To Thy Selfie Be True

I was on Facebook, thug-scrolling around and had a thought about myself and the relationship I'm in. I typed a status that said :


So many loves of mine have been hidden, clouded in mystery and confusion and secrets and shhhh, don't tell nobody. I've always felt like the ones I chose were ashamed of me. ...and i should have been of them.

Life changes
Ppl age
Energies locate safe places.
We protect us, but this thing called frozen memories makes me excited. .i guess i could never share a picture....but I would be less the Self I've fought to be.

Picture me rollin.

I thought about it for  awhile. 

When I looked back over my ''dating' and relationship experiences, 'secrecy and mystery' are  a couple of the noticeable recurring themes. I never liked being kept a secret, but I still wonder if the chase of trying to love a man out of the closet with me was some sort of sick psychological turnon? In 2014, me and #Somenig were sewn in secrecy to everyone except the folks that just happened to 'know'. If they knew about us, it was mostly because of eye witness account. I was eager for the day we would no longer be beneath the seams of the dating game. Never happened. Prior to him, I had been in a relationship where I had been the gatekeeper on the hush hush of us. Towards the end I posted a few pictures in a last ditch effort to believe in hope, but for the majority of the time we were together (7 years), most people didn't even know I was with someone, much less knowing what he looked like. It wasn't even something I did on purpose. It just happened that way. 

Neither he or 'we' were anything to brag on. * shrug * 

Before that I was cheated on, which was it's own set of secrets and lies, and before that, I there was another unpublished situationship. That about sums up  the 'major' relationships and happenstances in my life. And when I say secret, I don't just mean socially. Actually, pictures and social media weren't even a thing in the past. In these instances, we were uninvolved in each other's family life as well as personal friendships and associates. There were no like minds or common grounds or double dates. We were never good matches for each other, so even when I did kanoodle around their loved ones, it still came with a price. I've never had the best of the best and I take responsibility for who I picked and chose to share beds, homes and hearts with. Because at the end of the day, it was still all my choice. I wish I had have known better, but I didn't. I do 'blame' my father and stepfather for not imparting on me what a healthy relationship w/a man looks like. Now at some point you grow up. You are a full adult and you have learned stuff and been through stuff to teach you better than what you thought you knew, so I'm not afraid of admitting my own guilt. My own poor people and relationship skills kept me surrounded by a sea of bad choices that led to me loving men who would never be able to love me back. Not because they were such effed up people but rather because we should have never 'crossed paths'. I didn't know who to avoid, how or why. So my options were abundant. But as a woman, your options should never be abundant. You should be picky. You should be selective. Your pool of 'fish' should reflect YOU. It should reflect what your father taught you. I love both my father and stepfather and I hold no ill will towards them today but I'm human. I will always have a piece of me that misses what I wish I had with either one of them. I was born into dysfunction where it concerns father/daughter relationships. That dysfunction played out directly in my subsequent 'ship boarding'. As this blog constantly reaffirms, it took a long time to figure out HOW to make better choices and in that time, I bought a lot of luggage. 

I didn't see my beautiful. I didn't know my worth. I thought I deserved every small dose of crackhead love I received. I thought it to be as good as it would get for me. My dad wanted no parts of me. My brother wanted no parts of me. My stepdad made me feel picked on. By the time I was a teenager, I felt like there there was nothing I could do that was good enough for him. No matter what I tried to do to correct my shit, it always led to the same results. When I got involved in situations, I would jump through every hoop I could in effort to get the love I was seeking. I grew up feeling like the secret every man loved to hate so the guys I would end up with were guys that fit that same bill; they made me feel like I wasn't good enough and like I was a big secret. Every solo holiday and birthday, every empty seat at a show, every missed opportunity to sprinkle the world with pieces of 'us' was nothing like what I wanted but truthfully, it was all I ever knew. So like the mammal that I am, I adapted myself to my relationshit environments and played my role: Desperately seeking [but] losing. 

It never failed -I connected them with the spin of my hips and they danced to the beat of my heart just to get to my panties. We would then build relationships off orgasmic breaths instead of concrete bricks so our foundations were always shaky. 
Who would want to share a shaky foundation ???? Why would either of us want other people to know about a fauxmance?
  
Because I had been a stripper, I thought I was someone to be ashamed of so their seclusion of me made sense. My 2014 mishap saw me excited about the day that we let the cat out the bag only for the bag to open and there be a different feline climbing out and licking her paws. Again, I struggled w/not being good enough to tell people about.When it was me doing the hiding, it was because I knew better than my actions were showing but I would stick around with my crumbling hope as if consequence would never reach me. 

And it did many times. I should have been ashamed of my choices. I loved vulgarly and thought that in itself would earn me a God-like man. It only cost me time in solitary confinement with the heathens. And that confinement only cost me myself. 

And so here we are. If you've been following this journey, then you know I am currently in a relationship. A healthy relationship. Honestly and unbelievably, everyday he shows me that he is everything that I've wanted and prayed for (when I finally prayed). He is my final act. If in the event I am wrong about #MrCurrent, I am absolutely letting go of possibilities. You'd have to know the true ins and outs of our relationship and the things that have transpired around and within it to truly get me on this. And that won't happen so to that I say trust me. If ever I had a husband, it's him. And just being sincere, that scares me.

Because what if ..... 
But then I stop. I reject what if. I reject it like a muthafucka. All the what if I'm wrong and what if we break up questions are not only rejected, they are set afire. I welcome no negativity or down trodden thoughts; I accept reality and live it. What is to happen will happen always and I will not suffer in the process. I am going to enjoy TF out of it! I've worked too hard at keeping my heart together not to. 

 I can only share so much about my relationship with #MrCurrent and I've spoken on why in prior blogs. Frankly, we all know the dangers of letting the public into your relationship. So for our health and protection, I keep us guarded. I noticed that both times I wrote in depth about him in this blog I used the same date night (or rather date-trip). Subconsciously there are armed guards and hungry pit bulls with red eye around us. I have only written one poem about us. It's almost like I feel when I 'Muse' men, I curse 'us', so I've been going at this a bit differently. 


But not just in the pyschological sense. I'm in a relationship that has elevated me. We are like mirrors to each other so seeing who I am in my relationships and seeing what bags are on my shoulders and how I handle conflict are things that are vividly displayed for my internalizing. Meeting someone who sees you at your ugliest possible moments but still looks at you with pure love in their eyes is a rare gem. For a chick who has a history of sloppy relationshipping, Mr. Current is a breathe of fresh air but he's more than that; he is my partner. My team. And my friend. I've never had any of these in my past relations and situations, much less all three. 

I could go on forever about the person I call Mr. Current. I don't call him that because of his 'current' position. That would mean things would change and I really don't see things changing for the bad at all. I call him Mr. Current because of the ocean. When a current comes in, it takes whatever is in it's path away with it when it leaves. Losts toys, fish, sea scrolls, people....it doesn't matter. It takes it. Mr Current has taken me out on the ocean and we've been coasting every since. I've been a beached whale in every single relationship I've ever indulged in and now finally:

"I'm on the ocean
I'm in Heaven
Yatching
Oceans 11" 
~Oceans, JayZ

Here's where the tricks come in. Social media is a dangerous cesspool of filth, hate, racism, misery, misogny, verbal abuse, etc etc. There are some beautiful things there but there is so much ugly to be seen. Social media was not created for love. It wasn't created to show love, share love, indulge in love or find love, however, all those things are possible within the realms of social media. But it's a dangerous game. Miserable folks want to know how you are with so they can see how to sabotage you (the most prestigious miserable MF don't need pics...they'll booby trap you while pissing in your toilet). Other folks "sip tea" and sit back waiting for your downfall so they can substat how silly it was of you to put your business out there in the first place.

  
There are tons more types of people but there are also folks like me. I LOVE seeing black love. It helps to curb the myth that black love doesn't exist and that black men don't like black women. On the flip of that, I love seeing LOVE in general, so my eyes are open to whomever - gay, straight, white, interracial, etc.....but I have a special affinity for black love. 

I've had to locate my footing on the tightrope balance of being in a relationship and being on social media. Given that this blog has been an account of my past heartbreaks, I admit to being excited to share someone that for once, was shareworthy. 

Initially, I considered never sharing anything. Not even a picture. But we stayed taking pictures. So I started sharing a few here and there with his face blurred out. It was a complete wine-fueled accident that I shared a picture that included our faces without being blurred. After that, it was over. And here's why: 

I LOVE pictures. Almost as much as I love poetry. I mean, in another life, I was a photographer, world renowned probably. I love what pictures are, what they say and mean. I'm that person that looks at a picture and can see all 1000 of the words it tells. I stare at parts of pictures and break them down to the second they got in their respective positions. I look at how graceful hands look, how eyes fill with emotion and how windows show the details of what has been seen through them. I also love taking selfies. To many, I'm a narcicissist and that's fine. I remember when I hated my face so the fact that I now love it and have embraced it means I don't owe an explanation about how many selfies I take or post. I do what I want. Me and Mr Current have LOTS of pictures that I have taken of us. I play with them and filter them and add them to stuff and when I feel like it, I post them on IG. 

IG feeds it to FB. Most times, I'll go back and restrict the viewing of pics of us (unless it's our proverbial shoe pictures) but sometimes I forget and others I just don't care. 

What I have come to accept in my life is that I want to be happy. I want my joy to resonate to others around me. I want to know who I am, where I am, where I am heading and how I'm getting there and for the first time in my life, I can say I know the answers to these questions more than I ever have before. NOT because I have a man. I know them because I have spent the last 2 years searching high and low within myself to find them. 

And I still have a way to go. 
But along the way, I spoke a prayer one night that brought someone into my life who is not leaving. Again, you'd have to know more than what you know about us to FULLY get this. We are for certain each other's soulmates. I know that folks might look at me and read this blog and think 'she's setting herself up again'. How can she be so sure? What if ? ' 

Trust me, I know. I started off asking myself the same shit. But I can't spend more time asking the same questions than I do indulging in what I have in front of me. Too many times in my life, I've found 'love in a hopeless place'. I've lived in secrecy, I've loved fearlessly yet quietly. I've been the background noise. The one they were ashamed of. All the way dating back to my father(s). I wasn't the daughter they carried pics of in their wallets. I was the forgotten chick that ended up here or the problem child that couldn't get along w/her stepdad. I was sent to counseling at age 12 to find out why I couldn't get along with my stepfather and I wonder if the counselor ever suggested openly LOVING me? I don't think so...if so, it was ignored. And so counseling did nothing and I stayed the same. As I was saying to a fellow Legendfriend, how is a child/teen to know what's wrong with them? Our brains aren't fully functioning so when we act out, there is reason. A reason that we as children can't always immediately identify. 

But back to relationships. I was the big 'shhhh don't tell nobody'. Either they kept me in the closet or I them. My ill fated attempts at loving men have all been some disguised, cryptic sneak festival of fucking and pretending and subconscious begging. Meanwhile, I'm in the background waiting on the moment the timer goes off and the 'him of the year' would realize that he was dating ME, and want to tell everyone, just like I did. I waited on my grand entrance.



That never happened. Not for friends, family, work and definitely not for the Gram. LOL. 

So today, I stand firm and as tall as 5'5 will let me be. I'm not a secret. Neither is my partner. I'm not lacking self esteem or wondering who I am. I don't seek to figure out my issues; I know them. * shrug* I stopped dating for boyfriends and got linked up with a grown man who actually knows how to treat a woman. Not only that, but he enjoys learning how to treat ME. There's a difference between knowing how to treat a woman (which is great to know) and learning how to treat the woman you're with (and vice versa). Individual beings require different needs and I have, for the first time ever, met and connected sapiosexually with someone who enjoys being my friend FIRST. 

Me at first arrival at the Gulf. #Currents

So, to my Selfie I will be true. My truth is not everybody's truth. It's not guaranteed to be the teller of anyone else's story. My truth is solely mine to walk in. I'm not at all suggesting to share your relationships on the internet. I'm wouldn't advise arguing online or talking about your personal business. I'm advising to be TRUE TO YOURSELF...in all that you do and in your relationships too. If you get with someone who makes you feel everything you've longed to feel and you are compelled to share a picture of it, I would say go ahead. I wouldn't share every picture or share them all the time. If it was FB, I'd have a restricted list of people I trust that wouldn't download it and use it for voodoo chants. It's some crazy ass people out here. But after all we go through with our hearts and minds, if and when we find that person that gives us freedom-in-love, it's not a bad thing to shout your heart from time to time. Truthfully speaking, I might be OVERprotective of my relationship with Mr. Current. I pray about us often. I read and watch power couples and listen to what they say about relationships, God, marriage, etc. I don't talk about the size of his penis to my friends or how often we have sex or not. I don't tell our secrets...in fact, I bet my sister thinks this is the LEAST she's ever heard about a man in my life. It's different this time. We're different. So I'm different.

We're walking in our light. I will protect us at all costs and I know he will too. I indeed believe we were brought into each others lives with great, lasting purpose. I believe we were God-sent to each other. If ever I said that before about someone else, I assure you I was lying to myself. I mean I'm sure they were 'sent' but not for the reasons I would mean. I've never laughed so much or been so much MYSELF with someone. He's the one that has made me feel like I am enough. He beat my father to it. 
He beat my step father to it.
He beat out 3.5 situationships to it.

And all were here before he was. 
He posts about me. Sometimes it's cryptic. Sometimes it's plain and simple. He almost never tags me and while he does share pics of us, it's not many. I like it that way. It's just enough to reach my ego but not too much to make us look we're #DoingItForTheGram. Or the Book. Or the people. Cause we're not. 

We're doing it because LOVE. It is real. So are we. So excuse me if from time to time, I am being true to my selfies by sharing a piece of us. It's the most I'm willing to give: A picture. A piece of proof. A Light to be shared (not oversaturated) in frozen memory style. 

Cheers. 
Because it took nothing but 36 years to finally meet someone who saw me and saw everything they ever needed and more. I'd be less myself if I didn't share that sometimes.

 

No blogtrack today.
nothing but "Sound and Color...with me...in my mind." (AlabamaShakes)