(Not So) Free Falling

(Photo note: This is what happens when you google "girl falling.")

I was having a conversation with CJ (for those new to the blog, he’s the ill best guy friend ever and I talk about him a lot on here) and was filling him in on my love life-he asked. When I told him I was trying not to fall hard for this guy, he said, “You’re always falling for someone.” I took such offense to his comment, so I decided to write a list of the last 5 guys I’ve dated or crushed on to prove my point that I haven’t liked anyone for real in a really long time. (Current situation notwithstanding)

Wife Bob. This nickname came from one of my closest girlfriends when I started describing some of his behavior. She insisted he was trying to “wife me” all the time, hence the nickname. Wife Bob (WB) is the closest I’ve come to an actual boyfriend in quite some time, yet I was still running from it. He is/was an incredibly great guy, just not the guy for me. The whole time we dated, I kept feeling like something was off and when I realized he and I were meant to be friends, I broke it off immediately. Especially since I started feeling like he was getting closer to Exclusivityland than I was.

Thug Life. Everybody’s favorite thug. I definitely got caught up with him and there are blogs on here to prove it, but I was by no means in love with Trey and every time he said it to me, something felt wrong with the comment. It just didn’t feel right. Add that to the fact that he was crazy and a liar and discovered he had fathered two children years ago on FACEBOOK, there was NO way that relationship would’ve gone anywhere, but to hell in a hand basket. And if I really felt all I could’ve felt, I would’ve never left him.

The Engaged Guy. I never really talked about EG on here, but I had a massive crush on him for years and eventually started messing around with him last summer after he and his then fiancé started falling apart. The funny thing was that he’d been chasing after me or laying the foundation months before he and his fiancé actually broke up. The whole thing was a mess actually because people found out and rumors flew and we eventually just stopped talking. He hit me to let me know he was in town, but we ended up arguing and blah blah blah. Always knew he wasn’t Prince Charming so it didn’t really phase me.

Paddington Bear. You can guess why this was his nickname; he looked just like him. A complete left turn from the kind of guys I usually dated, this chubby nerdy guy and I just had amazing chemistry. That was really it. We’d talk and laugh and be cool (he’s actually a friend to this day), but it just never really jumped off. He had an ex-girlfriend he was dealing with and I left town for work, so it didn’t really matter.

The Youngin. Do y’all remember The Youngin? I think I wrote about him a few times before, but he was just that: too young. Immature, not sure what to do with his life, and loved to bed girls just to say he did. He was entertaining and young guys love to show off in bed, so win/win for me, but in the end, I knew it wouldn’t be anything major too. Especially when we went to a bar with some friends and I announced I wanted a beer and he just stood there. Broke college student was never the move.

The interesting thing is I look over this list and realize a few things. Some of which I’d already discovered and some a bit brand new:

1. 1. I have slight commitment issues

2. 2. I have a tendency to go after disastrous situations. Guys that are so much of a challenge, I know what the outcome will be, which leads me to…

3. 3. As much as I love the L word, I’m super afraid of heartbreak and realize I haven’t taken anyone seriously since my heart was shattered two years ago. It’s funny because I’m definitely over my last exclusive relationship, but the residual damage left behind is that I am in need of someone good to cancel the old out and allow me a real shot with someone worth it.**

That bitch stole my line,

xoxo

Blackie Collins

**I think I might be embarking on just that, but I don’t wanna say yet. I feel like Beyonce on Jay in the good ole days. Trying to keep this special thing to myself. I will say this, though, it's the first time I’ve felt like this in…maybe ever.**

On B: Tall Tales (from the Hood)

I write this blog and I get the awesome emails and I see the how-do-you-always-verbalize-what-I’m-thinking comments and I’m still in awe of them. Because half the time, I have no clue what I’m doing. I tell my stories, I put my life on the internet (albeit anonymously to protect those who aren’t as free as I am), and at some point it goes from a funny anecdote to therapy to quite similar to the little pink diary I scrawled in ferociously when I was nine. Sometimes, I write on here just as a train of thought, as a way to release into the atmosphere what I might not be able to do in conversation. In conversation, people interrupt and judge, whether they mean to or not. In real life, people impose their own life lessons and examples onto your own. In real life, people don’t understand because they simply aren’t you. But when I write on here, you guys seem to get it. You seem to say, “Yup, I’ve been there or yea, I was a fool once too. Sure, my sh*t stinks just like anyone else’s.” And it feels like a big hug, it really does. One of my closest friends in the world read the Tales from the Hood series and informed me she had to stop midway through the second post because she felt I was making excuses for him. I won’t lie, when she first said she read the series, I got quasi excited. I thought maybe she’d see what I wasn’t able to convey in our long conversations about Trey, about what this thing was we were doing, how I felt, how he felt. I thought she’d get it a bit more. But she didn’t. And that doesn’t mean, she’s anything other than my best friend honestly. She loves me enough that if anyone even so much as thought to hurt me, she’d call in the firing squad. I’d kill someone for her too. So I get it, I really do. But I still wanted her to understand. To see that this was more than a crush, more than a little fling, more than someone to pass the time. That despite the drama that came packed in suitcases at his feet, there was just as much good, just as much appeal. I’m a glutton for punishment, but even I’m not gonna run around with a 100%, Grade A Asshole. I have some common sense.

So, here I am, the point of this post. Trying to figure out what happened. Trying to understand how you can want someone, want to be with someone, maybe even love someone and not be able to figure out how to make it work. Of course, I’ve been with people whom I had strong feelings for, even loved, and it didn’t work out. I’ve watched relationships disappear, I’ve shed a tear or ten thousand over a seemingly broken heart. But, this right here. This Trey thing. I don’t know how, I don’t even know when. I think I knew from the very beginning that this was about to be some sh*t, but I had no idea it would roll into what it’s become.

I miss him. Terribly. I miss him when he walks out the room. I miss him when it’s been a few days. I miss him when I haven’t talked on the phone with him six times a day. I miss lying in bed with him, talking. I miss his crazy stories about his crazy life, one that is so opposite mine, it’s amazing we can find common ground at all. I miss going somewhere, meeting people who respect him like crazy and listen when he says, “This is my girl. Take care of her.” I miss shopping in the grocery store at 3am, watching him meticulously pick out snacks that are actual meals to other people: eggs and turkey sausage, fish, crablegs, jerk chicken over rice. I miss how long it takes him to get dressed, just to wind up in some version of jeans, a tshirt with a hoodie and a fitted. I miss his annoyingly, sparkly white teeth, his dimples that jump out and steer me off course. I miss how he needs to have his right bicep tickled to fall asleep. I even miss how he snores if he’s on his back. I miss how he walks, how he talks, how he looks at other people with authority, how he looks at me, goodness, how he looks at me. He looks at me and I pretty much fall apart cause of what I know he’ll do to me later. But you know what I miss most of all? I miss waking up to him slipping his tattooed arm around me, pulling me over to his side of the bed, kissing my forehead, and snuggling in for more sleep. I miss when my little thug melts into me. I just miss him. Terribly.

And there is nothing I can do about it. He hates me for leaving him. He hates me for “making him fall in love with me,” yeah, love. He’d said it on numerous occasions and I’d always tossed it off to him being drunk, waited for him to bring it up again, knowing if he didn’t, he didn’t remember or didn’t mean it. Until the last time he said it. When I told him I had to go for good. He said he tried to fight it off, knew it was happening all along, that damnit, he loved me. Like for real and it was f*cking him up. He didn’t know what to do with it, so he was putting a wall up, pushing me out, after all, I was abandoning him.

He asked me to stay. Told me he’d take care of me, love me, be with me. Isn’t that what I wanted? Isn’t that what we all want? As surely as I know the answer to that, I also know I have to go. There is so little that could work between us. It would be a disaster. But, God, I think I love him too. I have this feeling in my gut, that I don’t understand, that I haven’t felt in a really really long time. But I don’t know what it is? I don’t know how to label it. Does that make sense? Like love seems corny, seems small, but it also seems too big, too serious, not possible after only a couple months-not to mention a couple months laced with drama. I wonder if the drama had anything to do with him trying to fight me on what he knew was brewing in there. But, I can’t. Like I physically can’t. There are so many reasons, a big one that I can’t share with you guys yet, but I will really soon. But it’s taking me out of his life whether I want to or not. I’m not dying, so don’t worry, and I’m not moving to Mars, but I won’t be around for a long period of time, so geographically, we’ll be separated. I would never ask him to hold out or wait for me. I would never expect him to change his life from what it is- I also know him well enough to know his stubborn ass wouldn’t. But I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to let go of him. It feels like my own little personal The Notebook except not nearly as romantic. More, the feeling I know they felt, that ridiculous connection, one that you couldn’t forget, wouldn’t be able to shake, even when the next one came around. Cause you can’t help it. Flaws and all, the heart wants what the heart wants and my heart is so stuck to Tre, it’s, well, it has to be something special right? But alas, life is nothing like the movies...unless, it's Blue Valentine.

That bitch stole my line,

xoxo

Blackie Collins

On B: Leaf Me Alone (?)

So, my new leaf I was all kinds of turning over... Yea, about that...

Wait, let's back up a bit. I decided a few months ago to start connecting with the men who came in my life, to stop being so distant and guarded. Oh yeah, and to stop sleeping with boys.

This is hard for me. I'm not running around hopping on every pop that pops up, no, no there aren't any slut baggers in my camp, but for those who do get lucky, I'm a complete wall. For example, my current man friend or lover or whatever actually called me out post-coitus the other day, asking why I was so far away, both literally and metaphorically. I was genuinely sleepy and we all know how I hate cuddling anyway. The truth is, I learned a while ago to just shut that valve off. One too many heartaches and you just sort of say, "how can I keep this from happening? Oh, I could just not care." And it was hard, I think, I almost don't remember, but I recall realizing that I didn't give a crap. At least surfacely I didn't. I was hanging out with this one guy for much of the earlier part of this year. I knew him from college, but didn't know him. One night we were blowing each other's backs out when I decided to ask him if he had pledged while we were in school. Like while I was bouncing around on him. I'm pretty sure it wasn't the most appropriate time to ask, but I had cum a few times and was starting to get over it. He laughed and told me he had pledged, that I knew this. Maybe I did, but I don't think so. It was in that moment I realized how bogus the situation was. What am I doing, what am I doing. Oh yeah, that's right- I'm doing me and not giving a cat's cradle about anyone else. This could be a problem. This can't be normal.

There's something freeing and refreshing about being the one not to call, the one to roll over and not spoon into the night, the one asking if your're staying or going home while secretly hoping you'll roll out like Luda. But at the same time, it's not admirable to be so apathetic or to have suppressed feelings for so long, you're not sure if they ever existed; almost can't remember the last time you cried yourself to sleep because he dumped you. Told you he didn't want you, pulled the rug from underneath you. This can be a lonely place, not caring. I guess this is when you realize one of two things: you're jaded and love has knocked you out too many times or you've grown up and know what deserves tears and what's just spilled milk. You learn what's worth your time and what is not, what deserves attention and what is better left ignored. The issue, in my opinion, is at some point all that catches up and you say, "Hey, what does it feel like to love someone, to care about someone, to want to be with someone longer than a few nights, to fall again?" I just have so many non-feelings on the issue that I don't even know. It all feels like vulnerability which equals weakness in my brain these days. Obviously not true. I think it takes true courage to put yourself out there, to fall and soar or crash and burn. It's the coward who does otherwise.

So, I guess I'm the cowardly lion in this tale, but at least I'm aware and even though my leaf has blown away down 5th avenue, it's still in view. I can still grab it and start anew, learn to care again, be honest with myself and others. And now I have to stop because this is getting too mushy and emotional. I haven't grabbed the damn leaf yet, back off.

That bitch stole my line,

xoxo

Blackie Collins

On B: I'm NOT Perfect

You know I get emails a lot asking about my toughness, my hard outer shell, my no nonsense approach. But hold on, I've made lots of mistakes, too. I've been holed up in my apartment making out with Ben & Jerry and watching The Notebook on repeat, crying my eyes out, promising I wouldn't love as hard the next time. I've said dumb things and ruined good relationships, I've also been in horrible ones that I dragged on for far too long because I didn't want to be alone. I've been the soft, clingy girl before as well. When I was younger, blinder, that's what I did. I just went in recklessly and loved hard. But hard being the operative word, you get sick of people disappointing you, of coming up short, even though the pay off is sometimes very much worth it. You still become untrusting, unyielding. You start putting people out and not giving anyone a chance past the first indescretion. You refuse to let anyone get close enough to hurt you as much as someone else did before. It's easier to have no patience, to be tough, to not deal with the crap. As you get older, more experienced, you just get it. You just say, "I don't have time for the bullshit, so I'm not gonna bother." And people come and people go and you either care or you don't. The world is a black and white space. It's only grey if you make it.

I write this because I received an email from a reader asking how I do it, how I seem to stay so far removed. She said many things in the email, but the one that stuck out the most was that she wished she didn't care either because not caring seems so much easier. Apathy is anything but easy, if anything it's harder when you can't recall your emotions to the surface, when you don't feel like trusting people. Sometimes you end up pushing people away who would've been positive in your life. It works both ways, I told her. I explained much of what I've just said in this post, but most importantly that this blog isn't a "how to" for my readers, nor is it me mocking the dating world or acting like I know it all. It's just what's on my mind that day. If I have a story to tell, I tell it. It isn't me claiming that everyone else makes mistakes while my bed lies made and unbothered. My life gets just as messy, I make just as many errors in judgement, blunders, and bloopers. But that's life and while I work it out, I blog it out.

And I suspect the pendulum will swing back and I'll be an emotional, sensitive mess soon. Let's see if you're still emailing me for advice then...

That bitch stole my line,

xoxo

Blackie Collins