Thoughts On How I Got Here

This is a long post, but most of my recent ones have been long. Think of it as multiple blog posts... I hope that helps. Hell, I hope you actually read the whole damn thang.

Oh, and I know it's been a while. I just felt like not blogging again until I had a conversation with Terry. Matter of fact... The Cheap Seats are open!

Have you ever just sat there, you know... Somewhere quiet in your home and just thought about shit? When was the last time you attempted to decipher exactly what the inner workings of your mind was telling you?

I've been doing that lately.

There is entirely way too much stuff tumbling around in there. I just can't believe with all of that wet laundry tumbling around in my head's dryer that I still feel unmotivated and bored as hell. There is some sort of sense of urgency to get things done, but I can't prioritize exactly what to work on first.

I know that some things need to be addressed but I just cannot decide what to work on first. And then there are so many glaring items I gotta handle on the home front as well.

It ain't the bills. As long as my other half and I put our shoulders down and drive forward we'll move the chains on the football field of life. I had a conversation with my other half yesterday questioning the if and where we are in our lives. Not that I'm not grateful and appreciative in who is here and what has been gifted to me by the Creator, I just wonder sometimes what got me here...

So certain thoughts take me back two years ago and I was in Houston. I made an ill-fated decision to leave Chicago. I knew that the decision I made at the time was the right one. I had support, a good reason and felt protected by the spirits to be there until one action made me question why in the hell I was where I was. Being there wasn't new, I had been there before but only as a visitor. Houston is a little larger than Chicago in land mass but the Chi has damn near four times as many people. There was comfort in being where folks look like me made things cool but there was still a feeling of restriction.

Being broke as hell will immediately put clamps on you, or at least it feels that way. One day I was there, she was there and somewhere very early she felt a need to get up, shower and dress for Sunday. Hell, it was Sunday, people go out. She made herself look look nice. She can make herself into sexy mode, but on this day, she dressed to highlight her cuteness and not her sexy, like she was headed to church but she didn't attend church. She didn't have a church home that I knew of.

During that time in 07', I hadn't spoken to my mother in over a year, but some of you knew that. I really needed to hear my mom but I chose to be stubborn and stand my ground and not speak to her. That was stupid of me to do. So imagine how I felt when her mother called and there was an opportunity for myself to be allowed to introduce... Myself. Yeah, that shit works if her mom even knew I existed. Hell, she met all my sibs and the nieces and nephews earlier that year! Oh well, I guess eventually one day I would get an invite or have an introduction.

Never did.

So the one time when her mother called the spot, I was waiting for a call from a perspective employer. I normally answered the phone with no objections but on this occasion I answered the phone and ended up speaking with her mother. I have never seen someone in my adult life, being the same age grown and independent from the parental units as I was back peddle verbally from another human being quite like that about me being there.

Or not really being there, as it was trying to be explained. Shit! I'm a nobody. Not good if the fam doesn't know some ashy assed, dreadlocked, Kush smelling cat like myself was all up and thru there, huh?

Her mother unleashed a verbal bashing questioning her about having a man answer her phone. She interrogated her about my status in her home and I was just crushed as I watched her stammer and fall all over the answers she had to search for. I was nobody, or at least I had to hide within the shadows until she was able to rewire her feelings to match the words needed to explain my presence. Her actions were fine and definitive for me to this point, but I realized that the only people in Houston that we both knew were 4 other people. 2 were room mates and the others were her confidants. She promised that I would meet her brother who was also a truck driver. So much for that, huh?

In that moment, I needed just a twinge of motherly advice. I was too proud to call my mother, especially feeling that I've just had my tail put between my legs by coming to Houston empty handed and with no definition. The inaction and being hidden in plain sight what I believed to be the fatal flaws that loosened my confidence in living in Texas was concerned. I didn't leave Houston until August because I believed that May, June and July would birth the emotional and stabilizing efforts put forth that would convince me to stay.

And where did she go on that fateful Sunday dare you ask? Her sibs and other family members hosted a mother's day brunch. She told me as she walked out the door that she would be right back and didn't mention anything to me upon her return 6 hours later. Even though I was on the outs with my mother, I understand the importance of who you are by the way you're introduced to family. We had been hinting around, visiting and snowballing to this moment since late 2006 and I had managed to be there in the flesh...

Other things happened in those months leading up to me getting back to Chicago in August of 2007, but that was cake batter. There were other moments that could have taken the cake but during mother's day weekend? Bowl, eggs, whisk and pre-heated oven. One of the shoulders I cried upon during that time kept me sane and grounded me. I ended up marrying that set of shoulders later on that year.

Funny, huh?

I only wondered about this because after talking with a friend yesterday, I realized how long, hard and complicated it was just to get to where I am now. I feel uninspired and am unwilling to write yet everything is unbelievably alright. In a few short actions, I realized that there still was still some precedent to be set in being in Texas whereas in a long, complicated and turbulent filled journey I arrived here. Able to sit and think about the minor things, the fodder if you will that runs amok in my head.

I'm not really uninspired, bored or unmotivated.

I'm actually blessed to have one place to sit out of many to ponder my thoughts both major and minor. And I have been blessed to have been shown which way to go in order to get here. And those actions were actually inactions. Things undone showed me the path in getting things done.

I just cannot imagine anyone else putting up with my shit but her. What I had to go thru to get here... Well, that was just one of life's hurdles in the paragraphs above causing me to want to just sit here and praise the master plan our Creator has for us...

And it is a beautiful plan.

Now all I gotta go is get 12 and a half more years in with this feeling like Kim and Allen have...

Happpy Anniversary number 14!