It's interesting how so many things can affect you without you even knowing it. I generally find that I have bad luck in relationships. Well, mostly in identifying men who are good for me not just good feeling to me. And over the past year I've really tried to analyze why that is. I am most certainly beautiful (not vain) and I am intelligent and have a good, steady job. So what is it about my MANdar (man radar) that really isn't working? I actually considered dating a man who used to see drugs as a way of life. LMAO. Yes, I am laughing at myself. It was completely ridiculous for me to even consider it - especially since he is still living in the same city hanging out with the same guys he always did when he was a drug dealer. HELL NO! Not acceptable. But I think that realization was the beginning of a great break through for me. At that moment I looked at myself and asked "what do I want?" I had never really articulated this for myself. Sure, my girl Toya once told me that I should make a list of 100 things I expect/want from the man I would like to marry. But I never did it. And suddenly, as I dodged what would surely have been another major dating mistake, I began to see what it was I wanted. I began my list. And what I found then was that I could see more clearly the flaws in people I was picking. Yet I continued to entertain these bad picks. My girl Monie finally asked me “Drea, why do you keep picking these guys when I’m listening to the things you say you expect, and these guys are even doing it?” Good question, huh? Monie is very wise.
So I started thinking about that too. How was it that now that I had the list, and I could tell you all the things these silly men did wrong, or occasionally right, that I couldn’t see how I was ignoring my expectations? Why was I so quick to think there was a flaw in me rather than in them? Finally, I reached a little deeper and realized that I, myself, was hurting and wanting for something that no man could fix. In fact, it was something that I thought I was over and not concerned about any longer. But it bothered me that my attempt to get over my parents’ divorce can be more effectively described as burying all my feelings for the sake of not bothering anyone with my feelings, my anger. This anger and hurt colored all my choices. At my heart, I couldn’t see relationships working. Finding people with flaws made their actions more predictable. My hurt behind the failure of a relationship was slightly less painful. All men could meet that expectation easily; they failed to be honest, faithful, up-standing. And I couldn’t keep them. (what a surprise)
Then I read the writing on the wall. Until I dealt with my own issues, I would keep finding men who fit that underlying expectation – that expectation that clouded by judgment. After reading it, I wrote about it. After I wrote, I mailed it. After I mailed it, I got to have the conversation that was twelve years in the making. And although I have not had time to see the manifestation of these labors and tears and years, I feel it. I feel the rebirth of me. I feel my eyes opening and seeing with abundant clarity and I am able to respond. I am able to control myself and see my expectations as things never to be modified, lowered, or compromised. I feel alive and safe within my own skin. I feel in love with myself, which means I am finally ready for what may come though I rush it not, for I am steady in my belief that it will come in due time. He will come in due time.
