“It’s my life, and it’s now or never, but I ain’t gonna live forever. I just want to live while I’m alive. My heart is like an open highway, like Frankie said ‘I did it my way.’ I just want to live while I’m alive. It’s my life.”
I love this song by Bon Jovi. Most people could probably say that resembles the way I live my life. ‘My heart is like an open highway; It’s my life, I did it my way.’ Those things are accurate. My mother definitely was not prepared for such a headstrong child/adolescent/adult and would wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment “I did it my way.” One side of the spectrum are those who take the advice from older people because of their life experience and assumed wisdom due to their chronological age. But you will not find me there…I’m over on the way far end of that, smoking a cigarette, doing what makes me happy -taking risks, every chance I get. There are positives and negatives about that mindset though. On the positive front, I’m not afraid to try something and fail. If it flops and doesn’t go as planned, I learned something for the next time. I’m not afraid to voice my opinion, advocate for others or make a suggestion in a company meeting. Those are the good things. On the flip side of that, there have been some challenging consequences as a result of doing things my way. I recall being in cosmetology class and not wanting my hair to be curly any longer. My teacher warned me against putting a perm on my hair specifically used to straighten African American hair. After applying it, all my hair was burned off at the root, and my hair ended up in the bottom of the shampoo bowl. Turns out, Mrs. Norsworthy did know what she was talking about. I said all that to say, good or bad, I’ve always done things my way.
Dating life is no different. My first real boyfriend was Hispanic and that was frowned upon in my family. They frowned for the whole 12 years I was with him too. After that, the men have been African American, with the token white dude sprinkled in here and there. Nobody in my family approves of any of the men I date. But, it’s my life, and I do it my way. I’m attracted to who I’m attracted to…period. Don’t get me wrong, I know that I’m white. But I can be white and have an admiration and appreciation for another culture, and I do. I love soul food, soul music, r&b, bbq’s, dominoes. I feel happy in that space, and those things typically aren’t things that you find with my culture. This is not a post about race, and I’m not broad brushing any culture. My point again, is that even though people may turn their back on me because of my way of doing things, I remain true to myself and do them regardless. Whether a person sees that as good or bad, is subjective.
Another month and a half has gone by since my last post…another month and a half of still being single. But then again I’m not even looking. What age does a single woman start feeding stray cats?…asking for a friend. Everyone my age, present party included, is so damaged and we are so leery of people. By this stage in the game we’ve been so wounded by people who swore to love us forever that a lot of us don’t have the capacity to love, or show love. One of my many toxic traits is that I’m constantly looking for holes in the story. I have the memory of an elephant unfortunately and am quick to remind you what was said 3 weeks ago, 3 months ago, 3 years ago. And I won’t let it go. I’m always waiting for a man to mess up. And what you seek, you find. I still have a heart full of love though. The people in my life, whom I care for…know it. And I’m glad that in spite of heartbreak, I’m still able to show it. I wear my heart on my sleeve. Just like the song says “my heart is like an open highway.” I’m not actively looking for a partner, but I believe he’s out there somewhere.
Chances are I will NOT be finding him in my current situation-ship, especially since the likelihood he knows who Bon Jovi is or is familiar with this song is slim to none. I was helping my best friend, Chewbacca (aka Amy Brown) move this past weekend. The movers came. They were younger than us, of course, but most people are. One was younger than us, and one was really, really young. Legal of course…I’m not on some Chris Hansen, to catch a predator type shit, FYI. We were with them for like 9 hours straight, so there was tons of conversation, shit talking and jokes in that period of time. The young, young one almost died of heatstroke (true story), so between myself and Amy’s mother in law, we helped him get back right. Somewhere between the coconut water and wet towels, a situation-ship was born. *Some fuckery happened at the end of the night with the last load of stuff that wasn’t found out about until the next day, but by that time he was already texting me (thanks to Amy giving him my number).* Anywho, he’s come over a couple times since then and we text when we have time during the day. He’s incredibly smart and motivated and he works…in the Texas heat, 12 hour days, 6-7 days a week. That’s more than my last few boyfriends combined. The age gap is too big for anything to happen, from his perspective and mine, but for right now I’m living in the moment. And right at this moment, I’m having fun. The thing that I like the most is his happiness and his sense of humor. He’s young, so he doesn’t have the 40 years of stress written all over his face like people my age have (we earned it though). He sees people and situations still as good. And when I get in my head and am thinking about life and money and future, he distracts me from that with some smart ass comment and a joke. I don’t like the games from the men my age. It’s so stressful…it took her 10 minutes to reply to my text, so I’m gonna wait 12. Voicing how much you don’t like me like that, but coming to my house every day. I don’t want to have to guess. If someone likes to spend time with me, then I want to know it. This guy clearly hasn’t had his heart broken too bad yet, so I don’t have to deal with any of that with him. He still says things how he feels them instead of going overboard to prove he’s heartless. For right now, that’s all I can ask for.
My whole life has been full of planing things that never happen; full of trying to keep some security and stability in my life that doesn’t work; full of attempting to control situations and missing out on the little moments of happiness. When I meet a man, mentally (I never tell them), I think about the future. And I tend to dwell on all the reasons it will never work out, so whatever time we have together isn’t spent enjoying the moment. Through my journey of self healing, I’ve been consciously working on trying to enjoy what I’m given from people. Whether it’s a lot, or a little. Whether it’s one good conversation or 6 months of dating. I don’t try to see the future in anything. I value the time for the moment, and I give my all and appreciate all the little things. It’s my life, after all.
Single Sarcastic Superhero 