FINDING OUT FOR YOURSELF

Discussing life, love, and the pursuit of what passes for individual happiness, with the girl once know as my B.F.F at work, I talked about my desire to conclude my 'career' as a single man. I was what I called 'stuck' on Tee Jay and was quite content with my run. There weren't too many things that I hadn't experienced in the relationships that I have had with women. What I didn't know was the fulfillment of a continuous, loving relationship that was mutually satisfying for both parties.

Even though whatever relationship I have had was filled with it's ups and downs, I was under the impression that I had left enough on the table that was worth revisiting. Also, I had come to dread what had become the inevitable explaining how I came to have the interests that I do. The cultural stereotyping doesn't end with race differences. The most withering form of it comes from within a culture and I think that the black social network is particularly stifling.

Or so it has been for me. Facing the same kinds of questions and expectations of why I did or didn't like this or why I was or wasn't into that, had become very much an unwanted burden. It seems as though I was on the defensive for being who it is that I am and that it was necessary for me to prove what I wasn't... an 'oreo' or like my sister Jan, a self loathing black person.

There is a lot of irony in my having to prove that I am 'black enough' for other blacks. You don't have to 'want to be white' to self-hate. Putting an ear in the ground, the disposition is there to be heard among the brothers every day. Eating in at McDonald's, you get to see how it plays out even among the 'club members and kool-aid drinkers'. Courtesy, professionalism, efficient service, were missing though it may have been anticipated by the customers inside the restaurant and in the drive-thru.

A Mother and her son were in high spirits for the morning and I enjoyed their interaction. I had wanted to ask if he was her only child, to explain why they relationship was more like best friends than an adversarial relationship. I thought back to my own relationship with my Mom and that it was around this age where it took its turn.

I thought to myself, "I wonder how long that will last for them?" If he were an only child, it could stretch out forever and never end. He could go on and continue to make her proud of him and he keep on with striving to make something of himself. He could go on and go straight to college and get a good job and become a stable young man, eventually finding a wife and starting a family.

What ever it was that he would be, I'd never know. Despite my wishing that I had the kind of relationship with my Mother that made it seem as though we were good friends instead of respectful opposition that we were, I have to find a way to let go of that. It never happened and she has gone on to wherever it you go after death, if there is anywhere to go.

That uncertainty places a premium on the here and now.

A brother around my age, maybe younger by a bit or older, made the comment about why 'our people' were in such a state of fail. We don't seem to grasp the idea of professionalism and working at doing our job regardless of what it was. And I understood where he was coming from at the time. Despite the 'through the motions' politeness, it was grating, the seeming disconnect between the customer and the worker.

While I have decided to make a point of not engaging in this kind of spontaneous conversation, I did speak on why I think that is. He was pressing for time and did not want a drawn out discussion either, but for the most part we saw eye to eye as to why 'we' aren't able to function and how it contrasts with to what we observe in other cultures here in America. Being able to keep the conversation short was important to me. Not that I am unfriendly or anything but I don't want to sound like I am anything to anybody until I am more of what I need to be to myself. What I think and how I see and interpret the world is my own business and there is much for me to do before I start sharing what I know about living in the world.

My main journal was on my mind... and all the whining that I am doing in it. Some of it is due to an organic anxiety and impatience with myself. I am finally going to have one of the great demons in my life struck a critical blow if not slain completely. I wonder if the mail that went ahead of me isn't confirmation of my case being processed and that my appearance next week in court is unneeded. That is how earlier motions were handled for expiedency sake, I imagine. An appearance tying up space on the court docket when all the information is at hand makes my appearance unneed. A thumb up or down process would cover the motions and that would be that.

What would be my next step? Am I really going to manage to act only in my own self interest and do what I need to do just for me? I don't expect anyone to understand and the SFC least of all. Has she really had feelings for me for the past two decades and was unable to act on them because of the fickle fates of life?

Stuff like that remained undiscussed between us and they sit without being broached now. Even as we continue to either talk or text one another daily, yesterday was the closest one of those off limits conversations came to being held between us.

I told her that I did not want to talk about it... and I didn't, not with her. Why I didn't want to let go of what I am holding onto, is that it is also going to be my salvation. My holding onto this 'whatever' is going to be what I used to climb back into the life that I had at one time hoped for. It is attached to the same things that holds my seething bellicosity towards my sisters, which was again confirmed with Twin B visit with her fiance and daughter in tow.

Some of this is prolly better for a therapy session but failing that... I am bothered with her man resembling so many of my better qualities and how she acted against me at within our relationship. Instead of being my best sister, she became my Judas Iscariot. Because I wouldn't expect to be believed why would I bring it up? Even with it being fairly obvious, she wouldn't want to hear any of it.

And what little he said of himself... he was given a choice of serving in the Army or becoming a statistic in the criminal justice system. Perhaps there was some air inflating that statement but I understood what he meant. I had hoped that the service would do so many things for me and I wasn't able to get the most out of it. But Shorty Mac was and so did the SFC. And that warrants the question, why didn't I get out of the Army as much as I hoped..?

Only the Shadow knows...

The SFC blew my mind on Sunday with the admission that she moved to our new place in part (and I am being generous with that!) to accommodate me! She said that were it NOT for me, she'd still be in her old place.

WTF! She could have loaned me the money she spent for her inconvenient move and let me go out west!! I wouldn't have needed as much funding to get to where I want to go and I would have paid her back!!

And how is THIS for further irony... not only did I want to wait to tie up my F.O.C. business in Detroit (which is further expense and with another previously unforseen layer to unwrap) but I also figured my late spring arrival in Omaha would keep me from getting hit with a harsh winter. Been that way for boxing matches and stationed there (c'mon... Kansas and Iowa counts as flyover land with Nebraska) so I expected that I could get hit with a hard winter.

Moving to Virginia, I have found myself literally in the storm of the century! Getting back to the SFC, I don't wonder where her rationale comes from as much as I don't care enough about it.

She also tried to open conversation about 'us' and what do we have here.

A FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE

If there is anything that I 'did', it could be that I misunderstood the 'Darkhorse Concept' that I created, to account for the unseen stuff that always finds its way into my plans. It wasn't that I was supposed to yield to it, but it was something I was meant to overcome.

Looking around, all I can think of is the life that I hoped to have when I left home. I'd box and serve like Carlos Elliot. Over twenty years I have been at sea with a broken mast...

I kept seeing my sisters when I thought about what happened with her in Korea. And more irony... when I came home, my sisters stopped being 'for me'. I told Twin B (it is either call them 'A&B' or Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee!) that whatever reason they had, I was still their brother and that should have meant something.

So I loved her so much as a friend that I felt compelled to gravely damage my own life. Makes perfect sense, right?

Now this was the SECOND time that she said something 'deathless'. The other is more of an 'thought', since I can't put it with the concrete of a quote. In fact, both are more conceptual than one single 'thing'.

Whenever I get the idea that someone made the same mistake again in the love life, I take offense. If they knew that they were going off on a lark, then why are they hasslin' me? See with the SFC, I told her about my plan and it wasn't until after she heard it that...

... well, that I DID IT AGAIN. For her. Took my life and my fate and cast it away. So the idea that she has made a major change to accomodate me (like hinting that she hasn't been to see her boys since I have been in the picture) in her world, is insulting to me.

What I want to see happen when the time for me to leave arrives.