by Michael Reid
One Saturday afternoon, she was back in the window dressing the mannequins with the new fall line because it was the only time she could ever use her degree, doing what she loved more than the job itself. That day, her life changed drastically. A song by Keisha Cole called, “Love” began playing on her Pandora, and if you didn’t know any better, you would’ve thought that Keisha was right there in that window.
At about the same time, the chorus came in for the last time. An older lady came walking in the store looking for a black cami and some leggings. As soon as she stepped foot inside, before she could even open her mouth to ask where she could find what she needed, she heard Sarah’s voice bouncing off the glass window, like it was a game-winning three-pointer from half court. She ran over to Sarah and asked her, “Why are you here?” Sarah responded, “My coworker called in, and I could use the overtime.” She began to laugh while she reached in her purse and pulled out her business card. She said, “Your voice is too special for you to be singing to mannequins.” She continued, “If you ever want to do something else, besides overtime with your extra time, give me a call.”
The card read, Regina Phillips, A&R Virgin Records. Sarah, happy with the way her life was going currently, politely stuck the card in her back pocket, said thank you and finished the mannequins. On her way home, she thought about the offer. She couldn’t wait to get home to tell Chris about what happened today, anticipating that they would laugh about it over spaghetti and meatballs for the fifth time this month.
When Sarah got home she noticed Chris was in a bad mood. The new store the supermarket had opened wasn’t doing well, and his hours were being cut because they had more managers with seniority. She noticed his sadness, so just as she was about to pull out the card, she jammed it down in her back pocket and began to start dinner. After dinner and watching Love and Hip-Hop, Sarah was doing the dishes while Chris was in the bedroom preparing to do the laundry. He wanted to make sure they had enough clean clothes for the week. Last time Chris did the laundry, he forgot to take a pen out of his shirt pocket before putting it in the washer, and it messed up her favorite sweater. This time, before starting the load, he checked every pocket—shirt and pants—every sock, and he even checked the bottom of the washing machine to make sure the pen from last time wasn’t still there. It wasn’t, but he did find Regina’s card. He started the load, then walked into the kitchen and asked who Regina was. Sarah brushed it off saying oh she was just a lady that I met in Forever today who heard me singing. Chris asked her was that it. Sarah said, “No, she told me I should give her a call if I wanted to sing.” Chris asked her if she wanted to. Sarah said she had never really thought about it until the ride home on the bus today. Chris said she should give her a call. Sarah’s face lit up like a Christmas tree, and she replied, “Really?” Chris shrugged his shoulder and said, “Why not? I already knew you had a gift; we might as well show the world, too.” As the weeks passed, no more overtime for Sarah. She spent most of her free time and even gave up a couple of shifts at work every other week, just so she could meet with Regina and they could write songs and sing hooks—working to put together enough music to create an EP. Chris was fine with it; he supported her every chance he got. He would join her at the studio sometimes and bring her dinner if she came straight from work. If it was really late, he would travel halfway across town and catch the subway home with her because he didn’t want her out that late alone. Supportive to her the entire time. Never complaining.
A couple of months had passed. Sarah is still working her day job and still working with Regina; they were one song away from completing the project. She would be in the studio until after midnight some nights, getting a ride home from Regina because she only lived a couple exits past her on the freeway. One night she came home and dinner wasn’t made, the house was a mess, and Chris was asleep on the couch. She made herself a sandwich, put away some clothes and cleaned the bathroom before showering and telling Chris to come to bed. When she walked into the bedroom, she noticed there was a card and a bottle of perfume on the nightstand. The card read, “Happy Birthday.”
She looked at the date on her phone and realized that because of all the hard work on the music, she had missed her own birthday. She felt horrible. She stopped going to the studio for a week; Chris never asked her about it; he just assumed that she saw how the pursuit of her dream affected their relationship. Regina would text or call every couple of days, asking when she was coming back. It was around the holidays now, so she said that work was very busy and she didn’t have the time or energy to continue working on the last record.
One day, they were in a cab on the way home and Sarah thought she was hearing things. She asked the driver to turn the radio up, and what do you know? Sarah’s song was on the radio. She started crying. She immediately texted Regina and thanked her. Regina replied, “Do I have your attention now?” Sarah replied, “Yes.” Chris had a look of disbelief on his face. He was happy, but he wasn’t. He knew this was what was supposed to happen, but he wasn’t for it. Chris asked Sarah, “Are you happy now?” as if to say, “Now that your song is on the radio, can you give it up now?’ Sarah said she was happy, but that she wanted more. Chris wanted more, too, and in that moment, Sarah knew she was in trouble . . .
There’s this saying about how you don’t know who really supports you until them supporting you costs them something. Sometimes success puts a strain on relationships. Sometimes with success comes hate, jealousy, envy and all these nasty things that can tear even the strongest of bonds apart. Sometimes it’s the reason why some of us aren’t as successful as we could be. Sometimes we put success on the back burner because we know that the hardest thing in the world to do is to manage success and love, when only one of you is successful, but both of you are in love.
DEAR WOMAN,
Don’t be afraid to get your heart broken.
Be afraid when you stop fighting.
Fighting for what you believe in
For what you built as your expectations
Your limitations. Your crown.
That’s when you should be nervous,
When you water down your “woman.”
When you swallow your pride,
Just to wake up to somebody by your side,
Or to please a man that finds new ways to disappoint you
3 days after you forgive him for the old ones.
So, you put your “womanhood” on ice
When you get lonelier at night.
The winter usually has some of the coldest ones.
When they said, “Keep your enemies close”
They weren’t talking about your bedroom.
If you don’t know that one day he’s going to get on his knees for you,
How can you possibly give your head to him?
Or your bed to him?
You can’t keep lying down with lies
Wondering why you’re waking up with disappointments.
“WHO’S DRIVING?”
“You are in total control of your life; the second you stop believing that is the second you give someone else the keys.”
Every person out here subconsciously creates barriers. We do it because you can’t bring everybody home. Everybody gets lonely, too. This puts people in a tough position. Where most go wrong is assuming that just because a person makes it through a couple barriers, that means they get second and third chances to not do anything but hurt you again. The problem is, instead of putting a couple of barriers between the two of you, you’ll start creating barriers between what you thought you wanted and what you have.
Where so many people go wrong is when they think about love—they always use a different level of thinking. Everything else is pretty cut and dry, but when it comes to love, many of us don’t use the same common sense, the same attitude, the same courage to walk away as we would have with anything else.
“If you start treating love like you’ve been treating everything else in your life, you might jus
t start being as successful in love as you are in everything else in your life.”
Have you even been in the market for a new car? Good feeling, right? You sit down in front of a computer, start looking at cars online, reading reviews, asking friends about their cars, etc. Then, you finally figure out the car you want, you start picturing yourself in it, planning your first trip—you can’t wait to show all your friends, even your enemies. (We’re not going to sit here and act like everything we do is done with nothing but good intentions because we both know that’s a lie. If you know deep down in your heart that there are some people that you just want to “stunt on,” stunt away, just do it tastefully).
While in the market for this new car, you’ve got the make and model, maybe even the color you want picked out. Now, all you have to do is find it. So, you get out and walk on different car lots looking to find your car. Here is where things get tricky. You get to the lot, and you meet the car salesman. You tell the guy, or girl at the lot, “I want a 2011. . . . .” right, boom! Barrier. Now he or she can say they don’t have that car, and you can say, “Ok, thank you,” and walk off the lot, or you can let them continue and say, “However, I do have this, 2012 . . . that I think you’ll look great in.” Another barrier.
This might be the third or fourth car lot you’ve been on, it might be late, you might be tired, so you oblige and say, “Let me see it.” Barrier 3.
You check out this car, sit in it, drive it around the block, and you get back to the dealership. Now you have another choice.
Do I want the car that I want, or do I want the car that I’m in? Barrier 4. You’ll begin to notice the more barriers this car salesman breaks down of yours, the more comfortable he becomes. He will take what you thought was your dream car, and give you 300 reasons why you shouldn’t buy it, and another 150 why this one is better. He wouldn’t have said that to you when you first walked on that lot, now would he? No, because he didn’t feel that the two of you were comfortable enough for him to talk you out of your dreams. It wasn’t until you didn’t walk away, after he told you that he didn’t have what you were looking for, that he was confident enough to try and convince you to agree to something different.
What you’ve got to understand is, every time you step on a car lot is just like every time you date a man—you’ve got to be willing to get your heart broken. Plus, I need you to believe that the sooner this heart break happens, the better off you’ll be. That car salesman has one job: to sell cars. Their job is not to make people’s dreams come true; it’s not to give people what they ask for, especially when what they ask for is not what he has available. It’s your job to know what you want, before you even walk on that lot.
The more barriers you let this man break down of yours, the more difficult it’s going to be to walk away because you’ll begin to feel comfortable. It’s a trap. If you’re going to get your heart broken, do it at the dealership—before you sign any papers, before you invest any time, before you spend any money. If not, you might just buy that car because you’re tired of walking, tired of looking, tired of waiting. It won’t be until you’re at a red light, and you look over in the lane next to you at the car you wanted—same color, same year. Then, you’ll have to ask yourself, “Why didn’t I just wait?”
DEAR WOMAN,
A part of falling in love
is knowing when to fall out.
It’s knowing when to pull the car over,
and being confident enough to open your mouth.
Ask, “Where are we going?”
If you’re not satisfied with the answer,
be just as committed
to unbuckling that seat belt and opening the door,
as you were when you unbuckled your jeans
and opened your legs.
It’s about knowing when you’re being held down
versus when you’re being held up.
Though nobody teaches that.
Everyone uses love as an excuse—
an excuse to ask for forgiveness for their mistakes.
Those same people forget:
Yes, love is about understanding;
However, love is also about them
not putting you in that position
that you even have to make the call in the first place.
Give the good years to the good people,
instead of wasting your good tears on the bad ones.
DEAR WOMAN,
There’s nothing like a woman who can feed herself.
One who will always appreciate a man’s generosity,
but who never needs his help.
A woman soft enough to allow a man to put her on a pedestal
but strong enough to stand on her own two feet.
Any woman who walks the Earth with her hand out
has to be prepared for whatever people put in it.
Don’t let material things blind you from seeing what his purpose is for you.
Every hand isn’t there to help,
and not all gifts come from God.
The problem with charity is,
it’s usually people giving up the things they have the most of.
So, you’ve got an obligation—
A duty to put yourself in a position
where you pay your own way.
A lot of people do things for you,
just to be able to remind you that they did them.
They need to know that you can fly on your own.
They need to know that your party is still going to happen,
whether they show up or not.
Letting a man know that you don’t need him
makes the real ones excited,
and the weak ones run.
“HOLES IN YOUR ARMOR”
“Men run like water, and like water, they will find the smallest hole to get through to you.”
Dating is a process all its own. I have my reservations about some of the principles that are associated with it, but that’s a conversation for another time. What I want to talk about now are -ships: friendships, partnerships, relationships, or “situationships”; they all have the same ending in common. I don’t know if it was done intentionally or not, but that ending is so perfect for peoples’ places in your life.
Let’s say that instead of being people, we are all ships. When you think about a ship, water is its best friend, but it can also be its worst enemy. Just like people. So you are this ship, floating along, riding these waves of life—you’ve got some days that you might be riding some rough waves and some days where it’s just smooth sailing. That’s understandable, right? You know they have that saying about how smooth seas never make for a skilled sailor, so it’s really about how well you do in those tough times that will determine how well you sail this -ship, whatever type it might be.
About this water—as much as that water is your friend, it’s also the one thing that can take your ship under. There is no ship on Earth that can’t be sunk, some are just stronger than others, some are made up of better materials, some took longer to build, and some have old fashioned qualities. All of these things were designed so that this ship stood the best chance possible of not getting sunk.
I hope I’m not losing anybody because here is where things are going to start getting deep. (Slight Pun Intended) The bigger the ship and the more skillful the sailor, the farther away the ship can get from land before it feels uncomfortable. Sort of like us, right?
When we are younger, our parents have our backs. They allow us to experience the world. While we’re younger, we have the opportunity to go back home when things get rough, sort of like day trips. You go out on the boat, the weather might be bad, and the way your ship is built now, you just might not be able to handle it. You’re still young and inexperienced, so you take it as a lesson and get yourself back to safety before that water gets in and swallows you whole. As you get older though, things begin to change; when your ship is too big to fit in that dock, you’ve got to find a new place to put i
t. Sometimes it’s down the street, sometimes it’s on the other side of the world.
Now you’re out here on the water, and you don’t have the protection of the world like you did when you were just going out on those day trips. If you have some rough sailing or if you get into any trouble, you’re pretty much on your own. The good thing is, this is how you’ll learn how to take care of yourself because the world is 70% water, and you’re just one little boat, out here trying to find another dock to call home. Along the way you and this water are going to go through some things. Some days, you’re going to wake up, and it’s going to be so pretty to look at. Some nights, it’s going to rock you to sleep. The trouble comes when you have holes in your ship. What I mean by this is:
“Just like the water tests the integrity of your ship, some of these men out here will test the integrity of your “woman.” They will find any and every way to get in to sink you. You can’t let that happen. Like the water, a real man’s job is not to try and sink your ship, but to provide smooth sailing.”
You have a responsibility to leave no holes in your armor of womanhood that show weakness. You must be sure to keep a tight ship. Men will take advantage of you. You’ll start taking in water, and eventually, they will swallow you whole. If they see you’re low on money, they’ll use theirs to gain access. They’ll see that you’ve been out here on this water for a long time by yourself; they’ll do their best to convince you that these waves are too much for a woman to handle on her own. You might be lost and looking for direction; they’ll tell you how they’ve been there and want to help show you the way. You must give them zero room because all it takes is one hole.
All it takes is one area of weakness, one drop of vulnerability, one opportunity for you to let them on your boat, and they will turn that hole into crater. Then, instead of floating above the water, you’ll be sinking.