In the Evening Baby

Tell Him by Lauryn Hill

...let me patient / let me be kind / make me unselfish / without being blind / though i may suffer / i'll envy it not / and endure what comes...

I first loved this song way after I discovered this album at the age of 12.  I didn't get this far in the album.  Not that I didn't listen to it, but just that I wasn't old enough for this song in particular to mean anything to me.  For one thing, I was still Muslim, and only because my Mom made me.  I had no real concept or interest in God or religion.

Four years later, I was obsessed with this song.  I had completed half of high school, met the same friends I still have today, and grown into a Christian.  Wayward and still backwards, but exposed to the light at least.

Since I rediscovered this song, it's always been a favorite of mine.  I play it when I'm worshipping, when I'm bored, when I'm sad especially.  It's always been a comfort and a lesson.  To this day, I play it specifically for the purpose crying in order to release the bad and inhaling to breathe in the good.

There is someone I really, really, really care about and love and adore.  And I don't think that person feels the same way about me.  It's a difficult blow to your ego to be in love by yourself.  It's an even more difficult blow to be a Black girl in love by yourself (my Black girls feel me).  Our population of men is scarce and our population of progressive men is even slimmer.  Every Black girl's heart is struck with fear when she meets love: 1).  Love is scary.  It's a risk you take, confessing to the universe that you're prepared for the heartache that this love may one day riddle your body with.  2).  Being alone is scary.  It's a risk you take to live alone, to be without a mate, confessing to the universe that you are prepared to trek on your own.

Black girls learn love hard anyway.  But the fear is dichotomous, afraid to be with love and afraid to be without love.  Black girls learn love hard anyway.  I know I did.  For 23 years, I misunderstood myself, faith, and hope.  I believe that is because I learned love hard.

So I dropped this person I really, really, really care about off and I cried, like I usually do.  I don't want to be alone and I feel heavily alone.  I am looking for someone to belong to.  I am looking for the family that I had to give up in order to stay alive and be sane.  Literally.  I need validation and approval and love and tenderness and reassurance.

But I was looking in the wrong sources.

I needed to pacify myself after my emotional car ride.  I hit up Google and searched for words to teach me how to calm my resentment from being in love alone, and to encourage patience that I lost in the fast-paced world I grew up in.

And of course I found something...profound.  God will never leave you without the nourishment you need if you truly seek it.

I came across the definition of love.  Love is the cure to resentment.  I read quite a lengthy passage that detailed the manner in which resentment is born and the ways to kill it.  Something that stood out to me:  The way we view ourselves determines how we respond to offenses, and also keeps us from committing offenses against others.  It shouldn't matter that other people do not appreciate us or treat us with disrespect because our self-worth does not depend on those people.  We are servants who answer to one Master.

My self-worth is very external.  By that I mean, I only acquire a self-worth by what I am worth to another person or group of people.  That is just absurd, but that is always how I have lived.  I have never appreciated myself, loved myself, cared about myself but I want everyone else too.  And today I learned that no one has to--for 2 main reasons. 

1.  Self-worth should be an internal conversation.

2.  The world and nobody in it owes you anything--not even their approval or love.

Another thing that struck me to tears:  Another cause of resentment is an unforgiving attitude.  Unfortunately, it is all-too-natural for us to have an unforgiving attitude because our personal dignity demands justice.  In our eyes, the other person is certainly wrong and should compensate for our hurt feelings.

Child! If this ain't me!  I think I have been waiting my whole life for an apology.  I don't even know from who really but I gather, from my chronically unforgiving attitude, that I am waiting on justice for a pain grandeur that I cannot cure.  Oh but no one owes me an apology.  And I'm glad to be delivered from such a ridiculous waiting room.

It would be nice, of course, to have an apology.  It would be nice for someone to recognize that he/she was wrong, that my pain is real, and that someone wants to make it right.  It would be nice if my Mom said she was sorry for driving me crazy.  It would be nice if the person I really, really, really care about would say sorry for using you, for dragging you along, for being inconsiderate.  It would be nice if Comcast apologized for overcharging me for a whole year.  All that would be nice.

I am realizing however that the lack of acknowledgment or lack of apology doesn't make the pain of the infraction any less real.  I'm still in pain and I don't really need anyone, other than God, to acknowledge it.  And I don't really need anyone, other than God, to get over it.  Because I can get over it.  I spent my day crying, reading the word and I feel like maybe I might just be brand spankin' new.

So love 'em even if they don't love you.  I'm not doing it for you.  I'm doing it so that when others see me, they praise Him.

It'll be all right -- in the evening baby.