I will share “Something To Think About” for the next fifteen weeks on Sunday afternoon. It may be a quote, a picture, an interesting phrase I heard, artwork, etc. Whatever I share will surely be intriguing or involving enough to spark a casual discussion or in-depth conversation. Stay tuned every Sunday for this new feature!
Peace and blessings.
Have you gotten your copy of my new book: a collection of serial tales & flash fiction, Séduire (E-Book and Paperback) yet?
Our first date was on a cold and blistery winter’s night.
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It was a cold, winter’s night in December of 2005. I had just moved to North Carolina in June. I settled into the new life surrounding me and laid my cares and burdens down to pick up another day.
I ran away from Georgia the first chance I got. I was always running away from something, someone, or somewhere back then. Ran from Georgia to the Bronx. From the Bronx to Long Island. From Long Island back to Georgia, and then . . . the final marathon saw me running from Georgia to North Carolina.
And this is where I have been since 2005. And although I’ve lived in two different cities, I haven’t found the gumption to speed away again. Not yet.
The first few months in my new home were magical. It seemed as though this life was designed for me. At that time, the woman in my body loved everything she had to offer and yearned for others to see it, too.
I met him online. Facebook, to be exact. It was wild how we connected, clicked, and cautiously approached each other for digital conversation and the goings-on of getting to know one another.
My best friend was my roommate at the time. She was great “company to keep”, but I wanted more. And he was the more I was seeking.
After a few weeks of shooting the shit, we decided to meet in person for our first date.
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Which brings me back to that cold, winter’s night. I do not remember the time we agreed on nor do I truly remember what we did. My bones tell me we planned to do movies and then dinner. So, let’s say we did exactly that.
When he arrived at my apartment building’s front entrance, I smiled at the sight of him. I walked outside to our stoop because he called to tell me he was turning the corner and would be at my place shortly.
He was a perfect gentleman. He ran up to me, scooped me up, and hugged me as tightly as he could. It was a full embrace –a Grandpa Hug. I melted in his arms.
To this day, whenever I see him, I say, “You give the best hugs.”
It was lip-biting cold and we were freezing our asses off, so we decided to get into the truck and escape the monotony of the night. He guided me to the passenger side, peeled back the door, and held it with one hand while he led me inside with the other. Once I was seated, he had to summon the strength of The Hulk to close the door with both hands.
This truck was old. Nah, it wasn’t just old . . . it was ancient. It made a loud, clanking sound while we rode up and down the hills of Winston-Salem. I panicked the entire ride. The heat worked. It sputtered and coughed and he had to tap the dashboard every few minutes to keep it from going cold.
I sat in my seat and prayed we would not get stranded anywhere in this still new-to-me city. He reassured me, “It gets me everywhere I need to go.” While I thought to myself, “Yeah, but how safe is this vehicle, really?!”
He was the best date I had since an old high school-to-college love of mine. He was respectful, a lover of music and writing, the eldest of four children, and was soaking in the newness of recently burying his father.
Something in me cried for him. We dated off and on for about nine years–breaking up and getting back together. Finally, I told him, “We are so good to each other but we are not good for each other.”
Because no matter what we did, our schedules failed us. His grief failed us. My intent on writing, connecting, and running to other people failed us.
He traded in that clunker of a truck for a Jeep Cherokee one year after it finally died on one of our major highways. He traded in the recklessness of who I was for a lovely sweetheart of a woman who knows how to stay put.
We had an amazing life together. We just weren’t amazing together. You sit with that for a while. It’ll come to you.
Every time I think about my first winter in North Carolina, I think about him and that old clunker of a truck, and the strength it took for him to close the door to his broken down and beat-up vehicle, and the heart it took for him to finally walk away from me.
And honestly, I smile. Because really, everything was perfect but the truck.
It was a humid Sunday morning, and I was washing my hands at the sink in the women’s bathroom of my then church. A fellow usher/acquaintance came thundering through the door.
Her glasses were tilted slightly, her forehead had several beads of sweat congregating on it like the people in the pews of the sanctuary. She huffed and puffed and nearly blew the walls down, and then loudly said to me . . .
“Tre, girl!!! Help me!”
Before I could respond, this acquaintance lifted up her form-fitting black dress to her hips and tugged at a modern-day corset that seemed to be making its way down a path it was not supposed to go.
I stood there for a few seconds with wet hands, perplexed by this human who was exasperated and waiting for my assistance. I quickly dried my hands.
This was new territory for me. So many questions were running through my mind. What do I do? Where do I start? Should we just remove this thing altogether?!Why is she even asking me for help?!
So, I did what any nervously questioning human being would do. I slowly stepped behind her and said, “What do I do?”
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She began pulling her dress up even further and then called instructions out to me military style. This isn’t the kind of company I’d normally keep and at this intimate level of care, I worried that I was going to do something wrong.
“Pull the Spanx down, while I shimmy out of it.” Everything floated through my highly anointed yet VERY bisexual mind as I listened to this attractive woman in obvious discomfort instruct me on how to remove a conflicted piece of clothing from her voluptuous and striking body.
DO WHAT?! YOU WANT ME TO DO WHAT?!
I coughed to signal nervousness and then cleared my throat. “You want me to do what now, Jewel?!”
“Pull it down while I try to shimmy free. But don’t pull at it hard, pull slowly. Be gentle. Don’t tear the sides.”
UM . . .
This was my first real encounter with Spanx. The way my brain works is I began wondering why she put this God-forsaken thing on in the first place. Let your curves be free, love . . . is what I truly wanted to say. But she was wearing a form-fitting black dress, in church, during the summer months, and maybe there was something beneficial I didn’t know about to this torture.
I tugged at what felt like leather hide for minutes while she wiggled her hips feverishly to escape the clutches of the manufactured bone-crushing fabric. What seemed like forever, but was probably more like five minutes later, she was free.
She pushed her glasses perfectly on her nose, smoothed her dress down, tidied up her bun, folded the Spanx up and slapped them in her purse, then called to me . . . “Ooh, Tre! Girl, you are a lifesaver! Thank you!”
I shook my head in total disbelief but I didn’t want to be rude. “Cool beans, Jewel. You’re most welcome.”
After she left the bathroom, I washed my hands again, stared at the mirror, and said to myself, “What in the world just happened?”
A fellow usher/acquaintance was being tortured by a piece of clothing, and well . . . it was my calling to help.
*Names changed for the purposes of privacy and respect.
My third article about my maneuvering through perimenopause is up now at “Navigating the Change.“ I am always so grateful to K. E. (Kathy) Garland, for hosting my work on this incredible website for women battling and growing with the changes in their mid-life bodies. You can read my latest article, I Am Learning How to Live a Softer Life by navigating to the reblogged snippet below. Please comment, share, and like on the original post.
For those of you who do not know, I have keratoconus.
Not good news, but not horrible news, either from each visit …
So, my right eye is getting progressively worse; the focus will be to move forward with a non-invasive procedure called Corneal Collagen Cross-linking for it and reassess my left eye over time.
I go in for another follow-up in March and on that date, we’ll start preparing to get scheduled for the procedure.
The procedure will not cure me of my disease (it is lifelong), but it is supposed to stop my right eye from getting much worse.
I went to my optometrist afterward so she could go over what my ophthalmologist reviewed and had more testing done, and she confirms my right eye is an issue. I had another prescription done for my glasses and another set of scleral contacts ordered.
I’m tired from it all, but there’s no need for me to not do the procedure. I am terrified because of course, these are my eyes we’re talking about, but I don’t want my right eye to get much worse over time, either.
I’m not happy about having to have this procedure, but I’d rather it be this one than a cornea transplant (Yes, it is exactly what it sounds like!).
I am taking all of this in stride as best as I can and I am hopeful that next year will render better results for me. I will keep you all updated as to when the procedure date will be and how everything goes afterward (after the recovery and my eye heals up enough to do so, of course).
I still have some time before one last recheck, so I am going to bask in that fact and try not to make myself insane thinking about it all. Lol!
A Cornered Gurl 
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