Netflix and Chill but Make it Worth My While
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There is nothing wrong. There’s been no fighting or bickering. Things are genuinely going well. You’re flipping through a magazine and happen to read an article talking about cheating spouses. You scroll upon a Facebook post from a friend referencing infidelity. The topic on your favorite talk show is about how to find out if your spouse is being unfaithful. The cover of a magazine in the checkout line says something about a man leading two lives. You’re sitting on the couch watching TV and next up is Cheaters! Hopefully, none of this has an impact on you. But for some, all of this negativity can sow seeds of doubt where there is no cause to be. It may not be these particular outside factors but a conversation with a friend where they share something their spouse has done. Now, all of a sudden, you’re questioning you and yours. You find yourself stalking his social media accounts to see who’s following him and commenting on his posts, whose pictures he’s liking. You catch yourself looking over his shoulder while he’s on the cellphone to see who he’s messaging. You question where he was when he’s a few minutes later than normal. You may even go so far as to look through his dresser drawers, laptop bag or car or trying to look through his phone. Let me say this, if you’re looking for something, you’ll surely find it. That’s not to say you’ll find evidence of actual cheating. What you will find is enough to feed your fears when in actuality it could be something completely innocent. But, you’ll question it anyway and that’s how it begins — the erosion of trust in your relationship. I by no means am saying that you should ignore questionable behaviors, but why would you want to spend the energy creating doubt? Life is too short. I refuse to live my life this way. I simply have too much to do. My mom used to say all the time, “whatever is done in the dark, will come to the light.” I trust and believe in that. Why are we like this? It could be because we’ve been hurt in the past or maybe what we may have observed with our own parents. But, quite honestly, we have a ton of help. Cheating scandals are discussed in the media ad nauseam. Reality TV shows seem to glamorize it (i.e. Temptation Island). More and more songs appear to normalize it (i.e. The Weekend by SZA). A week or so ago, I saw that one of the trending Twitter topics was #pieceofmylovechallenge. Yes, that’s about having a ‘side piece.’ How does one shield themselves from falling into this trap? Let me assure you, it’s not a good place to be. I’m no expert, but here are my ‘rules’: What I focus on is what I see, I don’t go searching for anything. I don’t construct these ideas of what he could be doing or where he is. I don’t automatically think it’s the worst case scenario when something occurs that is ‘suspect.’ When I do feel it necessary to question my husband about something, which is a rarity, it’s not in an accusatory manner. These actions are important. I want my husband to know that I trust him completely and my actions should reflect that. He is not a child and treating him like one will not make him become more trustworthy, it’ll only push him away. I treat him the way I want him to treat me when it comes to trust. If he legitimately hasn’t given me a reason not to trust him, I will continue to do so.
I’ve always found love stories mediocre. There are so many inspiring, life-altering, or terrifying topics in the world to write about. How selfish of you to choose to write about love? The one thing we can all relate to that makes us feel warm inside. I’m not interested in reading about love, so why bother writing about it? I hopped on the rollercoaster in September of 2016. Loosely tightening the straps, not even bothering to make sure it sat around my hips correctly. I’ve done this before- nothing to worry about. This was to be the ride of all rides, the one to remember, the one to write about. One thing I won’t do is romanticize pain. I refuse to. It wasn’t poetic to feel the way I felt. I was taking sips of sweet tea, only for it to leave a horrible aftertaste in my mouth. I continued going back to it. Getting the most out of the sweet before the bitter would sit in my mouth, for days or weeks until he decided to come back. There are stories about girls who meet boys, and sometimes these boys look at these girls like they’re made of gold, ‘oh if only I were so lucky.’ And they worship these girls, the ones they think they could never have. This was a first for me, being the unattainable girl. I’ve never been much to look at. The one girl the guy chooses. He pulled me out of the crowd and I was his dream girl. When I was 14, I was cleaning my room when I found a suede, studded cross-body bag lying on the floor. I picked it up, dusted it off and placed it back on the shelf. I remembered how just a few months prior I was daydreaming about this bag. All of the cute outfits, the lipgloss and compact it would carry, how beautiful it would look hanging with the rest of my, now seemingly dull, bags. I begged my mom for this bag. I worked tirelessly; cleaning the bathroom every weekend, helping her with dishes, skipping movies with my friends. She finally surprised me with it and I was ecstatic; now here it is, along with the rest of my crap. So you get it. the ‘dream girl’ turns into the bag on the floor, the one I totally forgot about but at some point felt my life would be incomplete without it. The problem with this are the remnants. Of course my mom knew I’d probably get over the bag once I got it, but she didn’t mind having some help around the house. It makes no difference to the bag, which lacks emotion whether it’s under my bed or behind a glass casing. The sweet tea boy who looked at me like I was made of stars would eventually toss me aside. I was no longer a quest in his unfulfilling life where he uses women as pawns to validate his existence. I was the pretty girl on his instagram feed, the one his boys would say ‘she’s bad, how would you ever get her?’ And now I’m calling him for the second time because he forgot to call me back. The crazy thing, is from afar you might think ‘well that could never be me, chasing after some musty guy’ but he wasn’t always. And it wasn’t always. Believe me, there was a time I was scrolling past his notifications and forgetting to answer because after all, I am made of stars. It wasn’t until I placed my light in his hands and now I forget how to shine on my own. I’m constantly retreating to get some of that light back, but hoping it won’t leave the bad taste in my mouth. it’s been two years and I still taste it. Am I asking for too much? For a guy to see me as his dream girl and just never wake up? Can I stay the girl of his dreams even when he’s awake? Yes, I’m the girl of my own dreams and this is one theme park I never should have stepped foot in. But now I’m here, and the thrill of falling is the reason I got into this mess in the first place.
So this year has been a major time of self-reflection, self- acceptance, and self-improvement for me. I found myself tired of being angry and letting anger control me about certain things and feeling stagnant in certain areas of life and through a recommendation of journaling, I was feeling unstoppable. Now that I was feeling good about my growth by way of my ability to be honest with myself and accept things about myself, I’d started to take the time to refocus my goals. I no longer wanted to just do what I wanted to do or the things that other people thought that I should do, I wanted to align my passions with my PURPOSE that God placed me on this Earth for. It sounds simple enough to be like “ I like to do this and that, so I’ll just do this that way and if I’m doing it, that’s my purpose,” however, if we don’t seek God to guide us, we will end up somewhere, but are we going to end up somewhere ON PURPOSE? (Shoutout to my Pastor for that GEM). That being said, I started to really seek guidance and question what my purpose is and how God wanted me to go about fulfilling it. One evening, I went to a conference at Victory Christian Center and it was the night Bishop T.D. Jakes was preaching and MANNNN, did he PREACH. Like seriously y’all… I cried the entire time, not the ugly cry though, but it felt as though he was speaking directly to me. Almost as if Jesus sat him down and told him, “tell Angela these are the answers to everything she’s been questioning.” Don’t you love those moments? So fast forward to later that night, I was texting my homegirl about the sermon and sent her the notes that I took, and we started talking about how God has been good to us and his level of forgiveness is UNMATCHED honey. So I told her, we are the triflin’ significant other that gets taken back after every transgression and I felt like this was an idea that needed to be expounded upon; so I’m going to break down or “unpack” as some like to say, this Hood Spirituality Theory of mine in three parts. The first part is a tough horsepill of ‘Honesty with Self’ to swallow, which is… 1. We Ain’t Ish Now I know when it comes speaking about God and Christ, cursing shouldn’t be anywhere in the conversation…so that’s exactly why I said ISH…y’all get my drift though. No matter how high and mighty we think we are and no matter how many good deeds we’ve done to think we’ve earned the ‘Holier Than Thou Membership Pass,’ this statement and fact remains the same. We’ve heard this expression (so and so ain’t ish) time and time again (I know personally I’ve seen this on Twitter when talking about men and I’m over it, but that’s a whole other conversation that I will save for a later day) and we all know what it means and where the statement is headed. Now, whether you’ve been the girl that takes the triflin’ man back over and over after being cheated on, disrespected, abused (physically, verbally, or mentally), etc. or that was one of your homegirls, we’ve all met, known, or been one of those women. If you really sit back and think about it, we are ALL that triflin’ guy that keeps getting taken back by the girl folks are now calling stupid because she loves her man. Like how many times can one mess up, sometimes immediately after we take them back, before enough is enough right? But bruh…God has been doing that same thing for years, thousands of years, since the beginning of time, and I am both EXHAUSTED and GRATEFUL thinking about it. His Mercy delivers us from the judgement and punishment we should really endure for our sins (BAY-BEE can you imagine us receiving the punishment we should based on our sins? A lot of would be DEAD right now) and his Grace extends His loving kindness and even blessings when we CLEARLY don’t be deserving them chile, which leads me to number 2… 2. His Grace and Mercy is MORE THAN SUFFICIENT LET ME SAY THIS AGAIN…God’s Grace and Mercy is beyond sufficient; and we don’t have the range, PERIOD. Folks will make one mistake and we will cut them off, as I know I can say I have yet to get the concept of forgiveness down pact because sometimes it will take the smallest things and you’re outta there (God is STILL working on me). But can you imagine how God feels? Prime example, every Wednesday at youth church, my best friend and I used to RUN up to the altar during altar call and ask for forgiveness, like literally every single week. Now, as human beings if someone KEPT messing up and running in our face for forgiveness we’d be like are you kidding? NO. No more! At some point our willingness to forgive runs out and we are done with something or someone, although we are instructed to forgive others so that God will forgive us (Luke 17:3-4, Matthew 6:14-15) but not God. Now let’s not get this twisted, we’re never going to be perfect, we’re never going to not sin but we don’t need to let sin be our MASTER (Roman 6:14), because if we are truly His, we’re not going to keep sinning over and over (1 John 3:6), not repenting about it, and going through life like we’re not going to end up SHOOK in the end. There’s a difference between REPENTING and saying “Oh, my bad God, thank you for Mercy,” just like there’s a difference between apologizing and simply saying sorry. God loves us SO much and I am a WITNESS of this, he’s brought me through so much and been by my side through all of my …