Revelation of Love: In need of a new definition

I had a revelation today. More so a series of revelations that led to a larger one.

REVELATION I:
I believe that God grants our wishes... our desires. The disclaimer that many of us don’t put on those prayer requests is to receive them when we are ready. For example we can ask God for a million dollars, we get it, but find ourselves worse than we were before. Bankrupt. Because we couldn’t handle the $20,000 pay check we were getting before. Wasn’t ready. I want to be married. I’m not desperate to be because I feel like it will come in time. The man will come when I am ready. When we are both ready. The thing about this necessary “preparedness” is that we have to be open to receive and hear God as he/she tells us things and points things out to us about ourselves and others. We must always be listening. Meditating. I recently started back. Interestingly this is when revelations came. I have to stay open and silent.

REVELATION II:
I have been reading “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison (great book) and one of the minor characters’ life and happiness is completely entrenched in her mate. The woman is disfigured, felt unloved, ugly, and here was a man who was interested in loving her, protecting her, making her feel beautiful and marries her. Sounds like a romance story… but not so much. Ultimately, he gets bored with her monotonous routines and their relationship becomes abusive. As I read about them, my first thought was about the women in my family and how I feel like so many of them rely on men to bring them joy. But something kept bothering me about their relationships. I couldn’t understand why it made me so upset. There a difference between just wanting something better for someone when you see them unhappy but its another when it has the ability to change your mood. To make you angry. I never knew why seeing my mother and the other women in my family interacting with the mates and having lack-luster outcomes. But, something that I have always believed (but for some reason never really connected it to this circumstance) is that when people have the ability to alter our moods, have too much power. Also, in addition, the thing that we dislike the most in other people are the very things we have and dislike within ourselves. So, with those two theories together, I’ve drawn a conclusion. The relationships of the women in my family have upset me to the points of anger and tears. Angry tears of frustration. “Why are you still with this man when he sucks so much joy out of your life?”Something about the ability of their relationships to alter my mood speaks not to the power of the women, but rather the power the situations have over me. And since they situations illict anger, then whatever mentality that is orchestrating the women’s actions must be in me. Consciously or subconsciously. I have been that circumstance power and I have given it that power because it is something that I subconscious dislike within myself. It actions that I have done (are doing), knowing that the mentality doesn’t work and I’m frustrated with myself because I haven’t found the answers and am even MORE frustrated when I see numerous people playing out the same yo-yo romance I have. What is in me that is causing so much negativity? Why so upset?

REVELATION III
I have often felt out of place in my family. I often thought my grandmother hated me. My grandfather is, for the most part, non-existent. A rolling stone, always somewhere that wasn’t home most of the time. My aunt and uncles has called me and my brother spoiled for the longest (along with everyone else co-signing on the rants) and me feeling as if my mother never defended us. She just let them talk about the things we eat (or don’t eat rather, does every southern-born black person have to like hog maws and gravy-soaked everything?), how we talk (“Shaun cries too much, he’s going to be a sissy” “Missy has a smart mouth… spoiled-rotten”), etc etc. She always sent us over to my grandmother’s house regardless of our pleas to go anywhere but there. I was angry with my mother for a long time. In addition, after having to fight off family members from molesting me and she talking and interacting with them appearing as if nothing happened infuriated me for years. I often felt like it was up to me to protect my brother since our mother wouldn’t and I had to fend for myself of many fronts. Everything from opposite-sex relationships to simple adult tasks like how to budget or open a banking account. (I don’t think I ever saw my mother use a check card growing up and is was really odd to write a check for the first time in college. I was uncomfortable and nervous. Kinda odd). Some of these things weren’t a big deal but it added to me feeling like “if I don’t figure it out, if I don’t keep it together who will for me?”

REVELATION IV
My horoscope said a few weeks ago that I will soon realize that my idea of love is false. I thought about it for a while. But not too long. I thought my idea of love and romance was justified. I have daydreamed for years about what a good relationship would look like. Would feel like. I didn’t think it was too idealistic. My husband would understand and accept my faults. As I would his. He would express his unconditional love in a variety of gestures that especially worked for me. He would know about these gesture because I would have told him and he would remember. We would learn what makes each other tick and what brings each other joy and shoot to avoid or execute those tasks for each other when possible. “Thanks honey for washing the dishes you know how I hate to wash dishes.” “Oh honey that is so sweet of you, tickets to the Lion King live! You know how I’ve been dying to go see this”. And I would do the same for him. He would say, “Thanks baby for ironing my clothes for work, you know how I abhor ironing.” “Oh sweetheart, you got me 50 yard line tickets to the super bowl for me and my boys? You are the greatest.” We wouldn’t over-do it because life still goes on. He wouldn’t ever hurt me (at least not intentionally.) I rest in the comfort that he loves me. It’s an understanding that doesn’t require vocalization too often. It’s known and felt. One might say like a mother’s love. Is this doable? Possible? Fictitious?

REVELATION V
I recently had an encounter with a female friend of mine. Encounter? Let’s say more like a situation. She, a guy friend of mine, and I were suppose to have a movie night together. We settled for Sunday during the afternoon. She then cancelled and said let’s do it Tuesday afternoon after she babysat for me. She came, babysat and said she left the DVD at her house. Regardless if she brought it or not, she had already watched it the night before, although we were suppose to all watch it together. She lives far out and she wasn’t going to get it. If we were going to watch a movie it would have to be different movie. But if she was going to stay and watch anything she needed to eat first. She didn’t seem to keen on the movie thing by then. So, I asked her, did she was to watch a movie or go back home? I didn’t have much in my house to eat and I didn’t need to be spending any money on take-out. Now all of this wasn’t such a big deal to me. A tad annoying, just because I like to know what’s going on and people to just do what they say they are going to do, but I’m not too bothered by it. So she tells me she’s going to cancel the movie day again. She said jokingly, “You think I’m a flake don’t you?” And I said, “Yes” also jokingly. So I texted the guy friend and told him that she left the movie at her house and she had already watched the movie anyway. In addition, I wrote, and I quote, “to be expected.” Meaning I expected her to do this again. Now this was both a joke and how I felt. He had said the day before “make sure ya girl is coming this time” since she had cancelled the first time. He was joking as well. Well, when I was supposed to be texting him I ended texted her the message instead. She read it and was offended. I felt the mood shift. I asked her if she was ok and she gave me this fake thumbs up motion and said she was fine and she was “over it.” Now all I have to go on is her physical reactions, her words, and what I felt. These were all mixed messages. Like when someone crosses their arms with a frowned face as says, “I’m fine.” Clearly they are not fine but you are not quite sure how not-so-fine they are until they tell you. I sensed the mixed messages and sent her a text message covering both the possibility that she was “fine” and that she might be slightly offended. It was a funny text in which I also apologized if the text I accidentally sent to her offended her. The next day she texts me to say that she is not a flake, I was talking about her, that I should not have sent her a funny text message and should have been “forthright,” and “taken responsibility.” My first thought was this is a bit much. It was as if she believed that the guy and I had some pow-pow about her capriciousness being a huge flaw in her personality. (Interestingly though it may be since she has been fluctuation about what she wants to do with her life. Whether or not she wants to move from Columbus or back home etc etc. But I didn’t discuss any of this with the guy and I wasn’t really thinking about all of that.) Nobody was talking about her and what WAS said between the guy and I, I told her, “make sure ya girl is coming.” That’s it. The end.

“Take responsibility? I apologized. What else do you want me to do? Don’t send you a funny text? YOU brought up the flake thing. YOU said it in a joking manner and you DON’T want me to take it as a joke? I can’t joke? What do you want me to do read your mind? Be able to decipher your mixed messages of a phony smile with a thumbs up gesture and insincere body language. What am I suppose to do with that except say whatever I THINK you MIGHT mean”

CONCLUSION
Then it came to me. I’ve been doing this for years. Mostly with men. Hoping that my angered face and silence spoke volumes.
“He can tell I’m angry. He should be asking me if I REALLY AM fine. He should know. DON’T IGNORE ME or do more things to irritate me. You changing the subject to something that doesn’t have to deal with my angry mood is only upsetting me more. PAY ATTENTION TO ME! FIGURE ME OUT! READ MY MIND!”

What? Read my mind?

“Yes, you are my man and I don’t want to have to explain everything all the time just say something, do something that makes me less angry cause I don’t want to be angry I just want you to make me happy.”

You want me to make you happy? YOU want ME to make YOU happy? Why MUST I initiate mind games in hopes that you play and win. The prize? Me really believing that you completely understand me and will work for me affection. What?!

“Yep. I need you to not hurt me and take care of my feelings. To protect me. Emotionally. Like my mother didn’t. Like my grandmother, aunts, uncles didn’t. I need you to provide the security blanket I felt I never had. I don’t want to have to figure stuff out. I don’t want to have to ‘keep it all together’ when I have you here to make everything right.”

Comfortable. A comfort that I have been seeking for so long. But this is just like the women in my family. Placing my happiness in the hands of another. In the control of another. The expectation and risks are too high. The friend of mine was playing a game. A mind game.

“You figure me out and say the right things because I don’t know what to say right now or just don’t want to say it. You need to say it for me because if I say or express my pain, hurt, disappointment that’s going to make me even more vulnerable right now, at the moment you said the harsh words, and when I’m more vulnerable…feel more vulnerable, you in turn have the power. At least I feel that you do because your words affected me and you might say something else that hurts just as bad. Or worst you say something that doesn’t help. So I’m not going to say anything. I’m going to play like everything is fine until I lick my emotional wounds and come back at you in an attempt to regain the power I felt you took from me and in turn handed me vulnerability. I was offended and now I must be on the defense.”

J would say something. Do something and I would get so mad. He had the power and I hated that but what was the power I gave him? I expected him to care for me like no one else did. Like I felt other didn’t. I expected him to handle me with care and love me with a love bigger that I had ever seen. Ever felt. Protect my yolk. Seal the cracks.

“I’m spilling. I’m fragile. I’ve been broken. Felt broken and I need to know that you will take that feeling away so that I may never feel it again. I need you to know me inside and out. Understand that I am sensitive and that the frowned-face, crossed-armed silence is a defense mechanism and the manifestation of my disappointment that you could not be God. Yes God. Who else could read my mind and know all the right things to say and when to say them.”

But its not just J. My mother is able to anger me as well. Isn’t is she who I’m suppose to find comfort? Isn’t it she who is suppose to have the answers when I don’t? Isn’t it she who is suppose to protect me if no one else does? Isn’t she suppose to know HOW I SHOULD be handled? Protected?

I set myself up for disappointment because no one is God AND my idea of love is flawed. AND this grandiose, unadulterated romantic love that I am expecting to, wanting to feel most likely exists after many years in a relationship full of respect and dedication. And even then it’s in spurts in between the random hard times and individual growing pains. I now understand that my mother loves me. Always has. It was I that had an idea of what defending and protection looked like and since she didn’t execute it in that way I didn’t believe she really was strong enough or cared enough to gather, find, the strength somewhere. It wasn’t her lack of love for me that kept her from defending me the way I WANTED her to, rather it is her personality and her personal issues with confrontation that inhibited her retaliation. It was her fears and lack of conflict-resolution experiences that made her uncomfortable and thus shying away from the situation. It is not that my grandmother hated me. Rather it is her years of bitterness that has built up so strong in her that her egg is boiled. The manifestation of her anger about her life has spewed out on to everyone in a ear shot. What does one do with all of this anger? You have to get rid of it somehow and unfortunately many people become the victims of another situation, a life, that they had no control over. My grandfather is one of those victims thus he choose to limit his interactions and found other beds to sleep in and bars to hang out in. Although he is a large part of her bitterness, it only forms a continuous circle of anger, ambivalence, and bitterness. I have been so angry with the relationships of the women in my family because their belief that this man will make everything alright is in me. The hope that this man will bring a level of joy never felt before is desired and hoped for by me. The disappointment felt be my mother, grandmother, aunt, cousin, etc is the same hurt I felt when the men didn’t live up to the ideas in my head. It’s time for that mentality to go. It’s time to be a complete, whole and sturdy egg desiring nothing more than a complement. An equal. Not a mortal God who magically has all of the answers. Now, marriage for me has become less dreamy. Less romanticized. Not dull though, just much less romance movie-ish. Love for me needs to be redefined. Romantic and unromantic love. Let’s start here:

1 Corinthians 13
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I am being “self-seeking” if I am looking to be fulfilled. I am “easily angered” when I place unreachable standards on people. It is time to put “childish ways behind me” thus no more mind games. God knows me, I am fully known as I am growing to know myself. The creator has my best interest in mind. So I am patiently withstanding my arduous, uncomfortable yet oddly comforting journey towards completeness. I hope it doesn’t take too long. LOL.