Love is a Losing Game

"He treated me like a lady, and once you get used to being treated well, you can't go back to bullshit..."-Savannah, Waiting to Exhale (film)

I've been a hopeless romantic since I was roughly four or five years old and bingewatched "Beauty and the Beast." Numerously throughout my old diaries ranging from age 9 and up, I discussed love and marriage as a form of escapism. As a kid, I wrote of having a husband like he would sustain me, be the one to save me, and reimburse love stolen before. Looking back on it doesn't make me sad. While now I've matured and grown to understand love and marriage are much more complex things (the two of us won't be pissing goddamn butterflies every day), I still someday want a part of it.

Sometimes I feel dumb in regards to how high a priority it is for me. That no matter all the traveling I'll do, books I'll read and write, degrees I'll obtain, and incredible adventures I'll partake in, if I have to walk into my house alone, I'll feel I've failed in some way. Like no matter all the fetching and rolling over I've done, licking faces, and keeping my coat nice and shiny, I'll be a good bitch worth a treat or two, the occasional belly rub, but time and time again, I won't be enough, and I'll watch all the other bitches get adopted, be loved, placed in houses with owners that will always cherish them.

Meanwhile, I'll still be in the cage.

It isn't like I need validation of my worth from a man. I know my worth, which is why being apparently unlovable to the opposite gender confuses the everlasting fuck out of me. I'm pretty. Supportive. Protective. Independent. Realistic. Loyal. Humble. Funny. Aware.

And I'm not desperate. I'll come to an empty house and cuddle my damn self before I let some loser ruin my credit/emotional health while continuing to occupy my bed. No, no. Still, it's nice to think there's a man out there who will look at me and say, "That's going to be my wife" and do everything possible to ensure that happens. Specifically, I want this to be a Black man. A Black man. I want my husband to be a Black man. "Drea, that's your problem. You're narrowing down your options. Love doesn't know color."

Oh really? Tell that to all these other people looking for partners with the sole intentions of producing "good-haired, pretty (a.k.a. lightskinned)" children.

I'll gladly pursue a BLACK ass man to be my BLACK ass husband, have BLACK ass children (if I ever fully decide I want children) with NAPPY ass hair. Love may not know color, but most of my color has been denied love, so that's bullshit.
That being said, I'm open to everyone else's choices because they don't affect me in any way.

I digress. It's not like I haven't been loved before both platonically and romantically. However, I haven't been loved romantically to the point where it was sincere enough for either of us to stay. I haven't loved sincerely enough for either of us to stay at times. This blog, in case you haven't noticed, is a confessional. I'm literally giving you all the link to my sins, not in the hopes of consolation or in the care of receiving judgment. I want to expose myself for myself. I've learned if I don't lie to me, I won't lie to you, and I won't accept lies from you.

In case you need a refresher or you're new here, take a moment to look back at my Badu post. It's essential for what I'm about to write. Got it? Good.

The effect of that social stigma, aside from the worsening of my anxiety and the religion I forced down to help me sleep at night, brought in me an indescribable desire to recreate myself. Not in the healthy way that arts school gave me, but in a way that made me literally rewire my conscious thoughts. As aforementioned, if I do not lie to myself, I am incapable of lying to others. Sophomore year, I lied. Did nothing but it. This Andrea was one for the books. From the things she wrote in her diary (every "thought" a lie) to her outward actions ("If it weren't for Jesus, the insecurities would've eaten me alive."), to the complete repression of her true desires.

There was only one moment, one time that I was honest with myself that year. I wrote, "The reason I don't drink or smoke or party and have sex isn't so much that I don't want to. I want to indulge in everything bad. It's human nature..." I forgot the rest of what I said, and that particular diary is located in another room that I'm not willing to get up and go to right now. Yes, that one moment was one where I allowed myself to think what I wanted, and I did absolutely nothing about it. I let it go.

Why? I didn't have the balls to indulge in "badness." Remember that acquaintance I mentioned in Badu? I made myself fall in love with him, flaunt being his girlfriend, go through all the motions and pain of a real relationship because this reinvention, this Andrea that disassociated from her true form, was a good girl. Clean reputation. Church-going. Wholesome. Had never done anything sexually outside of a relationship. Was pieced together from only the "best" parts of me.

Are you understanding what I am telling you? Are the wheels turning? Subconsciously, I knew what the hell I was doing, but I didn't allow that part to speak. Only pure thoughts from this pure Andrea. This Andrea that I was supposed to be. Frankly, she deserves an Oscar. I'm not boastful of this time period because it isn't something I take pride in. I squeezed into a box and convinced myself to be completely satisfied there. Genuine feelings did develop, but by then, I saw both of us in our true forms and they weren't compatible.

I feel that my love life is karma for my thoughts and actions. For those of you that don't know what karma is, it is basically the universe repaying one for his/her actions be them positive or negative. I am learning I am not a good person in the conventional ways. I am content with that. It's my truth, and I accept it. All my pursuits of romantic love have been to fulfill some selfish need or another.

All except one. There is one person I have loved wholly. He has seen dimensions of me that have been consistently barred to people. This person was a shelter that I still, despite how stupid it makes me feel, believe will shield me from the storm.

To myself and others affected by my destructiveness, I am honestly so sorry.