Knocked Down

Just when I was certain I had regained my footing from the last time “love” knocked me down, I find myself yet again heeding the advice of Kanye and Keri’s collabo- just get back up when it knocks you down. And when I say knocked down I don’t mean it in a good sense. More life the rug has been pulled from under you–knocked down. I wasn’t looking for love, yet some how it knocked on my heart’s door and as reluctant as I was to let it in, I fell victim to it’s persistent knocking never even once considering that I could in turn myself wind up knocked down. I wish I could say with certainty that there are only a specific number of times in one’s life that could leave one knocked down by love. Like after three times it’s harder for love to creep up on you and over take you, at least not to the same degree it did previously. But of that I can’t be certain.

I wonder what really is knocking us down though? Is it love or is it the reality check/shock that our expectations have yet again gone unfulfilled and that maybe just maybe they are more unrealistic then we’ve ever considered? That the dreams we’ve once held and the perfect relationship dynamics we paint in our minds are crumbling, and the pain of that alone is what knocks us down.  Can love and the success of our relationships really be boiled down to what happens when our hopes collide with our realities.  Is  defeating the imaginary, fairy tale the great battle we must all wage war against in life?   Perhaps if we’re successful in knocking that down the less likely we are to be knocked down when love doesn’t go our way.

Mr. Right or Mr. Right There

On the job front, a fellow co-worker received an email filled with what was titled:  A Hot Ghetto Mess.  So you have a plethora of disturbing photos of mostly black people doing/wearing the most outlandish things. Completely pointless and ridiculous, making fools out of not only themselves but every black person some people in other countries will ever know due to the world wide web.  The email was none the less circulated and my co-worker made a note worthy comment about it:  sometimes people are so desperate for attention that any attention even if it’s negative will do.  And of course, it got me to thinking about that statement in regards to relationships/men.  Couple that with various similar current life ”circumstances” of both myself and those close to me and the notion of settling raised by a fellow blog buddy… a new post was birthed. 

Are we settling for who I’d like to call Mr. Right There, because we are attention starved from a Mr. Right who only exists in our imagination.  A Mr. Right who we’ve only ever really seen in our dreams and can’t be certain he’ll ever appear.  But I do think the same notion of being so desperate for attention from a boo that you are willing to settle for who’s available right now even if we know they aren’t “the one”.  So what you wind up with is a whole lot of fill-ins.  Men who you allow to occupy the blank spaces of time in your life just because they are Right There, not even coming close to being the Mr. Rights we’ve been waiting to sweep us off our feet.  But not only are they available when we’d like them to be, they can’t really do any thing for us that we can’t do for ourselves.  We’re using them as place holders until the real one steps on the scene. 

Well then the question of why we allow this to take place must indefinitely arise.  And it’s because we’re so desperate for someone to occupy that space in our lives that anyone will do.  All the expectations we’ve held of Mr. Right are temporally abated and some times all that counts is that Mr. Right There, is right there just when we need him.  How minimum our requirements become when we’re “desperate”.  Would you prefer a Mr. Right who is seemingly delaying his arrival in your life indefinitely, or a Mr. Right There who is nothing we would have accepted under other circumstances?

Time…..In

Took a little time out there for a minute. Amid the increasing demands on my life, i.e. school, work, and attempting to identify what my dreams are and to pursue one if not all them, kind of neglected the blog in the process.

*Sniff*
*Sniff*

I’m temporarily freezing my time out just to jot down a couple of things I’ve been thinking about since I’ve been away.

For starters I came to the conclusion that how one answers this question will reveal a great deal about what matters the most to you in your life. The question is: If you found out you would be allowed to do/accomplish ___________ but then the very next day you would die, what would you fill your blank in with? What would have to occur in your life for you to feel the ultimate sense of satisfaction that you could die the next day and feel accomplished or at peace?

An even deeper thought that stems from this is why then do we waste so much time, exhausting ourselves chasing after things (or people) that aren’t important enough to fill in our blanks. I realized that my answer to the above question very well could be:

1. To receive national acclaim for a literary contribution I’ve made or to make the New York Times Best sellers list
2. Launch my own successful magazine
3. Release one song that plays on the radio for years to come
4. Take an amazing photo that would be published in magazines worldwide
5. Design an article of clothing that becomes an instantaneous hit

Tings that didn’t make that list:

• Getting a boo
• Meeting the man of my dreams
• Getting married
• Having kids

Now don’t get me wrong, no disrespect to all who would choose to fill their blank in with that. Everyone is at different stages in their life and if that’s your blank than that’s cool. And I presume that that would be on my to do list at some point in time but for right now, I just didn’t make my Top Five. There’s a couple more important things I’d like to accomplish before that. What’s the first thing on your life’s agenda… maybe it’s time to take a time out from those things that didn’t make your Top Five. Perhaps if we didn’t spend too much time on the non-essentials, when we look back over what we’ve done with our time we won’t regret not using it more wisely. Now…identify what’s on your Top Five list and…time in!!!

The Boo-less Life Gets Political

I interrupt this regular boo-less broadcasting to congratulate Obama on a job well done!  So what boo-less-ness leaves me snapping myself out of daydreams that it was me, instead of Michele by the side of such a strong, intelligent and might I add very attractive man, I am sure there are many a “boo-ed up” woman feeling exactly the same way.  Back to the more important matters like what job has he done so well?  And how can I claim he did a great job when he is not in office yet?  Well, he has successfully managed to instill hope in the hearts and minds of millions of American people; a hope that has long been extinguished, and that in and of itself is an accomplishment worth acknowledging.  He has managed to get people involved where they had absolutely no interest to do so before; replaced deeply embedded apathy with belief that things can and actually will get better!  If nothing more he has resurrected a hope in a brighter future; pushed people to dare to dream again; empowered millions to reach out and grab greatness because it’s more tangible than we’ve ever believed it to be!  With Bush leaving such a bitter taste in the mouths of millions, Obama has some how managed to convince the people that something sweet can come of all of this.   And while I am usually not the least bit interested in politics and especially the politics of politics, I must say I am excited!  Obama smashed McCain in an overwhelming victory, making it clear that the people have spoken.  They pushed out amid obstacles of less than 21st century voting equipment and machines, long lines and hours of waiting at the polls, some who never voted in their life times, all to support a man who wouldn’t back down!  A nation has spoken and united we rejoice!  I personally have a hope in America today that I did not possess yesterday.  But not so much a hope in him as a hope in who his election can inspire.  A hope that the average man, woman, boy and girl in the street will be stirred up to become more, do more, and achieve more.  That the average person will dream again and believe that, yes, indeed we can!!!  And most imporantly for the boo-less, yes we can one day have a man like him!!!! Lol.

In Your Dreams

I know countless women who have been awakened from their many a year of boo-less slumber, by a kiss from Mr. Prince Charming. Could you imagine staring face to face with the dream man? Notice I didn’t say their dream man because if it was their dream man, they would have found a place for him in their reality of life and be living happily ever after some where. Right? I mean just think about it… the man every and any woman would kill to be with, saying exactly what every woman would love to hear, making offers that every woman in their right mind would jump and yet…nothing. Isn’t that the moment us women wait for, we dream of it, we long for it, we whine about it when we don’t have it, we question why it hasn’t happened for us and then when it does, we…. bail out??? While some women are left to kiss prince hopefuls, currently disguised as frogs, here you have a knight in shining armor, shining in all his splendor, and you make a toad out of him? Like really. What is that about?

I remember being at an ATM once waiting to take out some cash and I overheard this woman’s conversation; she was expressing doubt over marrying her then fiance. According to her: he was just too perfect, too sweet, always said and did the right things. Now granted there are men who I like to refer to as the “car salesmen”. They are extremely convincing, they can sell you the shirt off your own back. Now you have got to be some con-artist to do that, but there are men who have mastered the art of saying exactly what you want to hear only so that they get exactly what they want, while at the same time managing to convince you that it’s what you want. I am not speaking of those men. I’m talking about the honest to goodness real good men who sincerely mean love for real. Who say all the right things not due to some “how to seduce a woman” manual they’ve committed to memory, or because they are love magicians, creating love illusions for your amazement and wonder. It frightens me to think that if you and I, women who are awaiting the arrival of the man of our dreams to sweep us off our feet, we won’t be swept up as easily as we imagined it. There’d be a lot more tug of war than we have accounted for in our fantasies. And more often than not it’d lead to a now frustrated battered prince, being swept away with the disappointment of a less than triumphant battle. Is there any place for prince charming in our woman’s world outside of the two dimensional fairy tales, even if he did exist? I think we women have become so enraptured with the hype of a good man, the idea that we’ll find one, that our dream that he exists takes precedence to their actual presence in our lives. Could it be that we are subconsciously content with the desire that the men of our dreams remain in existence *gulp* only in our dreams?