Love Struggles
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I recently watched a movie that took me back to my early 20s.
There were parts of the movie that was hard to watch because it reminded me of my own personal experiences. I could relate more than I wanted to admit. It is unfortunate that some things we come to realize and see in hindsight.
I couldn’t see the love that was right in front of me. I took life too seriously. I wanted to succeed more than I wanted to live.
I wish this movie had been available back then. When I think about the reviews and comments that were listed, though, I may have been one of those women that still missed the point had I seen it back then. Perhaps the timing was perfect and for now.
Black men are some of the most misunderstood males on the planet. In their comments it seemed a lot of the women could not understand why the guy destroyed things in the apartment that he shared with the mother of his third child. They seemed to think it was because he wanted to hurt her. He was angry; however, his anger really wasn’t directed at her. He was trying to erase himself. He could only destroy the things that he made. He was a carpenter. If he had wanted to hurt her he would have destroyed her piano which was the item that meant the most to her. He did draw back his hammer to hit it but he couldn’t do it. He realized it wasn’t about her. It was about him. He sat down on the piano bench and cried. He saw his life.
So many of the scenes matched my life, but that particular one pulled back the curtain for me. We can all make excuses for why things happen the way they happen in our lives, but the truth is we are responsible for the direction and the paths that we take. If only we could hold on long enough. Life gets in the way of the life we see. It gets in the way of the life we want. It gets in the way of the life we need.
Love is not weakness. Love is the greatest strength we have. We give of ourselves in different ways, but the hardest thing for us to give is — in. Giving in makes us feel depleted. We don’t want to feel vulnerable. We must remain strong at all cost. Never mind that we are shattering on the inside. Keeping face is a must. We are afraid of disappointment. We are afraid to believe and trust. What a price we pay. We’re scared and we won’t say that we are scared to the one that can hold us up. We tell ourselves that we’ve been let down and dropped so much that we can not bear it again. We disconnect. We cut off. We sever and a piece of us dies.
We watch our men walk away knowing that we love them and we tell ourselves and sometimes them that we hate them. It’s not them at all that we hate. It is the circumstances. It is the situations. It is the life we see that is getting in the way of the life we want. The life we know we could have — if only…
Looking back over my life, I believe I have become a better woman but my heart was sacrificed in the process. If I am to be honest, I have lost love because of my own undoing. When I summoned up the courage to say what was really in my heart, it was too late.
