DECISION IN A PROVINCIAL TOWN

Lets us call what I have achieved so far in my two years in Omaha a qualified “success”.  From stitching together a lifestyle on a tight budget, managing to get a full year of community college in, hosting KT and finding a job in a field of interest, I would say I have done pretty well on my own.  There are NT’s who are not handling their lives as well as I am.  Sure, we have stumbled out of the gate a bit this academic year, but even that is alright. 

Now when things get a little bitter as even the best of “cool amber beverages” do, is when I allow myself to think that I could have at least accomplished this when I was with Mookie Dee!  It is not like she was required to do anything extraordinary… and then, if she did, I certainly felt that I was worth whatever expenditure she would have made.  I mean, we were a couple and supposedly on our way to being married, right?  Now if she could not find it in her to support her fiancé and future husband, then what am I to think?  That she has problem with commitment in tough times, and that for her, insecurity is a sign for her to withdraw from a relationship?  What the f*ck?!?

My starter wife and I met when I was tooling around in my first “Z” car, looking and standing all tall and fit, as I was not too long out of the Army (I know the “fit” part is a redundant description of me, but there is a way that a soldier looks when he has ETS home and all…) and had resumed my civilian amateur boxing.  Folks were already encouraging me to go pro, and I remember getting a real good looking over by Jackie Kallen.  Anywho, I was already doing “alright” and all she had to do was “buy in” and who knows what would have happened.  But she had her own issues and would develop one of those crap agenda’s that SOME sister’s feel is necessary for a relationship with a brother.

The Delta Girl simply panicked, IMO.  She had seen baseball take her high school crush away, first to Duke and then to a professional farm team and the majors (where he had a generally productive career).  So when I had some boxing cats from D.C. looking at me as a boxer, she decided to bolt.  That left me shook, because I had already invested in her a GREAT DEAL and had to double-down on that investment.  It was a good one and now here was her time to do the same.  But for whatever reason, she could not get over what happened when her high school crush had something similar happen to him.  So she preemptively broke up with me.  Okay, fine.

“Once is happenstance.  Twice is coincidence.  Three times is enemy action.” –AuricGoldfinger

Three different women from three different locations, eras, you name it, it was different.  Certainly, while there was fail to consider, other than that, what was each of their critical thinking processes were clouded to the notion that there is reason to believe that THIS relationship would not only be different from others that they had experienced BUT from that of others in the SMC or any of the other wings of sisterhood whose fear of what could go wrong in a relationship with an African-American man would bring all sort of ruin.  And with both my starter wife and Delta Girl, once the stride we had was broken, it was beyond repair (because both of them would make overtures towards a hoped-for reconciliation).

Now there is no reason for the three of them, engaged in different times of their lives, in different areas and pursuing different agendas at the time, to be able to find the rationale for why they did not fully vest their participation in our relationship in the same sphere of reasoning… that essentially a brother “ain’t sh*t” and they had better watch out for themselves or face the risk of getting hurt.  In so many words, that was what each of them gave as reasoning for why they could not put more of themselves out, at least not until they realized that maybe they like a brother (Mookie Dee, a little less than all that… she is, to put it nicely, a skank who is a good Mother… being one does not mean the other trait is exclusive in and of itself) and his potential a little more and now after the party is over, and things are being cleaned up, they want to join in.

What is important to remember, especially in the case of my starter wife and Mookie Dee, is that I knew going into the deal that I was going to be a parent (only the second go-round with the Mookster) and that I was more than willing to commit to that.  While there are several rationales for sister-girls to be “protective” about their children, once you decide to commit yourself in a relationship, you have to do a new personal hierarchy, one that is now inclusive OF and not exclusive TO, your potential husband/partner.  If you can’t do this, if you can’t play in the man’s game… er, excuse me, a little bit of the “Glengarry…” in me sliding out!  But what I hope to illustrate is that if you cannot participate in a relationship as what is generally meant as an exclusive, long-term relationship/marriage, you do not get to make the rules up as you go.

You, as a woman, has to, HAS TO, find that balance between being a Mother and being a partner to a man.  Just as a man (such as me) HAS TO be able to develop and grow a relationship between a woman’s chid(ren) if the intention is to foster and grow a deep and loving relationship with said woman.  Now how hard is that?

What I have presented for your consideration is a small sample of why I have the tendency to use broad strokes when I comment on the sisters.  It is a lot easier and (for me) more effective than getting all detailed to strike a differentiation between “this and that” when it comes to individual characteristics… because this is one of the few situations where this and that are related!!

You cannot have things both ways, ladies!  And spare me the essentially “blame the institution” argument as a defense for being essentially sh*tty partners, willing to buy this, spend that, give whatever, but when it comes to the substantive issues in a relationship, be unable to maintain the level of consistency that one claims to have.

As far as what one expects now that I have “gone over”… not much difference, really.  And here goes where I believe that being “…human and needing to be loved, just like everyone else does” fits in.  The same kind of rules applies to Princess, as they did Nebraska (more on her and our relationship another time), Mookie Dee, and countless others.   What she is “not” does not make what she “is” any bigger a factor plus/minus in my eyes than if she “was” anything.

OKAY, THROW THEM ALL IN A POT AND MIX THEM LIKE GUMBO

And that is just what I think that I am going to do from here on out, so that is that with that.