singledom

i've been single for a year and 2 months.

april 10th 2009-june 8th 2010

this is the longest i've been single since i was 15.

i was celibate for 6 1/2 months, longest i'd been since i was 15.

these numbers and statistics might not impress you.

but they are for me and not you anyway.

but for those that know me...they are interesting and shocking statistics.

and so now i am reporting back to the world and myself what i have learned.

in re-reading my old notes, poems, writing, whatever i should call those relics of high school...all 64 pages of teenage angst that i've been recently retyping, i'm not sure i've learned much.

every new revelation i could have had in the past year plus seems to be a conclusion i came to 4, 5, years ago. but maybe this time i will listen to myself.

i broke up with musiq because of all the pressure i felt in the relationship. but i realize now i think it was pressure i put on myself. i wanted to be a good girlfriend, i wanted my logic to make the most sense. i wanted to be able to have my cake and eat it too, while feeling completely supported in the relationship. he explained to me what he could give, what he could handle, and what he couldn't. arguably he was what katt williams calls a 98% good man, but rather than have a 98% good man i decided i'd rather be alone.

but our life philosophies were so different. I couldn't be with someone who feels that all of your good friends in life you already know, who didn't leave the door open to meet more people, who feels there is one way to do things, who didn't embrace spontaneity of seek to challenge me spiritually. i needed someone who could push me and pull me, not just stabilize me. he was good at stabilizing me, which is most certainly a challenge in itself, but i don't think i was really challenged.

i'd also say his dad was right, that we were too young. that i was too young. when i first arrived in college, and we were both doing our own thing, the relationship with him was the only thing that really slowed me down, but i don't think the allure of the game was completely gone. it crept in sometimes, much to his alarm, an alarm which led to my frustration...how could he not let go and trust me.

i trust you until you give me a reason not to.

he doesn't trust you until you prove your trustworthiness.

so we were at odds.

but also i was in college, we both were. we were supposed to be growing and forming, undergoing changes and becoming more of ourselves. but we were only becoming ourselves in the context of each other, and this was the issue. i didn't know who i was without him. i didn't go through a daily routine without him. i wasn't sure if i was listening to the music i listened to, eating the food i ate, choosing the television shows i watched, deciding what to wear when because it was what i wanted, or because it was what i thought we wanted. it had become an issue for me. maybe it wasn't for him? i don't know. i don't know that I "tried to make it work"

"But if you believe you'll do best without me

I'll let it go girl it's over but before we say goodbye let's give it a try

If you leave then baby I'll leave
I'll let it go girl it's over but i have no doubt we can work it out"

musiq soulchild & mary j. blige

but until recently I was never of the mindset that a relationship took work. I thought a relationship was just when you and someone who you were drawn to became very good friends and then naturally more. i am a believer in 97% platonic relationships with a 3% crush that can be very easily contained and ignored. but the idea of having to "work" on a friendship or relationship is something new, something i experienced in college, something i am now putting into practice. sometimes i think to myself that if i had wanted to make it work, had tried, then musiq and i would be fine and be together. but in the end i think this period of singledom has been so important for me that I don't regret the loss of the relationship with musiq, even if i could have made it work.

its unfortunate that he resents me.

thats a dispassionate way of admitting that i miss him terribly and wish we were still at least friends, he means so much to me, has been one of the most stabilizing and important figures in my life in the 3 years leading up to this last one. then he transformed into a source of pain and discomfort that i tried to relegate to my inner world...perhaps i was successful. but it is unfortunate nonetheless.

what have i learned? perhaps i don't have to be 100% whole to be in a relationship with another person. perhaps it is okay to feel somewhat broken, and share this with someone else. but this person needs to allow you time and energy to feel broken (though not dwell in it) but to feel broken and be in a state of self-improvement, without feeling somehow responsible. i should have listened when musiq asked me how i knew that it was the relationship causing me the most grief over the past months. i didnt know, it probably wasn't. i'm just not good at asking for help, not the best at allowing myself to feel dependent on someone else, and so rather than delve more fully into him and us with my issues i think i chose to pull back into myself, to deal with it myself, to try to understand myself.

was this the right decision? i dont know. i don't necessarily think it should have been the most surprising one. it isn't the first time i've failed to open up and share and instead pulled into myself when i feel the most alone. sometimes its too easy for me to feel its me against the world. me and god. and no one else can really help, so why bother allowing them to try.

this is why the word community has become so important to me this year. it is a novel concept. on i love and hadn't allowed myself to become familiar with previously. imagine, relying on a network of other people (also imperfect, but striving for wholeness) who you trust. this concept of community has never been me, i've always been secretly afraid to rely on anyone, i wasn't sure what this reliance asked for in return, required of me, i was selfish.

you can't be selfish in a community. but you can protect yourself, you need to. i'm still nervous and scared, i want to be in a community but i don't want to be taken advantage of, or find myself in a situation where i am willing to give to others who aren't willing to give to me.