« Fresh for 06 | Main | Wow »

Words to Live By

The messed up part is that I wrote that whole previous entry for a reason I didn’t even mention.

As I was cleaning this weekend (cuz you know black folks gotta clean they house before the new year) I found a sheet of paper that had these words on it:

Words to Live By:

Dream.
Desire.
Reality.
Goals.
Work.
Enthusiasm.
Perseverance.
Patience.
Experience.
Flexibility.

And it made a whole bunch of shit flood back into my consciousness that I sorta pushed back. See, those words were the nucleus of the birthday present I was going to make him. It was like a scrapbook, sorta, with each word on its own page and then a quote to go along with each word. Like for “Dream” I found the quote “As long as one has a dream in his heart, he cannot lose the significance of living.” (Howard Thurman, btw) And for “Desire” I found “Be careful what you set your heart upon - for it will surely be yours. (James Baldwin)

So when shit didn’t work out, I was like well, we’re still friends, I can still send him this. That would be nice. Then I was like well, what would the real reason be? Is it to show him what he’s “missing?” To some how rub it in? Or is it the opposite – to subconsciously beg for him back?

I didn’t have the answers to those questions, so I didn’t complete the project. Didn’t send it to him. Sent him an email wishing him a happy birthday (no response) and then a phone call wishing him happy new year (it was then that I received the return email).

Part of me knew that I was always thinking of him more than he thought of me, at least in “that” way. So maybe part of me wanted to see if I crossed his mind at Christmas time. (I didn’t) or at New Years (of course not).

You see the games we play, even if only in our own minds?

And you see why I had to set the bar super high this year? Things like the gift I described above, well, that’s just ME. (That’s also me being BROKE, but that’s another story.)

I need the type of man who will live hundreds of miles away, but drive up to see me when he has the opportunity. He never did. When there was a choice to do that, he didn’t. Little things like that can be rationalized away as they happen (“He’s so busy, he needs the rest.”) But it builds into resentment when you see how little you get paid, how much you spent to be with him, and how all your leave is GONE. And you look at his life and see how much more he has (materially) than you, and how little you got back emotionally, which would have more than made up for the lack of the material things, which you don’t even really think about for real because you’re just not that kind of person in the first place………

And really, I’m not a tit-for-tat kind of person, at least not literally. I believe in compromise. I believe that a person should give what they can, how they can. For example, say I like a dude that’s into pro football. And personally, I derive no enjoyment from pro football. The kind of person I am…I’ll watch a game with you, okay. I’ll let you “teach” me about the game, if that’s something you’re passionate about. But at the end of the day, my “gift” to you is to take note of when the games are on and LEAVE YOU ALONE during those times. And the type of man I’m looking for needs to acknowledge that “Hey, Rashid is cool – he leaves me the fuck alone when the game is on.” Because it’s not just about ME not liking football – it’s about acknowledging that it is an interest of my man’s, and that it would be rude of me to interrupt that time of his day.

At any rate, that’s all I wanted to add. Clearly, I am feeling more raw about this than I initially thought, but that’s what happens when you leave a Cancer man alone with his own mind for long periods.

Posted by Rashid on January 2, 2006 9:44 PM