words of wisdom for road weary women

over the weekend, i got into one of my bi-monthly funks.  you know how you just get annoyed with everything and everybody.  on saturday i was kinda feelin that way.  i was a lil sick and tired of living the single life.  f' what you heard. sometimes a woman needs the comfort of a man.  not sporadically but every day of the week.  to come home to.  to build with.  to pour all your love into.  or at least to accompany you to the late night spot to dance to ?uestlove on the turntables until the sun comes up.  i'm just sayin...

i see you over there giving me the side eye like, isn't this the same chick who a few weeks ago was talking that "single women ought to stop focusing on the ring, the dress, the flowers, the chapel, the status, the "married" box on applications, age, mamanem, being the last one, a house full of cats, dying alone, and all those other foolish images that spring into their heads when they get all worked up about not being married....and DO YOU!"

yes that was me.  and i still believe that women shouldn't be hunting marriage for marriage's sake.  marriage aint all its cracked up to be.  and what snapped me outta my funk this weekend was a call from a male friend of mine.  he got married this past june and is now feeling like his marriage is falling apart.  as i listened to him vent i had a couple of thoughts:

what that got to do wit me?

damn gina....you aint made it 6 months!!

ima need people to stop, look, pray, & discuss before they leap into marriage 

after talking to him, i let out a long sigh of relief.  despite all the challenges of being single, at least i don't have the headache of being legally tied to someone who i'm having second thoughts about sharing the rest of my life with.

and then, as i  usually do when i need to vent, i talked to rum punch about it and she made me feel soo much better.

me: yeah, ima just gon head and be single for [insert indefinite time period here] 
rum punch: lmao, that really made me laugh

me: craziness all around

rum punch: well you'll be single, until you’re not single cause someone worth your time will make u not wanna be single :-)

words to live by!

If I Knew Then...

Every now and then I wonder how different my life would be today if I had known all the things that I know now…then. Then sometimes being yesterday, last year or many years ago. Not saying that I have regrets in my life, because I am a firm believer in que sera sera, so whatever will be will be… but let’s just say that things weren’t; and I had the chance and maybe a time machine to school the younger and at times dumber versions of myself…what would I say?

Hmmmm.

Well I think the first order of business would be to tell 10-year old me to get my parents hip to the words Microsoft and the Internet. I’m sure they would have looked at me sideways, but I was pretty convincing as a child, especially when our fortune, well let me rephrase that, especially if we had the opportunity to amass a fortune. I’m sure once I knew what was at stake I could have easily explained super highways with computers talking to each other through an intricate network of phone lines.

With fortune amassed I don’t think I would have to tell myself anything else…because I would be rich b*tch! Okay I’m kidding.

But seriously, I would have to tell myself that life ain’t no crystal stair. That in this life I am going to have some setbacks even though a lot of things came easy to me with little effort on my part. I will have to learn that most things worth having require effort. I just can’t say f-it and let things be because I feel like being lazy.

Then, I would have to tell myself to never ever EVER let mama Amaretto cut my hair. I had a jacked up hair cut in middle school that no amount of hot curling or slicking back could conceal the ugliness that was my coif. I’d have to get her a baby doll to see what things she had in her scissor happy mind first!

I would also have to tell myself to ask more questions. Not to the point of being like an annoying 2-year old and on some why is the sky blue sh*t. But maybe if I had asked certain people who I gave my heart to what their intentions were, maybe I would have cried a lot less. Maybe I wouldn’t have tiptoed into the world of depression. Maybe not gone through a period of wondering if I was good enough to be loved… Maybe if I had known to ask questions instead of going with the flow…then maybe something would have been different.

And then on some index cards that I could carry around, I would tell myself to:
save my money. laugh as much and as loud as possible.
Remember credit is worse than cash while in college. not to rush to get older. cherish the time spent with older relatives. Stop wearing jeans that are too small-its stupid, even if they are cute try something before I say I don’t like it. I would tell myself to stop being afraid of failing, of hurting or being wrong. I would tell myself to live my life to the fullest, and have fun determining what fullest means to me.

But most importantly, I would tell myself to really reiterate the words Microsoft and the Internet to my parents! Gates, Gore and Amaretto Jenkins! *sigh* If only I had known...

See You In Seven

Grandmomma's Hands

Over the weekend, I journeyed to the land of my forefathers… Okay, let me stop making it sound all Alex Haley-esque, like I went back to Africa and found Kunta-especially since I just went down to Tidewater area of Virginia for a family reunion. And beyond the gathering being a chance to watch my mom try to do the Booty Call. Or me begging my uncle to finally reveal that I am, in fact adopted because I can’t be related to these people. Or even during our family history having a cousin reveal that he might have married a distant cousin of ours… This weekend was a chance for me to have a face to face heart to heart with my grandma, where she handed me an old fashioned lesson about enduring.

Let me say that my grandma is one of my favorite people left in this world. It wasn’t always this way of course, especially when I was younger and I could only see her as that old lady who was my mother’s mother. And when my parents were going through their divorce, that old lady said a few unkind words about my father that had me crying and HATING her. But somewhere, thankfully, I got to know her as a person and realized that honesty is pretty much all a person is gonna get from her. Her truth is biting and the type that sometimes you just don’t want to hear. I guess because I’ve grown up in a sugarcoated culture it stings a bit more when granny keeps it real. Stop giggling so much-it’s not that funny! You better not embarrass me in front of these people now! Or that your food Ain’t hitting on nothing. But that’s just how grandma rolls.

And now that I’m older I’m privy to those grown up conversations held in the living room while the children run around outside (also, no more kids table-holla!). It was my grandma who revealed those secrets that paint a more colorful family picture…like who was gay, or an alcoholic and who was adopted into the fold. And somewhere during these care and share sessions, when she gets to something crazy that she just doesn’t understand she always says I don’t know, I guess I’m just old fashioned. And I never tell her she’s wrong, that she is the furthest from old fashioned. Born in 1928 my grandma is still driving her ’98 Volkswagen Jetta, checking her account balances online, and asked me to help her find her a pair of denim capris to wear with her calf boots.

Nor do I know many people my age whose grandma has a Master’s Degree…but mine does. And what I learned this weekend was that she quit her program two times before her final attempt. She told me how she would come home after work and class to find my grandfather reading his newspaper, and my mother and her two older brothers complaining about their hunger pains. And my grandfather’s response to the whole situation? Was that she should have been there to feed them children. Now, I loved my grandfather, but this was some bullsh*t! Two times my grandmother had to quit to tend to their children. Had to put her goals on hold. Had to wait and not faint. I told her that in today’s day and times that would have been grounds for a divorce! She laughed, paused, then said I suppose it would be now. I guess I’m just old fashioned. But you know on that last attempt your grandfather had dinner ready for me every night when I got home. Of course he was retired and the children where grown by then, but that food was good. And I’m glad I stuck with it because now I get an extra $2,000 in my check because of that degree. Well alright Grandma, make it rain! Make it rain!

Of course there was a message, encouragement and pieces of advice that I gleaned from my grandma’s tale, all of which I won’t bore ya’ll with. I’m just glad that old lady has become a friend who shares her stories that get me to thinking about my life and times. She makes me question what I feel I should be, what I should be doing, and what I’m willing to put up with because I’m an educated woman… As she casts her pearls onto me, I realize that I don’t know too much about nothing…and that’s the honest, old fashioned, timeless truth.

See You In Seven