The funny thing about epiphanies is that once you've been exposed to the truth you now have a choice to make. To operate in truth or ignorance.
After weeks of scheduling and rescheduling, I was finally able to set a dinner date with one of my good girlfriends. I can always count on girl talk over dinner to pull out the shit I'm not necessarily ready to clean up. We caught up on our lives, jobs, our latest beauty subscriptions and of course love. The more I was revealed some the ratchet details about my last two relationships, some of which she already knew, I grew more and more disgusted and embarrassed about my choice in men.
I've always been drawn to the bad boy or in my case, the gang member, the drug dealer, and two time felon. Why? Well, I usually answered because I want a man that's fearless and unmovable in the face of adversity. And with my whole heart I meant all of that and still do mainly because I always wanted to feel protected by my man. How criminal and protection correlate? Because in my skewed view of relationships I somehow equated a tough guy as protector. Believe you me guys I know how dumb this sounds but that was my truth and it wasn't until my good girlfriend said to me "But you don't live a crazy life. So what do you need to be protected from? ", that I didn't realize how asinine it truly was.
She was 100% on point. I don't do anything crazy or even out of the ordinary. And by ordinary I mean extremely ordinary like going to work, shopping, and possibly church every other weekend. Along with the fact that I am very faithful to my bed and Netflix account. As a matter of fact if I ever have been involved in anything crazy it's solely been because of the men that I invited into my life. That's when the truth escaped out of my mouth. Without having to think hard about it I said that I wanted to be protected by my man because I never felt protected by a man. Yes, I've had men around me my entire life. I grew up with my father in the house. He and my mother married two years before I was born and they've never been separated. He is a excellent father and very present however like most young girls, I experience things in life that my father just wasn't there to protect me from. I was molested by my babysitter's younger brother for years. I was bullied and beat up by boys in the neighborhood. One of which used to terrify me so bad that I remember peeing on myself as I ran home one day after school because I was so afraid of him. Being that all the other kids were afraid of him too nobody ever defended me. I could have told my father about the things that we're going on especially about my personal terrorist that lived at the top of the block but I never felt like it would stop. I'm realizing now that I was drawn to men that I thought would never let a violation against me either happen or go unpunished when in the contrary they were the first ones to violate me because they were in perfect position to do so. This is not to say that all guys with a history of crime and or violence are not genuinely good men because that is simply not truth. I chose guys out of ignorance thinking that because of how they were known to be in the street would make me feel covered, hence valued. But what I soon found out is that the men that I was choosing had problems that ran deeper than charges and a court appearance. Truth is, a man doesn't need to have "hard life" or be "hood" in order to protect you. That's bullshit because no real man would ever let anything happen to you no matter what his life was like.
But this post isn't about my choice in men. It's the reason why I had that particular choice of men. I confessed a truth that I otherwise would have been too afraid to admit at a different point in my life. How could I get where I need to go without knowing where I've been? And how can I get what I need without identifying the reasons why? I had to ask God to help me forgive my father because I was holding him accountable for something that he did not intentionally do but it still impacted my life in a negative way making me low-key resent him. I also had to forgive myself for lying to myself about what I needed and what I was going to endure just to feel loved. I'm grateful that God opened my eyes to my own mess so I can get out of my damn way.
She was 100% on point. I don't do anything crazy or even out of the ordinary. And by ordinary I mean extremely ordinary like going to work, shopping, and possibly church every other weekend. Along with the fact that I am very faithful to my bed and Netflix account. As a matter of fact if I ever have been involved in anything crazy it's solely been because of the men that I invited into my life. That's when the truth escaped out of my mouth. Without having to think hard about it I said that I wanted to be protected by my man because I never felt protected by a man. Yes, I've had men around me my entire life. I grew up with my father in the house. He and my mother married two years before I was born and they've never been separated. He is a excellent father and very present however like most young girls, I experience things in life that my father just wasn't there to protect me from. I was molested by my babysitter's younger brother for years. I was bullied and beat up by boys in the neighborhood. One of which used to terrify me so bad that I remember peeing on myself as I ran home one day after school because I was so afraid of him. Being that all the other kids were afraid of him too nobody ever defended me. I could have told my father about the things that we're going on especially about my personal terrorist that lived at the top of the block but I never felt like it would stop. I'm realizing now that I was drawn to men that I thought would never let a violation against me either happen or go unpunished when in the contrary they were the first ones to violate me because they were in perfect position to do so. This is not to say that all guys with a history of crime and or violence are not genuinely good men because that is simply not truth. I chose guys out of ignorance thinking that because of how they were known to be in the street would make me feel covered, hence valued. But what I soon found out is that the men that I was choosing had problems that ran deeper than charges and a court appearance. Truth is, a man doesn't need to have "hard life" or be "hood" in order to protect you. That's bullshit because no real man would ever let anything happen to you no matter what his life was like.
But this post isn't about my choice in men. It's the reason why I had that particular choice of men. I confessed a truth that I otherwise would have been too afraid to admit at a different point in my life. How could I get where I need to go without knowing where I've been? And how can I get what I need without identifying the reasons why? I had to ask God to help me forgive my father because I was holding him accountable for something that he did not intentionally do but it still impacted my life in a negative way making me low-key resent him. I also had to forgive myself for lying to myself about what I needed and what I was going to endure just to feel loved. I'm grateful that God opened my eyes to my own mess so I can get out of my damn way.
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