Serenity

Well Lord it has been two weeks since my last post and a lot has changed and a whole lot is still the same. I am in a place that I was told God lives or at least visits a whole lot of the time. I think I have found Him. The Great I Am. The Author and Finisher of my life. I have struggled with what to say to you now. I have nothing left to say that seems to make any sense to me so I will keep it short.


Do I clear my mind of every thought that has come into it for the past two weeks or even two months? Do I dwell on my misery knowing that others have their own sufferings? Do I explain that I am a survivor and this too shall pass? Am I the same, different or a mixture of both? I am a child of God and I pray that my thoughts and words are from Him. I show honor and glory and devotion and loyalty to my God. Without Him where would I be? I found God for myself in a little Baptist church in Boise. Then I was going through a crisis also. That’s the last really big crisises I went through. God came into my life then and he has stepped in now. I have been here three and a half days and I am finally beginning to think clearer. Not clearly, just clearer. I pray that on October 10th, I will be able to return with a new outlook on life. I pray that I will find what I am searching for or at least directions or a map with a big “X” marks the spot. I was disillusioned about so many things and when I came here I thought it would lift my spirits. I walked the first day for about two miles. I saw a beautiful sunset and when I got off the plane and smelled the ocean the knot in my neck and back just went away. I kept to myself, I didn’t have dinner or anything else to eat, and food hasn’t been a priority for me lately. I prayed most of the night away, sleeping only a few restless hours here and there. When I did wake, I watched their public TV station to see what was going on here and what were the important issues that affected the people of this island. Day broke and I began to get ready to go out and see the area. I walked across the street to the ocean. Laid on a beach chair and just stared at the ocean. Later I went down to the whale education center and had a class on the humpback whale. I’ll be going back there a few more times; I plan to do a lesson and a video hook with skype for my class. I have never been much of a animal rights person but if I had to take up a cause I would take up theirs. Then I walked down the road. The very BUSY road, to the shopping center, about two miles away, to get lunch, remembering that I had not eaten the night before or had breakfast. As I was walking, I passed a roadside fruit stand and I stopped. I managed to get two really nice oranges. I don’t want to try the other fruits because I don’t know if I am allergic to it or not and I am too sensitive to plants, fruits and stuff. I am not going to the ER for an allergic reaction; I didn’t bring my epi-pen either. Then there is the coconut man on the other side. He’s an older black man, came to the island to get away from it all, I found that to be the case for a lot of the men here alone. He of course gets me to start talking about why I am here, I tell him and the first thing he does is offer up sex, to help relieve my tension, of course, no commitment. I am stunned. Not that he offered but that it was the one thing I kept telling myself that I needed before I got here and I had actually vowed to have sex with the first available person who would marry me, thank God I’m not in Las Vegas, I might be married now. I said I wanted to be married first this time. But I wanted sex, I needed sex, that’s the only thing to relieve my tension, sex. I had not kept myself in a forced celibate period to just break down when the next big crisis came into my life. I wanted a committed relationship. I wanted a husband. Why God didn’t I have a husband? Was I that horrible? Am I not good for somebody? Isn’t there someone out there to love me for me? Can I not find true love somewhere? Then I began to look at the majority of black women and the fact that they too were single, handling crisis all by themselves and the people around them and the media was always talking about the black woman being a superwoman. Well you can kiss my superwoman ass, I don’t want to be a superwoman, didn’t ask for it, that was society’s way of compensating for the destruction of the black family. Look how well the women are raising their children alone. Yeah, look, and look real hard. I want a man, I want a family, I want a husband that I can love and who loves me. Why must we settle for less? God wants the family to be whole and complete. God didn’t make us to just live alone and survive. The single woman’s mantra has been “I will survive”. We have generations of black women without men. In my own household I saw my mother, married three or four times, looking for love and a supportive husband, but in reality finding abusive, womanizing, child molesting men. But then there was something wrong with her because don’t we always blame the woman. Though there really is something wrong with her, but who doesn’t have their faults. My daughter, managed to find the same type of man; abusive, dysfunctional on so many levels, and generally irresponsible to his child. Where was I to look? I had been married but in those seven years, I too found a man long ago who was a womanizer, addict, drunk, and abusive in his own way. Often times the abuse is not only physical but mental as well. While he was never physically abusive to me there was the emotional and verbal abuse. I understand he moved on to the physical with his next wife. So where was my man Lord? Where is someone I could live with and go through crisises with? I didn’t want just any man, I wanted a good man. A God fearing man, a contributor to society, one who believed in the common good. Why were we not able to have good men in our lives? We loved men, we wanted a man, and we wanted a good man. Where was my man to comfort me and hold my hand and place his arms around me? Well God reminded me that I had pushed men away for many years. It wasn’t because I was mooning over the loss of my marriage. I knew the day we got married that it was wrong and I had made a mistake but I was in it now and I would give it a try. It was doomed from the beginning. I went into it for all the wrong reasons. It was all about sex. Outside of the bed we had nothing to talk about, no other connection. We stumbled along trying to make it look good on the outside but knowing that we were not compatible. I take as much blame as I put on him. I wasn’t giving it my all. I was angrier at him over the split financially than I was emotionally. I had to rely on my father to send plane tickets and a moving company so that I could bring my daughters and my stuff back home. Here I returned in shame, divorced, with two children, alone. I lived in my grandfather’s basement for nine years. Then I met you. You touched my spiritual heart. You brought me out of my darkness and I began to believe again. I began to believe that God still loved me and was calling me beautiful. But I saw the south and west side crumbling. My daughters were in danger. So much so that before I left Idaho, he took me to court to say that the city was too dangerous to raise his daughters in and that he and his new wife would be able to provide a much better home for them and that I was kidnapping his children and taking them across state lines without his permission. This was when parents were really kidnapping their children and you heard about it in the news all the time. Everything is not always as it seems. Glory Be to God, what was he thinking, this was my home and I would protect them, no harm would come to my daughters, they would be safe and well taken care of. Well the judge would have none of that. He took the children from me, said I could return but the children had to stay. What was I suppose to say, thank you? The father has rights and he is married with a stable home and he can provide for the children. What!!!! This can’t be happening to me. I love my children. Maybe some women would have jumped at the chance to unload their children on the husband in a divorce but not me. So I started thinking. He owed me thousands in back child support and I knew he was hoping by taking the children, he wouldn’t have to pay and just maybe, I would have to pay child support to him. I arranged to meet him at Burger King that same day of the judgment, and proposed a deal which he immediately jumped at. I would take away half of the payment that the judge told him to pay in a week and agree to stretch the other payments out over the course of a year if he gave me sole custody. I would allow him to keep them for the summer, 8-10 weeks, and come out for holidays, and go on any family vacations with them. Thank you God, I had my girls back. I still had to leave them there for 10 weeks, but I knew I would come back for them. Even then, in 1989, the city was horrible. Its reputation alone almost cost me my children. What if he had said no? What if the judge continued to agree with him? Would I have been better off, would my daughters have been better off, who knows? Life has a way of making you think about those decisions that you make during turmoil and crisises in your life. I returned that summer, alone, dejected and discouraged. No job, a little money, few friends that I still kept in touch with. No one met me at the airport; I took a 40 dollar cab ride to the south side, once I found a driver who would even take me. I get to my grandfather’s house, he’s sleeping, he’s neither happy or sad to see me because my other brother had stayed with him for a while and he stole money and credit cards from him so he’s not exactly sure what to think of me. It has been twelve years since I lived in the city and at least six years since I last saw him. But we make it work. After reuniting with my best friend from childhood, I began to make a life there. I found a job, got my kids in Catholic school and sheltered them as much as I could due to the fact that I had to work. I found out today that my oldest was attacked but never told anyone. While going to the corner store, just a few feet away from the house, a group of children, started throwing rocks at her, hitting her, and took the stuff that she purchased at the store. I felt bad because a similar incident happened to me when I was young. My mom had just moved to 46 and Vincennes. I was walking through the alley to the store to buy something with my 35 cents. A boy came up to me, held a knife to my throat and stole my money. I was so scared at the time. I know she must have been too. I also realize that we are not the only girls who have been robbed and attacked by these young thugs. Even today I know it still goes on. Now I find out that my baby was in fact in harm’s way again. What was I suppose to do? Not allow them to ever leave the house? Become prisoners because of these bad ass kids? We started talking about that because of the fact that she told me today a woman, older, had shot a boy because he and others were throwing rocks and bricks at her house and this time the brick hit her in the chest. To protect herself, she purchased a gun. Well, she used it. I applaud her for standing up to the thugs. Women have been the victim in so many ways. Of course I can hear the outcry. They are just children, they didn’t mean it. Yes they did. I deal with these children every day in school. Parents who don’t know or care what they do when they send them outside or to school. Everybody can’t be saved. We saw that when God brought His people out of Egypt. We have a choice and they cannot terrorize us forever. It’s wrong. There is a need for balance between good and evil and right now evil has a whole lot more weight on the scales right now. Not to say that there will never be balance, but right now, today, it’s gone, it’s lost. God help us. Hear the cries of your people.

So anyway back to my celibacy. You touched my spiritual heart and brought me even closer to God and myself. I pulled myself together, got a better job, went back to school and finally, I was able to save my daughters and leave the hell hole. We lived right across the street from Corliss High. We had shootings and kids running through the yard almost every day. We were in the “wild hundreds”. You can talk about folks leaving the city but it’s a reality, we have to save “our” children’s lives and our own. I kept the faith, continued to contribute, work in the community, tithe, march, protest and commit my time and money to a cause to help the black community of the city I grew up in and still loved. You were and still are a strong supporter of uplifting the suffering, poor, black community to become a thriving and productive family community. You believe that is possible and I am in agreement with you on that. But it’s a dream. Is it possible, yes, but will we see it in our time, I don’t know. It’s like being in slavery. Yes it did finally end in 1864, but what about the person born in 1764. More than likely they would live and die in slavery. Never seeing a change, unless they were fortunate enough to escape to freedom, and even then, fear of capture and being returned. Never give up hope. With hundreds of years of oppression prior and truly another hundred in captivity, with another hundred to go before a bill to grant civil rights was instituted in 1964. I have to see myself as “a” player and not “the” player. God took my imposed celibacy of not wanting sex until I had a husband seriously. So what happens, I fall in love with the spiritual genius of my heart. We sure as heck have not had sex but we have a spiritual connection. Did anybody read Thorn Birds? Well not me, but I remember the basic plot of the mini-series on TV, which I didn’t watch either. My thought, OH MY GOD, what are you doing now!!! He’s a man of God for Christ sakes. Maybe you forget I was catholic, maybe not a good catholic, but none the less, he was special and sacred. He was no ordinary man. Well after years of conflict over that, I realize that you are in fact a man and that you might even want a relationship with a woman and then that the woman was me. OH MY GOD! I’m going to hell for sure now. Stop this right now. You cannot have him. Not him. Then God said to me, isn’t this who you asked for? I gave you what you asked for. Yes you did Lord and you surely gave me someone honorable, loving, just, loyal, devoted to God and maybe even financially secure. Why didn’t I jump, immediately? I tried to leave but my heart, not my mind drew me back and continues to draw me to you. Some days I think I would have done anything to have you “know me” in the biblical sense. I had to pull away. I couldn’t disgrace you or have you disgrace yourself with me, ‘cause you were ready. Then all the other stuff came, distractions to pull you back. You had to make hard choices. You were vulnerable and I knew it. I had to stay away. I would not let dishonor or humiliation come on you because of me. That came at a cost. I needed the physical you and not just the emotional and spiritual you. I would listen to you in the car and long to be with you. I knew you were listening and maybe even watching and I hated and loved it. Hated because I wanted you there with me, you don’t have to check on me from afar, be with me. Loved it because it meant you were thinking about me, loving me in your own way, the best way you could at that time. But then my need for the physical being took precedence over the spiritual need for you. I needed you to hold me and tell me everything was going to be ok and the hug in the line just wasn’t doing it for me. So I made a choice, if I can’t have you physically then who can I have as a complete package. Spiritually, emotionally and physically. That’s when I remembered my dear friend from London. I emailed him that I was going through some really tough emotional times and I need some money for a vacation. He sent it right away and wished me well. We really hadn’t talked in years and hadn’t seen each other in more than ten years. I knew he cared for me and he held a very special place in my heart. We have know each other for 31 years. He was my immediate supervisor in London. He was there the day I got there and stayed the whole time I was there. He was married but his wife left him and left him with a two year old daughter. He was seeing another girl and they eventually married. She died about maybe ten years ago. It might not be that long, I’m not sure. But I say all of this to tell you that my contacting him and bringing him back into my life is because I am ready to get married. I want a husband, friend and lover. I need someone to help take care of me and for me to take care of them. I can’t do this alone thing anymore. The battle is too hard for me right now. There are too many forces attacking me and I need help. Nothing has happened with us, but he is willing to talk to me, willing to help me financially and willing to explore some new possibilities. He sent me to the place that you love. I had to see it. I needed to renew my mind, body and soul. You have always had knowledge of my spiritual needs. Were you ever meant to satisfy my physical needs? Were you to only be my counselor and spiritual healer? Have I fallen in love with the teacher? Is it just infatuation? Am I hoping against hope with you? Am I waiting for something that really is not ever going to happen? Talk to me Lord, help me on this. So anyway, so much for just a little note. I will be back tomorrow. Time for some walking and thinking. I have dumped a lot from the brain, now it’s time to fill up again.