When You Know Better, You Do Better

When I was young—in fact, all throughout my childhood—my mom always told us, “If they love you, they will wait.”  I hid this in my heart even during undergrad when it seemed that all of my schoolmates were wild and crazy behind closed doors.  Not long after graduation and especially after I turned 25, my friends began to snicker that I would be like Steve Carell’s character in The 40-Year-Old Virgin.  Can you imagine that?  At 25, my friends were predicting my sex life for the next 15 years.

At some point, I gave in to their jokes and my boyfriend’s persistence.  When we met, he at almost 10 years older than me, told me that he was looking for his wife.  Little did I know, this is a common line in his home country.  Immediately after we did the deed, I knew he wasn’t “The One.” But I tried to tell myself, “You can learn to love him.”  What ensued was a long and tumultuous relationship that eventually turned into a dramatic “Whatever We’re Calling This.”  Little did I know, he was he was in a “traditional” marriage when we met—not legal, but still respected in his home country.  Little did I know, I broke up this marriage.  Little did I know, I was the first person he ever actually loved.  Little did I know, that still wouldn’t keep him from cheating.  Little did I know, he would go to the ends of the earth, implementing every strategy in his arsenal to keep me at his side.

So, I moved.  It was in Houston that I became a stronger person, more confident in saying “No.”  This new-found strength not only helped me excel at my career, but it also brought me back to myself in my relationships.  No longer was I relaxing my standards for the sake of the affection.  The Nashville guy (as I’ll call him) was extremely chivalrous and extremely accommodating.  I never wanted for anything and I never had to beg.  He took better care of me than my father did.  We talked about our hopes and dreams. Our conversations often turned to new ways to foster the creation of wealth and jobs.  He is a small business owner.  Though he was just keeping his head above water when we met, our conversations constantly centered on growth especially while I was in the process of obtaining my MBA. I loved that about our relationship. 

At some point during our “Whatever We’re Calling This,” he amassed and was able to sustain the type of salary where one could say, “Financially, I lack nothing.”  He was never one to keep up with the Joneses.  To this day, he continues to shop at the Goodwill and would commend me during our relationship for finding good deals on everything.  I’ve never paid full price for anything.  I remember him once calling me from a Goodwill location asking me about a price on a table he saw, wanting to know if it was a good deal.  I still laugh at his attentiveness, listening to my every word and immediately texting me pictures so that I could help him determine if this thing he didn’t need should be bought.

But in the back of my mind I knew our relationship wouldn’t work.  It was not sustainable long-term.  I wanted to be married and the older I was getting, I knew that no matter what he said, marriage wouldn’t be in the cards for him nor would marriage be the appropriate thing for us to do together.  My time in Houston had made me stronger.  I knew this.  I also knew in order to make room for Mr. Right, I had to completely walk away.

People always say, “The good Lord works in mysterious ways.”  At some point in living with my parents and working part time jobs to keep bills paid while I worked on my entrepreneurial dreams, I had a pregnancy scare.  Not only was I livid, I called him and railed.  He cracked jokes like he didn’t have a care in the world.  In his defense, it would have been nothing for him to take care of a child at his income level.  But the truth remained that I no longer wanted to be tied to him.  I wanted the freedom to be able to walk away at any moment.  So, when my period finally came late as all get out, I texted him.  He texted back, “Amen.” I thought, ‘Amen indeed.’ Amen on the entire saga that has been a good portion of my adult life.  I’m moving on.

My Top Three

I have a crush on Trevor Noah.  But not like that creepy Hollywood stalker crush.  I’ve never been to any of his shows and I don’t think we’ve ever even been in the same city at the same time.  To put this in perspective, I have crushes on two other people that I’ve actually met.  One of them will occasionally like my Instagram pictures and every time I get the notification, I screen shoot it and send it to my sister in Namibia with a bunch of heart eye emojis.  He and I hung out a couple times, then he moved to a new city and, oh well… The other actual crush is on a guy that I’ve fantasized about marrying and knowing. :P  I remember one time, I was talking to him, but I wasn’t looking in his direction.  Then I turned and looked at him.  He was staring at me in a very inquisitive manner that sent a shock through my body once our eyes met.  From that point on, I labeled him The One though I’ve never acted upon any of my feelings.  I don’t even know if they’re real, honestly.  I’m still figuring him out.  But these men are currently my Top Three.  Let me be clear:  If Trevor Noah ever stared at me in a bedroom come-hither type of fashion, I’d probably stare back at him like, “TF you looking at?”  But he’s cute and I like smart guys. *shoulder shrug*

I also have a Top Three in one of my favorite subjects:  books.  The very first book that changed my life was the fiction book The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison.  I remember being assigned this book in my 12^th grade AP English class.  I remember instantly being able to understand every written word that was the embodiment of the main character and becoming so emotionally connected to her.  I knew her struggle.  At that point, I didn’t know books could do that to you.  After reading, I wanted to have a sit-down discussion with my teacher and talk about everything that affected me from reading those pages.  She didn’t really have time and at some point, gave the class an assignment of picking an author, reading three books by that author, then writing an interpolation of their writing style.  Of course, I picked Toni Morrison and read Song of Solomon and two other books.  To this day she is my favorite author.

The second book I read that made a lasting impression on me was The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood by Helene Cooper.  I saw this with a short summary as a recommended reading title in Ebony magazine one year and decided to read it when I noticed that the author was from Liberia.  At the time, I was dating a guy from there and thought it would give me insight into his life and upbringing.  The most fascinating thing to me about that book was not only the way it was written—it was such a captivating read—but there is a part of the story that is etched in my memory forever.  Helene’s family was heavily involved in government leadership and in 1980, there was a coup and the government was overtaken.  Being that their family was no longer safe, her father flees promising to return for them.  She and her sisters are left alone holed up in their home with their mother waiting to leave the country.  At one point in their wait, armed militia breech their enclosure and make their way to their home to raid it.  Though scary, they just take some things and head out until one of the soldiers notices the young Helene and circles back.  Helene’s mother steps in between her daughter and the soldiers and begs them to take her instead of her daughter.  They do, and I remember reading that part of the story in such amazement at her mother’s courage to do whatever it took to protect her children.  I had just graduated college a couple years prior to reading this book and was fascinated with her maternal instinct.  Would I do something like that?  It’s true that you never know what you’ll do until you are actually faced with that situation.

Rounding out my Top Three is Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime.  I read this book in less than 10 hours.  It was that arresting.  Most of what I loved about it is that I learned so much!  Plus, it completely drew me in.  Once while siting on my mother’s couch, I laughed so uncontrollably with my hearty Southern girl laugh and tears rolling down my eyes, that my mother looked up from where she was watching the news and said, “Oh hush!  It’s not that funny!”  But it actually is!  I was reading the chapter where Trevor talks about how he was home alone with his blind great grandmother.  The house had a detached outhouse for its bathroom.  This was simply a small enclosure with a hole in the floor with a toilet seat over it and newspaper for wipes.  Often there’d be flies around the hole and this particular day, it was raining out plus the flies.  Trevor, just waking up from a nap, decided he wasn’t going out there that day.  You’ll have to read what happens next for yourself, but it was funny enough that my mother was seriously annoyed by my laughter.

Born a Crime also provides great first-hand insight into apartheid.  Born in 1984 to a South African mom and a Swiss father, Trevor was literally the product of a crime.  Though his mother had and loved her independence, she could not legally love a white man.  His father, an expatriate, thought the whole idea of apartheid was silly and commenced his secret illegal relationship with the woman from down the hall.  Trevor writes about a childhood where he couldn’t even walk down the street with his own father.  When the family would go places together, his dad would walk on the other side of the street.  They couldn’t play together at the playground and as Trevor got older, his mother would even hire a fair skinned “colored” woman to walk with Trevor while she walked behind them as if she were the help.

This book details the emotional perspective of at least one person who lived through this period of apartheid, something that history books don’t often do.  Trevor also talks about how the creators of the South African apartheid system actually studied slavery in various other countries before putting their system into place with the assumption that it was the “best” of all the chattel systems.  I never knew this.  In addition, Trevor recognizes his mother’s deep faith in God and her belief that Jesus will save you from whatever, wherever, whenever.  This strong faith culminates with a crocodile-tear jerking final chapter of the book as Trevor expresses his love for his mother’s strength and tenacity.  I LOVED this book!  And not because I have a fantasy crush on this guy.  It really is a great book.