If you’ve ever done a lot of road tripping, as I have– especially alone– you constantly find yourself establishing mini goals along your trip to just get through it.
Sometimes you do it by exit numbers because they’ll either go up or down, depending on the direction. Sometimes your landmarks of where you are going to stop are based on places your parents or other people like to stop when you travel with them and it’s just a habit. It’s familiar.
Either way, throughout a trip, especially when we are tired or hungry or have to pee, we say, let’s go just a little bit further down the road.
I’m feeling like that as of late.
I’m just shy of about three weeks left of this module for school and of course I feel like I’m hungry, running out of gas and about to pee on myself, but I have to keep driving because we haven’t gotten to my favorite Waffle House yet.
Maybe I’ll pass two other Waffle Houses on the way, but getting to that specific landmark means something in my head. From that landmark, I can establish that I only have but so much further to go. When you stop sooner than you’re supposed to, you’re still further behind than you wanted to be.
That’s what this journey through school as been feeling like. To others where you stop and take a break may not matter at all, as long as you take a break before you end up in a wreck.
But for real specific-minded people the break isn’t just a break. It’s a marker, it’s a goal. It allows you to calculate if you’ll make your destination ahead of schedule, right on time, or a little late.
Markers give you an emotional boost the closer you get to them. Mile-by-mile. Inch-by-inch. We need markers not only to guide us, but to show us we are making incremental progress. I love seeing the distance between me and a destination get smaller and smaller.
I love the relief and excitement of getting there even if you’ve driven all through the night and made very few stops.
I like a song by R and B singer Jahiem called, “He don’t exist.”
I think it perfectly and realistically states the very thing that women don’t really want to hear, nor do most want to believe. That we keep waiting and waiting for the perfect guy but he doesn’t exist.
There’s no such thing as the perfect person.
Some folks think it’s odd that I like it so much, or that I agree with it. Actually, the song has been helping me mourn the loss of the perfect man I keep hoping to find. I think once you come to the conclusion that the man you think you are supposed to be with will be nothing like you imagined, and actually mourn and grieve that loss, you’ll be better off.
Yes, I’m grieving the fact that I’m not going to get the good-looking, gainfully employed, never married, childless, intellectual, spiritual, artsy, passionate man who can read my mind and be on call to listen when I rant, give me a hug when I need one and put down some epic loving in the bedroom and will bring me a glass of water and wipe me down with a moist, warm towel after the deed is done. Ok, that was a long list. But I do think it’s more healthy to grieve and mourn this loss and move on to acceptance, than to keep thinking he’s one more bad date or awful relationship away.
I’m not telling anyone to settle. But when you think about the fantasy of the person you made up in your head, or that fake person you keep comparing everyone else to who, can’t compare, you are doing yourself and anyone who wants to care about you a major disservice.
So that’s why I like “He don’t exist.” Jahiem basically says, the perfect man doesn’t exist. However, love can be what you make it with the willing mortal offering up their heart to you.
I told a friend that at this point I have a better chance of getting a Ph.d in the next 10 years than getting married.
Sometimes I wonder if I am mature enough to be married. Yup, I’ve said it.
Because at this point, I’ve really been concentrating on me and my feelings. I’ve admittedly said that I don’t have the time or energy to fix anyone or constantly be a motivational speaker, that I need my man to be an emotional self-starter and also be able to pick me up when I need it.
A friend of mine asked me very seriously, “Isn’t that what marriage is?”
Well that was a slap in the face. I hold marriage in high esteem. But marriage is really about imperfect people just trying to make it through life together, supporting each other.
Oddly enough, I feel like I can accept the flaws and forgive my friends like nobody’s business, but when it comes to men, I have the toughest time really accepting them. I give them a much tougher criteria and very high expectations that they have to be secure and confident and be able to be fully supportive of me and all my ups and downs.
It’s very selfish. But these feelings come from me being on the other extreme where I did nothing but give and show support, thinking I can hold it together for the both of us.
So really, what it boils down to is I need someone I can trust and believe will be supportive and loving to me when I need them. I don’t want to be left holding the bag, I don’t want to be the sole person responsible for the happiness, sanity and well-being of myself and the person I’m supposed to be in love with. Whew. That feels better.
Here are the lyrics:
“He Don’t Exist”
Girl I hate to have to be the one to ruin your plans
It’s unrealistic what you’re looking for in a man
I may not be perfect but I can love you perfectly
You know what you want but you don’t know what you need
Go text monogamous, keeps all of our promises
No kiss, I think you wanna share a psychiatrist
Bank account got a figure 6
Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent
The only problem is, he don’t existI think you need the invisible man
So you can never see his flaws and mistakes
Better come get this loving while you can
We’re gonna it the jackpot rail sweet 6
With sentimental friends wanna drive and tell you how you feel
Making you believe there’s something other
And the perfect man you’re waiting for, he don’t exist
Oh, la la la aySorry to shatter your perfect picture of love
This ain’t no movie, ain’t no director, you’re in guard
You gotta stick to the script
You want a fairytale but they just don’t exist
You want a knight in shining armor
Hero that come to save ya
Red cape, baby let me set the record straight
You lose it all
Cause it just don’t
I think you need the invisible man
So you can never see his flaws and mistakes
Better come get this loving while you can
We’re gonna it the jackpot rail sweet 6
With sentimental friends wanna drive and tell you how you feel
Making you believe there’s something other
And the perfect man you’re waiting for, he don’t exist
All that time that you’re spending, looking for happy ending
Babe we can start with that
Subtract all of the baggage and maybe we can manage
A life that equals up to love
We’ll never know the visions up in my position
Baby no need to rush…
Cause he don’t exist
I think you need the invisible man
So you can never see his flaws and mistakes
Better come get this loving while you can
We’re gonna it the jackpot rail sweet 6
With sentimental friends wanna drive and tell you how you feel
Making you believe there’s something other
And the perfect man you’re waiting for, he don’t exist
I can’t help it. Every guy I meet, I look him up online to see what morsels of information I can find about him, good, bad, and ugly. Sometimes, those Google (and Lexis Nexus thanks to my reporter days) searches, would leave me pleasantly surprised to find local newspaper articles about awards for community service or mentoring; would scare me half to death– divorce records, domestic violence, DWI’s, warrants for unpaid parking tickets or theft charges; or downright leave me incredulous– i.e. finding engagement websites. When it comes to crime, I give people passes depending on the severity of the crime, how much time has passed and how old they were when said event happened.
In this digital age, you can find out more than you really want to know and it can be a real let down if a guy you’ve been seeing and enjoying his company has some very real skeletons falling out of your Google search. And I understand there are two camps: The first believes if it’s in the public domain, you have every right to find out what you can so you know what you’re dealing with. The second says, get to know the person and let them tell you about themselves.
I tend to have a foot in both places. I’ll admit sometimes I’m honest about my Googling, but I’ll playfully say that I have an online presence too, with nothing to hide. And I don’t. You’ll find mostly things regarding my career and that’s certainly something to be proud of.
But sometimes, I won’t admit that I’ve done a deep dig into a person’s available digital life, because I’m curious to see how up front they will be about the things that aren’t so pleasant. I think it’s a two-way street and when someone is honest about something I had already seen, I usually come clean and say that I looked it up, but wanted to give the person a chance to explain their situation and with context.
So, am I wrong for digital snooping or as I prefer, amateur background checks?
I think in today’s time, women need to arm themselves with information but be strategic on how and when and why they’ll reveal they have that information.
I told a friend earlier today that the most important thing that you can bring to a relationship with you that’s just as important as love and compassion and forgiveness and flexibility is self-awareness.
Folks have often said if you don’t love yourself, you can’t love anyone else. And it’s very, very true, but even in addition to that, you can’t really love others if you have a distorted and unrealistic view of who you are, what your strengths and your limitations are.
You have to know these things about yourself, so you can establish expectations… what the people you love can expect from you and how you react to things. That way, they can choose if they can deal with you or not.
When we really practice accurate self-awareness it’s like going to the eye doctor and finding out you need glasses. Sometimes, there’s stuff about yourself that you just can’t see. You have to get help from others, and you personally have to do what needs to be done to help you adjust for your deficiencies. You are always going to have blind spots if you don’t wear glasses, but at least you know exactly what they are and you adjust for them.
To me, that’s self-awareness in a neat little bow.
People who don’t want to be self-aware are like the folks who know they can’t see, but either don’t want to get glasses because it reminds them of a weakness or they are just stubborn, or they don’t realize just how beneficial they are.
A good example is the first time I wore my glasses, I was shocked that I could see so well. Shocked at how far I could look and at how small the writing was I was able to read on signs. But it also showed me how close I had to be to larger signs to see them well.
Self-awareness does the same thing. That’s why we have to work on this and be honest with ourselves and the people we love. It allows us to help us teach the ones we love how to love us better.
29tolife 