Impending Marriage

People don’t tell you how terrifying considering  marriage can be. No one really warns you much until you’re suddenly in a relationship and nearing that decision very seriously. Some people get really intense about it. “You really want to deal with that?” They ask. Wondering if you’re really sure. Then reiterating the horror stories they’ve lived out and seen. Of course they mean well…you suspect. They aren’t trying to harm you. They just want to ask the hard questions. They may be scared for you, or just want you to think very seriously and critically about another person. They just want to help. 

At least I keep telling myself that. 

Because I’m a very empathetic person, I often hear about other people’s relationships, and usually  what they tell me is their frustrations with their spouse’s dysfunctions. How those dysfunctions make them feel. How they’ve dealt with those dysfunctions (usually in a way that I personally feel as very irrational or poorly done) and their lack of success for change (go figure). I often try not to give my opinions, because as an empath, my first resort is to try to see the other person’s perspective. To ask why they think their spouse/significant other does that particular behavior. To try to get them to think. What I end up doing is upsetting them when I do that. Being told I’m too young to understand and how it was foolish of them to confide in me. 

No, it wasn’t foolish to confide in me. I’m not too young. I understand perfectly clearly what’s going on…and you’re both being morons. 

While I can be a stubborn person, I usually have enough personal understanding to realize when my stubbornness is destructive. That’s from years of watching dysfunctional relationships happen before my eyes, combined with being an introvert. Introspection is my specialty. Self awareness is essential to me. I know my words will have an emotional impact on someone, because the words of others have had an emotional impact on me. Because I am an empath I find myself caring very much about how my words impact another person emotionally, and I put a great amount of effort into making sure I communicate myself well so my words affect that individual exactly how I want them to. I recognize that not everyone is like me in that way. Most people speak out of emotion. It’s all very heat-of-the-moment. Things are often said that aren’t meant. Miscommunication happens. It only becomes worse as it becomes an insult battle between two grown ass adults. Destructive. Painful. 

Lately I find myself severely anxious about marriage for this reason. I’m not even engaged yet, and I’m fearful. Despite my attempts to be rational in my relationship, I still live in fear of those moments. Of things becoming dysfunctional. Of things falling apart. Of deceptions and secrets knawing away at the beauty a relationship is. Yes, relationships are hard, but I often feel the relationships I see happening around me as impossible. At least, what people tell me makes marriage sound like some kind of imprisonment or trap. Like instead of being loved, I will feel more like I am owned. Belittled. Unimportant. Disrespected. I will be used up every day, and I will only be a resource. 

Women are not the only ones to tell me these things. Though more often than not they are the ones who are aware there is a problem. Usually they keep their men in the dark. But, men feel these things as well. They feel unappreciated. Misunderstood. Confused and stretched thin. Anxious. They’re asked to lead, and then told their being bossy. They try to make good decisions but their partner is dissatisfied with a decision. “Guess what’s wrong games” are played out between the two. Pain is unspoken. Eventually they stop talking about important things. They stop compromising. They stop being involved in their relationship. They stop being in a relationship. 

It’s terrifying, and who’s to say it won’t happen to me too? 

What upsets me more is right after discouraging you to your very soul about it, people play damage control. They know they’ve emotionally unloaded on you, and want to half heartedly console you by telling you about the good things in marriage. Its nice to have someone there to hold. To help. To carry the weight of life with you. These words feel hollow though. It’s too late by then. The damage is done. Your heart aches and you want to retreat. To run away. To never love again. 

But…you’re still in love. 

My poor, but kind and thoughtful boyfriend often gets the brunt of these conversations. In my pain and emotional rationality I tell him my fears. I wonder if I should? I wonder if I’m damaging him when I tell him? But, I feel that if I don’t express the fear put in me it will consume me, and become a self fulfilling prophecy. Why shouldn’t he know? It directly impacts our relationship. To keep my feelings from him would be to exclude him from our relationship. To push him out of a powerful part of my life. To let those issues start. So I spill out my heart to him as tears make marks on the screen of my phone.

He is a candid and honest soul. He reminds me he can’t promise me everything. He too is imperfect. Yet, he affirms me. He reminds me I am imperfect and I cannot promise everything either: “I will promise you only one thing, and that is I will try. I will not lose you my love without a fight.”

My heart is comforted by those words. The fear is still present but over shadowed. I usually take a nap after we finish whispering our love to one another and hang up our phones. I slip into sleep hopeful that putting the concerns of my heart in his and God’s hands was the right thing. Hopeful that marriage will not be the end of me. 

Gun Laws

Disclaimer: Not meant to be a poem for or against gun ownership or use.

They say Guns don’t kill people,
But rather that people kill people.
They talk about taking away the guns.
Like it’s a solution.

Beware….a Feminist Book Review….Or Something Like That

Recently, I began reading a book called Killing the Black Body which is a work about the history of African American women’s reproductive rights and it’s switch from the culture of slavery which forced these women into motherhood, to enforcing the government funded sterilization (without patient consent) and suppression of their right to give birth. It’s heavy. Filled with case study upon case study of control, violence, and political struggle. It’s heart breaking really. Causing me to wonder about the intensions behind the existence of contraceptive drugs, the ideals of Planned Parenthood, racism, and the ever changing meaning of (and threats to) reproductive liberty.

There are many reasons I chose to buy and read this book.

Firstly: Because it is a book about Black women. I am not Black. I am a woman. I seek knowledge about both because…I don’t know what it means to be either of those things. So in a search to understand my femininity and my ethnicity, I sought out a piece of literature that might help me understand things outside of my realm of white (enough to practically glow under black lights) and into the common ground of female.

Secondly: It is a history that I am only slightly familiar with because of American History Classes, that are predominately written to give a brief (and not very detailed) history of America. A bit of an experiment with my national identity as an American, and how I may be informed about the laws and issues that surround all women and how those laws effect women on a large and individual scale dependent on issues of race, social, and economic status.

Thirdly: Because it’s a freaking book and I love reading.

When I began reading this book, I found myself not only painfully taking in each case study, but also trying to read between the lines. The forward had informed me a little bit of what the author, Dorothy Roberts, was intending to write about, but I wanted to see what she was REALLY trying to say. To be truthful, I was more or less trying to figure out if she was for or against the ideals of Planned Parenthood. A topic I have come to be more conscious of as I grow and mature in my femininity.

What I love about informative literature, is the questions they pose to me that differ from my own beliefs. But what I enjoy about this book more specifically, is it is written in a way that I am only able to hear the voice of the author in a very subtle way. It is unique, in that it is about the topic of racism saturated culture and the issues it has caused in the realm of Planned Parenthood, but it is also unique, in that it does not disrespect either side of the argument. It tells the story, perhaps not the whole story, but enough for a person to accumulate the gist of both sides of the issue, and to think for themselves.

I wish more literature was that way. I dislike being beaten to death by an argument that has no standing. One that wants me to be brain washed, and force fed only to regurgitate it out later whether it is relevant or not. I don’t want to be assaulted by an author. I want to be informed! I want to know the angles. I want to know the responses to the opposition. I want to actually learn something, not be told to think something, and not to be told to think something that isn’t useful to me. Or worse….isn’t relevant.

The Battle Became Gorilla Warfare

The moment I read them, I became angry, which then suddenly became the most painful realization of the damage the gender cultures had done to each other.

“When a man finds his shirt on a woman’s body, it’s like hoisting a flag upon a conquered fortress.”

Since when was I a conquest? Since when was I compared to a building that held so little aesthetically pleasing architecture, much less one built entirely for war and protection, or to hide things within? Since when was my body an object, and not a piece of a living breathing human being? Most importantly, what makes men think they conquered anything by this feat? What’s to say we didn’t capture “your flag” to give you a false sense of security? Who died and made you king of anything?