My former bitches fell and shattered like figurines falling from the hands of Kali, testing my stoicism. Since it seems I’ve now lost just enough weight and gained just enough perspective as a result, to start listening to Daddy again, the fires have started.
but unlike the movie character, there will be no sequel of relapse into do-gooding. FTW. I’ve seen what happens when slaves become kings in every way but mentality. My hand is only held laterally to grasp those who have shown the will to survive and fight as I have.
Last night, I met and drank with an old friend I used to have a crush on. As I looked into his eyes, objectively rather beautiful, I enjoyed him as I would looking at a pretty rose. He was fun to look at, and fun to talk to, but I saw the punk in him. I don’t know what I ever saw in him romantically.
So despite his ardor, he didn’t get what he wanted from me. All of my orifices remain unviolated. He told me that I’m different than now I bullshit more, and have gone soft and romantic. I told him, “Oh no dear I was soft and romantic before. Now I’m just unwilling to tolerate your bullshit.”
Then, as if that Dark Blood Goddess wanted to drive the point home, one of my ex boyfriends showed up in the afternoon, as I was cooking the traditional hangover late breakfast. Now this one is even more beautiful than last night’s visitor, and becoming moreso as he ages. Alas, he’s still far too young.
When he began his pursuit, I told him flatly that I’m not the same woman he knew. He could see that, and wanted me more, but I still had to decline. I handled him less coldly because he is at least warmer in personality than the other. I looked in his eyes, and told him that he’s a beautiful, sexy young man, and deserves a good woman closer to his age.
I don’t know if it helped. He is chronologically young, but he’s seen horror that would have driven most guys insane, or incapable of living a remotely civil life thereafter, both here and in Ethiopia. Still, at some point he’s going to look in the mirror and realize that he’s a fit young Black man who is freakin’ gorgeous, macho without being too beastly, and can have his pick of young, nubile women and he’ll pick one (or two or three).
So it is flattering to be his MISWY, but I’ll never be his bitch again. I know what I saw in him. There isn’t the same disconnect as with the others. I just don’t want that kind of arrangement. Why would I waste some of my last years of youth on a kid who doesn’t even value me enough to keep in touch regularly?
Speaking of kids who don’t value me, I haven’t heard from Protoge since the “not your business anymore” conversation. I hope he’s alright. I know another guy who’s doing the same job he’s supposed to in the Army. It’s a tough one, but he’s responsible enough for it. I don’t hate him or think badly of him. It’s just one of those things that happens, that you just get over.
So as things come full circle as far as my love life, I’m throwing the ashes of the old un-me into the wind. I learned alot from being her, but she is someone I now understand was toxic. I’ve killed her because well there can be only one (me). Any competing selves have to die, not because of hate, but because my self ownership is a singular prize. To own myself, I must be myself and from this self will come the true value that she is to her world.
I was a coddler teaching people a very bad lesson that it was okay for them to push me down.
Now, I am teaching them that if they’re going to push me, they’d better be tough enough to take it when I push back.
