What It Feels Like: A Way Out

There’s a lot of things I’ve been fortunate enough to experience when it comes to relationships. I’ve learned the importance of having the ability to understand. Sometimes people can unintentionally hurt you, not knowing that their reality can have a 'not so cute' effect on the next. Yes, it is our choice on whether we want to deal with anyone who will hurt us, but at what point do we draw the line? I’ve been every kind of girl, the one who would cut someone off immediately because they had me f*cked up, and I’ve also been the girl who would stay around for the potential of evolution. There’s power on both sides, but I've started to ask myself when I have to handle myself and others, “which path leads to love?” That’s my motivator, love. Now that doesn't mean it’s all sweetness over here. I 'head' to love, which means a lot of the time, I’m not there.

I did a series of polls on my instagram not too long ago where I asked people ``What Comes First: Career or Love”. I had a fair amount of people say “Career”, and a fair amount that said “Love”. Then I went on to ask each group (People who chose career/ People who chose love), was their choice made while being in survival mode, most said yes, few said no. It showed me most of us are really out here surviving. There’s a difference between living and surviving. When you’re surviving you think on defense, you’re in a constant state of protection, and sometimes we protect ourselves from the very thing that was sent to heal and revive us. Many of us are simply just trying to get through life, and do whatever we can to prevent harm inflicted onto us. But when do we recognize that we’re in survival mode, and that it’s affected our perception of our own reality?

My first date was personally one of those "beginner’s luck” dates. It was actually like the ones you see in the movies, I think it’s the cutest thing to this day lol. This man went to the same school, and lived on the same street as me, and we found this information out in the same week. Mind you, we’ve been at our homes for years. He was trying to talk to me for a bit, but I’m so shy ya’ll… I was running from him so much. This was my first experience of having a guy give me the look of pure admiration. He was in awe of me (as he should…) and he was persistent. It took a few weeks for us to finally go on this date, and I had such a good time. The butterflies were there, he was such a gentleman, and we ended up talking for hours that night. By the end of this beautiful evening of laughter and conversation, we were at this park. It’s freezing, we’re sitting close, and it gets silent. Not in an awkward way, there was this cute level of innocent tension going on. Our heads were shriveled to our bodies so we weren’t looking at each other but then the time came and we both slowly looked up, faces less than an inch apart from one another… more silence… more admiration...and then more laughter.

He stands up, and takes my hand and as I think we’re about to head home (also thinking “I know this man is not about to not kiss me”). He pulls me in, and goes in for the kiss. Now for my favorite part, as soon as we kiss, the sprinklers cut on, and I promise you that moment beats any kiss I saw in the movies throughout my childhood.

We continued for the next 2 weeks hanging out at the end of every day, and it got to where he asked for us to be exclusive. You would think I would've said yes, but my first word was “Exclusive?” (I am laughing cringingly typing this) Oh I saw the spirit in him leave, but I really just needed time. It felt too soon, and personally I wanted to protect myself from being hurt in the upcoming weeks. It’s amazing what you can admit when you look back.

Ya’ll… Do you know how many hell stories I’ve witnessed and heard? Now I'm not usually pessimistic, but ya girl was in her head til this connection slowly but surely faded away.

I’m not regretful, it happened, and he was perfectly fine. I later found out from the homegirl who was also our neighbor, that she saw him with girls all the time on our street. So umm... there’s that.

However, even though my survivor's instinct served me right. I knew that I wasn’t rooting for us to win to begin with. This is the experience where I began to notice this habit. I consider myself a ‘temporary lover’ for most of the people I will encounter in my life. People think they love me because of the safe space I've always been for them, but it's not me they love, it's themselves. They love who they can be with me, and that I see them. I’m glad I can be that for others but I deserve to receive as well. I want to fall. I want to root and be sure of the success of my potential relationships, and not wait for the failure in them. I attract success. I trust that even if I fall and get a little scraped up, I’ll be okay.

Executing these declarations are challenging at times, I'm in defense mode more than I realized, and baby I'm working on it (don't hold me too much now). I got one day at a time, so thankfully time gone workout my patience. I'll keep ya'll updated, let me go make some calls lol.

Alexa play by "Off The Table- Ariana Grande, The Weekend"

Speak soon <3

-Malaiye