Your Resolution for 2010

Alright.

I had planned for the first post of the new year to be a whimsical and funny dalliance into the foolishness and mayhem that is my life, but I couldn’t quite make that happen. Mostly because over the last few weeks, I have been preoccupied with the desire to let Nicki Minaj smash to divorce myself of my race and gender at a rate more alarming than usual.

I love being black. And I love being woman. Even more so than those things, I love being a black woman. Even with as much as MSN and CNN, et al would have me believe that my very existence is a parlay into emotional, financial, mental and marital purgatory, I go real hard for being exactly who I am. Sure, I am lighter than most and darker than few with all manner of curly hair that I didn’t pick up in a bag next to the Chinese takeout spot, but I dare you to somehow invalidate my blackness.

Naw, for real. I DARE you.

That being said, I have been wanting to give up on us lately, y’all. Not because we are any less of the beautiful, strong, magical creatures we have always been. Mostly because we don’t realize it.

Maybe it was all the Helena Andrews‘ of the world or all the statistics being hurled at us from every angle, but it seems like in 2009 y’all just got downright desperate.

Now usually when I discuss the pathology of any group that I am a part of, I use a larger “we” and include myself because I believe in being part of the solution, not the antagonist.

However, this ain’t my issue so I can’t really rock with that this time.

I hear it everyday. Every. Single. Damn. Day. And my male friends far outweigh my female friends, so its not just that I only talk to women. Everyday its a new tale of some outlandish, ridiculous behavior some woman has perpetuated regarding some man who probably don’t deserve it.

I know that you know what I mean. You’ve got that friend that keeps finding The One every first Friday at the club the month after The Last One inconspiciously or passive aggressively exited stage left. And not only does she keep falling for these random guys dumb quick, she gets mad at you when you aren’t convinced that he could be The One, too.

Or you know that friend that is going all out in the bedroom, cooking, cleaning, catering to a dude that IS NOT HER DUDE on the off chance that he will see what wifey material she is and thus, wife her.

Come on y’all. That kinda shit went out with Filas and french rolls.

I recognize that my own personal constitution is not one that is likely to do these things… but that’s not to say I haven’t done them before. Let’s be clear, I am good for doing all kinds of traditional homemaker things that I am not supposed to enjoy doing for a man that I am all in for. But the difference is, I do it for ME. I cook for my partners because it makes ME happy. I clean and make lunches and turn it out in the bedroom and tie ties and charm his friends because it fulfills ME. Not because I hope it will elevate my standings in his eyes.

On the same note however, don’t get it twisted; I’ve been stupid over a nigga. At least once.

But it’s the pattern that bothers me, that makes me worry that maybe we are all buying into our own worst hype. It’s the continuous and desperate latching on to these men that ain’t shit, won’t ever be shit, couldn’t buy shit at the store with a coupon and a list.

Its become a bit of an epidemic I’m afraid. And we are above it. ABOVE IT. Not because of our education or our bodies or our skin tone or our shoe game. But because as women, black women especially, we deserve a faithful, funny, fetching man (of whatever race you so choose) that doesn’t belong to anyone else. Buying into the great white hype of there being no available/honorable/straight men out there for us is only perpetuating the very cycles of broken heartedness, single parent households, and marriagelessness (I don’t care if that’s not a word) that we say we want to break free of. And maybe it is naive of me, but even I, the eternal skeptic, believe that man is out there.

If we would stop looking in all the wrong places.

If you look for a man who’s personal constitution lines up with your own, not who looks good on paper, maybe we could all stop hearing these tales of these women who stay with the dude who cheats/beats/lies.
Because I know you have all heard that.

Let’s keep it 100 for just a second: If you are single and/or unmarried, look at your life right now. Look at it objectively. Have you died? Are you mortally wounded? Has every year of your life been without joy or happiness of any kind?

I didn’t fucking think so.

There are plenty psychological reasons why women stay with men who are beneath them. But far more often than not it is simply just FEAR. Fear of being alone. Fear that you will never find someone. Fear that others will judge you. Fear that it means that you are unworthy. Fear that without a man, you have no idea how to define yourself.

And it’s bullshit.

I have never been huge on marriage, though I have wanted to get married… to ONE person in particular, not to just the idea at large. If I never get married, I won’t even pretend that I am so impervious to emotion that there aren’t times where I won’t be lonely, where I will want someone around, where I may even waste a small amount of time with someone unworthy just to have some occupancy in my space. I get it; I’m human, too.

But my big picture is still vivid. My life will not be dull if I don’t get married. It will be no less full or happy or fulfilling or fun because there isn’t a man in it. I will still do the things I love, see the places I love, share my life with the people I love who love me back just as magnificently.

Because I DESERVE that.

If I don’t get married, I will not die. My life will not cease to have meaning. I will not fall neatly into some statistic or misguided WaPo article. Being alone does not mean you are somehow less than. So please, for my own sake if not yours, stop latching on to half a man just to say you have one. Having a faulty, flawed man is NEVER better than not having a man.

And who’s to say you aren’t missing out on The One while you are bidding your time with men that are beneath you?

Surely it’s a more complex issue than I am giving credence to here. But the real talk of the matter is, no matter the symptoms, the cure is not all that deep:

Give your time to people who MATTER, people who DESERVE it, people FULLY CAPABLE OF RECEIVING YOUR LOVE, who can RECIPROCATE IN A FASHION APPROPRIATE TO YOUR NEEDS. Time is the only natural resource that we use and use that we can NEVER get back or replicate.

So why the fuck do we keep wasting it on these bitch ass dudes?