I have never come across another human being with a heart like hers.
When I was fifteen, my grandmother got very sick. She and my grandfather had just moved to Atlanta, near my Titi Edna. She was loving the slower pace of the South. We were still in Jersey when they moved from Brooklyn, but I would visit often.
My grandmother was diagnosed with cancer a couple of years after moving to Atlanta. Some of us in the family believe that she knew before she moved from Brooklyn. That’s still up for debate. But the cancer spread pretty quickly and she died before my mom, brother, and I moved to Atlanta, too.
In her last days she must have known her time was coming near. She called us all into her hospital room individually to say good-bye. I told her if she died, I was going with her. They would have to admit me into the psych ward because I just knew I would lose my mind.
“No, you’re not,” she said gently. “You’re going to carry on and do all of the great things I see you doing.”
Before she died, she told my mother not to put too many reins on me.
“That there is a bird. Let her fly. Don’t clip her wings.”
Mami Nina knew me even more than I knew myself.
And before she passed she told me, “I will always be with you. If you see a feather anywhere, that’s me.”
After she died, I would see feathers in the strangest places. I would be having a bad day and I’d be walking along and there would be a feather on the sidewalk. Just lying right there on the sidewalk. Or I could be having a great day and I’d be in a taxi or a car going somewhere and on the seat next to me would be a feather. There would be no birds or pillows or anything around and no other feathers. Just that one feather.
I used to collect them. Now I just smile and say, “Hey, Ma! I see you.”
I have a feather tattooed on my hand to remind me that she’s always there watching me. It keeps me focused and on the right path by serving as a reminder that I always want to make her proud.
She raised six kids in the Marcy Projects in Brooklyn. I’m sure she never imagined having a child or grandchild grow up to be on TV. They barely had a television in the house.
Whenever I would come to Mami Nina with an issue I was having with someone, from my mother or my stepfather to friends or a cousin, she would say, “You have to love people where they are.” She told me I had to find something about them that I could love and try to see me in them. If I could find something about them that was like me, then I could love them and not try to change them.
We are all made for a unique purpose and we must all find out what that is for ourselves. And we need to remember that everyone is walking their own path, dealing with their own issues, and trying to find their own happiness. The best we can do is to appreciate other people for who they are. I learned from Mami Nina the following piece of wisdom, and I’ve held on to it over the years since she passed: Don’t try to change anyone and don’t allow anyone to change you.
My mom was the first woman I had a strong relationship with, and to this day, she’s one of my best friends. I look to her for reasonable advice.
When I come to my mom, I know she’s going to give me commonsense advice that’s hard to come by today. Her advice is classic and hasn’t been changed by the entertainment industry. She couldn’t give a damn about a celebrity. One of the biggest things she would tell my brother and me was to treat people the way we want to be treated. I know it’s not a new concept, but she drilled that into us. Her big question would be, “How would you feel if someone did that to you?”
Don’t try to change anyone and don’t allow anyone to change you.
She wanted you to feel it from that person’s perspective. I mean really feel it. And it was effective. I live by that to this day.
My mother was raised in the Marcy Projects in Brooklyn, along with her five brothers and sisters. My grandmother came from Puerto Rico pregnant with Titi Edna. They didn’t have any money, but they were as happy as people living in Bel Air. As long as they were together, they were good. My family is close.
I grew up very Hispanic. Three Kings Day. Spanish music, Celia Cruz, Tito Puente. Always, all day long. Spanish food. Rice and beans or arroz con pollo. Every day.
My family taught me what is really important in life: family and love.
As a result, I have very high expectations for how a family should relate to one another. It’s really hard for me to understand when people don’t speak to their mom or they don’t get along with their family.
I remember the first time I heard someone say, “Fuck that bitch,” referring to his or her mother. I just could never fathom speaking to my mom or about my mom that way. I think it will be really hard to have a great relationship with your man if you can’t get right with the people who brought you into this world.
I come from a divorced household, so I’m not saying that you need to see a healthy relationship in your immediate life. You just have to see it somewhere. And more important than that, you need to see what love looks like. That usually starts with the love you have for your mother and/or father.
Whenever I’ve dated a guy and we’ve gotten serious, I wanted to have that bond with his family that I had with mine. I realize that perhaps my family is unique and not everyone has that bond. That’s fine, just as long as he doesn’t allow the dysfunction to creep over into our relationship. We are creatures of habit. If we’re used to something since childhood, it’s very likely that we will continue those habits and patterns in every relationship we have. He has to be willing to break those patterns and create new ones. But if he’s not willing to work through it, you will probably have to let him go. You can’t fix a messy relationship unless he brings the mop and broom to clean up the mess.
When I’ve encountered a man who has had a bad relationship with his family, I invite him into mine. I’ve found over the years that my friends gravitate toward my family. They even ask my mom for advice. That makes me happy because everyone needs to feel like they belong to a family, and if my man can get that through me, it’s great. I would rather him have a relationship with his own family, but if he doesn’t, he can have one with mine.
I think it’s important to look at how a man treats his mom as well. It will determine how he will treat you. It’s not absolute, but there is some truth to it. It’s not on purpose or malicious, but how can a man really know how to treat you or respect you if he hasn’t first done so with his mother? How can you know something you’ve never been taught?
We can all overcome our upbringing and our tendencies with some hard work, but some people use their dysfunctional or difficult upbringing as an excuse for being fucked up. Don’t fall for that game! If he’s a grown man, he knows right from wrong. Not having a great upbringing is no excuse for being a jerk. Work on yourself!
If your man is on that pity party train of “my parents were messed up and that’s why I’m messed up,” run. You’re not Iyanla Vanzant. You can’t fix his life. He’s the only one who can do that. Tell him to call you once he’s fixed himself. You can be there for him as a friend, but I think being in a relationship with a man who is so damaged starts you off with a damaged relationship. It’s too much.
TIMEOUT
“How Do You Make
That First Date Less Awkward?”
My first real date with Melo, I was filming with MTV on location in Long Beach, California. We met for dinner. I wore some nice jeans and a fashionable top. We went to a restaurant connected to my hotel. I brought a friend of mine who worked with me at MTV, and he brought a friend too. We both had someone to lean on if the conversation waned or got weird, so it helped to take the pressure off.
But of course we both let each other know we were bringing a friend beforehand. Don’t just show up on a date with a tagalong. That’s just strange. And it can be a real turnoff if it’s not discussed beforehand.
There are wom
en who like to have their girlfriends with them all the time. This is a big no-no, especially if you’re to get to know a man. It’s cool for the first date (provided you both discussed it), to have an icebreaker. But after that, go solo.
In the beginning of our relationship, Melo was the guy who traveled with a big entourage. At first, I wanted to be cool with all his friends. I thought that would make it better with us if his friends all liked me. But after a while it seemed as if we were never alone. I remember thinking, “I don’t know if I can do this . . .” and eventually I said, “Yo, when can it ever just be us?”
Melo is the kind of person who hates to offend people. And he’s definitely not the kind of guy who will tell people to go away. But as we got closer, the entourage got smaller and smaller. I actually like most of his friends. But I liked being with just him more.
CHAPTER THREE
Personal Foul: Young and Dumb!
Personal foul: Unnecessary rough contact. It is a breach of the rules that concerns illegal personal contact with an opponent.
First love is perhaps the most fragile and most important in a woman’s life. I remember being in high school wanting to experience it so badly. I would watch friends of mine fall in love and it seemed like such a fairy tale. I too wanted someone to go to Baskin-Robbins with, to the movies with, to hold hands with in the mall. I wanted to write his name and my name on the cover of my notebook inside a heart.
I didn’t have that in high school. And when it finally happened for me, I wasn’t ready. I did all of the wrong things. I was clueless. I wish someone had schooled me before I fell so hard. Looking back, I learned a lot from that relationship—a lot of things not to do, like not putting myself first, and not falling too hard too fast.
And now, I see that my sixteen-year-old cousin has her first boyfriend. I watch her posts on Instagram and I see the road she’s going down. I watch and I’m tempted to warn her, but I know how I warn her will matter. Some of the elders in my family are dismissing the relationship, saying, “You’re young. You will have dozens of boyfriends. Don’t get too caught up in this one.”
That’s the wrong approach. While it may be true, to her this is the only guy she sees herself with forever. She’s all in. And hearing our family say that it won’t last will only make her work harder to prove everyone wrong. She is more likely to do something crazy with everyone telling her it’s not real or he’s not the one.
That’s what happened with me. The more negative opinions people had, the more I shut everyone out and clung closer to him.
So I approach my cousin differently to give her some advice. I say, “I know how you feel about him and it’s nice. I’m happy for you. Just remember what you do now can affect the rest of your life. You don’t want to have babies yet.”
I also tell her to not forget who she is.
“You’re a smart and special girl,” I tell her. “Value yourself. Know what you’re bringing to the table. A person should be just as happy to be with you as you are to be with them. You guys look great together, but make sure you love yourself first.”
Love yourself first.
That’s what I would have told my eighteen-year-old self who was falling in love for the first time. I would have also told her: “Don’t ever love anyone (other than God and your children) more than you love yourself.”
I rode the whole eight hours from Washington, D.C., to Atlanta, crying. It was me and my dog, Blaze, all of my shit in the back of my Mazda MX-3. And my broken heart.
Somewhere around Richmond I was hoping we would hit a tree or something and I would just die. I couldn’t imagine living. Not without him. But I also knew I couldn’t live with him, which was why I called my father and asked him to come and get me.
This was my first love. My first true love. I was a freshman at Howard University. I had gotten in on an academic scholarship, but I spent most of the year doing everything but going to class.
And I didn’t want to hear any negativity about my relationship. If the people around me didn’t like it, they had to go. That’s what I told my mother, my father, and anyone who had an opinion about my relationship.
“If you don’t accept him, then you don’t accept me!” was my stance.
Looking back, I can’t blame my family for not being happy with Doug (not his real name). He was much older than me, and I was clearly not focused on my education. And perhaps they saw something in him that I didn’t see at the time. But I wasn’t trying to see it or hear anything. Dice calls this one of the darkest periods of my life, and certainly of our deep friendship and bond, because I wasn’t even really talking to her much, either. Dice was like my sister. She was closer to me than a sister and I alienated even her during this time.
My mom knew from the beginning that this man was trouble.
We both met Doug while I was making my college rounds. My mom and I had driven up the East Coast checking out schools. We went to Spelman in Atlanta, but I didn’t want to be so close to home. We visited North Carolina A&T and Hampton before landing in D.C. to check out Howard. I wanted to go to a historically black college, not for the history but because back then everybody knew that’s where you’d have the most fun. The HBCUs had a reputation of being party schools.
I fell in love with D.C. The city was cool, there were lots of things to do there, and they had a bunch of radio stations. I knew I wanted to be in radio, so checking out the local stations was high on my agenda. D.C. had some of the hottest radio stations in the country. Even Howard’s station, WHUR, could rival any commercial station on the air anywhere.
While visiting one of D.C.’s top stations, I met one of their star deejays, Doug. He took it upon himself to show me and Mom around, telling me not only about the station but also about the city. He was cute. He had these eyes that just made you want to melt. We flirted a bit and he made me feel like I was special. I was only seventeen, and he was a grown man—with his own apartment and car—which made him even more intriguing. He wasn’t like any of my high school boyfriends. (Not that I really ever had a boyfriend in high school . . . more on that later.) He just showed so much interest in me and I felt special.
I could see my mom giving me the side eye during the visit. And she would shake her head from time to time during our little tour. On the drive home she said, “If you pick this school, it won’t be for the school.”
“Ma, what are you talking about?!”
“I’m going to let you do what you think is best,” she said and left it alone.
I did end up picking Howard. And my mother was right—school wasn’t on my list of priorities when deciding. When I got back from our tour, Doug and I talked on the phone just about every day. He seemed to be really into me. He even came to my high school graduation in Atlanta. I thought I was the shit. I had a semi-celebrity, a real man, come to my graduation. He drove all that way for me. That really sealed it. I couldn’t wait to get to Howard in the fall.
When I got there, though, I spent very little time in the classroom. Most of my days were spent at the radio station hanging out with Doug, or in the clubs with him at night. Or I’d be in my dorm room waiting for him to call. Or in his apartment waiting for him to come home.
I felt like he understood me when I shared my dreams and goals, and I thought he could teach me things about the radio business I needed to know . . . among other things. His personality was very over-the-top, and very social. He was the life of the party. When he came around it was always fun times. I totally enjoyed being with him . . . at first.
My first week at Howard was a whirlwind. I couldn’t wait to be with Doug and away from the watchful eye of my mother. I went with him to a club date that he was hosting. He was the man of the night and I was thrilled to be there with him as his girlfriend, watching him do his thing. I was officially in love.
Afterward we went to this hotel. I was nervous and excited and at the sa
me time wanted to prove that I was a real woman, not a little girl. I was a virgin. It wasn’t something we had discussed because I didn’t want it to be a thing.
For me, being a virgin wasn’t a big deal. I wasn’t saving myself for marriage or anything like that. The opportunity had just never presented itself. What was crazy was that while I was very popular in high school, none of the guys I liked ever seemed to like me.
I was on the radio. I was hosting clubs. I was playing ball. I was the girl all the guys thought was cool. I was a tomboy, not one of the girls wearing the tight clothes or trying to be sexy, so I wasn’t catching looks like that. And I liked being a guys’ girl. I was the girl all the guys loved hanging out with, getting advice from. They respected me. I guess a little too much.
To this day, I’m still a guys’ girl. I still have a lot of guy friends and I’m the one they call and ask, “Why did this chick do so and so . . . ?” I’m their buddy that they like to hang out with and get advice from. It was that way when I was a kid and it’s that way today. There are advantages to being that girl—like you get to know what men are really thinking and you get to understand men from a whole different perspective. But there are definite disadvantages to being that girl, too.
I didn’t even get asked to my high school senior prom. My mom told me, “Oh, somebody’s going to take you!” But no one asked me. I ended up going with a random friend from another school. My mom always talks about that. She told me guys were intimidated to approach me because I was so popular and self-assured and independent. Or they just thought I already had a date.
The Love Playbook: Rules for Love, Sex, and Happiness Page 3