Lessons from a Lived Life, Part 2 or Ain’t No Way!

I was not going to write this article because it still hurts to this day, but I figured that I started down this road, so I should see it through. But let’s get some bullshit out of the way real quick…

Keith was a self-absorbed asshole who was only nice to me when he needed someone to stroke his fragile ego, but beneath that fragile veneer was a beautiful but damaged soul that had been hurt so many times it didn’t know how to accept love. Keith had grown so used to drama in his life that when it didn’t exist, he manufactured it. I tried to show him, through my love, that everything was ok, that he didn’t have to be worry about being hurt again, that he could let the walls down, but it never worked. Sitting here today, I am embarrassed by how much foolishness I put up with, all in the name of something that was never meant to be. The last straw of ALL last straws was when he came to visit and cut the fuck up.

We were supposedly broken up, but being the young fool that I was, I kept being nice to his ass, and so I brought him with me to this party. Since we were “just friends” (his words, not mine), I didn’t protest when this young cutie with green eyes started flirting with me. Keith got jealous and made a scene, announcing to everyone that he needed some cocaine (COCAINE!!!), and trying to fight the dude. Of course, everyone is looking at me likeI was completely and utterly done with the drama that was Keith. I haven’t seen or spoken to that hoe since. My gay mama once told me that I would never get over Keith unless I got over him. I had to stop talking about him, stop thinking about him, stop being in that space, and although it was hard, I did. I had finally learned my lesson. I wrote down all the things that were wrong in that “relationship” and vowed I would not make the same mistakes again, so when Darius came along 8 years later, I was prepared…

Hey girl, what you doing? You gettin’ up? Oh, you got to go? Ah, don’t go just yet baby, uh… Vous étiez incroyable! Hmm? Oh that’s French, baby, means “You were incredible”! Huh? Where you got to go? No baby, don’t go, don’t go right now, I can’t stand it! Please! I love you baby! I love you so much!

 

Baby, Baby, Baby, Baby please don’t go!
Don’t you know I still love you so?
Honey, Honey, Honey, Honey you know I still care!
And I still got lots of Love to share!
Ah, you for me, me for you
Ah baby we’ll be going through
Love so deeply ‘Til tomorrow
You have stolen my mind completely
Have a heart hey, hey, hey, hey
Hold me sweetly, now, ‘Til tomorrow
— ‘Til Tomorrow, Marvin Gaye

That summer after IML, I lived on Love. I loved Darius and he loved me back. I had found The One. Every moment we spent together was a fresh contentment, devoid of the neuroticism of previous relationships.We could be naked with each other, physically and emotionally, existing in the silence and comfortable in the intimacy of its emptiness. If there is space that exists beyond Love, for a time, I lived there, pouring all of my physical, mental, emotional, and sexual energy into that space. The summer culminated with a cruise in celebration of my 40^th birthday with all of my Bristas and, of course, the love of my life. Without sounding overly maudlin (too late for that), it was the most perfect week of my life.And then

And then

And then……everything fell apart before my eyes.

Darius was and is a beautiful, smart, funny, and sexy soul who was deeply wounded by the unspeakable things people did to him in his past. We often spoke of it and I reassured him that I was nothing like those people, that I was only there to love him and be made happy by that love. Looking back, the cruise was the beginning of the end.

Maybe Darius finally saw the full extent of my love for him (Ya Brista can be quite convincing!) and couldn’t handle the intensity of it. Maybe he never really loved me the way that I loved him. Maybe he was scared that I would hurt him like so many others had in the past. All I know is that we began to see less and less of one another, and by Christmas, we were fighting and not really even speaking to each other. The year of my 40^th birthday, which had started with such promise, had ended on a deeply sour note. I was left standing in the empty space that our love once occupied.

Oh, if you have to go
I won’t say no more
I’ll just shed a tear
When you’re gone
And wish you were here

Darius was so very different from Keith, but in many ways, they were the same person, and I ended up repeating the same patterns, much to my chagrin. As with everything, there was a lesson to be learned and this one was much more personal because it was a lesson about who I was and how I operated in the world.

Maybe it was because I spent too much of my childhood trying to fix the broken relationship of two people (my parents) who should have divorced when I was ten, but who stayed together in one way or another until the day my mother died when I was 28. I don’t know exactly from whence it sprang, but somewhere along the line, I developed an attraction to pretty young wounded boys. Even worse, I don’t just want to fuck them, as so many people in their lives had, figuratively and literally. No, I fall in love with them and try to fix them, not with money and material things, but through the sheer force of my love for them. And it never works. Not once, ever!

When I first met him all those years ago, I remember joking to a friend that he was the soon-to-be-ex Mrs. Dominion ONYX. How I wish that joke had not come true! I thought I was playing it safe with Darius, by taking it slow in the beginning. I thought I was inoculated from my past because I knew he was wounded from the jump, but no. With achingly familiar lyrics, our relationship had played out like all my favorite silly, sad, melancholy kind of love songs…

My story end, as stories do
Reality steps into view
No longer living life in paradise – no fairy tales

–Fairy Tales, Anita Baker

My heart bears the footprints of 2 or 3 men who stomped on it, whether accidentally, or on purpose, and the one thing that they had in common is that they did not, would not, or could not return the love I gave. Through Darius, I finally learned that no matter how much you vibe with someone, not matter how good your chemistry, ultimately, you can’t love someone who won’t or can’t love you back.

Ain’t no way for me to love you
If you won’t let me
Ain’t no way for me to give you all you need
If you won’t let me give all of me
I know that a woman’s duty
Is to help and love a man
And that’s the way it was planned
Oh but how can I, how can I, how can I
Give you all the things I can
If you’re tying both of my hands?
— Aint’ No Way, Aretha Franklin

And thus ends the silly, sad, melancholy song of the loves of my life and the lessons learned.