ain't no feeling like it

you called yesterday
to basically say
that you care for me but
that you're just not in love
immediately i pretended to be feeling similarly
and led you to believe i was
okay to just
walk away from the
one thing that's unyielding and sacred to me

i thought i knew everything. thought i knew how this whole thing would play out. at 19, you couldn't tell me otherwise. of course there'd be marriage. a baby carriage. the degrees and dreams were enough to make us a veritable power couple, just the way i wanted it to be.

people tend to be so anti-long distance relationships because they can't handle being away from someone they love for so long. i cared, but i didn't. yeh, i wanted the hugs, the kisses, the affection, but we had a crazy friendship, or so i thought. so i didn't care because i knew that nothing lasts forever. but i was talking about the distance. not us.

and then it all came tumbling down. i was broken. it's the craziest feeling when you realize that everything you thought you were or were gonna be just gets wiped away. i didn't see my life without him in it.

the first time i heard phonte drop "a woman's life is love and a man's love is life," i had to stop everything. they really are from mars. and women, we're from venus.

imagine being the eldest daughter, helping mommy to take care of your baby sister, you're the tender age of 2 or 3, and the babies keep coming. by the time you're 9, you've got 3 kids and a slew of cousins. we're raised to be caregivers, to be nurturers, to love. with men, it's just not like that. they're raised to play with their toys. then to ride their bikes, first in the yard, then up the block, across the street, to the park. they're taught to go see what's out there. to explore. "the world, it's yours," they're told.

i lost myself in that relationship. half the shit i said i wanted to see, smell, touch, do, i couldn't think of without wanting him to be a part of it. but he never saw things like that. he wanted to see, smell, touch and do, and then tell me about it. i told him that he was my best friend. he said i was his, behind his mother and father, and whatever bromance he had going on at that time. so when things ended, of course he moved on right away. me, not so much.

it took a while for me to see what was happening. that i lost myself trying to be everything to someone who didn't want to be everything to me. and perhaps he had it right. our lives, they've just begun and therefore to devote it to anyone but ourselves would be silly. this time in our lives is about exploration, selfishness, freedom.

so, thanks for that phone call. the ending signaled the beginning of the rest of my life.

ain't no feelin' like being free
my heart is in the right place, yeah
i catered to my man, someone cater to me
take me out sometime
give me my quality time
it's time to think about my needs
you've been doing you
i'm gon' do me
i'm free