The Closure Closet

A timely couple of pieces from a collection of my very conflicting feelings about closure.

Translation: Closure is just an illusion.

Keep your fucking closure.....

A Determined Absence

One of the scariest feelings is the sudden realization that the last conversation... encounter.... or moment you had with a key person in your life is going to be the last. You weren't ready, so panic sets in and that voice in your head screams "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" while your heart does a wall slide down to your stomach. You can relax; I'm not talking about death. I'm talking about divides.

I'm talking about blackouts.

I'm talking about the "next time" that never is.

The intent you never got a chance to parlay into action.

I'm talking about nothing ever really "happening" - no argument, no incident - but suddenly she's not returning your calls or maybe he's not responding to your texts.

I'm talking about treading water with all your might as not to drown in the limbo.... in the confusion.... in the "WTF"-ness.

And all you can do in the fog of unrequited love is to think back to that last conversation.... encounter.... or moment you had and try your hardest to sharpen the images enough to last just one more day. If only you had known, you'd have savored that time. You'd have kissed her. You'd have breathed in his cologne and fully melted into that goodbye hug. You'd have been so present in the moment, you'd surely never forget it. You'd have accepted the invitation you declined because you were tired. Or it was raining. You'd give anything for that one more memory to draw from. If only you had known. But you didn't. And we never do.

Nah. I'm not talking about death. But death would almost be easier. Death is explanatory. And final. Nothing happens next and we don't expect it to. Panic-stricken you has no clue .... and whatever happens next is likely happening with someone else. While you're still waiting for him or her to tell you why because, after all, it's the least they could do, right?

At least death brings closure. Where's yours?

Yours comes when you stop waiting for a response you'd have gotten by now if it were coming. Yours comes when you stop waiting for him or her to let you off the hook. Yours comes when you take what happens next out of their hands and you decide for yourself to move on. A determined absence is all the clarity you need.

Cash out.

#message

My own "crazy"

morning.... pretty uneventful evening. was in bed by 10. woke up like 3 am (im guessing) and i went to pee and saw lights under my bedroom door which meant that boy fell asleep on my damn couch after 800 times telling him to stop. i peed and went back to bed with a major attitude because i was telling myself i bet he didnt put the leftover food away or take the garbage out either. i was making myself so upset i could physically feel the stress building in my chest. so i told myself i have to think about something else. so i started thinking about sex lol. specifically i started thinking about how in the wide scope of things, most sex is really very average and lackluster. i came to that conclusion thinking about [guy 1] of course lol. and [guy 2]. and [guy 3]. but mainly [guy 1] lol. and that thought went to "damn, i havent seen him in 2 years." and that thought went to i miss him but im equally upset with him and i dont care anymore. then it went to [guy 4] - the guy i was supposed to meet up with tonight after work (freshman year at brockport guy). and how i texted him yesterday to see if tonight was still on and he didnt respond. and how im not gonna ask again and if he doesnt hit me, we just wont go. then i thought, if he does hit me, maybe i still wont go. maybe i've made other plans since i didnt hear back from him - or at least, that's what i should say. and suddenly i remembered the last time i was with him in the car, coming from dinner.... had to be almost 4 years ago now...... and i remember we fell out on that ride home. well.... more accurately, i remember him saying something that made me feel really angry.... but i couldnt remember what it was. idk if he said something about a gf..... or if i finally asked him what the deal was with us after all these years of it being the elephant in the room and i didnt like his response.... i really wish i could remember because now that i remember that happened, i remember it kinda being the reason i hadnt spoken to him in so long. i remember consciously NOT texting him happy birthday a couple years ago and rolling my eyes when i saw a linkedin update of his work anniversary or something...... but somehow over time, i've forgotten that incident and reached out a month or so ago, like i always did once or twice a year, and he said we need to get together when the weather warms up. and thats how tonight came about. but now i remember that night in the car and i wonder if he's forgotten too. i wonder if we can pretend it never happened..... of if i should do like i intended and just never speak to him again......

Dry

I feel like I been crying all damn weekend.

Yesterday morning, I received a text from a friend of mine who was expecting. I thought about her earlier in the week because I hadn't seen her on social media and I knew her due date was coming but it kept slipping my mind to call. The first thing I saw on the text was a picture of a baby's hand curled around both her and her boyfriend's pinkies. I immediately thought awwwwwww, how fucken cute! She had the baby! Then I read the text and became confused. What I thought I read was basically "our baby was born on [this] day at [this] time, weighing [this] much and measuring [this] many inches" but it ended with a request to keep her and her boyfriend in prayer and I was thrown. Wait.... what? Now it's not unheard of or even uncommon for someone to say that, but something about it was wrong. I had to read it several times before I understood... before I caught the words I had initially overlooked: "....was born into heaven...."

I cried so hard.

I cried because I know how long she had been wanting to have a baby. I cried because I watched the joy well up in her over the course of this gestation period - the pictures, the baby shower, the planning. I cried because she loved that baby so hard and was so looking forward to her arrival. I cried because she carried that baby all the way to term, birthed her, and had to let her go. I'm crying all over again just thinking about the pain she's had to be in for the last week and even more so today, on what should have been her first and very happy Mother's Day. I cried because for the first time in a long time, I didn't know what to do. More accurately, I knew there was nothing I COULD do. I'll ask you all to join to me in keeping this couple in prayer.

This morning, the midgets woke me up early like they do every Mother's Day to serve me breakfast in bed. I was about halfway through when my daughter came back in and sat on my bed asking how everything was. I told her everything was good and added, "You'll have to do this by yourself next year." She said, "yup," and 3 seconds later, I was in tears. It hit me quite suddenly; my baby boy is gonna be off to college soon. As crazy as he makes me these days, I don't know how I'm gonna deal with not seeing him every day, or every week even. How I'm gonna handle those nightly calls that soon become fewer and farther between. I know I have to cut the apron strings but it all seems to be coming so fast - even though I can still remember the days when I couldn't wait for this time to come. It's going to be a hard transition for me, but I'm going to try to be as excited for him as he is.

I'm sure that led to my next breakdown. His father hasn't spoken to him since that last incident a month and a half ago when I almost put him out. I got past it, but he didn't. I understand the issue, but it's hurtful to me at a time when I know the direction he needs can't come from me. I am not equipped to guide him into manhood. I can't relate on a personal level to what he's going through and what he's facing and because he's not a little kid anymore, he's quite aware of that. He doesn't have the same conversations with me that he has with his father. And it was in the middle of expressing that to him when he called me today that I found myself in tears again.

Now if you don't know anything about our relationship, know that I HATE showing anything to him that might come off as weakness. But as I was telling him how disappointed I was in the recent state of THEIR relationship, I didn't feel weak. I felt..... humbled. And somehow that humility gave way to his. For the first time, we spoke of our mutual fear of having done some things wrong where our son is concerned. It's okay - no parent does everything right - and we have raised a good kid, but I think there always comes a point when a parent feels a little guilty when things aren't unfolding quite the way they wanted them to. I just needed him to stop dwelling on what's already happened and start focusing on now and what's next. In the twist of all twists, he actually listened to me and agreed to fix it. Stand in the gap, Lord. #wonthedoit

So throw in Mommie Dearest, Mildred Pierce and both versions of Imitation of Life and yeah.... I been crying all damn weekend. But I did a lot of thinking too and I feel a lot clearer. I've done laundry, fed my babies, now all I need is a really good night's sleep and to not wake up to the death of Morgan Freeman and everything will be peach on the beach.

RIP Afeni Shakur

Maybe I need to stop getting online for non-work purposes when I'm at work. I swear it seems like every time I do, somebody else done died. 2016 ain't giving a single fuck about our feelings. Today we learned that Afeni Shakur [Davis], activist and beloved mother of hip hop legend, Tupac Shakur, passed away last night after what appeared to be cardiac arrest. She was 69. Tupac himself was gunned down in a drive-by shooting in 1996.

I'm sad to hear this news, but happy that 20 years later, this mother can finally be reunited with the son she very clearly loved and missed so very much. We wish you eternity.

#RIP

Hot Sauce

I wanted to wait until I got home to write today's post so I wouldn't be rushing, but then I came across this one. In many ways, it echoes my sentiments. Read it here:

http://www.lovebscott.com/news/piers-morgan-i-feel-uncomfortable-about-beyonce-using-grieving-mothers-to-sell-albums

My use of the word "overall" in my previous post was due to several things that didn't jive for me in the "Lemonade" piece. The inclusion of the mothers of recent victims of violence was a major one. I remember hearing a few weeks back that she was going to feature them in an upcoming video but when I saw that it was this project, it really didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Like..... what's the correlation to even the bigger picture story here? I can't find one that isn't completely forced and this is one of the issues I have with Beyonce too. She somehow always finds a way lately to attach herself to something that's going on in the most synthetic way imaginable. While some see her as an activist, it comes off quite contrived and opportunistic to me. To a lesser extent, it's the problem I've always had with her; she never felt genuine.

But let's say she's an activist. Go activate LOL. Like physically go and show up and SAY something to the masses. Don't mask it in a song that creates a line you can straddle called art when convenient. Be seen actually DOING something other than cutting a check (although good look on those LOL) A supporter, maybe. Activist? No.

I actually have a lot of feelings about this project, as I said in the first post the other day. Most positive, but some not so much. The grieving mothers thing didn't sit well with me at all, so I'm glad I'm not the only one who was thrown by it, even if my constituents are the likes of Piers Morgan - Sheesh LOL. But even assholes make good points sometimes. *shrugs*

The most positive thing I can say about "Lemonade" apart from that I really liked it (which, if you know me, is a huge compliment) is that if nothing else, it started conversations. Yes, most began with her - about her - but my timeline last night was full of really deep banter among men and women of all kinds of backgrounds. They were discussing everything from the perception of the black woman to cheating to ... sheesh, everything. There were some really strong opinions thrown out there from all positions and some of those conversations got really intense, but at the end of the day, there can be no growth without exploration. In order to progress, we must have these conversations, and positive or negative, I think that's the most IMPORTANT thing this project achieved.

See, Bey? Now we're getting somewhere.

Lemonade, Not Tea

Honey! *Slaps the air* Lemonade tryna to put tea outta business, girl LOL.

Okay so first of all, let's acknowledge that seeing just the two videos I saw pre-post COMPLETELY tainted my perspective LOL. After watching the whole video, I received a totally different message. I took it upon myself to watch the full hour-long video online yesterday and then actually watch the re-air of the HBO special last night. Let me tell you though, I NEEDED to watch it both times cause Yonce' kinda lost me in a couple places the first time; fool me twice LOL.

Now I'm at work and I got shit to do so I ain't gonna get all philosophical and what not.... at least not a lot LOL.... but I will go on record to say that I was actually pretty impressed with the special. I was. A lot could still be left to interpretation - as with most art - but I think when you take a step back and look from a wider lens, you realize much of her point was that everything is a cycle and breaking said cycle is a CHOICE. Leaving is a CHOICE. Forgiveness is a CHOICE. Staying and putting in the work is a CHOICE. I think she was also saying it's okay to change your mind. It's okay to feel different today than you did yesterday. Sidebar: I think that's okay too, and that's the number one reason I don't believe in running and telling all your friends about some shit that's gone down. You gonna get all these damn opinions, all this "fuck that nigga" fanfare and when you finally settle down and come to that place in the dark, you're gonna feel even more conflicted because of the pressure to do the thing you don't wanna do anymore. Now you dont wanna look stupid to everybody. But you would never be in that place if you wore your own welts. Just saying.

Anyway, I gotta go, but I wanted to take a minute to give Bey props on the overall special. While I definitely think she was doing too much at points (I mean, Bey, come on, the majority of your fan base is NOT this deep LOL) I think it was beautifully done and I would not be surprised if she won some sort of award for it.