4th Quarter: What A Time To Be AFly

"I'm in over my head
i don't think of you
in bits and pieces
i think of you only
like a miracle
loving so deeply
i feel it through all my past lives
it feels good
I'm never saying goodbye"
~Over My Head, Alabama Shakes

2015 has come and gone. I remember starting the year off with my sister...we were laughing and doing grown up things and dancing, singing and taking selfies!! I don't remember if we watched the ball drop or not. The rest of the year was set by that tone: Live, Love, Laugh. Stay in Great Company. Dance.

"Loving so deeply,
I'm in over my head"

I went everywhere. I did everything. I met new people and ate a fruit breakfast in the mountains. I flew to California for the first time and drove a drop top Mazda thru San Francisco streets while my long twists blew in the wind. I wrote love in the sand at the beach. I zipped and soared thru my artistic life with new climbs up my personal ladder. I exhaled more than I can recall. I partied hard and fun and fell asleep on loved ones. I loved my dogs more and my job less. I followed the steps towards God more fluently. And then one night, I found myself praying for something I hardly ever prayed for. I was driving up Emerson when the conversation with God turned to my loneliness. I remember it being a prayer of thankfulness. I was on my way to a show and thanked God for yet another opportunity and a beautiful year in general. I needed it. But I was still missing something...something that I hated that I missed. That I still felt the weight of it's absence made me sick. I turned to God in a natural sense. It wasn't contrived. It was necessary. I prayed for love. I remember hearing someone speak on being specific in prayer and I began to list qualities and attributes of the soul that I wanted in this love. I asked God to send me love. I thought I said I wasn't in a rush, but that I felt it was time I tried reaching out to Him and seeing if there was a possibly for me to find someone. Not just anyone.....
No more anyones....

I have a blog full of anyones that I'm trying to turn profit. Lol. I needed that one.

It was the next day that a conversation long overdue began.

Blogtrack:
"It's taken me a little while to bounce back
I've been falling from something good
and people say I took a little too long
Ooh, I did
yeah
oh baby, oh
Til you came along and you saved me
You saved me
with that  good love."
~You Saved Me, Gary Clark Jr.

There are four quarters in a year. So far, I had spun heads in my favor for each quarter starting in spring.I dubbed the fall "#TheGreatFallUP2015, and how prophetic that title would go on  to be ........

......

Writing this blog is hard. This space isn't for me to tell all about my year; this is a very particular blog and I would like to keep it that way, so the portion of my year that is blog-able for this space is peculiar to write about due to the fact that I don't want to say too much or give too much away or expose too much ....this is my reality. This is my life. And it's currently happening....this isn't the past tense anymore.....so I have to be selective on what I share out of protection, privacy and for the health of my relationship. But I have to share this part of my year with you, as you have been on this up and down journey with me and when I tell you my prayers were answered, I mean it. I believe it. I feel it in the most strange parts of my system. It halted me in my writing. It shied me from poetry - fearful to use him as  muse because I didn't want to put my hands in the put of stirring the magic. I needed what I prayed for: Natural Magic. This beautiful man came into my world and did something no one else had ever done: he made me pause. EVERYTHING took a break. I spent the last quarter on a spin and have been spinning around my own axis every since.

"From the first moment I knew,
I wanted this forever"
~Down to Ride, Gary Clark Jr

I have seen NYC out of hundreds of blinks and eye theories...I shared it with Queen, Too Black, Z Baby and Styxx...I have walked solo and talked to strangers. I have seen it and felt the sun on my shoulders with sunglasses as protection. I've laid on the waters of the Hudson with only a simple ship as my barrier...I have loved every step of NYC traveling, both by car and bus and plane as well....I have experienced it in many ways.....but never as a couple. When he told me yes to NY, and then went through with it, I knew. I KNEW IT.

"I got a girl who's down to ride with me
damn she looks good on that passenger side
with me
no more time to waste
thinking of the past
adjust that rearview
got my foot on the gas,
i got a girl who's down to ride
with me"

I KNEW IT....the moment I slid his periwinkle blue car out of the Holland Tunnel, I knew for a fact  that he was my husband to be. So now you know. No, I'm not engaged. But I'm involved in a grown up relationship....we are dating ON purpose and with one. He talks to God about me, in front of me and without me around. He talks to his parents about me. We talk to each other about the future. There are no questions. There is no wonder. We communicate like big grown ups. It's not perfect...but how could it be...jY is involved, lol. He knows and talks to my friends. As a matter a fact, every person close to me has met him and basically developed a natural relationship with him, either in passing respect associate style or true friendship. Everyone likes him, including my mom, Gmom and me.

"....baby I'm gon always be around
cause we're in this together
So when you feel alone
just know I got you
when you're feeling lost baby just know that I got you
My love
My love ......"

We were 35 floors up. The windows to our small room looked towards Times Square and the East River. Buildings were everything. It felt like we were flying. We both worked that Friday all day. I got off work, went to a dinner for Nikki  Giovanni and he got off and got a haircut. We never stopped moving. Our day started at 7am....when dinner was over, he met me at my house and we hit the highway to NYC. Our day didn't end until the first time we slept late Saturday night. By Saturday morning, our NYC date began at 830 am, Brooklyn, USA.

He has made it hard to keep him a secret. Or maybe not so much secret, but it's hard to not post a lot of pictures and say things.I do a semi good job of not saying anything but my love of pictures makes it even more difficult to keep him in the background. I do try not to overdue it. But it's new. It's fresh. We're youthful in our love. He respects me and I feel it. He's my biggest fan, as he says and as I feel. He shows up to my shows....without prodding. It's so effortless. He compliments me and gets involved. I can tell he's not in the crowd thinking of other things. He's listening....he watches...he gives me the space to be me, without pause and appears to love that about me. He is supportive and God fearing and I enjoy my time with him. I enjoy having met someone who loves me to a point that I can feel it...

I can feel his love for me.

"I"m yours right now"
~Alice Smith



via GIPHY
As I look back over the years, not just 2015, I feel bad assery. It's no wonder I have so many capes !!! How could I not?? I am a freaking superwoman !!! I survived and it's not on my own...trust me, I KNOW GOD has saved me and kept me....I know I"m favored...but I survived so much man. And in the realm of love, goodness......I've gone from a space heater for Christmas and a tape dispenser for my birthday to inadvertently buying another woman flowers for New Years to loneliness to a man drove me to New York for a date.To really know me, is to know how much this meant to me. The year was winding down, it had begun to seem that for the first time in years, I wouldn't be going to NY for my annual trip. And then suddenly, there was us. We left Sunday after checkout.

I do love him.

I have never experienced a year like this one or a relationship like this, but what a way to turn the last quarter over. I met someone who has made it ok to trust myself. He has shown me that my love, in all it's flaws and intensity, is enough and is beautiful. He loves what i love, including me.  I see God in his beautiful eyes and sometimes, I stare in them until he's uncomfortable. I love his parents. I FEEL so connected. All this time, we have been right in each others faces and not knowing that destiny would lead us into each others hearts. I only wish I could type out just how connected and how ordained this truly is but please, trust me when I say the man I am with is no accident. And I'm 100% positive about him, about us and about the future of this Harlem Renn themed wedding.

Did i say that?
No, I'm not engaged. Also, I"m not jumping into anything crazy. I'm not desperate.

I'm actually, for the whole year of 2015 and moving into 2016 hopped up on it, listening to God.

What a time to be a Fly(ing).

"Every 4th quarter, I like to Mike Jordan em"
~JayZ



via GIPHY

-januarie