Minority Report (with respect to Jay-Z)

Here we stand a few hours before we get out to do something phenomenal here in the U.S.: VOTE. I was talking with my granny the other day. I was fuming because my friend's idiot of a spouse refused to register to vote because he didn't want to be called for jury duty. Pardon, but what kind of shit is that? Did I miss something? My granny was pissed. She said that it angers her when people refuse to recognize that people who look just like me were hosed, maltreated, and killed so that his sorry ass would have a right to cast a ballot without proving that he could read or that his grandfather wasn't a slave. His nerve offends me to the core.

I just want to say that I am very excited about getting up early and taking my daughter to stand in a line that will probably be hundreds deep to exercise my right to chose the next President. My choice? Barack Obama. I have had the fortune of seeing him speak several times and one of those was long before the Presidential race was at hand. My preschool-aged daughter will have the honor of filling in the oval that will cast our vote for a brighter future.

But what is important is that today, I pay homage to the grandmother that he lovingly called Toot. She passed away today and I have to say, thank you for rearing the man that i believe can change this country. Thank you for instilling in him the seed that grew to be determination to stand in the face of racism and smile. I am humbled to cast my ballot because I am voting for my granny. She never expected to see a Black man get this far in her lifetime. I have faith that she will see him make it once those numbers are run for the ba-zillionth time and the muck washes away.

Thank you also to those people who died, marched, and were jailed so that myself and people they had no way of knowing would even exist could vote and not be afraid. Thank you to those who saw injustice and were willing to do whatever they had to in order to right it. Thank you all. And I will do what you dreamed of me doing. I WILL VOTE.

Deadbeat

Hmmmmmm.... I seem to remember some years ago a man damned near begging me to have a baby. We stayed beefed out that weekend because I couldn't see it. Little did I know, I was already pregnant. Fast forward a few years to the present and that man is nowhere to be found. Not a card on my daughter's birthday or a call on the holidays. Nothing.

I just have to scratch my head and wonder where the first man went. That man wanted my daughter. He went to work religiously. Though he was a pitiful partner at best, he loved his daughter. Or so it seemed. Funny thing is that I have come to realize that the love was all based on whether we were together. It was all about controlling me. If I were to have a child, somehow I would be on reserve forever. I would stay with him no matter how toxic the relationship. Apparently, no one told him who I was and that I don't tolerate bullshit well.

So, once he realized that his stranglehold on our "relationship" was ineffective, he threw the towel in and gave up. Problem is, he also gave up on my daughter. Now none of this is to say that I wish he were around because, alas, I don't. The reality of it is just that I don't get it. How could someone give up on a person that they willed into existence?

That one, I will never understand and, frankly, I'm glad that I don't have the mentality to rationalize it.

Back Once Again

After a hiatus and the implosion of my other blog, a sista is back. How long? I cannot say. But I am here! Anyhow, I am grappling with a bunch of weirdness right now. None of my own I am happy to report, but still, I am managing to wade through it all.

Still a single mama. Not much has changed on that front except my child has gotten taller and wiser. I am hanging on as a librarian. No major changes on that front although I do run a branch these days. That is an entry in and of itself...

But what has been most on my mind is the fact that I seem to get involved with other people's issues and make them my own. Case and point: I have a freind whom has been one of my best friends since I was like 8. He got into a toxic relationship. And I hated to witness the flameout. But I was there and saw it end in full, blazing color. They broke up, but now they have this child who is in the middle of the bullshit. It is not fair to the baby. Kids don't ask to be here.

But he is feeling overwhelmed. I get messages from him saying that he is tired of living. Tired of the inner battles that we single parents face. We constantly play the what if game. What if I had've done this instead.... Maybe I could have changed my response and the other person would have been better off. What if I never had kids to begin with?

But at the end of the day, that is just a game and this? This shit is real. I am all about operating in the reality. Good. Bad. Or Ugly. I am just getting tired of being a mental coach that says, you can do this and anything else you damned well please. I feel like every person knows that somewhere in there regardless of whether they have a friend like me to say it. So I am getting cranky about that. I feel like some of that is eroding my normalcy...

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