Ramble

I don’t mean to be difficult. Truly, I don’t. But I suspect that maybe since I’m not a passive woman by nature that some men perceive me as difficult. I don’t bow down, I don’t walk behind, I am not agreeable just to be pleasing. I speak, I want to be heard, not loudly because I don’t like yelling. It fucks up my singing voice and I like to sing…in the car, the shower and while I’m cooking and cleaning. But I am, deep down, very good and extremely loving, yet I won’t mind it much if I piss you off with my opinion. If you’re worth it, you recognize that it’s just an opinion and those are changeable. My heart is big and capable. So, yeah, I hope I don’t give them all the wrong impression of me. Not the good ones, at least. Not the ones I’d actually care to get to know. But I think, also, that if I am moved to get to know someone that they likely have a personality that wouldn’t find mines to be difficult. I’m not for everybody, though. I am ambitious and confident…at times. Insecure sometimes, too. Not arrogant, unless I need to be, which is usually just a front. I am curious about the world and finding my way in it requires me to ask questions, speak up, go, do, and allow people to see me as I am. And the men that intrigue me are the ones who aren’t threatened by my curiosity and confidence and desire to be free. They welcome those things about me. Not that I am completely untraditional or a threat to traditional values. I am traditional, to a degree. But in the sense that men and women protect and love one another and neither is the head or the foot. They sharpen one another, make each other better, and no one is in charge of the other in a perfect relationship. In my opinion, at least. Until and unless I can find that I will remain alone. I’d rather remain alone than be someone’s garbage receptacle.  I wonder if there is someone who gets that.

This morning, as my family and I were getting ready to head out to the beach for a Labor Day picnic, my niece had just watched her boyfriend leave her house when she heard gunfire. She ran outside in a panic, worried that Jamal had been hit. What she found was a faceless boy lying on the sidewalk. She said she couldn't recognize him at all, his face was completely gone and she was overcome with shock and tears. Then she noticed his shoes and realized it was a good friend of hers, a friend of her boyfriends as well. This all happened before noon today. According to my neice, he was 16 and had recently been kicked out of his parents' home and was trying to find himself. The news says that he was 17. No matter, he was a child and he was gunned down in cold blood in broad daylight on the street. Naturally, everyone was shook up and sad. Jamal, my niece's boyfriend vomited. My mother's first instinct was to get them away from there as quickly as possible. The police had the street blocked off so we had to pick Jamal up from 7-11. We kept our plans to go to the beach and, although our hearts were darkened today, we did our best to uplift one another with love. I think the ocean helped as well. They smiled and laughed a lot as waves knocked us all around. RIP Charles.