Life Is A Scratched Cell Phone Screen

Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while know that I have always been a little sensitive to time, especially in regards to aging and missed opportunities. Time has been showing up as a theme for me over the past few weeks. Young women that I mentored when they were in middle school just graduated college in May. My little brother just turned 30, and while I was twiddling my thumbs on whether or not to go to grad school, many of my friends enrolled and are now finishing up Ph.D. programs. And at 36, I have now gotten to a place where people who are WAY older than me feel comfortable reminding me that I am almost 40. It's an awkward place to be- kinda young and sorta old at the same time. But I assumed that no one else my age cared about these things, especially not my college friends. When I go on Instagram, they are all drinking artisanal beers in their $600,000 homes. This is why my meet-up with my old friend Tanya was curious. 

Tanya is that friend that you don't speak to for months, and when you reunite, it is like no time has passed. We knew each other at our most ratchet: as freshmen in college. There was really no one better to twerk and drink the days away with. She is a man-magnet because she is so fun and funny. She is strong and independent and often felt like a butterfly that you just couldn't catch. So you can imagine how weird it was to meet up with my butterfly after not hearing from her for a couple of years, only to find that her wings are sprained and bandaged. 

Why? Well, you guessed it- a man! She is going through a nasty breakup with her boyfriend of eight years. They lived together and now have to vacate their condo because neither of them can afford it on their own. Now she and her son have to uproot their lives and start over with the help of her family, who NEVER liked this guy. I have never met him, but I don't like him either. She told me about how she played nursey for him when he was sick, how she led the household when he lost his job, and even let some relationships die because he required so much attention, only for him to text her all through our girl date about how he didn't approve of her being out. I couldn't believe that my independent friend had hitched her wagon to someone that seemed VERY controlling and immature. She even told me that they keep their GPS on on their phones so they always know where they are when they are apart. WHAT?!

As you can imagine, she was pretty down. And not just because she has gotten to a point where she can't stand someone that she once loved, but because of the time that has been wasted. Eight years. You know, when you are in your 20s, you are taught to never look at time as a waste because you learned something during a situation. By my age, if you are smart, you have learned that that is a lie! You can learn life lessons in a relationship, on a job, or any other situation and still come out knowing and feeling that the whole thing was a huge waste! You cannot get time back. You cannot! It is the one thing we all lose repeatedly that is not coming back to us. Eight Years. She got with this guy when she was 27. Now she is almost 40. 

Before we parted ways, I took out my phone to take a picture of us and noticed that my screen was cracked. 

"Aw man!" I said. "Well, life is like a scratched cell phone screen," I joke. 

"Isn't it?" she asked, flatly. 

Touche Tanya. Yeah it is. Life looks all beautiful in HD until something comes along and scratches our view. Hopefully, our scratch isn't an 8-year all-consuming love drain that is going to be a nightmare to get over. 

The good thing is that Tanya is strong and amazing and will get over this and find love again. It's not like she has a choice. Like me, she is almost 40. She doesn't have the time to do anything else but move on. 

Don't Be Anal

Izzy and her sortabae, let's call him Joe, are about as complicated as complicated can get. Their texts to each other are these mind bending, incomprehensible riddles that leave each of them guessing and scratching their heads. I can't tell you the amount of brain power that she and I have invested into trying to figure out what he meant, and how much time she has put in to sending him messages that are just as confusing. 

But today the texts got shockingly clear. Joe says that he likes her, that he thinks that she may be "the one", but certain needs of his aren't being met...like anal sex. 

I found myself laughing uncontrollably. Apparently, I am one of the last folks on earth that thought anal sex wasn't an actually thing. But it wasn't a joke, and Izzy saw his response to be a door opening to relationship negotiations. 

"If I am going to do that, than we are going to have to start going on dates. He is going to have to start hugging me more and responding more to my texts," Izzy said, outlining her list of demands. 

Again, I was at a loss for words. But only for a second. "Are you serious? Girl, nothing is worth literally giving up your booty!" I shouted. 

I know that in relationships, you have to compromise, but geez, aren't we supposed to draw the line somewhere? Izzy insists that more people are into it than I think. This could be true. I didn't think that people were really into French kissing but I was wrong about that. I guess my question is this: once that is given up, what is next? Izzy says that saying that she will do it and stringing him a long is still on the table. I don't know. I don't see a man that is really into that letting it go if he doesn't get it. But again, I've been wrong about these things before. 

Sabotage

Recently, a friend of mine told me casually during conversation that she had some long standing grievances with me, going all the way back to college. Yikes. My stomach tightened when she said this because, I have to say, I was a totally different animal in college. Insane things flew out of my mouth at the speed of light, so I was expecting her to tell me something nutty and out of line that I'd said to her that had been bothering her all this time. Instead, she told me that she feels that I actively sabotaged all of her romantic relationships.
"What? Why are you just telling me this now?" I demanded. I mean really, I was clutching my pearls!
"I don't know, I just never felt like bringing it up." Sigh. Passive people.
"So what was going to happen if you hadn't brought this up today? You would have just continued to stay mad at me for thirteen more years?"
"No," she said. "I just would have stopped being your friend eventually."
Huh?
This was amazing for me seeing that, with the exception of one guy, I liked all of her boyfriends and wanted her relationships with them to work out. I couldn't believe that she felt this way.
What was even scarier was that she could be pissed at me for so long and not say anything. It made me wonder if other close friends of mine were mad at me and just not saying anything.
Listening to her discuss all the reasons why she felt the way she does was emotional, heavy, and exhausting. So, even if there are other friends out there that feel as she does I'm sorry, I won't be asking you about it any time soon. I need to recover from this first.
This whole situation caused me to ask myself another question: at what point is someone's issue with you solely their issue with you? If a friend brings up something that you have done that upset them years after it happened, are you still responsible? Should you still apologize? Do you apologize when you suspect that a friend may be projecting personal issues on to you? How much of the bag do they have to hold for not bringing the issue up sooner?
At the end of the day, their is no expiration date on hurt, so I apologized. I also think of our friendship as more than the issues that she brought up, and I don't want us to move forward with animosity towards me.
"You should have told her to get out of her feelings," a 13-year-old I mentor told me after I shared this story with her.
Maybe. Perhaps that will be my approach in ten more years when she accuses me of something similar.

Barry and Wayne: Cyber Lovers

My friend Cassandra thinks that I should try to get out and date. Can you believe it? With all my issues and with all the things I need to accomplish IMMEDIATELY in my life, she wants me to go out on a date. That, my friends, would be a distraction. She doesn't get that though. What she also doesn't get (because I haven't told her) is that I don't need a date because I have crushes and imaginary relationships with men on Instagram.

I met a girl recently who told me that women change every five years. Their minds, their body chemistry, their career positions- all of it. They change every five years. I found this to be interesting since I have had the same boy crushes for about ten years. Sadly, I guess this shows that I am not progressing in life. I am prepared to accept that. You can't have it all. 

One guy, we will call him Barry, is tall, dark, and clean cut. He is my Obama. I like stalking his Instagram to see pics of him going to church and working on his abs in the gym. The other one, we will call Wayne, looks like he should be living out of a V Wagon on the beach someplace. His hair is wild, and his only vice is taking expensive trips around the world, cocktail in hand. 

I often imagine what life would be like with these two. Barry would buy me a dream house with a huge kitchen where I would bake cookies and prepare us smoked salmon. We would slow jam in this same kitchen to Earth, Wind, and Fire. I would be wearing the same black and white dress that Grace Kelly wore in Rear Widow. He'd be looking presidential in an all-black suit. Wayne and I would sit side by side in his unfurnished loft, eating Chinese food with our hands and watching random reruns. 

This whole thing is funny (or scary) because I know both of these guys. I went to college with them. And if either of them knew I had a play-play romance with them, I assure you that they would block me on all types of social media. 

Cassandra is married and she has kids. She is absolutely cradled in love. I have dipped my toe into the septic pool that is Atlanta dating, and have retreated comfortably into my mind and phone to partake in fake love. I have watched enough Iyanla Fix My Life to understand that this may be a symptom of a deeper problem. Until I am ready to address it, I will just continue having fun with my two boyfriends...in my head.