Waiting 15 years for this conversation and I still couldn’t predict how things would go, My whole life I requested 5 minutes, I wanted to ask nothing more, but “how do you sleep at night, was it easy to leave, what was it about me that wasn’t enough to make you stay?”
Yes, a little 8-year-old brown girl, feeling defeated, feeling like she’s poison because people never want to stay long enough to witness her greatness. But what if it’s not like that, what if he didn’t leave because of you, what if you were just a result of a circumstance, what if you aren’t the problem?
Those thoughts didn’t surface until I got my closure, until I spoke to the man who I felt, made me the coldest like Zane in the winter. I didn’t hate him, I didn’t despise him, I despised the way he left how unprofessional and not gentlemen like it was, I despised how I never got any answers or any clarity that it wasn’t me, that this time for once it had nothing to do with me.
I finally discovered that my love didn’t run him away, that I am worthy of someone sticking around and supporting me, that I deserve everything I tried to convince myself I didn’t. That it’s nothing my 8-year-old self could have done to make a man stay, THAT IT’S NOTHING MY 8-YEAR-OLD SELF COULD HAVE DONE TO MAKE A MAN STAY.
So to you, to the queens searching for closure from an absentee father or ex-lover who was just careless with your heart. To the ones who feel like they run everyone away. To the ones who think it’s something about themselves that makes it hard for them to be loved.
Let me tell you baby girl you AREN’T hard to love. The love you require is just enough to fulfill your needs, don’t you ever let any man or absence of a man determine how full your cup should be. You set standards and create limits to protect YOU, there’s nothing wrong with learning who you are and making sure other people understand that you MUST be respected.
To the brown girls who search for “I love you’s” in men who made it clear that he doesn’t want anything further than sex from you, to the brown girls who search for acceptance and comfort in everybody else’s arms except God, to the broken babies who didn’t even have a fair shot of having a man love them because your daddy left way before you got familiar with his scent, to the little’s me’s out there, let me tell you something it’s not you.
It has nothing to do with YOU, for 15 years I was so consumed of the idea of limiting whatever I give to someone because I got the impression that I was “too much”, yes a 5-year-old thinking she’s too much, that she has to hide who she is and be very settle around men because she’s very aggressive and needy.
No one filled my head with these thoughts, it was the lack of love, the lack of explanation, the lack of a conversation. When my dad left I didn’t know it wasn’t my fault, when my friends betrayed me I didn’t know it wasn’t my fault, when I was cheated on I didn’t know it wasn’t my fault. The lack of conversation, the lack of reassurance, the lack of accountability led me to be a broken brown girl who didn’t understand why she loved black men so much, but black men just couldn’t love her back.
Then I got the conversation that I’ve been asking for since I was 10, the conversation every broken brown girl anticipates, and needs to truly forgive and move on. I never realized that I couldn’t properly love a man until I forgave my dad, I never realized that I could never properly love myself until I forgave my dad, I realized that I couldn’t properly be who I am until I got answers to questions I’ve been asking myself for years.
“Was it me, Did I push him away, Why did he leave, Why wasn’t I enough, Why was this my story?” No it’s not you, No you didn’t push him away, He left because this circumstance left no other choice, You are enough, This was your story because you had a different motive in life. We think things are so simple, so cookie cutter, we think that all we need to hear is “ it wasn’t you”, no we also have to believe that it wasn’t us.
Brown girl there was nothing you could’ve possibly done to make your daddy stay, you couldn’t have been born later, you couldn’t have talked less, you couldn’t have stayed out the way, it was bound to happen based on the circumstance, a circumstance you have no control over, and though it may be unfair and unfortunate that’s YOUR story, that’s what makes YOU who you are, that’s what makes you love the way you do, trust the way you do, care the way you do.
To my broken brown girls who seem like they will never be fully understood, that their heart gets mistaken for coal, that they can’t seem to get people to love them the way they love others, Brown girl, God took his time on you, he didn’t make you for everyone because everyone doesn’t deserve you, he made you a little aggressive because he wants you to protect your gift, to the brown girls who aren’t quite sure what their story is, create it.