song that I thought reminded me of us. This song, Drunk in Love, made me think about the parking lot…..it reminded me of the first kiss….it seemed playfully wrong and sinfully good and the only thing that was missing behind the power couple’s shared vocals was the sound of me and him…..and our ‘beautiful bodies grinding off in a club’’…..

I looked forward to the day that I would play this while we found bliss in each other’s groove.

I think I sent it to him…..as a matter a fact, I am positive I sent him the whole damn video…it was still brand new……I was feeling us. I.don’t.know.how.that.was.possible.

I’ve been blind before, but idk, I guess I just wanted what I wanted to be true. As we know from this blog, by the time we got to the end of the December, the ass had literally fallen out …..his Christmas gift to me was being sloppy and cyber messy enough for me to see so I could do his dirty work for him. And that’s how it went …

..my ‘breastessis were never his breakfast’, he never ‘slide the panties to the side’, and I was most certainly ‘TIRED”. The lyrics had taken on new meanings…new directions. …..we never did anything to this song. I started envisioning him laughing at me when I first sent it to him. We used to send each other music or have online youtube song battles, so sending music wasn’t anything different….so I was pretty sure he was comfortable in his laughter from me sending him that song when I did. I would almost bet that the true Mrs. in his life probably shared that song with him too….only difference is they probably did have a slopfest to Beyonce’s winding, drunkish vocals. 

The song that I had only been bobbing my head to for a couple of weeks became a song that when it came on the radio, it made me so queasy that I could have pulled over for a quick trip to the roadside vomit factory. Seriously….every time I heard the song, I would almost kill myself trying to get it off my radio. My truckie radio is silly too…the knob sometimes turns the music UP instead of DOWN….and it did that on more than one occasion…..

Which brings me back to the original question: Do you know what it’s like to lose control on something that you truly value as a vital part of your life?

When you have that EXTRA relationship with music, losing the ability to hear it in whatever capacity you have ‘lost’ it can be almost debilitating… …but here’s why: It’s not about the loss of music completely; it’s actually about the loss of yourself! It’s hard enough to move on after a failed companionship and when we are trying to get on with our lives, one of the things I think we do (or at least I do) is big up myself for every hurdle tackled and beat !

“I’m no longer praying for his/her downfall “ #Victory “I haven’t checked his IG page in a week” #Victory  “I don’t send messages, online or over the phone anymore” #Victory 

So when you find yourself inundated with extreme disdain every time you hear a song that snaps you back into an old reality, it’s rather disappointing and more than that, it’s hard to swallow. If you actually invest a moment or three to think about it, you will see that the disappointment factor exists because you realize you have lost a part of YOU. You aren’t just forfeiting songs: You are forfeiting yourself. You are saying “this part of me has changed therefore this part of me can never be confronted ever again”. You are saying ‘this will forever stand a monument for this portion of my life and I will not ever return to visit this monument. I will have to build anew”.  But when it’s music, it’s not that easy to build anew. Trust me, I started all kinds of ‘new’ playlists and tried it but there was always this yanking, irritating feeling of ‘how dare a MF come into my life and change me AND my damn music?? !!!”

I’ve blogged about not being able to ever hear Stankonia from Outkast again as well as how hard it was for me to ‘reclaim’ my rights to listen to the Lose to Win CD from Fantasia and then there was that damned 20/20 by Justin Timberlake that I casually flaunted as the soundtrack to our ‘budding relationship” …..i could not listen to any of these songs. NONE of them. When I would turn them on, I would feel on the verge of a panic attack. Several times, I attempted to confront the ghost of Not-Really-Ex’s-Past and just listen to all or some or even a few of the songs and take back my power. It didn’t work. Often times, I would end up turning off the song(s) before they could reach the chorus….. Then there are those times you can’t control the music dial. …being in other people’s cars is sometimes the worst possible thing to do in situations like this… …my sis was a huge JT fan, so getting in the car with her almost guaranteed that I would hear at least one JT song…I never said anything but it was like nails on chalkboard…..at least once, tears welled up and idk if a few fell or if I was able to push them back but I do recall that happening on Drink You Away and Not A Bad Thing, both of which I heard several times in her car before I was ready. Her and my niece would be singing away to the lyrics while I would be thinking about opening the door and falling out while the car was in motion…..<  sounds like a stretch right? Welp, it’s the truth. But who am I to tell someone to turn that shit off cause I think it’s giving me a heart attack???? Especially when I know it’s not gonna kill me?

But you know what…..Stress kills. All it takes is the right amount of stress at the right time and you could very well have a heart attack or a stroke and the only thing the doctors can attribute it to IS stress, but no one can say for certain WHAT stress it was……..so in reality, I guess it’s better to open your mouth rather than suffer through five minutes of runs and high notes and musical instruments that literally strum your pain with each  chord. …I gave him me after the fact and he didn’t even know he still had me…..or maybe he did. It fed his ego greatly to know I was one half heel step from running in behind him with a white flag and a list of Pros About Januarie….so maybe he knew….maybe his energy felt the hold he still had on me through music…. He had my love of music on LOCK.

It didn’t stop or end w/Drunk in Love or JT or even Fantasia……there was the “The York Inspire: Old Sauce” playlist I made …..i almost deleted it, but I didn’t because I hoped highly that this would pass even though after a few months, I started to think it never would. The York Inspire had the entire Dead Presidents soundtrack on it, which was one of his favorite soundtracks as we had discussed one night in the car outside the spot. In addition to that, I had thrown some of Love Jones soundtrack tunes on there as well as some sexy En Vogue and a few other nice hits that all reminded me of him, us …somehow.

I stopped playing it. I could not listen to Curtis Mayfield or Al Green or En Vogue or Beyonce or Justin Timberlake or Fantasia or even Marvin Gaye or Lenny Williams.  None of these songs were new to me…they didn’t fall into my life upon meeting #MuseWeasel, but I gave him the rights to the songs as he produced them and banned me from listening….every time I tried to confront myself, I would get entangled in that asphyxiating feeling…..it was like I would shake internally starting with my veins. I would cry sometimes but for the most part, if I heard one of those songs, I would pause. LIFE would literally pause…..and no, I didn’t start star gazing about shoulda, coulda, woulda’s…..i started wondering why I hadn’t set his car on fire….

Or painted his windshield…..which I knew would lead to me painting his windows and doors because he was a renter…..

Or why hadn’t I waited for them to show up and then just show my ass and whatever happened just happened???? How come I didn’t stand up for myself???? I would zone so far left field and so unhealthy, that eventually,  I just stopped listening to EVERYTHING ….i switched my entire listening catalog.

I didn’t delete nothing, but I threw the JT CD in the back of my truckie (where it became scratched badly) and did the same with Fantasia. I made rap playlists and listened only to them and on an occasion, I would listen to something slow that had the possibility to make me think too much, but for the most part, I was Team NO R&B, NO LOVE SONG, NO MAKING LOVE SONGs, NOTHING….nothing but fuck bitches, get money. I made playlists called #TheseHeauxsCantRideForFree and #WhereDaRatchetAt ….but I had to skip over so many other playlists to get to these. Slopfest, A Bright Beam of Light, You’re Gonna Want Me Back…..all these musical biographies of mine with corresponding names to help me with my musical mood swings and here I had up and let someone else turn my Spotify into an Indian Burial Ground….my dusty and dirty now-demonized spirit would rise from the smoke of my earphones when I tried to listen…..

And of course, Drunk in Love was that song I would swerve off the curb trying to get off my radio. 

FF one year later: 

So I spent all of 2014 ducking and dodging the remnants of my past and the music that was it's soundtrack. I played the game of 'oh i can't hear this' until I grew tired of the foolery....i ignored the playlists that I pay ten bucks a month to have access to.....i waited for the clouds to open up through my speakers and they never did. I had to come to realize two things:

1. There was still a piece of me that was with that guy.
2. It was solely up to me to get it back. Which meant 'time' was not my friend. Time would not pass and then magically I'd open my eyes and see myself dancing seductively, alone, to the rifts in Ne Yo's Lazy Love....nope. I had to do this on my own. #Storyofourlives

I had to decide that those two factors were about to be nonfactors. I had to let go. Snap back. Snatch back. Pull back, pull up and then pull off. I had to be ok with healing COMPLETELY....and more than that, I had to be ok with healing myself instead of waiting for this mysterious time that heals ALL wounds to come serve up a bandaid. 

And so I did. Little bits at a time, I would test the waters by playing one of the many songs I had sworn off of. I don't know where I started. Well, I guess you can say I started by allowing ONE song to be let go of forever. I'd give it away and turn it loose as the sacrifice for my sanity. I couldn't think of a better song to choose than that which I had only heard after he brought it into my life, one night, while we were sitting on the couch. I was hanging on him, rubbing and touching different parts of his skin when he told me about this song and how it reminded him of us. I was sniffing and eating the taste of his cologne and I was trying to stare happiness down his eyes.....if i recall right, he was a bit stressed out that night. I loved that we shared an Outkast song. I love Outkast.  And I let them go.....
.........well not Outkast as a whole.
But I let go of Stankonia. 

I went through every playlist I thought it was on and removed it. It was on several. I actually tried playing it first before I did that.....i made it through the first half before changing my mind. I went ahead and completed my mission. I have not listened to or heard this song in ages. And even though I can still hear that bass beating in the silence of my thoughts, I know that I will never  voluntarily listen to it again. But I also know, in letting go of a song that we were attached to, I would be ok if I heard it again while out somewhere.......I mean, everyone loves Outkast. 

As for the rest, I reclaimed my space...little by little, I would play bits and pieces of 20/20 (JT) and I would find myself completely ok with listening to him. I did the same with Fantasia's Lose to Win album, although I knew that album would forever be the foreshadow I never applied to my eyes......until it was too late. So, there will always be a faux 'us' attached to it, but I have listened to it and I didn't keel over and die. In the weeks that followed, I started going back to my love & sexy song playlists......bit by bit by bit, like building a foundation for a house one brick at a time, I would find myself pushing my boundaries and taking back the pieces of me that had been scattered on the showroom floor for way too long. 

I moved from my earphones at work to my CD player in the truckie....i found my Fantasia and played it...i found my JT, and played it.....matter a fact, I just took JT out of my cd player last week......when I first put it in somewhat unconsciously, it hit me as I was driving with my sunglasses on and my body language turned up.....I was not trying to force myself into something....i was no longer 'listening for a healing' or reaction.....i was back to jamming. I literally wanted something else to listen to and since it had been awhile for that particular CD, I chose it without pause or thought... I was singing the lyrics to Pusher Love Girl and Strawberry Bubblegum with the same enthusiasm as before!! I played a great deal of the cd and let it sit in my player for awhile and remained unbothered by it. ...i wasn't driving around in tears or stuck to attached memories that only I owned. That was when I knew I should blog this portion of my journey. It speaks volumes......at least to me. 

We give away small and big pieces of ourselves and don't even be knowing it sometimes.....while our mouths are saying 'I'm ready to be over this' and 'it's just gonna take some more time', in actuality it may be us subconsciously REFUSING to heal ....it is true that it's possible to stunt your own growth because you get so stuck and used to hurting, that NOT being hurt in even the smallest of ways is like uncharted territory that you aren't ready to be in. And don't get me wrong; it definitely still takes TIME. Time is not the enemy, however, time can become the suspension we become stuck in. ....like a 3rd dimension that prevents full healing. We use it to our advantage while missing the memo that we have no advantage....rather, we are using TIME to insult our healing. 

I most definitely have been able to look back and see different moments, like this one, where I have given the ghost of me unto failed relationships and didn't know that's what I was doing, therefore, I couldn't take ME back. I couldn't reverse or undo the damage because I wasn't fully aware of all the damage that was done. What if I have carried damaged pieces around in my luggage all this time??? Seeing as though this epiphany only just happened, how many bags am I carrying? How have I managed to fly across the country with these bags??? How many bags are you holding because you haven't ever been fully honest or at least 'aware' of what parts of you were still on loan ? 

Music was mine. Or at least one of them. I have unpacked this bag now. All my Spotify playlists are up for grabs when it comes to listening. Justin Timberlake is no longer a long stiletto nail across the chalkboard; it's my jam session. 

What is yours? What have you given away or let go of and think you would never have to confront it again?  What is missing from your playlist ? What are the nails on chalkboard for you? What are they writing? What are you missing from yourself? Identify it purposely. Don't let TIME be the reason you ignore it. 
Time will only heal the wounds are you open to confronting. 

Find your all your misplaced pieces of self and your love and reclaim it all. Put your precious gemstones back in your crown. Then, put your crown back on, toss your robe in the wind and put on a damn good song, 

And go forth and be healed. 
Matter a fact,

get Drunk off the way you Love to be completely healed. #SURFBOARD
* turns on Drunk in Love & smiles freely * 

Blogtrack:

"I couldn't help but notice your pain
'my pain'? 
It runs deep, share it with me!" 
~2Pac 

~jY 

Words from 'A Woman': You Never Told Me To Stop

“Why would I stop a woman from loving me?”

~David, Being Mary Jane

Ok, let me first start with the fact that I know I am late to the game on Being Mary Jane. I also know all the mixed reviews it has received. I put the MOVIE ‘Being Mary Jane’ in my Netflix queue a long while back but I never looked at it. A few days ago while looking for something interesting in my queue, I scrolled past Being Mary Jane and stopped. I noticed it no longer said movie, it now said ‘series.’ So I dove in and was hooked instantly. In just under a handful of available time, I had watched all 8 episodes. Today, I watched the finale of season one and during the confrontation between David and MJ, I took a particular moment of pause at something he said. After declaring her ‘ride or die girl’ status, Mary Jane began to list a few of the accommodations being with her had gained David, including folding laundry, cooking and exchanging ideas, to which he replied:

 “I never asked you to do any of that” (#Oh.)

 of which she stated

 “You didn’t tell me to stop, either”.  (#IKnowThatsRightGirl!)

And then he flatlined the conversation with:

 “Why would I stop a woman from loving me?” (#OH. OH. Ohhhhh…….).

This slice of the conversation felt like it was once removed from my rib. I was too familiar with her desperation and her declarations. Her words were fleeting acquaintances of mine, like most of the cousins I have. I recognized her statements to be the intruders I opened the door for. In the past, I had sipped tea with those very same ideas of love, relationships and retort; and I knew this conversation from my own delusions of love grandeur, particularly with #MuseWeasel. The groceries I bought, the rent I helped to pay, the kissing in front of his child; to ME, those were ‘high regarded’ happenings. Things that would only happen with someone ‘special’ or things I would only do with/for someone special….i listed them out one by one in hundreds of angry and hurt facebook messages, typed at 90 miles per hour, to which his response was similar to that of David, if not verbatim. “I never asked you to do that”.  

NoteToNiggas: ‘ DRY BEGGING’ is only UN-equal to actual asking/begging because of the it’s level of Cowardism. Yup. I said that. #Carryon.

And just like Mary Jane, an appalled januarie York responded with a firm and imperative “You never told me to stop, either!” #ForTheWin

It wasn’t a win tho. And in those moments of those personal conversations, not just with #MuseWeasel but all the men I have dated and had similar talks with, the best possible response back to me would have been “Why would I stop A Woman from loving me?”

None of them ever possessed enough courage to say such in return. But I know they thought it. That wasn’t just a line from a television script; that was an idea taken from the book of true life.  

It’s a wide open, random shot in the dark type of statement.

“A Woman”- not to be confused with “Mary Jane’’ or in real life “januarie York”.

Not to be specific or particular. …’a woman’ refers to anyone, everyone and those in between. “A Woman” is as random as a toothpick in the box at the counter. It’s open to whoever you end up with or whatever you grab. There is nothing special about ‘a woman’, but there IS something special about that statement. Men don’t marry or fall in love with ‘a woman’. They fall in love with (**insert name**). Wedding invitations declare they are joining (his name) and (her name); not (his name) and (a woman).

 Insert a name in place of ‘a woman’ and see the difference. Use your own name or mine, or Mary Jane’s…or use the pronoun, YOU.

Her: ‘You never told me to stop.’

**Him: Why would I tell YOU to stop loving me?

**Him: Why would I tell Mary Jane to stop loving me?

**Him Why would I tell januarie York to stop loving me?

**Him: Why would I tell ( **insert your name**) to stop loving me?

Feel any different to you? As for me, it takes on a completely different meaning when a name or an indicative pronoun is used. It sounds direct. Like ownership. It sounds like he wants that particular love, that particular woman’s love and when an actual name is used, it sounds like that woman’s love is the most influential love on the universe and who wouldn’t want it!!!??? It’s direct, much more so than ‘a woman’, which sounds as if it could be abruptly interrupted and replaced at the drop of an unseen hair follicle. As long as you are just ‘a woman’, he will keep both his wide receiver helmet on and his catcher’s mitt wide open. Two different games, but dual contributions. He will keep looking to catch ‘(insert name)’ who will be the one to which he reciprocates, all while openly receiving all the benefits from ‘a woman’. #Polidicks

“He who is loved, RECEIVES”. ~me

LOVE feels good. Love is sexy. Love is ugly in its beautiful. Love means to be taken care of in every possible aspect. It means to have a protector, even if you hope to never have to (or never would) use them as such. It is the reality that someone sees you in a light that no one else can see. It is a source of power that elevates each of your chakra’s, love is God, we are of God, we ARE Love, therefore, LOVE, in it’s acted out form feels good. Damn good… It is a spiritual connection to God and the Universe and to be able to see these connections in another person. Love is seeing you in another person... Love is a mirror…. It feels damn good to give it, but it can be life-altering to be a recipient of it.

When we love, we give whatever it is that we have. We give our bodies, our minds, our spirits, energies, calendars; we give our all, our tries, and our benefits of the doubt. When we love, we give our pushes and pulls and compromises. Our pulses. Our questions and answers. We explode and expand in the direction pf love to make more LOVE rotate between the axis of ourselves and another person. Love is giving. It is an action physically and mentally and when someone loves you, you receive all of that. The trick to maintaining that reception is reciprocity.

This is where things tend to get difficult.

I somehow have missed the part of Being Mary Jane where they dive into her relationship with David and where it went wrong. Perhaps that was in the movie I never watched. By the end of season one, he’s pretty stern on not getting back with her and he’s in a new relationship.

When he responds to her with his question of why, it might sound harsh or cold hearted at surface value, but this little Hollywood gem is the thing young teenage girls who are stirring around in puberty need to hear before they start dating.  This is what grown ass women still repeating and making the same mistakes with the same man of different faces need to hear. This is what mothers need to tell their daughters because they have learned the hard way and this is what fathers tell their daughters and then teach them how to avoid. This is what every man needs to say to the woman that he needs to say this to. He knows who she is better than I do…………

A man will not STOP you from loving him.

So often we as women are so heart-bent on keeping the man we love or not giving up on ‘possibilities’ that we insist on loving them into loving us. I did that with #MuseWeasel. Despite what I knew was beginning to unravel, I insisted that this be worth something. That even if it didn’t turn out to be something grand, that it would still be valuable to both of our lives that we ever interacted. I wanted to make us better people by loving him into loving me and that’s not how love works. I gave him (and others) wifely duties and freaky fantasies along with qualities of the token ‘ride or die chick’. I did these things for two reasons:

1.      I genuinely wanted to. #Dickmatized

and

2.      Because I was trying to insist on him loving me through my love for him. I tried to be the whole damn food chain, not realizing I was a guppy swimming for love in a broke ass shark tank. I was convinced that I was showing him HOW to love me AND that he would fall IN love with me at the same time. Two birds with one stone of cupid’s face….. O.O

When the bridge connecting us collapsed and I reminded him of all these things I had done and how special they were, I am not quite sure what I expected him to respond with, but I kind of really wish it were that very statement. The hindsight version of me believes that I would have ‘caught’ something from it, but technically by the time we had this conversation, I’m not sure what difference it would have made that is any different from me hearing it on a TV show a few days ago.  

“Why would I stop a woman from loving me”?

If you’re giving him money, he will accept the opportunity to lessen his financial load, even if he doesn’t like you because “Why would he stop a woman from loving him?” Receiving love feels damn good.  He will indulge in fuck-games for sport because sex feels good and “why would he stop a woman from loving him sexually?” He will give his grand minimal contributions to keep you making it rain on him with whatever you’re pilfering from yourself to give to him because “why would he stop a woman from loving him?” It feels good to have someone have your back, even if you don’t want them. It feels good to have someone stroke your ego, call your name in foreign love languages and push you towards greatness, even if you are not interested in them. It feels good to receive love & it’s subsequent forms of affection. It is egotistically orgasmic.

Now, when the time comes that he has found his better half in another woman (because remember, he will still actively be looking), he will start to slowly wean himself from your umbilical love until he is detached….sometimes this means he will purposely sabotage ‘the situation’ just to get YOU to do the dirty work. He knows how you feel about him and he knows why you are doing what you are doing…..but what he can’t allow himself to do is be disciplined enough to NOT accept love from a woman because “receiving love feels damn good”. And it can be helpful. So rather than stop things before they get, as Facebook would say ‘complicated’, he indulges until he wants no more parts in it, then he either falls so madly in love with another woman that his balls grow up and he comes clean OR he will become purposely sloppy and trip you up in a trap that you can’t ignore. The latter is a coward btw. Both are, but at least one grows balls.

If his interest in you doesn’t turn a corner that it too high for his dick to reach, the only conscious act he will do with you is receive benefits. He will parade his availability and his dick to other people until he becomes involved in a chase that entertains his mind, his heart and lastly his dick. And while you are on the sidelines in a tiny cheerleading skirt decorated in an apron, fixing breakfast and writing checks and sucking dick upside down and trying to find new ways of making a continued valuable impression minus an engagement ring or even the title of Girlfriend, you won’t realize that he is accepting of these things because and only because….receiving love feels good. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, this is happening:

‘why would he stop a woman from loving him?”

Especially a woman who is ADDING to his life.……many men won’t stop that from happening. He repeatedly accepts because receiving love feels damn good.

It felt good to #MuseWeasel. He told me this at different times and only in this hindsight I’ve been served can I see behind some of the things he said. But he told me that I made him feel good. Hell, of course TF I did! I talked to that nigga like he was Royal. I addressed him as King or Gorgeous or Handsome at all times. I fed his spirit and uplifted his most stressful moments as best as I could. I admitted to not having the answers when I didn’t but I still gave him pieces of my Castle in hopes that he would see Buckingham in his own reflection.  …why would he have stopped that? Why not, when he’s feeling low, reach out to the woman that will leave him feeling like he ‘The Man’, so he can be large and in charge when it comes time to talk to #BAE. <Whoever she is. 
So what if he's not really interested in his accidental sidelining cheerleader…

She.

Makes.

Him.

Feel.

POSSIBLE!!!!! . ….so he kept coming for more. ..until more was no more….

I believe this to be a behavior we have all indulged in at least once in life, myself included. I think I have been a recipient of love-benefits while knowing good and damn well I we wouldn’t go much further or that I wasn’t interested. I guess my only salvation is I was much younger and wasn’t so much as ‘pretending’ as I was allowing. I’m trying to clean up my version of participating in this asshole-action but shit is shit, even on a bed of roses. It still stinks. I have a poem about that very idea. It’s called Bed of Roses…I’ve never performed it and it’s at least 5 years old. But I digress. Shit is shit is shitty, so for the times I’ve done someone else like this, I apologize to myself and to the universe.

May I have finally finished paying my karma off!

Lack of reciprocity will create a monster in dying need of affection.  If you choose to continue to tra-la-la all through an imaginary field of flowers know that you are simply pacifying his needs...you are not 'creating' a love story…..he, on the other hand, is just letting himself be covered in the beautiful that is ‘received love’.  The only way to control this type of situation or prevent it all together is to:

***Not be so quick to wife a nigga in a pawn’s clothing. You can’t be wife to someone who won’t even agree to date you. You can’t be girlfriend to someone who doesn’t want you but just wants to reap in benefits. You have to find balance and taming of thy heart. You have to listen to yourself and your instincts and use your spirit of discernment to the utmost degree. Otherwise, you will go blind and broke trying to fit your circle in a triangular square.

2.    ***  Let go when letting go is the only option. Don't kill yourself fighting. 

3.    ***  Jump ship naked and promise yourself you will not be Captain Save A Nigga anymore….don’t save him from his bills, his stress or himself….let him be an adult and do that shit on his own. The ‘right guy’ will not look for your saving skills nor will he Dry Beg and pretend he don’t know what that means. He will solve his problems and seek to fix any of yours that he knows of. He will bring a throne to the throne – not his carseat.

4.      ***Know that a man will NOT stop a woman from loving him. He will not cease her actions or cut her off when her benefits to him are stellar. He will continue to let you pamper his ass in whatever you provide to him (sex, money, time, affection, etc) even when he knows he shouldn’t. It’s hard to stop someone from making you feel good. We are all guilty. It’s not a man thing. It’s not a race thing. It’s human nature to want to feel good and receive more of it, even when we are still searching for the missing key. But do NOT base any portion of your relationship on the fact that he has not 'stopped' you from going in the deep end of the waters....you ain't supposed to even be IN the waters....relationSHIPS are supposed to float. Know that. 

Blogtrack:

“When you’re out there doing what you’re doing

Are you just getting by???”

~Pink, Try

While I am guilty and have repented for enjoying being a recipient of someone’s love tokens who I didn’t want, I have spent a great deal of time, most notably the last time, dishing out affection by the pound in effort to gain the reciprocity.

The last time, as we all know by now, I lost all of me in the folds of desire …..i kept going, harder and harder with each phone call and every visit. I over did myself for someone who I knew would only do me….and ultimately he did me in.

If only he had have just told me to STOP!

Better yet…..

If only he was strong enough to not let “a woman’’ love him.

Blogtrack;

“that don’t make it good for anybody

Don’t wanna be in love just with anybody

Tired of being just Mr Anybody

So baby come with me, let’s just make a body…………”

“…..Maybe we’re just playing house

Just cause it feels good

Just cause it feels good……” 

~Playing House by Active Child

Lesson learned tho. Part of loving yourself and putting yourself first is knowing that you don't have to COURT, SAVE, BEG or LOVE ANYONE into you. Either they do or they don't.

And as I continue to peruse the halls of my indefinite single life and try to get my resting bitch face under control, I will never forget these lessons I have received. They have made me such a greater woman and this I know for sure. Jill Scott played in my truckie yesterday and I remember the days Pre-Blog when I would listen to it in tears on the way home from work....i would wonder to myself would I ever heal, even though I knew I would. It just seemed so far away....i had not been stopped from loving and giving love and now that it blew up in my face and played out on the beast that is social media and i felt exposed and depleted. 

Jill Scott, When I Wake Up
" To much on my mind....
here i am thinking again
all lost in my brain
but i know i should get up and get out of it
i gotta keep moving
but here i am lost all upside my brain
can't stop thinking, reminiscing 
can't stop. can't let go.

but when i wake up
and one day, i will do it,
i have let you go
and everything I went through will be beautiful" 

I used to suffer through this song but I would let her voice soothe and remind me that I would indeed wake TF up oneday....and it will have all been beautiful. I kind of didn't believe it would ever be beautiful...but she was right.

I"m finally there.
yesterday, i smiled and sang along to these lyrics several replayed times, with an empowered sense of freedom and self ...."I have let you go...and everything i went through was beautiful." 

Yes. It was beautiful. It served me. WELL. And he's been let go of. <3
#MuseWeasel is the last time I will be a woman who needs to be stopped because she can't control her love/like/infatuation.

And it was most certainly the last time I will be just ‘a woman’ to another man. 

Nigga!!! I"m JANUARIE YORK.<<I mean this with absolute unrelenting, healthy confidence. I need no co-sign or lawyers to prove to me that I am somebody of great importance. I could very well be the ONLY person in the world who believes JANUARIE YORK is the greatest januarie York alive...and I don't care. I am januarie York. Some call me jY. Some call me Kennie j. Some just call me Ken, or Kennie and family calls me Kendria. Whatever you know me as, know this:

  I was never born to be just 'a woman' in ANY facet of life, but especially for a man, his love or his bowl of sewn semen oats. * tips hat * 

BlogTrack:

"....bird ass niggas

i don't mean to ruffle yaw

i know you waiting in the wing, but i'm doing my thing

Where's the Love?" 

~Jayz, Heart of the City