Sunday, May 27, 2012

Not Always a Black and White Thing...





Chapter 1 - The Beginning...

Everyone views a successful relationship differently.  There are some who believe success is measured in years a couple is married.  Others believe a successful relationship is one where the couple never fights and seemingly, everything is perfect.
Others believe that just surviving through a relationship, taking some knowledge from it and using it to better the next relationship is something of a success itself.

Then there are those who find every reason in the book for a relationship to fail, they pick apart every aspect of a couple. Maybe they are gay, maybe they are different in many ways, maybe they both have children from a previous relationship but the worst of all offenders are those who say a relationship between a black man and a white woman will not work.

I myself have been in a few long term relationships.  I feel they were all successful and don't measure them as a failure just because they ended.

I've been married before, been divorced, laid family members to rest at a very early age, gave birth, helped another person bring their child into the world and have had many happy memories as well as sad ones.  I consider myself to be very knowledgeable about relationships whether between a man and a woman or between a parent and child.  I understand people both men and women.  I empathize very well and am compassionate about what I believe in.

Life can be very difficult and it certainly has been for me but I have always refused to use my sad childhood and experiences as a crutch for poor behavior now or to use it as an excuse each time I've ever made a bad decision.  I think that as an adult, you must stand on your own two feet, be able to let go of your past and move into the future with a positive and happy outlook. It won't change the memories you have but, it will help you to get past them.

After my marriage ended I stayed single for a while.  I enjoyed the freedom of dating whom I wanted and when I desired.  I have never discriminated either racially or otherwise.  I love men.  I always have.  I can appreciate a man who takes the time to groom himself, keep up his appearance and who has a genuine love for his woman.

Dating a younger black male was not something I planned.  It literally just happened.  I was at work one day and he was a new person at that site.  We met and the rest as they say is history.  Due to the field of work I was in, I had access to much of his private information including his age.  That didn't seem to deter me but, it did give me pause.   I had been immediately attracted to him and being that I was single at the time, I had to carefully think about the "what if's".

We began to talk and things started slowly.  We would text and he would come into where I was working.  He was on the shy side so I took the initiative to get to know him and let my intentions be known.  I finagled his phone number from him and we began to communicate via text messaging.  We eventually met up and had a long talk one day in a local park.

From there things went on and we began to have an intimate relationship.  It wasn't long before he was asking me to move in and it just happened to be perfect timing; I agreed.

Chapter 2 -- Something New, Something Old


It isn't long in most relationships when the honeymoon period ends and reality sets in.  At the beginning of the relationship it was always a happy union, so glad to see each other, giving hugs and "hi's" and "I missed you's" which after a few months was followed by barely getting off the rump to welcome a person home.
"Home" is a funny word.  It has so many meanings to everyone.  When I think of home I think of warm hugs, love, a safe place, my inner sanctum where only those I want there are there.  I never thought I'd view home as the place I wish I was going at the end of each day but, there were days like this from early on.


The newness, the honeymoon, the freshness all was traded for routine, comfort, not trying, not working hard and taking for granted.  Admittedly, I settled right into all of this too.  He made it so easy!  This is the same guy that thinks it perfectly normal to come and pee in the bathroom while I'm showering or for me to pee while he's shaving.  What happened to modesty and privacy?  I'll tell you.. It went right out of the window with the rest of the formalities. HA!


Some may say I should have left early on, I must have been fooling myself to accept such a young man to be mature, experienced and ready to take on a serious relationship but I overlooked the part during the "get-to-know-you" ceremony where he said he'd only been in one long term relationship and that was for two years.  Wow!  Did I purposely overlook this, ignore it or was I being ignorant and naive? I'm sure it was a combination.  I can assure you that i was fully aware of when I entered into this.


Before too long the arguments came and went.  The lovemaking came and came.  The make up sex was always the best.  You can't beat the passion involved between a man and woman when they are helping each other physically get over the enormous argument you just had about who was taking out the trash this time.  No my friends.. nothing beats make up sex.




Chapter 3
We broke up and....
We started a new business!  http://www.shop.com/QAG  - please check it out!!  


Are you currently unemployed?  Are you bored?  Do you think to yourself you could never go back to work to the same boring thing you've been doing?  We felt the same way when we found ourselves unemployed.  He's retired from the military (medically), I'm laid off and the more we talked, enjoyed our $50 outings, the more we realized we can never go back to a "9-5" type job.  I felt conflicted sometimes too, I think anyone would but we just decided to save money here and there and invest in ourselves and invest in something we really believed in. 


Here is the thing, we talked, discussed this for a long time, probably over the course of a couple of weeks and we just decided that if other businesses could be successful, why not us?  Don't we deserve to at least have that chance?  I don't think I've set unrealistic ideas about this but it's a minimal investment and the potential for a large return.  We had to do it.


If you missed the sentence under Chapter 3, we did break up.  He is slated to move out in a few months.  It was within days that we were discussing this business venture.  Call me crazy but, I'm giving it a whirl..


Stay tuned...