The Gabe Factor

In another post sometime I will tell you how my search for Patty, my 8th grade best friend who used to date Charles Christmas, led me to having a mistaken conversation with Other Patty, another Patty I went to school with that wasn't my Patty. 

The convo was fruitful. She told me what she was up to and she also confirmed that Gabe, this boy we went to school with, somehow got involved with drugs and died. I recently even talked to my aunty and cousin who knew him and his family. His death shocked everyone. 

Honestly, I can't even invision Gabe smoking a cigarette. He was cute. He was funny. He was bright. He could sing. He and some other boys were in a singing group. I remember they sang  "All My Life" by KC and JoJo at a middle school assembly. We were not good friends, but we once did a project together where we had a spirited discussion on when it's appropriate to use an acronym which, oddly enough, is a debate I've had many times over the years. Other Patty said she felt he turned to drugs because his music career didn't work out. 

I'm not sure if this is true, but the thought it might be led me to have a conversation with Lisha about how we don't express to kids the importance of having a reliable and attainable plan B. No one knows better than me how hard it is when your dream life doesn't work out. How can we prepare kids for this without crushing their goals? I say kids because this definitely isn't something you want to start considering at 20 when your back is against the wall. 

Honestly, I'm not sure doing so would even matter. Telling me I should have a solid plan B would not have caused me to stop striving towards being a writer. Like I said, I didn't know Gabe closely, but I'm sure that having a plan B would not have stopped him from singing. The hard truth is that you have to take life when it comes how it comes, prepared or not. That's pretty much a golden rule. There's no acronym for that. 

Holly Clay and the No Good, Very Bad Day

Long story short, I am losing at life. 

I just started a contract gig and I'm not getting the hang of it while everyone else is being recognized for doing an amazing job. 

I have a toothache that is making my whole jaw warm. 

I had a health emergency and could not reach my doctor. I had to talk to another doctor who, although nice, is not familiar with me or my issues. I'm sure my actual doctor will tell me something completely different when I talk to her in the morning. 

My niece had multiple tantrums that felt like they were taking place on my brain. 

I feel like my whole household is annoyed with me for needing some space today. 

I called one of my favorite people and he didn't answer the phone which made me feel alone, ignored, and stupid. 

At the end of it all, all I could do was lay down and cry. Again. Some more. 

I want to talk to someone but I don't care to spread my misery so I think that I will listen to some Toni Braxton and try to regulate my anxiety. Pray. Nibble on dinner. 

Nights are my favorite but they are also hard. It is when all my life choices come to haunt me. It is also when it becomes even clearer that I will always be by myself and have to tread the merky waters of my life in solitude forever. 

Getting emotional. I think it's time for Toni. 

Priorities

Call me a big baby, but for once, before I leave this planet, I would like to be prioritized by someone. These guys I have been talking to have jobs and kids and parents and house plants so I am last with them. My friends only call me on their way to a date or in the line at Wendy's. I'm just a good laugh in the way to doing more important things. People respond to my texts when they f*$cking feel like it. The world is on fire and I am the lady people push to the side so they can loot TVs. This used to make me sad. Then it made me angry. Now it's just a fact. The sky is blue. Pu**y is pink. I am ignored. I've heard of disregarded middle-aged women buying prioritization from YNs from TikTok. I'm not mad at it for those women that want it, but can't someone prioritize me without my having to take off my underwear? It's looking more and more like the answer is no. Oh well. You can't get your way all the time. 

Nervous

Has anyone else been feeling nervous lately? I've been watching YouTube videos about having an unregulated nervous system and I think I have one. I have been feeling unusually uneasy. I just can't shake this feeling that the world is ending, the aliens ARE NOT coming, and we're all gonna die. Not really been feeling optimistic. It has been suggested I need sunlight and exercise. I think I need a cookie. If I took all my anxieties out of my head, I think there would be enough of it to reinforce my roof. I don't feel like it. Suggest a task and I will tell you with confidence that I don't feel like it. Tired. Nervous. 

Seeking Charles Christmas 3: Approaching an Ayo Moment

I follow Charles Christmas now on both Facebook and Instagram and have concluded that he is one cool cucumber. This nerd from middle school has grown into a fun, active man who works out a million times a day and goes to outdoor concerts. He seems to have a real thirst for life that I admire, and I want him to be my friend. I guess more accurately, my friend again. For some reason, I feel like I should ask him about this, but I am forever scarred from when I asked this guy Ayo from college, who I thought was cool for the same reasons, to be my pen pal and he said no. I felt so stupid. Of course he would say no! I could just imagine him making fun of me with his friends. There is a price to putting yourself out there ladies, even platonically. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. 

"Stop feeling like you gotta be everybody's friend!" Lisha yelled in my ear when I told her how I want to reach out to Charles Christmas about being buddies. She just doesn't want to see me embarrass myself but honestly, if I'm not embarrassing myself, what am I doing? 

I brainstormed how I could reach out to him without looking thirsty and I concluded sending him a message similar to this one:

You have been chosen to be a friend of Holly Clay! Follow the link below to a Google questionnaire to further consider your qualification for this position.

Once he got to the questionnaire, he'd have to answer the following questions:

1. Do you like burritos?
2. Do you like talking on the phone/ texting?
3. What are your views on the color blue?
4. Is Teyanna Taylor a girl?
5. Where do you stand on canned meats?

I can feel the embarrassment 'abrewin, can't you? As usual, I will keep you posted. 

Pix and the Coconut Oiled Elder Jay-jay

Pix is in love y'all! He has found this magic woman who is selfless, listens, and checks all the boxes I could never check off because I question everything and, according to him, like to "go back and forth," with men. He is on cloud nine and called me to talk about it. I was happy to hear that someone is having relationship success. It's beyond dusty out here. 

I like Pix because he always has a story for me and last night didn't disappoint. He started this story off with a question. 

"Do you think that older women dislike women in their 20's because they can get wetter than them?" he honestly inquired. 

"Uhhhhh..." The question even caught me off guard. I said something about perimenopause and hormone levels. 

"I ask because I have been with young women and older women and sometimes, younger women get so wet that they are wet even outside their lips."

Yes, before you ask, I am aware that this convo is going off the rails, but this is par for the course when you have platonic homeboys that have friend zoned you. 

"I don't think that older women dislike younger women because of this. It is what it is," I offered. "Plus, there is like lube and vitamins for women that need real wetness help."

He then proceeded to tell me a horror story about a past relationship with an older woman who was a resident of the dry side. He snuck and used coconut oil on her and got great results. They were so great, in fact, that they became a coconut couple and the oil was very present in their love life. I shuttered, looking at the container of coconut oil on my nightstand I use on my hair. If I'm ever in a situation where a man has to sneak and oil me up, it's time to hang it up, flat screen. I told you all I am already worried about my aging hands. I guess I have to add my girl becoming a dust pan to the list. 

"Ah, intimacy and its many humiliations," I said, shaking my head. 

He laughed. "It was humiliating until it wasn't. We had a good time!"

I accept that I have to age. I even accept that I will one day die. Just please, let me be close to the end when my coconut oil days show up. Men have embarrassed me a lot in my life, but having one feel he has to covertly baby oil me is where I have to dry the line. 

Hands

There is a lot to worry about in the world today.  Politics. Climate change. Food scarcity. And as a woke person, I try to stay abreast and worried about everything. However, I find that lately, I am most worried most about my hands. I fear that they are prematurely aging. 

When I was a kid, I used to watch infomercials like they were actual TV shows, especially ones where old White women talked about mail order beauty treatments. And I remember one lady talking about how important it is to make sure that your hands remain youthful. According to her, you could look like The Crypt Keeper, but if your hands were wrinkle-free, people would assume you were 22. I recall looking at my own plump, juicy 2nd grade hands that still had some baby pudge too them, wondering how ones hands get old. Easily apparently. 

I already have man hands, so I'm not excited about having old man hands, but this is all my fault. In college, my roommate and I used to clean our shower with this really strong cleaner. It was the only thing that would get our dirty foot prints from walking in flip flops around New Orleans out of the shower floor. One day, I recall looking at my hands after a cleaning with a raised eyebrow. My hands looked about two years older. Now I'm 41, scared I'm going to wake up with granny hands. 

If that is my future, it is what it is. I'm scared to use any hand products out of fear they will make things worse. This could be a great opportunity to consider some chic glove options. 

Midlife Men

I do believe that the men that I am chatting with on the dating app are having midlife crises. One of them messages me about how he doesn't know where his life is going. Another is experiencing grief from losing his job, has to move out of his house, and is lost as to what he is going to do when he gets back to Atlanta. This other guy is refusing to get back surgery even though it would surely return him to his former quality of life, and another is going back and forth ad nauseam about coloring his beard. They seem pretty frazzled, and I am trying to be understanding because I hear that is what men like, but their complaining is lowkey making my anxiety rise. I don't really know what to tell them. My life is also a hot mess! 

Listening to these men discuss their problems makes me wonder if I am really ready to be in a partnership. I mean, I am 41. If not now, when? However, upon reflection, I think that I am ready for the hugging and snuggling, not the part where I need to provide emotional support and be a light in someone's life. Truth be told, I am happier with the lights off. I feel the calmest in the dark. I also feel calm when I am not juggling 110 balls in the air. Changing that number to 111 to account for someone else's issues could drive me to the edge! 

One could argue that the whole point of having a partner is having someone to walk through life with you; to pick you up when you are down and help you to work through things. I mean, that really sounds beautiful. I am not sure how beautiful my version of this would be. I can't stand dealing with life, especially not someone else's life. Maybe what I am looking for is not a traditional partnership. We all know what a friend with benefits is. Do you think I can find a man interested in that minus the sex and emotional drain? Perhaps a friend with no benefits? I am fully aware that I type this as I inch closer and closer to my personal deadline to find love. I would call it quits now, but what would be the benefit in that? 

The Solution

So, it has been about two years since I made the decision to try to date before I get too old to even care, and I have just this to say: I have no more energy. Out of all the men I have met on the dating app, I have only gone to the conversation stage with about five of them, and I really don't know what else to say. I do not have it in me to ask another man what he does for a living and what his hobbies are. I feel like I know the answer before they answer. He works in a warehouse someplace and he likes to watch movies and play video games. At what point is it okay to just be like, "Look, you seem clean and mildly attractive. Do you want to just get together and see if we can stand each other enough to make something out of this?" I mean, that's the question, right? That is what we all want to know. So why not just cut to the chase and save some time? If I have learned anything from this process, it's that men can be misleading over the phone. Let's just meet up somewhere, witness the real deal, and decide after coffee and cake if we just want to start dating from there. I am estimating that 3-5 pointless conversations could be eliminated in this process. And I say pointless because even though I love talking on the phone, I am finding that these guys have almost nothing, NOTHING to say. Maybe they will be more chatty in person. I don't know. I am just spitballing here. I am trying not to complain, but find solutions, and it seems that if I want to be in a relationship, the best thing to do would be to just jump into one and figure out the deal later. Just an idea. 

Doesn't Pass the Sniff Test (Another Risky Business Story)

"Has anyone ever told you that you smell?" Risky Business asked me during our last conversation. 

"Uh..." I didn't know how to answer the question because it felt like it was leading to something else, and it was. Honestly, you never know where the call is going to go when you are talking to Risky Business. 

Apparently, one of her new boyfriends thinks that she stinks. She knows this because he has told her so several times. So, naturally, she began to pay more attention to her hygiene routine when it came to showering and washing her clothes. She even only wore a fragrance he said he liked when she went to see him. This did not work. The last time they met up, he declared that she still smelled. Can you imagine?

"It is not me," she assured me.  "I shower and do all the things before I go to see him. I think that he thinks that I smell because he just doesn't like me."

I didn't know what to say. I was too busy having an anxiety attack on the other end of the line. No woman wants to be told by anyone, especially an intimate partner, that they are not fresh. NO WOMAN! Smelling good is something that most women take pride in. When I was a teen working at a fast food restaurant, there was a homeless drug addict who used to lock herself in the bathroom and take baths in the sink. It was even important to her, in the state she was in, to be clean. I also had a flashback to when boys in elementary school used to tell girls that they smelled like fish. Somewhere, somehow, they discovered that girls were serious about smelling good and found a way to dish out the ultimate insult. It was up there with telling a girl she needed a perm when it came to being mean. 

After the call, I  just sat on my bed in shock. Is there no low to the things that men will say to us to bring us down? I remember a while back on the Love and Hip Hop Reunion where Ray J declared that a female cast member had a "stank p**&y". I was horrified! P even told me once that he told a female co-worker that her feet smelled, then had the nerve to be shocked when she stopped talking to him. 

Savannah once shared with me that one of her best male friends stunk, and his now wife fixed all that when they got together. She reminded him to take showers and helped him with his hygiene. I know more than one woman who has had to do this in a relationship. Apparently, this is not the route that a man will take in the same situation. He will just bark at a woman that she smells and leave her feeling gross and unfeminine. 

I guess I have stumbled upon yet another unpleasant part of male/female relations/ sexual health. It would seem that the road to intimacy can not only be paved with so-so intentions but also humiliation. Risky Business is no longer seeing this guy. She stopped talking to him, obviously. I mean, what other choice did she have? I am hopeful that she finds love, but also hopeful that she leaves the next guy too, if she gets a whiff that he is an insensitive jerk. Telling a woman she smells. Unbelievable. 

A Whole Person

Recently, I have been making an effort to stay in touch with my 91-year-old grand cousin. He was my grandmother's favorite cousin, Larry. He has been married for about 70 years to his wife, and they are retired, living out west. I have enjoyed our conversations because he has told me so much about our family history. Tonight, he told me that when my grandma was younger, my great-grandfather used to yell at her. 

"I think he was just afraid he was going to lose her," he informed me. 

When we got off the phone, I burst into tears. I know that no one is perfect, but my grandma came pretty close. She was kind and she was sweet and she was always thinking about everyone but herself. I couldn't stand the thought of someone being mean to her, no matter what the reason. I then began to think about the tantrums I used to throw as a kid and how ungrateful and bratty I could be. I pondered on something that we don't realize until we are older: the adults in our lives had whole lives before we got here. My grandma, who got on me for not wearing dresses and insisted that I press my hair, loved me and took care of me and also had a dad who could sometimes be mean to her. She liked to dance and play the guitar when she was younger. She sang with her friends in a jazz band. She was more than just the old lady that got on me for sitting with my legs open in skirts. She was a whole person. How did her life influence the kind of life that she tried to point me in the direction of having?

If nothing else, big questions like this are signs of getting older. When my niece and nephew become teens, and I am grounding them and putting them on punishment for being obnoxious, I wonder if they will be wise enough to know that I am not just their cruel aunty. I was a whole person before they got here that liked chopped and screwed love songs and books. Perhaps they will take this into account when they are mature enough to create a full picture of me. 

Seeking Charles Christmas 2: It Doesn't Go Down In the DMs

Let me just start off by saying that only I can turn what should have been an innocent request for pics into what could possibly lead a man to getting back with an ex. 

The same day that I blogged about Charles, I reached out to him in a Facebook message. I just told myself to do it and did it. I said hey, and told him I was thinking about a kid who died of cancer in middle school, and wondered if he knew his name since they were friends. To my shock, he replied. He told me his name. Then I asked him if he married Patty when I knew that he hadn't. He told me he didn't, but said that she used to wish him a happy birthday every year before they lost contact last year. That made me feel sad and guilty. Requesting pics from a friend's ex, what is wrong with me? I don't know why I have gotten so tacky lately. I am basically a good girl. 

I then went on to ask him about what he has been doing since the 8th grade. There was some talk about gun charges and jail time. I asked him to go into more detail, but he said that since he has done way more than what he got clipped for, he couldn't go into any more detail. Yikes! Yikes and sexxy. What woman amongst us hasn't had a thing for a street gun enthusiast in the past? However, he isn't that anymore. He has a job and a kid. 

The chat ended on a good note, minus the fact that I chickened out on the pic request. I really didn't want him to think I was skanky, which is funny, because this is my first time chatting with him in almost 20 years. What do I care if he thinks I'm a skank? Sigh. I care. It's just that he works out crazy hard, and I want to see him naked! He does those intense borderline dumb workouts at gyms where they jump off of cinder blocks and hang from the ceiling. 

Riddled with guilt, I found Patty's number and sent it to him. If she is single, maybe they will hookup again and fall back in love. Undoubtedly, I will be on the dating app having pointless conversations with a guy that I won't be talking to in a few weeks. He will most likely disappear, leaving me with nothing to hold on to, not even some pictures. 

Feet

I was talking to a man from the fatty app not too long ago, and he asked me, "Do you have pretty toes?"

"Yep," I lied, looking down at my feet. For some reason, I feel like it was the easiest lie I've ever told. 

My toes are pretty in the sense that I have ten of them and they work. I mean, I trim my toenails, don't I get points for that? I have seen feet on Instagram that will make the hair raise on the back of your neck. I'm not there yet. I'd say that 9 of my toes are okay, but one of them needs SERIOUS attention and is bringing down the rating for both feet. I want to care about it, but I don't, similarly to how I don't care that, if my grandma is any indication, I am about five years away from having chin hairs. 

"So you have pretty feet?" he asked, excitedly. 

Wait. Nobody said anything about feet. My feet are feet. They are sausagey, as to be expected for a woman of my girth. The biggest issue is that they are ashy. I have had a lifelong issue with foot ashiness. The assumption is that I don't lotion my feet. Not true. I lotion them, they look good at home, then I get to church, and it looks like someone played tic-tac-toe on my foot with chalk! In college, Rudith gave me some heavy-duty African oil to moisturize my feet with that popped like sizzlean on my skin in the New Orleans heat and temporarily turned my feet black. Since then, it has been a struggle. I tried cocoa butter, which worked well, but I walk around the house barefoot, and when I got up to go to the bathroom, I nearly slipped and did a complete Jean-Claude Van Damme split between my bed and bedroom door. It was one of the scariest moments of my life! 

"So you have pretty feet?" he repeated. 

I thought about it for a moment, then started coughing and hung up. There was no way I could lie my way out of that one, cocoa butter or no cocoa butter. Here we go again. We have found yet another disqualifying factor regarding my finding a partner. Please tell me that this is something that cute fuzzy socks and boundaries can fix. 

Seeking Charles Christmas

When I was in the eighth grade, I had a major crush on my good friend Patty's boyfriend. I know, scandalous. His name was Charles Christmas, and he was the cutest little blerd that you ever did see. He had chocolate skin and glasses and wore polos and khakis. He was annoying as most boys are at that age, but I remember thinking that he was super smart and handsome. I like-ed him for real, for real, but had to keep it under my hat because I didn't want to be a bad friend to Patty, and I was in a relationship with a boy who, in another year, would come out as gay.

I lost touch with him after middle school, except for one conversation when I was on a college break. I saw him out some place. He gave me his number, and I called him. He was pretty rude, which was not how I remembered him to be. I found this to be very disappointing, especially since he was even cuter. Unfortunately, he had traded in his polos for tall tees. I don't know why people can't be themselves. 

About a month ago, I went on Facebook and saw that he had posted a video of himself working out really hard, which, of course, led me to do a deep dive. It looks like he does something having to do with real estate. He works out a lot, and he has a daughter. He must make good money because his pictures indicate that he has traveled the world from corner to corner. However, he is hardly ever with anybody. He seems pretty lonely. Tiesh reminded me that someone has to be taking the pictures on his vacations. I imagine this could possibly be a sexy, equally fit girl. Yet he looks and feels pretty single. He is bald now and has a super hot salt and pepper beard. If he truly is single, I am not sure why. 

Studying his pictures on Facebook makes me think about the movie Our Souls at Night with Jane Fonda and Robert Redford. In the movie, Jane asks if Robert would spend the night with her so that she wouldn't feel so lonely at night, and that blossoms into a love affair. I say that to say that a guy I met last year told me that I need to learn how to straight-up ask for what I want. Hm. I thought about what would possibly happen if I asked Charlie to talk to me three times a week on the phone. This would put a masculine presence in my life and give my friends a break from me. I don't think that we would fall in love, but this would add a spice to my life. 

As you have probably guessed, I am really nervous to put myself out there like this. What if he makes a Facebook post about how desperate I am and tags everyone we went to school with, including Patty?! I would be mortified! Or he could give a simple no. Or he could say yes. Or he could not answer. As the guy who I met last year had warned, you don't get anywhere being scared. I will let you all know if I get some guts to reach out anytime soon. 

New Year, New Love?

It's a new year, and everyone has that all-too-familiar energy targeted at finding love. It happens every year, but I am finding that even my friends who had sworn off finding anyone are popping up with a new burst of optimism. If you want to find a partner, or at least a V-Day date, you have to put in the work (que the tight smile). My divorced friends are starting dating profiles, my friends who have experienced breakups are accepting lunch dates, and the single ones among us are leaving no stone unturned. 

I am sure that being old has something to do with it. Time hits different when you start getting text messages about helping to plan for your 20-year college reunion. Honestly, there is no way to avoid the pressure. When you are in your 20s, you want to find someone before you are the last man or woman standing. In your 30s, you either convince yourself that it is not important or that it is of the utmost importance. Either way, you are setting yourself up for disappointment and failure. Now, in your 40s, the rush is back, either in a more frantic or relaxed way. You have to find someone or you will die, or you are happy to find someone, but you are keeping it cool, no rush. Something about the new year puts everybody in any group in a mood good enough to try again...or one last time. 

I would like to find someone myself, but so far, things are not looking too hot. That is okay. I am keeping my birthday state of mind and not letting it get me down. I am happy cheering on my friends from the sidelines. They are Googling speed dating events and asking friends about the availability of other single friends as we speak. 

If history has taught me anything, this fresh take on love has an expiration date, which spans from the week before to the week after Valentine's Day. Ugh, what a horrible holiday. It is during this time that people inevitably fall back into their pessimistic slumps. However, this year, unlike in years past, I will be pushing my loved ones over the line, not leading those in the line into a depression as I have proudly done in the past. This year is going to be different for the love-lookers out there, I can feel it. 

The Not-The-One One

When I was a kid, I didn't like the song "The Wheels on the Bus". I remember we would sing it in kindergarten, and everyone in the class would really be into it, but not me. I just couldn't stop thinking of being on a bus that wouldn't stop or that you couldn't get off of. I guess even then, I didn't like the idea of being taken on a ride. The Block Circler is taking me on a ride. 

Our first ride, I guess you could say that he kicked me off the bus. I wasn't open enough. I think we all know what it means when a guy says that. It's right up there with not being adventurous enough. Get my drift? After what I thought was a conversation where we made up, he left me waiting at the bus stop for three months. To my shock, he reemerged, and I was skeptical. But then he started texting me a lot and showing me a lot of attention and telling me not to give up on "us". We had what I thought was a great conversation. Remembering what happened after our last convo, I asked him how he was feeling, and he said he too thought it was a great convo. That was over a week ago. After promising to text me he has gone completely silent. Now I feel like he was driving our bus, randomly jumped out of the driver's side window, leaving me on the bus screaming because I don't know how to drive! 

AGAIN, I am left feeling stupid. If Maya Angelou was right, and you have to believe people when they show you who they are the first time, then how does that leave any room for forgiveness or change or reconciliation or any of the things? Are we always supposed to assume the worst? Can't we try to have optimistic hearts and minds? Considering how I just took another lap on a bus going nowhere, it looks like the infinite wisdom of heavenly Mother Maya has rung true yet again. How disappointing. 

What About Your Friends?

At my big age, I can not believe that I am still having to ask myself what true friendship is. For some reason, I have a problem with simply diffriciating my friend-friends from acquaintances, or recognizing when people need to be moved from one box to the other or erased altogether. I have had this same issue since grade school, and at this point, I am categorizing this as a mental illness. Apparently, I can not separate what things were from what things are. When I think of someone in my life, I often think about the good old days and not what the situation currently is. For example, when I think of Blinky, I think of all the laughs we had in high school, when she was my dearest friend, and not the fact that she evades me now, which would mean that we aren't as close, but in my mind, Blinky is still my A1 Day 1, even though the proof is not in that pudding. 

I have to say, I have been blessed when it comes to friends. There are people in my life so amazing that it is clear that God has put them within my reach, and I am so grateful for them. Yet, there are also people that I pour energy into that I suspect wouldn't find out if I died for about two years from now if I dropped dead this morning. They come in and out of my life and consistently leave me hanging. But I show up ready for duty for them. I told you, mental illness. 

I no longer make New Years resolutions, but I am making it a point to do better when it comes to this once and for all. If I can better streamline where my love and attention needs to go, I think I will have more energy and be a lot less stressed. I will keep you posted on how things go, but if current behavior is a predictor of future behavior, I am not expecting success. 

41 and Done?

My birthday was the other day!

Over the years, I have had boatloads of emotions surrounding my birthday. Once I turned 30, I began to have a lot of anxiety around getting older. I would also get sad if people didn't reach out to me with birthday wishes, although such is always the case with holiday babies. People get so busy during the Christmas season that we are often forgotten. This was not the case for my birthday this go 'round. Tiesh called and sang me the birthday song and bought me lunch. Bells dropped off flowers and homemade cookies. Lisha got me a soap and perfume set. My aunty got me a cake and ice cream. People called me and sent me well-wishes on social media. I ended the day feeling really loved. Yet, one thing that I noticed is that I wasn't having my usual sadness about not bringing in my birthday with a boyfriend. I really didn't think about it until towards the end of the day, and even then I didn't care. I'd had a good day, and considered my not allowing my birthday to revolve around not being partnered to be a sign of growth. This morning I reconsidered this. Was it a sign of growth or a bigger and more telling sign that I have given up?

Since the inception of Facebook and any other site where you can upload pictures, I have been tortured by fancy pics of my friends out on the town and dressed to the nines with their boyfriends on their birthdays. I have been so jealous and wanted to know what it was like for someone with a romantic interest in me to do special things for me on my special day. I generally have taken my birthday into my own hands. In my 20s, I would throw myself parties because I wanted them and knew that no one was going to surprise me with one. There was no guy in my life going behind my back to make arrangements and inform friends of secret plans. The birthdays of my 30s were filled with free trips to the aquarium and tears. Last year, I was healing from an injury, so this year it was nice to have a fun, stress-free birthday. However, not worrying about not having a man for once has me wondering if I am officially entering into my cat lady era. I am either maturing and realizing that I am loved beyond my desire to have someone in my life, or I am deciding that I will always be alone and to just move past it. If my Googling of knitting classes is a telltale sign, I will have to go with the last choice. 

When I think about the time I have spent bellyaching over not having a man, I am truly embarrassed. I could have used that time to start a business or, at the very least, get some great sleep. For this last birthday, I just didn't have a spirit of bellyacheness on me. I didn't feel over it, I just felt at peace. 

I am choosing to believe that I am merely experiencing the peace before partnership. And even with that being said, I'm not afraid to break out my knitting kit at any time. If wisdom comes with age, allow me to put on my wisdom wig. This birthday showed me what I have always known: I am truly cared for. I will be okay. 

Qualities

My nephew is 7. It's interesting that I'm not his mom, but at times, when I'm interacting with him, I feel like I am dealing with a male, child version of myself. He is a sensitive kid, full of emotions. He cares too much about what his peers think. He's stubborn. These were not qualities that suited me well when I was a kid. I feel that they actually made me a target which I guess still stands true because he sometimes deals with bullies on the school bus, just as I did. 

I can't stand bullies, but I often wonder what my childhood would have been like if I was more gangsta and had more confidence. I could have gone on to be the next Oprah or Wendy Williams. Even now, I deal with second guessing myself, which I feel is rooted from when I was a kid. I remember times when I thought I looked pretty, a mean kid would tell me I didn't, and my whole day would crumble. My moods were dependent on how I was received. I don't want that experience for my nephew. 

Remember when they used to talk about "designer babies"? These were babies where the parents could choose the physical aspects they wanted their kids to have somehow through tampering with DNA. For the most part, people were against the idea. I think it would be cool if we could choose the other qualities we wanted our kids to have. I would have hounded my sister to make sure my nephew didn't have my qualities. I'd tell her to make sure they sprinkled some tough skin and bravery in the baby juice, because these are things I lacked that I am still trying to obtain. 

Even so, I still find that I bask in the sweet, childlike nature of my nephew. I just want him to be able to kick a$$ and take names when need be in life. As I said, I want him to be brave. I don't want him to have my qualities.