TONIGHT I WANNA START FROM BEFORE THE BEGINNING

AND IF WE ARE FRIENDS THEN WE ARE FAR FROM FOOLS

                 

The comment to my PMS about single Moms and all that mess where my reader decided to “dump” me has been on my mind lately.  Not that it wounded me or anything but unlike my broadside, which was JUST THAT, a broadly scattershot spraying of what little I know about being a single Mother and struggling with a society that works against you, DID intimate things about me without directly charging me with anything.  It is that fundamental breakdown where communications end up becoming charged instead of constructive is part of why there is so much animosity between men and women when it comes to relationships.

I will understand if anyone reads this and still thinks that I am hung over the loss of my reader.  Admittedly, it stings because I rarely let myself be open to people, IRL or across the internet.  I am a decent enough human being and what I did on my Face Book page recently was an example of what I mean.  A friend from the Motor went to bat for a friend of theirs whom I had no connection to.  But because I know my friend IRL, and felt that if they were pushing for their boy, that it was enough for me.  I went ahead and pimped the post on my page as well as donated to the cause.  It was only $10 and he has a long road ahead, but it was a small example of my altruism.  No, I am not going to volunteer to save the dolphins or protest about the hole in the ozone layer BUT if someone that I say that I care about makes a request that I can fill, then hey, I am there!  And one of my other Face Book friends helped out (like the boss he is) as well, and that speaks volumes about him!!  The thing is, it was an example where if I count you in my circle and there is something I can do for you, I will do what I am going to do.  Period.

I will not let you down if you need me to be there.  Just call me.  But I am not a mind reader and I am not sympathetic to whatever “high school” was like for you.  Your problems are your problems, just like my problems are my problems.  And tonight, I am going to speak as frankly as I dare about one (or three, depending how you count them) of mine.

AND IF YOU DID NOT KNOW ME THEN, THEN YOU CAN NEVER KNOW ME NOW

You have people on both sides of the sexual divide making a claim to one of the things that offended me (yes, that is what it did… not surprising, after all, I OFFENDED someone else and I reaped what I sowed), that somehow there is a nobility to being a single Mother that I could not possibly understand, not to mention my position as one of the factors that add to single Mom’s and their struggles.  Eh, I know, I know, and I never claimed ANY different, not now and not ever.  Back in the early days of this journal I would remark how my time with Mookie Dee was my “penance” of sorts, as I am SURE that I have quite a few people in my past who has felt with the near orbit emotions that I had to face while we were a “couple”.  So that was that with that, and no one can ever make me feel untoward about any of my opinions, as I have paid my dues.  And that is that with that.

Ok, so since we were “tired of tired black men saying the same things…”[para.] I am going to take a flyer and provide a frame of reference for that phrase as it is related to what is on my mind.  Since I have left the “provincial town that I once jogged ‘round”, I  have had all kinds of “Friday nights” but none of them have been “stifled” as they once were, sitting in the basement of Mookie Dee’s townhouse after making dinner for lil’ Mook and playing Playstation 2 as she proceeded to “loot wine and be mine” with someone who was not yours freakin’ truly!

So I get that part that it is a hard hustle being a parent, keeping the house clean and managing both domestic and wage-earning areas.  Okay, BUT I am more like Portnoy and I have a complaint that is specific to ME.  I was there as a resource for Mookie Dee and to support her in whatever endeavors she undertook, as well as any pressures that she faced with life.  But this is where the insidiousness of the comment began to insert itself in my mind.

I met Mookie Dee by pure chance.  The pursuit of my professional duties led to our paths crossing and as I was doing my “Ex-list” thing, I thought it was the manifestation of the unconscious when we met and reacquainted ourselves.  I was not always disabled when we were a couple and I was neither broke nor “broken down” when we started to re-kick it.  What I was when we met again was an office drone affiliated with the “Big Three” and CHILLIN in the Palmer Park area.  Were you local to the Motor, you would understand that I “had mine” and did not need anyone to “feed me”.  It was not until after my last bout that “things began to change.”

My erosion was slow (and hopefully if I avoid falling of my darn bike, it will stay that way!) as my performance at my job began to suffer.  Then I was released from employment, but I still had my savings (cause don’t you know, a cat like me tends to land on his feet!) since we were a budding family, I saw no reason not to commit my funds to that of the household.  But without digressing or trying to project my own villainies anyone, I am going to skip to when I heard a radio program that sounded like the speaker had been following me around for a week and described me.  I would make a doctor’s appointment and then…

Because of the backlog in the State of Michigan it was over 18 months before I had my hearing for my disability and I began receiving my disability.  And then, my back child support was being taken directly from the money that I was getting, leaving me with a pittance.  The remedy for that was to go to Motor and engage the Friend of the Court, but I had no help in getting my paperwork and travel together.  Meanwhile…

It was not until I saw that my “parental privileges” were rescinded that I decided that I had to make my break for it.  Mookie Dee and I had our face-to-face where we discussed our relationship.  What astonished me the most when I confronted her about the drought in our sex life, her response was that she thought I “was getting mine”, between doctor’s appointments, grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning, as well as homework with lil’ Mook.  But hey, I did say that I was doing my “penance” with my Ex-list, because I was wide open I was less inclined to be conscious of my own behavior in a relationship (including with Mookie Dee!).

So there you have it.  Prior to the meltdown of the auto industry, things were smooth and stable if not cool.  But when it came time for that legendary “strength and support” that a sister has for her brother, stuff got tough and Mookie Dee got ghost.  Instead of her making the choice to come together and for US to buckle down and get through her impending job loss, my nascent issues, she decide to go get f*cked by someone else.  Oh hey, I figured this kind of relationship was due for me.  Que se-f*ckin’-ra.  Whatever will be, I guess, will be.