That Pesky Foreboding Joy Thing Again

Photo courtesy of ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy

Foreboding joy.

It’s a concept we’ve talked about on the blog here already, but one that I wanted to explore again after the controversial death of beloved Grey’s Anatomy character, Dr. Derek Shepherd.

For those of you who don’t watch the show, Derek and his wife Meredith have been the main characters of the show for the past eleven years, which is saying something because for all intents and purposes, it is an ensemble cast show. And yet, their love story has always been pretty integral to the story from the very beginning. We open with them meeting, and we grew to really care about their up and down, will they or won’t they relationship.

Well, they did, finally. They got married, adopted one kid and had another, and even after they found themselves arguing a lot this season (and Derek almost cheating, well he did kiss someone but then ran away as quickly as possible), they somehow managed to find their way back to each other and were really, really happy.

This is when I (and anyone else who watches the show) knew something was going to go terribly wrong. Two episodes later, he was missing. And the very next episode, we found out that he’d died in a hospital of a brain lack following a car accident.

Whew. When I say that episode tore me to pieces, I’m not lying. But I’m also not alone. All over my timeline, I saw folks admitting to deep, ugly tears while watching it. And sure, I think it’s partly because we’d all become invested in the character and also because Shonda Rhimes knows how to tear your heart out with a perfectly timed song, but mostly I think it had everything to do with all of our tendencies towards foreboding joy.

You see, the reason so many of us expected that something was going to go wrong with the character on the show is because we expect for things to go wrong in our own lives when we are too happy. How could the Grey’s Anatomy world be any different, right?

Dr. Brene’ Brown says it better. She says, “Having spent several years studying what it means to feel joyful, I’d argue that joy is probably the most difficult emotion to really feel. Why? Because when we lose the ability or willingness to be vulnerable, joy becomes something we approach with deep foreboding… [and it] can feel like a setup. We wake up in the morning and think, Work is going well. Everyone in the family is healthy. No major crises are happening. The house is still standing. I’m working out and feeling good. Oh, shit. This is bad. This is really bad. Disaster must be lurking right around the corner.”

Essentially, we’re all scared shitless of being too happy.

That’s why it hurt so much watching Derek die the same day he so eloquently professed his love for Meredith. It’s because watching that happen confirmed all our fears of it happening in real life. Not consciously, mind you. But I think it stirred up those latent (and maybe not so latent) fears in all of us.

I get that. For several years after Montana was killed in a carjacking, any time I couldn’t reach a friend, family member, or especially someone I was dating, I would immediately panic and think something had happened to them. I’d give myself 3 hours (much like Meredith gave herself until 5pm) to hear back from them before completely losing it, but I’d be going through every horrible scenario in my mind.

But even after I got over that, foreboding joy found a way to creep into my psyche. I recently dated someone, fell in love with him, and then talked myself out of the relationship. Why? Because when you have foreboding joy, the kind of happiness I had with him only serves to make you so frightened that it will end that the only thing you can do is stop it before something or someone else can take it from you.

Foreboding joy.

It’s that thing that makes newly married folks realize just how mortal we all are now that they’ve vowed to spend the rest of their lives with someone. It’s what makes moms and dads stand over their new babies, because they realize the most random incident could take all that happiness away in an instant. It’s frightening. It’s debilitating. But more than that it’s not living a full life.

Brown gives an example of this in her book, Daring Greatly. “A man in his early sixties told me, ‘I used to think the best way to go through life was to expect the worst. That way, if it happened, you were prepared, and if it didn’t happen, you were pleasantly surprised. Then I was in a car accident and my wife was killed. Needless to say, expecting the worst didn’t prepare me at all. And worse, I still grieve for all of those wonderful moments we shared and that I didn’t fully enjoy’… [this] story illustrates how the concept of foreboding joy as a method of minimizing vulnerability is best understood as a continuum that runs from ‘rehearsing tragedy’ to what I call ‘perpetual disappointment.'”

She goes on to say, “What the perpetual disappointment folks described is this: ‘It’s easier to love disappointed than it is to feel disappointed. It feels more vulnerable to dip in and out of disappointment than to just set up camp there. You sacrifice joy, but you suffer less pain… [but] once we make the connection between vulnerability and joy, the answer is pretty straightforward: we’re trying to beat vulnerability to the punch. We don’t want to be blindsided by hurt. We don’t want to be caught off-guard, so we literally practice being devastated or never move from self-elected disappointment.”

Thing is though, we don’t actually stop the pain, even when we’re not letting ourselves enjoy the joy. This is exactly what happened with many of us who watch the show. I knew something was going to happen to Derek. I felt it from the moment I saw them being too happy, and guess what? That stopped me from just enjoying that moment, because the whole time I kept saying, “something bad is going to happen. He’s about to die.” And yet, when he died, I still cried. It still hurt. The expectation, the foreboding joy, hadn’t stopped the rush of pain from flooding. Just as it doesn’t stop it in our real lives.

It didn’t stop me from being devastated after I pushed the guy away enough that he left. And it won’t stop any future pain going forward. But that’s the thing about foreboding joy — it wants you to believe it will. It wants you to believe if you control the happiness, you can make it without suffering the pain.

It is wrong.

If that Grey’s Anatomy episode taught us anything (besides the fact that Shonda Rhimes will kill off any character at any time, seriously — it’s like Game of Thrones in a hospital), it taught us that. And I hope those of us who experienced it will look back on those ugly tears and use it to inform us in our actual lives. I hope it will inspire us to embrace the happiness, to lean into the vulnerability that comes with joy, and to not be so worried about what comes after.

Learning to be Honest in Dating

Photo: stopkiruvnow.blogspot.com

Honesty is something a lot of us talk about. We say we want folks to be honest with us. We claim we’re honest individuals. We even say cliché statements like “honesty is the best policy,” but I would argue that many of us tell little white lies all the time when we’re dating.

Lies about our actual interest level in the other person. Lies about how much baggage we’re bringing into the situation. Even lies about what we’re hoping or not hoping will come of the connection. We all do it or have done it.

And it’s something I’ve been actively working to stop doing in my life.

But anyone who has lived will tell you that putting something into practice is a lot harder than just working on it in your head.

And so a few weeks ago a situation came up where I’d given my number to a gentleman, but I’d realized I was no longer interested in him. Before me, I had a few choices — I could ignore him when he contacted me as many folks like to do these days, hoping it would get the point across without ever having to tell him the real deal (but I think that’s kinda petty, and I hope I’m more mature than that); I could go into disconnected and cold mode, hoping that he would become disinterested and stop calling me (but interestingly enough, whenever I’ve done that, the guy has always stayed around longer); or I could just be honest and say “hey listen, you seem alright but I’m just not interested in seeing where this can go anymore.”

I chose the last one.

I know that probably seems like a small step for some of y’all, but it was a huge deal for me. I’m so used to trying not to be the bad person that I’ve definitely allowed relationships to last much longer than their natural expiration date, and this was my small way of saying no more. I could clearly tell me and dude weren’t going to work out, so why waste his time or mine.

I’m hoping to continue to put my honesty in dating into practice,  but I know I’ll have stronger tests still. It’s one thing to tell a guy you’ve known a couple weeks you’re not interested;  it’s a different story entirely to have the courage to say things to a person you’ve known for years.

But I’m getting there. I’m learning that what I’ve always believed really does hold true — you can say just about anything as long as it comes from a respectful and genuine place, and honesty (like forgiveness) is sometimes less about the person you’re being honest to and more about saving you.

What do you all think? Do you find that you sometimes tell little white lies in relationships? And what’s the hardest things you’ve ever told a partner? Pretty sure mine was when I told an ex boyfriend who wanted to marry me that I didn’t see a future with us. But right after that, I dated 2 guys back to back for months when it should have been over in weeks.

So clearly your girl has work to do lol

“Mama I Made it”… on the Importance of My Accomplishments Jar

A peek at my jar…

This New Year’s Eve, I decided to try something a little different to set myself up for the new year. I didn’t make resolutions; I made an accomplishments jar courtesy of an idea from Buzzfeed.

The basic idea behind the jar was that we all spend so much time focusing on getting to the completion of our goals (a BIG problem of mine, sometimes) that we miss out on the beauty of when we actually accomplish those goals — big and small.

So essentially (to use one example of mine), I should take the time to be excited about completing my query letter for my book instead of running past that achievement and only concerning myself with the completion of getting my book deal. And thing is, every time you complete something, whether silly or serious, publicly important or just something you silently said to yourself, you’re supposed to write it on the piece of paper, date it, and place it in the jar. When the year is over, you go back to the jar and re-read everything you did to remind yourself how much you did over the year.

There are so many reasons why this has been good for me so far, but here are just a few of them.

1. It forces to me to “stop and smell the roses.” I can be very focused and ambitious at times and sometimes lose sight of the small achievements that have to take place before I get to the big ones. Writing a note every time I complete a goal makes it that much more real for me.

2. It puts my gratitude on fleek! You know what happens, or at least what has happened with me, when you’re constantly writing out things you’ve done on even on a micro-level? You begin to realize just how much of it is not your doing. I find myself thanking God all the time now, for like… everything.

3. Which, in turn, keeps me faithful about the larger goals. I read recently that one of the best ways to stay faithful during a waiting period in your life is to constantly be thankful for what’s already in your life. I read this after I’d started on this accomplishments jar journey, and it was like confirmation to what I’d been feeling, and how much less stressed I’ve been.

4. It’s like the Twitter version of my journal, and it makes me commit to the feeling of accomplishment. You know how so often we look up and wonder what we’re doing with our lives? Folks start going through mid-quarter life crises and things? Well, this is a written account of what has been important to me in this year, what I sought out, when I was happy about a specific event, etc… but because it’s done on post it notes or small scraps of paper, it has to be in short and small details. No full out journal postings that start getting into rambling about how I completed something, but now I still have all this left to do. Nope. It’s short and simple. “I lost 20 pounds.” “I paid for someone’s lunch today.” “I woke up without snoozing my alarm sixteen times before getting out of the bed.”

5. It makes me happy. I haven’t even gone back and read anything yet (because technically, you’re supposed to wait until the end of the year lol), but when I see those notes piling up in my jar when I get home, I get a sense of joy. It tells me that no matter how hectic work might have been or if I feel like I didn’t finish something I wanted to complete, I’ve accomplished a lot just in the past four months.

I can’t wait to see what it looks like in December.

Throwback Thursday — When I Finally Wore My Perfect Date Dress

Hey y’all, it’s Thursday, and I’m preparing to make my way to celebrate a friend’s birthday in Las Vegas!! And since I was slack and didn’t give you all a blog post on Tuesday (sorry!), I figured the least I could do was post one of my faves from last year around this time. Spring is in the air, it’s sundress time, folks are going to start going on more dates now, and for me, it’s the perfect reason to have a good #tbt blog post about the time I wore one of my favorite sundresses on a pretty amazing date.

Hope you enjoy!

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We didn’t exactly look like this, but it felt prett darn close…
Photo: http://knowmore.tv

It was a little less than a year ago now, but I still remember it like it was yesterday — the day I finally wore my perfect date dress.

If you’ll recall I’d purchased this dress some time ago, not with the knowledge that it would be a perfect date dress at all. But once I got home, tried it on with some heels and a cardigan, I knew. I knew that the only place it could be worn was a date so perfect that it suited how I felt in that dress.

And how I felt was happy, sexy, confident, giddy, pretty, alluring, and more. It was, in a phrase, a dress that made me feel special.

So I waited and waited and waited to wear it because the last thing I wanted to do was to waste that kind of dress on a date that wasn’t worthy. You may think that’s a lot of pressure to put on a dress… and you’d be right. What I inadvertently did was put so much pressure on the notion of wearing the dress, no potential date became good enough.

In fact, I went on quite a few dates between when I bought the dress and when I wore it. And each time I had a chance to wear it, I thought, hmmm I don’t know — I don’t think this guy or this date is special enough. And so I put it back in the closet, maybe to wear for the next time.

What I should have realized at the time, and what I realized much later on, was that the dress was symbolic for how I felt about those men in general, but also about me. I mean, who says to herself, “this guy isn’t special enough for a certain dress”? I should have immediately asked myself afterwards, “well then why are you going out with him?”

But because we rarely realize those things in the moment, I didn’t ask myself that question. Instead, I dated… and I waited… for the guy and the date who would make me want to feel pretty and alluring and sexy and confident and happy and giddy and special all at once.

That date finally happened last summer.

What’s remarkable is that there was nothing particularly special about the date. It wasn’t some grand production or fancy occasion. We basically walked around the city, talking and joking while my arm was wrapped inside of his, and finally made our way to the restaurant where we had dinner and pretty much spent the next four hours laughing.

It was fun, sure. And we had a great time. And the dress did make me feel everything I thought it would when I finally wore it for more than just my eyes to see.

But what was most important to me about that night (and actually what was the part that made the moment so awesome) was that I finally stopped waiting to wear the danged thing. I realized something that I’ve also since realized about my writing and my work and my heart — that until you share it with others, it’s just a pretty dress hanging in the closet. It has no meaning and no memories associated with it. It is, for lack of a better word, dead.

It’s not until I wore it and allowed someone else to see how beautiful it looked on me that the dress truly came alive. Now, it is not just a generic perfect date dress, one where I could imagine how I would feel wearing it with the guy I like. It’s the dress I was wearing when the guy I like looked at me and couldn’t stop smiling. It’s the dress I was wearing when I took the initiative and slipped my arm around his (that’s big for me, yall!).

It’s the dress I was wearing when I decided to stop waiting for life to be perfect before I enjoyed it.

This dress has memories now. It has a story. And even if it wouldn’t have turned out well that night, although I’m very glad it did, it still would have been for the best that I finally pulled it out of the closet.

Do you all have anything like that, that reminds you of a time when you made a pivotal decision for yourself?

The Biggest Relationship Cop Out and Why It’s Hurting You

Change.

Such a simple word with quite a complex meaning. Webster defines it as “to give a different position, course, or direction to; to make a shift from one to another; to undergo a modification; to undergo transformation.”

But I say one of the biggest characteristics of change is its scariness. Oh you’re one of those people who don’t think change is scary? Hmmm, well I would argue that not only do a majority of us fear change, a majority of us act like we want it and will do it when we really don’t and won’t. In fact, I believe change is something a lot of us talk about in theory, but many of us rarely practice.

And it’s also where I think many of us go wrong in our dating lives.

Stop me if you’ve ever heard or said the following statement: “I can only be me, so if a man/woman doesn’t like me, then that’s his/her problem.” Or “I can’t be someone else to get a guy/girl to approach me. The person I’m supposed to be with is going to want me for me.”

Okay, now, I get the sentiment behind the statements. Yes, you have to be true to yourself, and no, no guy or girl should be looking to change you into what he/she wants you to be… but don’t most of us pride ourselves on not being who we were ten years ago? I can’t count how many times I’ve told someone “I’m not the same girl I was at 23” or 25, or 27, or hell even at 30. I also can’t count how many times folks have amen-ed and agreed with me. And yet, the same people who will swear they’ve changed for the better will turn around and say that they don’t need to make any further changes when it comes to their relationships. That this is who they are. Period.

That just can’t be!

If we are all seeking to improve ourselves at all times, why do we get caught up in the idea that it’s somehow negative or not empowering to improve ourselves to be better mates?

My theory? It’s because we’re a generation of people (mostly, not everyone) who were taught that bettering ourselves should only really be about us. We go to school to improve ourselves. We get good careers to better our lives. We travel to make ourselves more cultured.¹ And all of that is great, because it taught us independence and self – sufficiency, but what it didn’t do was teach us how to translate that bettering of ourselves into partnering with someone.

So I get it. I really do. I get the hesitation toward saying “I will figure out what my part is in the things that have gone wrong in my dating life, and I will actively focus on changing that.” It goes against everything we know. We’re supposed to change just for us. But the problem is if you’re doing the same wrong shit over and over again, and you don’t want to change it because you don’t believe you should have to, chances are you won’t have to change a thing because you won’t ever need to. And the problem with that thinking is that every happily married couple I know talks about what they had to change in their lives to get to that point.

This is why I call it a cop out. Not changing is the easy thing to do. It doesn’t take any skin. It doesn’t break you out of your comfort zone. Saying someone has to accept me “flaws and all” without any attempt at working on those flaws is the easy thing to do. It gives us a reason for those relationships not working. It puts the blame on the mystical “other.”

The harder thing to do is to take an honest assessment of yourself and say, “some of those folks just weren’t right, but sometimes, I was complicit as well.” And then to look and see what you can do differently.

I had to do that. I had to look back over my relationships for the past 8 years or so and ask myself what was my part in their undoing. And you know what I realized? I have a problem sticking around. I leave or don’t get invested in the first place so that when something even slightly uncomfortable comes up, I can leave before he does. It’s why I haven’t had someone break up with me in years. It’s also why the longest relationship I had during that time period we didn’t even actually call a relationship until it was over. And outside of that, none of them have lasted over 6 months.

That’s not good for someone who wants to eventually get married and have a family. So you know what that means? I have to change. I’ve got to do the work to make the changes that will help me a better partner for my future guy. Yes, that’s about bettering me, but it’s also about knowing that if I want to achieve that goal of eventually being happily married and having kids, I can’t be worried about how that process may not look very feminist-y or how it’s not just focused on me. I can’t afford to take the easy cop out and keep doing the same thing while expecting different results.

And if you’re feeling stuck or don’t like what you see in your dating life or relationships, you can’t either. It’s only hurting you going forward.

1 And yes, I know many of us volunteer and seek to impact change in others’ lives, but even that sometimes can be about what’s gives us “fulfillment.”

What My Drink of Choice Says About Me

Photo: http://www.consumeraffairs.com

I’m a whiskey girl, well bourbon to be exact, but we’ll say whiskey to keep it simple here.

So when I saw Elite Daily did a post on the 10 Reasons Why You Should Always Go For the Girl Who Drinks Whiskey, I got super excited. Yes! They’re going to give me all the ammunition I need to show why men should be lining themselves up at my door, I thought.

And they did, I guess… but really the only reason they gave that lived up to my excitement was #1 — she’s a little badass. For reasons, obviously.

More importantly though, the article made me think about how our drink choices really come to be synonymous with our attitudes in life (well, that is, if you drink alcohol) and how mine show just how much I’ve changed over the years.

You see, I wasn’t always a whiskey girl. At various times in my life, I’ve thought of other beverages as my signature drink. For example, in my teens, I was all about rum cocktails and white Russians. That was when I thought I knew what I was doing in life (and with my drinks), when I really had no clue whatsoever. In my college years, I would drink just about anything (except beer, I was never that desperate), and that’s kind of how my life was. I tried what felt like everything in my career (went from newspapers to broadcast to magazines to websites in a 4 yr span), in my boyfriends, and in my hobbies, and still never quite felt comfortable in my skin.

In my early 20s, I was all about the beloved Cognac named Hennessy. This was when I finally started making decisions in my life, and so while I had narrowed down my signature drink to one (and my career to one), it was really more of a reflection of what I wanted to be. I wanted to be the risk taker that that drink implied, but I wasn’t. Hennessy was almost like my alter ego.

In my late 20s, you’d mostly catch me partaking in a glass of wine. By this point, I’d settled into my career and was all about relaxing and unwinding when I got the chance — a beach (any beach!) was my idea of the perfect vacay. And while I was looking to be more refined, it was also the beginning of me not worrying so much about how I was perceived by folks who barely knew my middle name.

And now, well now, I love a good bourbon drink above all.¹ Which, if you believe Elite Daily, means I’m in touch with my emotions, I don’t believe in half-arsing things, and of course, that I’m a badass. I don’t know about you, but I’ll take that! It’s just that I think my drink and my attitude in life are less about what make me a catch and more about what makes me happy. But if the two work together,  I won’t complain.

What about you all? Do you have a signature drink? And if so, what do you think it says about you? Buzzfeed has a funny list here which I completely disagree with for whiskey which you can use if you need to.

1 That’s not to say I won’t drink wine or Hennessy or a rum cocktail every once in a while (because I still do), but my preference will be bourbon if offered the opportunity.

Perceived Sexiness vs. What’s Really Sexy

Courtesy of my closet.

You see those shoes up there? They seem innocent enough, right? Don’t let them fool you, though. Not too long ago, they were the cause of one of my most embarrassing moments yet. But to their credit, they also helped reveal a crucial detail about what I find sexy in a man. So I guess I can’t shame them too much.

Let me back up a bit to give you guys some background.

Remember when I talked about how I recently attended some black tie events? Well, for one of those events, I decided I wanted to wear my black tulle a-line ball gown. And even though most would not be able to see the shoes I wore underneath, I also decided that I wanted to wear the shoes shown above with this gown. This plan (wearing the shoes with the gown) was perfect, as far as I was concerned, for several reasons: these shoes are hawt; I knew they’d compliment my pedicure quite nicely; I knew I’d be able to keep them on for a long period of time (if not the whole night); and I’d only worn them a few times previously, so I figured it was time to let them out of the closet and get some shine.

Well… what I hadn’t counted on, of course, was the fact that I would be eating and drinking my way through a city known for eating and drinking for 5 1/2 days before I needed to put the shoes on. What I hadn’t counted on was my feet swelling up to look like I was 6 months pregnant.

And I think you can tell by the photo that those shoes are absolutely not meant for swollen feet.

Yet, there I was, gown on, make-up done, hair done, trying to squeeze my sausage feet into those shoes. It was by far the most embarrassing thing to happen to me in quite some time, but you know what made it worse? A guy that I like, who was looking very sexy in his tuxedo, ended up being the one to help me put the shoes on. That’s right. Instead of me standing in front of him, looking regal, giving him my best flize, watching him as he mouthed “damn you look good” and blushing because I knew I did but it was still nice to see him acknowledge it, I was struggling, twisting on the bed trying to get my damn shoes on when he walked in.

Just picture this: Him literally holding each leg up (right, then left) while I’m desperately trying to push my feet in further, as he is simultaneously working his magic (and using all the strength known to man) to zip the shoes up from my heel to the top of my ankle.

I wanted to die.

I wanted to take those shoes, use the heels to dig a whole in the ground, bury myself in that whole, and never come back up again.

When I say I was embarrassed… y’all… whatever word you can think of beyond embarrassed still wouldn’t be able to describe how I felt. Mortified? Humiliated? Disgraced? Nope, still not enough.

But once I got over the embarrassment (kinda, you really can’t get over that), I started feeling something else. Something unexpected. Something tingly. Something surprisingly great. Because while yes, I was uber embarrassed about my feet, there was this very sexy man in front of me offering to help me, with no judgment, with no jokes (until later lol), showing up when I needed him. He was kind, and he was calm, when I was two seconds from crying and freaking out inside.

And if how he looked in the tuxedo hadn’t already done it for me, that move right there certainly sealed the deal.

It showed me that I can perceive sexiness as fulfilling all of these physical preferences I like (straight white teeth, great smile, broad shoulders, etc…), and a guy can do all the perceived sexy acts I like (hugging me from behind, kissing my neck, etc…), but what’s really and truly sexy is when he just shows up and supports me, without me asking for his help. Even when it just involves the silliest, most embarrassing thing. Especially when it involves the silliest, most embarrassing thing. Because that lets me know I’ll have his support when it’s doesn’t.

What about you all? What’s something that you find sexy in a guy or girl that’s not typically thought of as sexy?

You Can’t Leap and Stand Still At the Same Time

A few weeks ago, after leaving from volunteering in Virgina on a Wednesday, I had what started off as a very typical, but became a pretty surreal Metro experience. You see, I was making my way home in an attempt to get on a conference call by 9:30pm on a route that normally takes me about an hour. I made it to the Metro station by 8:40pm and had figured out that if I was on a train by 8:45, I’d have just enough time to wait the normal 15-20 minutes at my transfer stop and still make it home to Maryland by 9:30.

I was cool, calm, and collected in this knowledge. In fact, my confidence in this plan working out only grew when I noticed the Metro sign saying that the next train was just 3 minutes away.

“Perfect,” I thought. “Everything is going according to my plan.”

Ten minutes later when the train was still “3 minutes” away, I started to panic. There was no way I was going to make it home by 9:30 now, I figured. And so, as is typical of me, I began to try to figure out another plan.

Should I text someone to say I was running late but would hopefully be home by 9:45? But then what if the train took another 20 minutes and I didn’t make that time either? Maybe I should postpone the call to 10pm to give myself some leeway? Or better yet, was it better to cancel the call and save it for another day when I wasn’t rushing to get home and didn’t have to try to convince folks to get on a conference call at 10pm? But then Wednesday had been the best day for everyone to speak and finalize details, so moving the call to another day might then jeopardize the final plans… And why had I cut it so close in the first place?

All of these thoughts ran through my head at lightening speed. I mean, I was in pure panic mode, y’all.

And then I heard a soft, yet stern voice say “Stop.”

“Put your phone down, and trust that you will get home by 9:30.”

Obviously, this made no sense to me. I could clearly see the time was steady ticking away, and yet what I absolutely could not see was the damn train. Stubborn, I fought against this voice. “You don’t understand,” I thought. “I just don’t see how that’s possible. I’m not going to make it, so I need to make the appropriate plans in response to that!”

“Just trust me,” is all I got back.

After a bit more hemming and hawing, I finally did. I put my phone away and said, “Okay God. I trust you,” and immediately saw the train (that still said it was 3 minutes away) ride up to my platform. Right after I finally submitted.

You know what else happened? When I got to my transfer stop — the one that I normally have to wait 15 to 20 minutes at — I only had to wait two. And lo and behold, I made it home at 9:29pm.

Now, this story may seem frivolous, but it was one of many events that have shown me over the past month or so that I still had plenty of work to do in my faith walk.

Remember when I wrote this blog post about leaping? Well guess what — surprise, surprise — I haven’t really been living like that. Not in the truest sense. What I’d been doing (and what the Metro incident showed me very clearly) is believing in something until an obstacle came up and then falling right back into the pattern of planning for things not to work out.

That’s a lot of things, but one thing it isn’t is faith.

That next Sunday, two sermons (one from my church and one from a friend’s church) drove the point home even further. Both sermons touched on the Biblical story of when Joshua, Caleb, and others went to go see what the promised land looked like. The other witnesses came back speaking about the giants they saw and spoke fear into the hearts of the other Israelites, while Joshua and Caleb essentially said “Yea we saw the giants, but we know what God said, and we’re focusing on that.” (That’s me paraphrasing, clearly.)

The two key points that hit home for me from my church’s sermon were that 1) It’s not about what you think you can see. It’s about what God has told you. Focus on that; and 2) Spiritual confirmation is not just the opportunity, but it’s also the opposition — because if you can do it by yourself, you wouldn’t have to trust God for it to happen. Those two points hit home for me especially because I realized I’d been living my life just like those other witnesses, believing and then allowing what I saw (or couldn’t see) to stop my belief. Still allowing my fears to stop me from leaping. I’d even found myself saying (as I did in the Metro incident) “but I don’t see it!”

When I read my friend’s notes, I almost broke down. “You can’t leap and stand still at the same time, just as you can’t believe and be afraid at the same time.” That hit me to my core. Have you ever tried leaping and standing still at the same time? You physically can’t do it. Just as you can’t believe and practice faith while worrying and fearing and planning for things not to work out.

And I’d been actively failing while trying to do both.

Working on my book and saying “I just need one yes,” to everyone I talked to about it, but deeply and sincerely fearing that no one would really want it.

Fighting the pull to move to another city because of what could go wrong if I did.

Being hopeful about a particular relationship, but not really trusting that it would work for us.

That was me a month ago. Trying to leap and stand still at the same time.

Now, I’m trying something different. I’m much more hopeful. I’m less stressed. I’m just simply believing. And while I’m still a work in progress, I find that I’m focusing less and less on those giants. And I’m finally, finally (!) really taking those leaps.

Tuxedos on Fleek!

Photo: junebugweddings.com

Being that I’m a woman from the South, I’ve grown up seeing men and women get dressed up for several occasions. New Orleans, especially, is a place that loves to throw a damn ball/gala for any and every reason. But when you’re a kid, you don’t see those experiences from the same eyes as you do when you get older. For me, it was all about feeling grown, getting to dress up in the prettiest gowns, hanging out with my parents, and having a reason to wear my grandmother’s fur coat.

Over the past couple years, however, I’ve had the opportunity to attend my fair share of black tie events as an adult (with two in the past 2 months, actually), and you know what I realized? More than anything else? More than the fact that I still enjoy the feeling of wearing a beautiful gown? More than the time I get to spend with some of my favorite people while they show out in their best outfits? I realized that I just looooove to see a man in a tuxedo! And no shade to anyone else, but I really love seeing a Black man in a tuxedo. (There’s just something about seeing all that fineness combined with brown skin. #sorrynotsorry)

This shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me.

I’ve always thought a man in a suit was attractive. In fact, my friends used to jokingly say that I never dated anyone who didn’t know how to dress well in a suit. They were wrong, obviously, but admittedly, I was always more of a fan of a man who could pull off basketball shorts one day and rock the hell out of a suit on the next.

If I had any doubts of my leanings towards a good suit, though, seeing all those men looking fresh in their tuxedos certainly tempered that. They were doing just a little something extra for your girl at the last few events.

You know how men get when they see a big ol’ fat booty? How they just can’t help the stare that comes with it? They might even start internally singing “My anaconda don’t…” But as hard as they try, sometimes with all their might, that stare is just something they can’t control.

That’s me when a fine brotha walks past with his tuxedo nicely tailored, bow tie sitting right, pants legs hitting the exact right point of the ankle, shoes buffed, and shirt crisp underneath. Whew! I just can’t help it. My legs get weak. I start subconsciously biting my lower lip. My heart begins beating faster, and when I’m not careful, it very well leads to me messing up my red lipstick by the end of the night.

I mean, it is a serious problem!

One that I’m not really inclined to fix, but one that I am now willing to readily admit that I have.

So who’s with me? Does a man in a tuxedo do it for you? And if not, what’s something that’s really kind of normal that lights your loins on fire? Let’s share!

Here’s What Happened when I Tried Online Dating

Photo: http://www.winggirlmethod.com

Disclaimer: This isn’t everyone’s story about online dating, just mine. I am not seeking to encourage or discourage online dating in this post.

About a year ago, I decided I would try online dating. While I don’t think I have a hard time getting approached in real life, I was finding that I was meeting the same kind of guy over and over. So I thought I’d try to expand my options. And I figured at the very least, I’d have something to write for the blog haha.

I created my profile, added some pictures, and immediately began receiving messages and “likes.” (Note: One thing I will say about online dating is that it’s a major ego boost!)

However, just like meeting folks in person, you have to weed out the “characters.” And so, after a couple messages here and there, I was ready to meet my first person. We Skyped first to make sure that neither of us was being catfished, and then set plans for our first date.

Now, the guy and date were nice enough. We had pleasant conversation while having a drink at one of D.C.’s popular restaurants. We laughed, exchanged war stories, and talked about the things most people talk about on a first date. Thing was, I could tell dude was far more interested in me than I was in him. Or rather, interested in the idea of me. My theory was very quickly proven by the way he soon tried to check me about things I’d written in my blog (that he found on his own) and the way he started making “we” declarations way too early on.

My take? Nice guy, but very ready for a relationship… when I was just trying to let life take me where it wanted.

The next guy was the complete opposite. We Skyped as well and made plans for our first date. I cancelled those plans after he tried to tell me 3 hours before we were to meet up at 7pm that he actually wouldn’t be available until after 10pm. Ummmm… what are we doing after 10pm on a Tuesday, sir? Not dating, that’s for sure. This dude would proceed to try to early booty call me for the next few weeks before I finally let him know that I wasn’t hard up for peen, and I wasn’t looking for someone to say he wants to date me when he really just wants to have sex with me. Basically, I told him to be honest about what he wanted and that was over before it started.

You know what happened then? Every dude I talked to from the site either fell in one or the other category. Essentially, he wanted to marry me (or thought I wanted to marry anyone) immediately or he was just looking to hook-up.

Needless to say, I was completely unimpressed.

Here I was just looking to meet new people, have fun dating, and maybe lick a few teeth — and I was getting everything but that. I mean, who tries to check someone about their blog posts when you’re not even their man??

So after a bit of time, I gave up the online ghost. I know some folks who’ve had great success with it, but it wasn’t for me. Plus, it’s kind of hard to flirt the way I’m good at flirting through a computer. And honestly, flirting is kind of one of the most fun things I like about meeting new guys. On the bright side, my foray into online dating made me appreciate the other way so much more. There’s just something about the old fashioned way of meeting someone out when you least expect it.

What about you all? Have you ever tried any of the online dating sites? If so, what was your experience? And would you do it again?