Saturday, September 25, 2010

IS IT A RACE THING?

I'm sure that this post is going to make some people upset. Let me just apologize for that ahead of time. I'll start by saying from the beginning, that I am most certainly not a racist! I happen to be white. It's just a fluke. Actually, my nationality is Sicilian, if that makes a difference.



Anyway, my first husband was white, and my current husband is black. I have white children and mixed children. I never considered race an issue. Ever. For me, it's all about the person on the inside. While good looks may be nice, those looks fade. I really don't even care what a person look likes. As long as they have a good heart, and believe in God.



Which leads me to where I am. I married a good man. Sadly, that man went crazy and lost his mind. It had nothing to do with me. He has his own demons to wrestle, and I can't help him. My question on the race issue is this: How does a black man just walk away for his child? Forget about how he feels for the women. What about the child? I think this may be a race thing.



My current husband, soon to be ex, just one day day walked out the door and never looked back. We have a four year old daughter. He doesn't call, doesn't see her. Just 'oh well, you don't love me anymore so I'm gone." This makes it even harder to love a man, who can so easily walk away from his family. I don't know any white men that do this. I mean, sorry to keep it real, but that's real. Every white man I have ever known, heard about, whatever, still sees their kids no matter what. Maybe because they KNOW that they will have to pay more child support if they don't. But really, it seems like a lot of black men have no problem just walking away from their kids. Is it because their dads were not around? What is it really? I would really really like to know.



Lastly, I find myself in the dilema of have to literally reach out to the black community to find positive roll models for my half-black daughter to embrace. She's around too many white people. There are literally no African Americans in her life. When her daddy walked out, her grandma stopped calling, Auntie, everbody she knew and loved and saw on a regular basis. Which makes me think that it is a black thing. Forget about their feelings for me. How does everyone just turn their backs on a four year old child?



And this is what I am wrestling with today. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Any comments on how to find positive role models in the african amercian community (especially men) would be great too.



Thank You and God Bless



http://thegreygirldiaries.blogspot.com/

Monday, September 6, 2010

The Grey Girl Diaries: THE FORGETTING DISEASE

The Grey Girl Diaries: THE FORGETTING DISEASE

THE FORGETTING DISEASE

The forgetting disease is plain and simple. It's the disease that will make you forget your past mistakes over and over again.

I have it. My mother has it, my best friend has it, and I dare say 90% of women definitely have it it too!  Men don't often carry the forgetting disease.  They seem to be immune.

Thankfully there is a cure.  I am recovering at this very moment form the forgetting disease.  If you have never heard of the disease, much less a remedy for it, I am here to tell you there is one.

The forgetting disease is where all the little things your significant other has done to you is quickly forgotten.  For instance, maybe you were out with your significant other, and he kept staring and staring and another women.  So much so, that really you got upset.  You maybe were standing there screaming, "helllllooooo' and he sill completely ignores you.  Maybe it even caused a huge fight..  He insists that he wasn't staring at another women and you wonder if it's possible at all that he actually wasn't and you are crazy like he says.
But you fight and make up and then you 'forget' all about it.  Until years down the road....

When you find him on the Internet, staring, or worse, at other women over and over, and then you remember about that one, or two incidents that you forgot all about. It dawns on you that the signs were all there.  You just chose to 'forget.'

In the past  there have been so many little things that I have chosen to forget all about.  However, I realize that the forgetting disease could very well be the death of me.  It's so important that I remember.  If I don't remember I could quite possibly fall into the same trap that got me in this mess to begin with.  Like many others, I fell for a smooth talker.  When I say smooth talker, I mean smooth talker. Instead of taking care of me and making sure I had a job that I got paid well for, I fell for the, 'let's build our dream together."  Only it wasn't our dream, it was his dream.  I thought it was our dream.  I forgot I had my own dreams.

So, in order to have healthy recovery from the forgetting disease, I have taken certain steps to ensure no further relapse.  I take notes!  I take a lot of notes.  I save all the crazy text messages, emails, and voice mails.  One day they are professing undying love, the next calling me every name in the book.  I keep these emails for one reason and one reason only.  'The Forgetting Disease!' 

Some may say it is bad energy to keep these negative messages.  I believe some of this is true.  I don't read them, or re-read them, only in times of desperate need.  It's like drinking a tall glass of fresh squeezed Orange juice for the common cold.  I immediately feel better.As I recover from the forgetting disease, and the ex starts to come around,  He sniffs around me like a dog in heat.  The moment I start to get back on my feet.  It's like some bizarre instinct he has, anyway, the moment I start to do well, and he starts smooth talking me. That's when I whip out my notes! emails, texts, whatever.  It's an immediate cure of the forgetting disease.  Damn!  He's really done some terrible things!

My therapist recommends a journal, I recommend saving stuff.  Whatever works for you, please do it.  I don't say this to discourage any kind of forgiveness.  Forgiveness is important.  For you and the person you are forgiving.  I'm not sure if I forgive the ex yet.  Hopefully I'll get to that place one day.  But in the meantime, I do not want to have the forgetting disease.  Stayng disease free keeps me strong and able to achieve my own dreams, my own goals, and my own happiness.