Things We Lost in 2016

I have this light wooden table that I use as my office workstation. I designed it somewhat in the vein of those desks at the Apple store, or in a coffee shop in Emoville, USA. It's rustic chic and sits high on top of which holds my Apple iMac. Because it’s plywood, every time I move which has been a lot in the past 3 years, Nigerian movers with no sense of moving, don’t cover it, don’t guard it, they just toss it, throw it around, smack it, and it arrives at my new home, looking filthy dirty brown, not even the rustic kind of brown. After having to shine it each and every single time I get to my destination and dealing with a lot of other moving BS in Naija (how many times can I install and uninstall my AC, please) I have come to the simple solution:

I will not move for a job again. I will not move for a job again.

I will not move to take a job in a different city just because my lover thinks it’s a great idea and a "wonderful opportunity." Then the second I move he goes off and marries the next woman he dates and takes her on some exotic vacation wherein he proposes and by the next Christmas he's clearly domesticated and a "couple." He just lured me the heck out of his way so he could do what the eff he wanted.

I will not move for a job again. Men do not move for jobs. As a matter of fact they advise against it. A woman will never take a job in a different city from her family. So why should I, single lady?

I will not move for a job again. Especially if it’s in a city that is known for being violent, and clearly lacking a social life, or some sort of life. The gyms are 10 miles apart. 

You make roots where you live. Every time I move, I uproot myself, tearing up my roots, and that means that when I return I have to carve out roots again. That takes time, it takes patience, it takes a whole lot to rebuild a network that you worked on establishing. Once you leave, you’re soon forgotten, you have to constantly remind them of your return into the ‘scene.'

I am done doing that.

Unless the job is in Palo Alto or Paris. Two wonderful cities that begin with P, I am not moving. Even then I have to be sure the job is covering relocation willingly, even then, if I happen to be with a current lover, I will not leave him to take said Palo Alto or Paris job. Said lover is coming with. This is ridiculous. If I am uprooting, so are you? Let’s both sacrifice. I am not going through this emotional torture again. I feel like Hannah in Girls when she moved to Iowa (or some place) for grad school just to come back and find Adam shacked up with Jessa, one of Hannah's best friends. One of her best friends!!! They couldn’t have written a better script. This only hurts less because this is not one of my friends, but either way, in Hannah’s case there’s hope of reconciliation with Adam, in mine…

I will simply not move for a job again.

Things We Lost in 2016 - My Waistline and My Love

Love Rules

L O V E

You follow all the rules of love hoping they work. Hoping at least one of them will stick, even the ones you don't truly believe in but somehow they've worked for others so, why not, if not.  

1. Love him 

2. Love him unconditionally 

3. Show him you love him 

4. Make him your King 

5. Be submissive to him

6. Let him tame the "shrew" in you

7. Say Yes even if you mean to say No 

8. Give him everything he wants 

9. Give him everything he wants AT ALL TIMES

10. Tell him everything he wants to know, BARE YOUR SOUL

11. Make him the King to your queen 

12. Support him 

13. Support him always (good or bad)

14. Make him feel like he is the King of your life...(still working on that King theme)

15. Don't get angry when he offends you, as a matter of fact, pretend as if he didn't 

16. Even if he does...still profess that he is the (what?) King 

You follow all these rules...you follow all these rules...some more ridiculous than others...you follow the rules regardless...blindly...hopelessly...but still...STILL...love...so evasive.

..And just when you decide this one time to follow the rules, you look over your shoulder, and there  it is, Love visiting an unwilling participant.

An Unconventional Love

In the movie, My Old Lady (2014), a man who inherits a Parisian apartment from his estranged father is shocked to discover that the apartment is a viager - an ancient French real estate system with complex rules pertaining to its resale - and the feisty Englishwoman who has lived in the apartment with her daughter for many years is the live-in tenant, who must be paid rent until her demise.

As the plot thickens and he discovers more about the apartment his father owned and left for him, he finds old photographs inscribed with "my only love" which depict the live-in tenant and his father from a younger age. When he confronts the old lady he soon discovers that the one reason his dad had taken on this viager apartment was to provide a permanent home for his love, the old feisty Englishwoman. His father had spent his summers in Paris in the home and they had carried on this affair for a great many years.

I don't know why this movie I watched quite casually during my unemployment phase, suddenly came to me last night. Well, I do know why. I am just glad that it came to me. It was one of those European sensory alternative love stories that underlie main plot lines that are not plausible in real life. Or are they?

The main character's dad carried on this affair so intently, without leaving his wife, so much so, the sadness that this instilled in his wife caused her to commit suicide. She probably felt there was no point living with a man who would rather give his love and devotion outside the marriage.

To my head and to my heart, I would like to say, "Anita. I wish I knew what to do."

I respond to tales of love in unconventional spaces like these. Perhaps because I lean towards an alternative somewhat bohemian lifestyle, or I just watch way too many foreign movies...but unconventional love stories like these give me hope, reason to believe that love wherever you may find it is available, and you should never discard it because it doesn't show up wrapped up in a bow.

Anita - I don't think this one is wrapped in a bow. 

As We Chip Away

Over the weekend, I was talking to a girlfriend of mine and she mentioned quite judgie that "Girl, you need to work on yourself...I see so many flaws."

Whenever people say, “Oh you need to work on yourself?” I tend to agree. But then in my mind I am thinking, “Don’t we all?” Are you saying you’re perfect? Are you saying you’re a better person than myself? Or you’re better in some areas? So am I bad in all areas? And you are not bad in any area whatsoever?

They say it as if to imply, "Work on yourself and the husband (or true love) will come."

So all the people who worked on themselves and achieved an average high score (score in the 90’s) in the individual rector scale are the ones with true love, spouses, what have you? And those of us who average scores, probably in the 60’s, are in search of ourselves and our better versions so true love is evading us until we “improve our score.” Improve your score Anita and Voila, he will show up!

I tend to disagree in general. We all need work. We are all works in progress. We are rolling hills in search of the truth and perfection in life. When I was younger I was more selfish, as I grow older I become less selfish, maybe years from now I will become less talkative, more reserved, less vengeful, striving towards the best version of me. That’s why we go to church, some of us daily. So we can brush up on our faith and our individuality. That’s why some of us read self-help books, to help us learn more about ourselves, to go inward to that truth we’ve been running away from and to direct our growth to those areas. So I refuse to agree that if you find that elusive husband that means your individual score is much higher than mine so your prize for the improvement in yourself is…ding, ding, ding….the husband. I believe your prize for improvement of yourself is knowing and loving yourself more so much more that you don’t rely on anyone or anything to give you that joy. The joy comes from within and of course, in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Those people with husbands or spouses just found someone who was more accepting of them with all their imperfections and they decided to work on themselves together. His selfishness matched her selflessness, and vice versa, his quiet matched her crazy, her Becky matched his Jay-Z, her virgin a$$ matched his f*^k boi (or vice versa) or maybe their crazies matched in all areas, and one day, just maybe, my imperfections will match someone else’s.

So as I continue to work on myself regardless of the existence or lack thereof, of true love, I shall keep renewing my faith, fine-tuning the flawed parts of me, sharpening that chisel to chip away at the rough pieces. It is a work in progress and the blessing from all this, isn’t a husband, it is me, my deeper love of myself. And of course, salvation in Christ Jesus.

When His News Means Nothing

In the pulsating critically acclaimed drama, Queen Sugar. In the premiere episode, one of the sisters enraged by her discovery of her basketball husband's lies, approached him mid-game in the basketball court, tearing and screaming at him repeatedly, "What did you do? What did you do?"  

Every time I tap into myself that image captures my mood so adequately. 

It's not cause I have a husband who's been lying. Far from it. Because...it's because I'm trying to get a grip of what's going on right now and it's like spinning out of control. My head, my heart, my entire being. I just wanna grab it mid-spin and yell, "What are you doing? What would you want me to do? Can you stop spinning?"

I could break dishes. I would. Would that make the pain feel better? If I could scream maybe that would but I'm not much of a screamer and loudness only goes so far. I could pray. Which I have and I continue to do so. But sometimes I feel like that just makes it worse. There are so many options that have been presented still...still none can stop what's happening or the hurt from cutting even deeper. 

I simply don't know what to do. I can't fully understand or appreciate what is transpiring instead I'm supposed to accept it and somehow be okay with it and then at some point, celebrate it (or let it go). Consequent to that I'm supposed to pretend that it's SO OK that this is happening right now and that my mind is not completely warped by it, that I somehow would want this to happen and that this is just a phase that will pass and that there's a future, and in that future everything makes sense. Does it? And I should look forward to that future...really? Did I look forward to this time in the past?

I cannot do any of these things. Not one. Or maybe I've just chosen not to. My feeble mind is strained by the hopeless circumstances of the world that's spinning around me. And all it wants to do is feel. And what I feel, what this feels like is...like sitting still in a throbbing bowl of hurt...which is...nothing like I've ever felt before.

Black women go through a lot in this life. We go through it and we somehow manage to come out strong, a little dented and bruised maybe but we still power through it. It's the going through it that's the rub. How do you avoid stepping into that hurt? How do you shield yourself from the hurt? How do you survive the hurt? 

Sometimes Hot Chicks Have Boring Weekends

Had an utterly boring Saturday. B O R I N G. 

Stayed home all day. Didn't drink, just lounged and sweated out my weave with sporadic power. It was utterly boring. No phone calls. No exotic food. Fed on leftovers. BLAH - ALL CAPS. 

I say this so that the few weekends I manage to have fun and send out pictures of me taking in some life, you won't think, "Ah na so so enjoyment for this girl." No be so. Sometimes, due to extreme budgetary constraints, I have to sit home, sweat out my weave with no electricity in 90 degree weather, and live vicariously through those who have the luxury of doing this with a loved one. 

At times, I reach out to a few folks in the outside world just so I don't feel that closed off, at times they do the same. But in the end, it always ends up being a subdued way to spend the weekend. Particularly, a weekend in December. 

Life is not all sunshine and rainbows. Don't let people make you think it is. Don't hate on people when they do take in a slice of life. That may be their one chance.