Oil On My Hands

"Like A Star" by Corinne Bailey Rae

...still I wonder why it is / i don't argue like this / with anyone but you / we do it all the time / blowing out my mind...

It started as an awesome day.  I started taking my braids out last night but was outdone by fatigue.  This morning I woke up to finish taking them out.  Then I washed them, condition the hell out of them, blow dried it just a little and styled my natural afro.  I look so different.


I felt powerful and centered, simple, and put together.  I even decided to quit that sucker job I have.  I think my boss is quite perverted and he makes me feel cheap, like merchandise.  I am a revolution in and of myself...for Africa.  What do I look like being the corporal colonization experiment of some old White man?  I can't do it.  I'm not losing anything by quitting either.  I haven't been getting hours hardly at all since I expressed disapproval of the behavior of he and his comrades at the last "experiment".


I felt powerful.  I felt mature.  I felt informed.  I felt conscious.  There are some people, places, events I cannot participate in seriously having come into the knowledge of myself as I have.  It would be inauthentic and a serious impediment to my centeredness.


And then the boyfriend called.  We talked on the phone to address something that I am dissatisfied with, although I willingly signed up for it.  However, when we talk about things that either of us are dissatisfied with, it is never a conversation and always a fight.  I'm not always sure how they get started.  Sometimes they happen so fast, I am unable to follow.  

This time, he was getting quite riled up almost immediately into the conversation.  I tried to briefly interrupt him, not to make a counterpoint, but to point out that he was yelling at me and it wasn't necessary so as to maintain some civility.


But that was a mistake.  I should never tell him what I don't like, what is offensive, when he is wrong, when I'm hurt.  It always come back on me, it is always my fault, and I end up in trouble.


He makes me feel so inadequate, so useless.  I feel like I am a problem or a burden.  I get frustrated because I want to do it right, communicate well, be fair, be honest but I feel like such a failure every time.  As such, I have given up talking and confiding.  I feel like I'll get in trouble if I say anything that he doesn't like, so I try not to say anything.


And then I have this habit of becoming emotional when frustrated.  As was often the case with my mother when we would get in a tussle, I get to a threshold of frustration that eliminates my stability and makes me emotional.  I always began to cry and she would always use that to her advantage, call me overly-emotional and defeat me before the argument ever traveled anywhere.  I have observed him doing the same thing. When I reach that level of frustration and the hot water collects in my eyes, I feel ashamed and I try my best to keep it at bay, but I am usually unable.  I release the tears and blubber like an idiot and must endure the vitriol.

I stayed silent and had to listen to litany of things he thinks I am doing wrong and is causing problems in our relationship.  Not once did he mention how he could possibly be contributing to the these problems.  They were just my problems.



I gave up talking at some point in the conversation and recoiled into the corner of Zainab that is most comforting to me.  It is quiet there and there is no one to mock my tears.


After I hung up the phone, I stayed stationary on my bed as I was during the latter part of the conversation and stared at the wall.  I wanted to lay down and sob, but I had a meeting to attend for one of my volunteer gigs and although I could have gotten out of it, I didn't want my issues with him to interrupt the things I am passionate about, yet again.


So I went for an hour or two and returned home, unmotivated and disillusioned.  My roommates returned from dinner in this crazy snow storm.  They invited me out with their friends to go play in the snow, and even though I am quite the diva and don't do physical activity, let alone outdoor activities, I talked myself into going.  I needed something more engaging than my self pity, frustration, and sadness.


We (Sarah, Rick, their friend John, and I) rode around in Rick's car and did donuts in empty parking lots, reveling when the car would lose control and we would just spin.  We returned home to pick up the dogs and go to the park.  We stopped by another friend of Rick and Sarah's, talked, had a few beers, and headed out to the park.  It was mercilessly cold and snowing.  My feet were wet and cold inside my boots.  My hands were freezing.  The snow and sleet were pounding on my face, mercilessly exfoliating my skin.



But I ran around with the dogs, Emma and Magnolia in almost a foot of snow, laughed and fell down with Sarah, and then took a kayak ride down a hill in Forest Hill.  It was awesome.  I was almost frost-bitten when we returned home, but I had so much.  So much fun.  

I thought about him  a lot while out and wondered exactly where we went wrong.


Then I thought to myself, it doesn't really matter where things went wrong.  We both have the capacity to improve it if we both compromised some in our behavior and in our words at any time.  I thought so much: going back and forth about breaking up with him or staying and trying to change him.


I don't know what to do, but going out with my roommates and having such a grand time reminded me that nothing I go through is the end of the world, that their are people that already love me and respect me, that joy is fleeting but abundant.  I cry.  I am disappointed.  I get anxious.  Bad things happen to me.  But as long as I survive it all, it is all okay.


I am compromising my happiness for him.  He is not compromising my happiness or making me unhappy.  I am allowing it.  I have learned so much about myself this year.  I have met such wonderful womyn friends.  I am purposeful again.  I am almost myself again.  Therefore, I will focus on that and being fulfilled.  Therefore I won't take it so personal.


It would be nice to be respected though.  I am unsure love exists without respect.  Actually, I am fairly certain it isn't possible.  I'm tired of saying I love you to people when I'm the only person that means it.

...just like a star across my sky / just like an angel off the page / you have appeared to my life / feel like i'll never be the same / just like a song in my heart / just like oil in my hands...