The Black Couple!

Tags

Black love, Black relationships, friends, life, life after I do, love, marriage, marriage preparedness, nosy people, relationships, relatives, the question, theblackcouple

Found a new blog I love love love! It’s called The Black Couple. The couple, Kelli & Derrick, each post blogs about relationships & love between two Black people. Black love is indeed not dead, and wanting to be an example of Black love is beautiful. So read them, follow them, & love them with me 😀

Reading their recent posts (his & hers) about “the question” (when are you two getting married?) hit home especially, because I get asked that all the time in various ways (“When are you to going to make it official?” “He ain’t proposed yet? What is he waiting for?” “When are you and your handsome man getting married?” “Girl, just tell me what color the bridesmaid’s dress is going to be–keep in mind, I look great in sea green and pastels.”). Not only that, there are the assumers–people assume we live together (when I am CLEARLY the only one paying my rent), sleep together (nope…it ain’t easy, but it’s right), or that we are practically married anyway (no such thing).

Sometimes you get tired of saying the politically correct thing and want to tell people to mind their own business. Sometimes you want to turn to your Mr. Perfect with the question face too, like, exactly what I was thinking. Sometimes, you just want to keep working on yourself and your relationship without so many people putting their hands in.

Relationships are like heads and kitchens–you can’t have too many hands in their working. Too many cooks spoil the pot; too many hands in your head is bad luck (and can lead to some hair nightmares). I’ve had an experience or two with too many hands in my situation, and I had to slap them back like bad children reaching in the cookie jar before dinner. I have to protect & nurse my young relationship so it continues to grow strong.

Every year Pink Susie has to do Hurricane Preparedness for the group homes she owns. The state requires that you have a book with evacuation routes & shelters. You have to have so much in cash on hand per person, so much water on hand per person. You have to have up to seven days worth non-perishable foods and a back up generator. You have to take stock of all the food, propane, water, money, and routes/shelters each year and fill in any holes before hurricane season.

Marriage is a hurricane that requires preparation. In the world according to 2blu & God, there are no evacuation routes in marriage, and few shelters. You have to go into your season of marriage fully prepared to batten down the hatches and ride out the storm. Too little preparation, and you might not make it.

And the same time, you aren’t going to be living the rest of your life in the storm. You don’t need to wait until you have two years’ worth of supplies to declare yourself ready for the storm. You miss out on good opportunities (and good people) that way. It’s all about a healthy balance and knowing the difference between wants & needs. You don’t completely brush your wants aside, but you keep it in perspective.

I want to have my loans paid off and be making a certain amount of money before I get married. I have about eight years of loan payments left, and am nowhere near the amount of money I want to make. Does that mean I’m commited to waiting another eight years before I get married? NO! I’m twenty five (girls –and boys–yes!) and I would like to have a family before I’m too old to run after a child, my body is too old to recover, or my risk for having a special needs child that I will get too old to care for too fast goes beyond what I”m willing to take. I also need a few years between I do and diapers. I don’t have eight years left to have great credit and no debt before I get married.  Being financially fit & prepared, being realistic is one thing; stalling yourself out & being in your own way is another.

As a recent movie I saw stated, the wedding is for the family, the wedding is for us. After you actually get married, no one really cares anymore, except to wonder when you are going to have a baby. Outside people are in life for the highlight reel: you & your spouse have to be in it for the entire match, game, series…season. Make sure you have your marriage preparedness kit ready before the marriage season comes.

I’ll tell you what’s in the kit another day (after some heart to heart conversations with all the expert married folks I know!)

A Work in Progress

Tags

death, family, lessons, life, relationships, relatives

I finally finished the collage Pink Susie wanted me to make for the funeral. Pink Susie wanted to add her birth year, name, and year of passing at the top, so it’s still a work in progress, but thus far, this is what it looks like:

I am going to find something for Pink Susie to put into the obituary…a little poem or something appropriate for the occasion. Putting together the collage went fine. As I figured, most people didn’t show up to help, so the pictures were culled mostly from Pink Susie’s personal collection. Since she’d lost a large portion of her photo albums and keepsakes in a fire that burned down her storage shed, there was a lot less to choose from, but I think we did pretty well with what was on hand.

My great aunt lived nearly ninety-five years, from April 5, 1915 (amidst WWI) until the second day of 2010. Just imagine all the things that she had seen and done, all the history she witnessed. Luckily, I had the opportunity to sit with her and ask her about some of it. Actually, I got to sit and talk to a lot of the older family members. In 2005, when I helped put on a mini-family reunion here, Pink Susie and I traveled to visit many of the older family members that were left, a la Zora Neale Hurston and Franz Boaz, collecting stories and pictures in our endeavors to create a memorable family reunion. My great aunt, of course, I had opportunity to talk to more than once. I’m glad I did. Mr. Perfect remarked that of all the younger family members that she saw, she always seemed to remember me when she didn’t remember anyone else. I like to think it’s because I listened to her stories, because I showed her respect , not just from manners and courtesy, but because of all the things she must have seen and experienced, all of the experience and wisdom that was in her. I knew when I was outdone, and I respected that.

As we went through the pictures, I also found a few baby pictures of me, one’s with my mom and Pink Susie’s son and husband, pictures of me in cute little easter dresses and/or Big Bird bibs. A very alert baby, with bright eyes and always smiling. And always with Pink Susie and her family. On the family tree my aunt made, next to my name and date of birth, 6 1/2 pounds, the only one with a weight next to my name. Well, I was practically her baby she says. I am the one everyone calls her daughter. Yes, she exasperates me sometimes, and yes, going to Avon Park is a long trip that eats the entire day, but it’s worth it to remember that there are people who have always loved you, no matter what type of person you were then or are now. Even if they drive you up the wall and down the street. We are all works in progress, not fully finished. There are things we could all work on, things that we do that drive each other crazy. Some we do on purpose, lol. I love my crazy, maladjusted family, the one Pink Susie has diagnosed as half depressed and the other half bipolar. Maybe we are all one or the other. But man, what an attractive bunch of crazy people!

2blu2btru

Giving Myself Over

Tags

criticism, relatives, Thanksgiving

It’s been a long time…I shouldn’t have left you…without some dope thoughts to sift through…sift through…sift through…sift through…sift through…

I know it’s been a while since I’ve written anything, let alone the movie reviews and all of the other things that I’ve promised to write, but I’ve been really in my head lately. I just haven’t felt like sharing any of the thoughts racing through my mind.

I went to my aunt’s for Thanksgiving day. That was fun. I actually got to take Mr. Perfect to see more of my cousins (more of the embarrassing ones), which went…well. One of my cousins was leaving after we ate and said “See you later 2blu and …you.” It didn’t bother me as much that she’d forgotten his name, but the fact that she referred to him as “you”…disrespectful. I couldn’t believe it. Other than that, and my aunt forcing him to play her favorite card game, he seemed to enjoy himself a bit. There were a few hiccups, family aside, but I’m still thinking through how I feel about those.

Netflix gave me the wrong movies. For whatever reason my queue wouldn’t update correctly. That summarizes how things have been going for me lately. I feel like my life hasn’t been updating correctly. Everyone seems to want something from me. Some people are very clear about what that is; some people, to me, couldn’t be more vague. I don’t operate well with open-ended questions, let alone directions. I end up talking too much, or I get handsy, or I shut down completely and don’t say or do anything at all.

How do you respond to criticism? I have only three responses. I listen very respectfully to watch you say and flush it down the toilet with all the rest of the crap that is a by-product of life; I take it and use it to improve things I think need improving, or; I feel attacked and hurt and don’t do anything but feel bad. I have no idea how I want to feel about the latest bits of criticism that I’ve received. I tend to deal with criticism of my writing better than in any other area of my life, because I know my writing is good. Honest, constructive criticism can only better it. No matter how hard I try, however, I can’t transfer that level of confidence and acceptance of criticism into other areas of my life.

I feel as if I need a bit of space from my life, but I don’t see where I can create that space so I could deal with all of the different things that are going on both inside of me and in the outside world in which I move. I just need to breathe and find some inner stillness. But where is it?