Recovery-- Take Six: Acceptance

Acceptance is a hard pill. When you accept a situation, it means you have or at least in my mind, you have resigned yourself to the current situation. I had a series of interesting talks with people recently including a few members of my family. One in particular, my aunt Pamela. Pamela is the closest in age to me being that she is 11 years older. There have been many times in my life when Pamela and I really haven't been on the same page. I like to think of it as sibling rivalry but the problem is, I have no biological siblings, that I at least know about. On to the conversation..I explained to her that my concerns regarding my feeling emasculated by my mother. As she allowed me to lament and vent, she nodded and eventually got around to saying some items that I began to give credence to. In short, she said, "You done lost your swaggar." You have lived a life of being co-dependent. If you weren't co-dependent upon your mother, you got co-dependent upon your wife. When a wife looses respect for you, it's (the marriage) over. Your wife didn't feel secure, she took liberties with your mom, you let her cuss your mom out, then you cussed us out, then you exiled yourself for six months and now basically, you are ass out. Your mother, who is 60 is mad because she is having to carry you while her husband is retired. You are 39 and you aren't acting your age but your shoe size. You have yet to accept your apartment. Your wife isn't coming back to you. She is done, your mother, she is done. You've pretty much have to man up. -- Again, this is a term I hate being used by women in an attempt to spark men into action. Could be because in my head, women should not be defining masculinity but instead men should be able to establish masculinity on their own terms.-- Side note: Unfortunately in our culture, the 21st century post modern African American culture, masculinity through the eyes of dare I say, a majority of African American women, has been predicated on the hegemonic ideal. Money[squared](2Power+2Power)/socio eco status=respect. A man is not a man if he is financial, plus cultured, plus educated-by educated meaning degreed. If you are a work in progress, you are not a man and therefore a social eunuch. -- this could be why Pamela stated I "lost my swaggar." It doesn't help either that despite the fact that there are plenty of support groups for African American women, when they hit a bump in the road-- very much like mine, synonymous to The Women Brewster Place, our sisters know how to close in the ranks to support one another. Within the context of this debate, I actually called Pamela on what I felt was a gendered double standard in the current family dynamic. Her son TJ who is 18, he too, grew up without his father, being raised by a single mother. Pamela's sister, the middle child, Cyn, has a daughter Rochelle who too was raised without her father. What I noted was that how Rochelle who is now a senior in college, sent a text message to her mother which stated this: Mommy, today I paid X, Y and Z and I did it without being dependent upon any man. Thank you Mommy. I was like, I am happy for her new found independence, that said--you are telling me that my role and TJ's role are to not only be independent ourselves but also pay the way for the newly independent black woman. In a nutshell, you are saying the black woman is a hypocrite and brothers who have our "swaggar" are supposed to buy this. Pamela's response was yes, we are funny that way. -- In my mind, I could now see how a black man would reject the black woman. With thinking like that I felt totally discombobulated. In my mind, I felt as though my wife and I were on the cuspid of greatness. I felt we were going to be among the new black elite. The super couple if you will. Here were my reasons; on the surface, after our second meeting in 2001, i thought she was fine. She had a beautiful ass, with honey blond hair. I was like man, we gonna make some beautiful babies. The second thing, she fit my chief prerequisite, she was an intellectual. I've always found the mind sexy. Three, her smile. She looked at me, while I was trying to play it off, but admittedly i was peeping her for a while. I though I was successfully in what I like to call "stealth mode." Then when she called my name -- well stealth mode had been compromised. Ok so we fast forward to the first year. I'm like ok I don't know if this is going to work. I started thinking about other options and then at a wedding, I saw this older dude talking to her. I got mad.. I was like who in the hell is this old troll with no hair a gut talking to my woman.. Oh oh-did I say that? Yep in 2002, I took ownership and was like from that point forward, this is my lady, all other brothers keep your eyes in their sockets or be prepared to pick them up off the floor. By 2003 I was ready to make the ultimate move. But like in a bad romantic comedy, stupid male ego. She felt as though I was cerebrally copulating with an Ex in Chicago. I was so mad because I was going to propose that year. Well after the male pride back fired, and i was listening to Barry White drinking a bottle of Stolli Vodka (100 proof) I realized after three weeks I couldnt live with out her-- I was in love in fact my proposal came as a slight surprise because we had an argument before we were supposed to go to Chicago for a conference. I was like, if I get to Chicago, I'll get there if I don't I don't. I already bought the ticket and I had the ring. So in April of 2003 i got down on one knee in the Signature Room on a Saturday Night overlooking the water of Navy Pier. I said how I knew the water relaxed her. I loved how the water looked at night. For me this is a special night, and I hope after this it will be a special night for you too. If you'll have me, I want to be your husband, for now and always. Will you marry me? And thats where I think things went down hill. We planned a big wedding but failed to plan a financial future. The goal was that I would go back to school, complete my PhD while she would work. I would use my retirement to support us as well as student aid and scholarships. But we did not move to DC which in hidsight would have been a better option for our marriage. The money in our marriage was funny but no one was laughing. She put up with a whole lot of crap. "If I knew back then, what I know now, If I understood the what, when, why and how, Now its clear to me, what I should have done, cause hindsight is 20/20 vision. Taking time to catch up some history, trying to figure out what went wrong with you and me, and doesn't really mater what we did before, cause I know there's no future, when you're walking out that door." George Benson and Patti Austin--1985. Its amazing how songs that you don't really think about suddenly matter when they become the sound track of your life. So anyway, my aunt was like you out here doing the James Brown Please Please Please Please, while she's singing hit the road jack. So in the words of Austin Powers, my mojo is gone and I want it back. But what do you do, After the Love Has Gone, what use to be right is wrong. Like Phil Collins, you coming back to me is against the odds and thats what I've got to face.