Love and Middle Age- The Story of 🍦

Recently, I got to figuratively sit at the feet of one of my favorite grios, TAFKAS. He may be the only person that I went to college with that has more stories than me, and you know how I love a good story! The best thing about his stories is that he hung out with a completely different group of people, so I often get an entertaining tale with an unintentional side of tea. In this particular conversation, he told me the story of 🍦, a tragedy concerning long-lost love.

It's funny that he mentioned 🍦 because he had come up in a conversation with LadyChatsAlot about a month ago! I suggested that they go out together since they are single and living in the same place. Honestly, that is the only connection you need when mixin' and minglin' in the HBCU graduate world. She's single. He's divorced. Sounds like a winner! 

"Nah, 🍦only likes ghetto women," she said. Then she told me a whole lot of other things about🍦that are none of my business but that I sucked up like a daiquiri! These things were on my mind when TAFKAS went into his story about 🍦 but from a different perspective. 

TAFKAS started by painting a picture of 🍦and his relationship with a girl named Chelle freshman year. I did not know her well. All I knew is that she had one of the most perfect butts I'd ever seen! I remember them being together, and I have also heard a hundred different variations of stories concerning why they ended. These things are not important. What is important is that 🍦still pines for this woman 20 years later. 

"He works out so that Chelle can see how strong he is," TAFKAS said. "He has his job so that Chelle can see what a success he is. Everything he does is so that Chelle can see what she missed out on." Something about that statement sat on my chest and was pulling at my heartstrings that night as I scrolled through 🍦's social media feed. Every pic of him out with friends or exercising now seemed to have a double meaning. My old friend DZ had once told me that she never got over any of the men she had loved, and that they all had a place in her heart. I felt the same way, but I had no idea that men dealt with these same types of heartaches. Especially not men that I hear are as...social as 🍦 is. 

Then this morning as I did my early morning meditation ( laying in my room in the midnight hour, grunting into the darkness), a thought flashed across my mind that caused me to sit up in horror! 🍦hasn't been with Chelle since he was 18 or 19 years old, and I have heard experts say that at our age, if you are single, you probably know or have already met the person you are supposed to be with. What if many of us blew it with our soulmates when we were too young to even know what was going on- when the clock had started without our permission? When we were too immature to invest or divest in our relationships? That would mean that many of us missed out on love before we were even aware that there was love to be missed! Now many of us are waiting on something that has already come and gone, or we are in something that should be with someone else. This is so sad and scary for me! What if our cosmic future does really rely on our early decisions from a time when we sucked at making decisions? If this true, we are all on a hamster wheel and for what? Kicks and giggles?

I pray that this is not true. If it is, my true love is a deceased gay man that was everything to me in my teens. If this is true for 🍦, his true love was not even his ex-wife, but a girl he fell for back when many of us thought that Nelly, Nelly, was the greatest rapper alive! Man, is age sobering or what?! And that is real talk, no country grammar. 

Not Another Fatty Moment

When I was in middle school, I used to believe that I was psychic. I had a way of sensing what was going to happen and it would happen! This led to my little hobby of reading my friends' palms. Let me be clear: I couldn't read palms then and I can't read them now. But my friends would ask me a question, and I would look at their palms and just check my gut for the answer to their issue. And I'd be right. Today, I understand that I was wrong. If I was at all psychic I could avoid some of the traumatic things that happen to me. 

Last weekend, I went with my younger brother to get his eye exam and to order some new glasses. I hate it when something bad happens to me when I'm not even out doing things for myself! 

Once he ordered his glasses, I ordered us a rideshare ride to go home. I was beyond ready to go, partly because I had to pee and I don't pee in public potties because you know...Monkey Pox. 

So the ride comes and my brother and I get in. I close the door and look up at the driver who goes, "Oh no, I am sorry ma'am but I can not give you a ride. You are too big and I won't be able to move the car."

"What?" I asked, sure she hadn't just said what I thought. 

"See, I won't be able to move. See," she said, pointing her finger at some light on the dashboard. I don't know how to drive, so I don't know what the light was. But what I did sense was bullshit because half of my paycheck goes to riding rideshares across the city every month! 

"So you have to get out and cancel the ride," she said with such high anxiety in her voice that it was making my anxiety raise. "You have to cancel the ride," she said again and louder when I wasn't moving fast enough for her. 

And that's when I shut off, thank God! 

One of the best things that I have taught myself to do over my 37 years is turn myself off. When I feel like something is about to hurt, I just shut down. It's second nature now. I imagine myself flipping a light switch and just like that, I am off. I taught myself how to do this in high school. These boys in the back of the school bus used to make full-on rap songs about me and how gross they thought I was and it was so hurtful that I taught myself how to fall asleep almost instantaneously so I wouldn't have to hear it. By the time I woke up, I was home and well-rested. 

"I'm so sorry," she said. My eyes were crossing, trying to stay shut down and hear her as well. 

"What?" I asked, motioning to get out of the car. 

"I'm sorry. It's not right. You should be able to get a ride just like anybody else even though you big."

And then my mouth dropped. SHE STARTED CRYING! No blubbering or anything, just water in her eyes. 

I could not believe what I was experiencing! I would have thought it was a dream if my brother wasn't next to me, in shock! She said I was too fat to get a ride, but her feelings were hurt?! Guys, I moved so quickly to get out of her car that I almost fell over the sidewalk. I went to the rideshare app and canceled the ride. 

"I canceled it," I said into the car window once I had done so. 

"I am so sorry," she said again before pulling off. 

And there I stood in front of an America's Best in a grocery store strip mall. I opened my mouth to scream, but all I could muster was a sigh. I walked over to a bench and sat down, reflecting on how I hadn't seen this incident playing out the way it had when I looked deeply into my palms that morning. 

Gyno-oh-no

I have to go to the gynecologist next week for my annual exam. 

Maybe this would not be such a huge ordeal if I wasn't still traumatized from my last visit. WHAT A DISASTER! There were a lot of tears, a lot of anxiety, and a lot of stress. I don't even get why I even have to go. I don't get any action. The chances of my actually utilizing my box are about as slim as an anorexic White girl!  Not to mention that I almost killed myself trying to get on the examination table last time. It was so high! I had to run and jump to get on it and the damn thing almost flipped over on me! Can you imagine a more unfortunate way to die than getting smushed under an exam table while preparing for a routine pap?! I'd rather my family tell my friends that I was shot in a whore house raid. 

On top of the horror of it all, I am currently beefing with my gyno. A few weeks ago, I thought that I might be getting a yeast infection (TMI), and if you read my blog, you recall how mortifying my last one was. It was my first one ever, and I was hysterical! I know what you are thinking: you were 36, how is that possible? I had the same question. Since I had never had one, I thought somehow that I was immune to them. Spoiler alert: I'M NOT! Anywho, I mentally could not handle the melodrama of last year, so I called and asked the nurse at the gyno office to ask the doc to write me a prescription for a common yeast infection medication. Long story short, he said no. HE SAID NO! He said he wanted me to come in, even though I had just been in for blood work this summer and already had an upcoming appointment on the books. Then the nurse tells me that I can either come in or go to urgent care. URGENT CARE? Why would I do that if I have a f&*king gynecologist?! What am I, a commoner? The reason why I got a gynecologist with an address and a mailbox and a degree was so that I would not have to sit in a crowded urgent care room, silently praying over my crotch while being sneezed on by the COVID positive. Being told no by a man in this situation outraged me so much that I can't even explain it. 

When I think about arriving for my visit, I imagine being dragged into the office and across the carpet by a giant as I scream and claw at the floor. Winter is already an emotional landmine for me, I honestly can't take any more drama. We have come so far in science as a country, how is there no at-home pap test women can perform on themselves in the privacy of their homes? I could easily do mine as I caught up on reruns on Hulu. Ah, to wish on a star. 

I will keep yall posted on what will inevitably be another fine nightmare. Yay. 

Money Talks

"I made bipityblahdumpity this year in sales," Mary said. She was sitting on a bar stool, sipping on a cocktail that matched her lipstick, wearing a pair of glasses from her own collection. She, me, and Carolita were reunited for our quarterly supper club outings which took a hiatus during COVID. We were at one of those Atlanta dives where the waitresses have fat asses and visible lace fronts. The music being played was suitable for a middle-tier strip joint or, in this case, waiting over two hours for overcooked, oily fried green tomatoes. "Twipitiydobitty sustainable business model," she went on to say. "...investments with a poopity return over a 12-month minimum."

I could feel my eyes glazing over, so I looked to Carolita for clarification, only to become even more lost. 

"Me and my sister do a yaddayadda."

"What's that?" Mary asked. 

"That's where you twinkletwinkle on a star for a diddybop," she explained. 

I just stood there, my eyes bouncing between the two of them. What were they talking about?! And why didn't I know what they were talking about? And how did they have money to do all this stuff? Oh right, they have real jobs, I thought to myself. That and some deep well of knowledge around money that I just do not have. I am literally two years away from 40 and know as much about investing as a newborn! I guess I should start hoarding the canned goods now for darker days. 

I read somewhere once that how you were raised has a lot to do with your attitude toward money. Carolita was raised in a solid two-parent home. Granted I don't know all the details, but I don't think that she ever had to sell water on the side of the expressway to make ends meet. Mary is the daughter of hardworking Nigerians. My grandmother was literally scared to spend money while I had witnessed my mom write checks for food at the Winn-Dixie with her fingers crossed. I guess I fall someplace in between the two of them. 

"If I had a thousand dollars to invest, where would you advise me to put it?" I asked Mary. This was a serious question. 

"That's a hard question," she said, sipping on one of those really skinny cocktail straws. I am assuming that this is a hard question because a thousand bucks is the equivalent of five cents in the investment game. 

This conversation lingered on my mind, even after the dinner. I want to be a lady boss too! How can I be down? 

"Well, I am not balling like them," Tasha assured me when I told her about what we had talked about. For a split second I felt relieved. Maybe I could have a roommate who I knew in the low-income nursing facility. But then she went on to talk about how her grandparents were leaving her property when they die and how her mom hand been saving and investing for her since the womb! 

I got off the phone and just stared at the wall in silence. How did I allow this to happen to me?! I can't be the little old lady who lived in her shoes because I only have one good pair! I am going to be the angry old lady who fashioned a tent out of her plus-size maxi dresses to squat under a bridge. I should have been more motivated! I saw how not having money stressed out my mother. And it's not like I ever deluded myself into believing that some man was going to come a long and support me. Men have always picked over me like rotten fruit and the ones that didn't wanted money from me! Now I am skidding towards middle age without a pot to piss in! As you know I am a writer; I love a good story. But not even I want to know how the story ends for the almost 40-year-old that didn't prepare appropriately for life. 

I can't whine about this anymore. My anxiety is rising. Plus, time is money.