Days of My Life

Hello World!! This is my inaugural post, so forgive me if I wander. Just thought I should introduce myself before I get straight to the point. I’m NativeLoveChild (NLC), and I write so I can breathe. Inspired by The Kajuana Show and her many contributors, I introduce myself to you. I’m located somewhere around the DC area and the more you read, the more you’ll get to know about me–a new thirty somethingish young lady who hails from the South of mint juleps, debutante balls, and soul food. (Let’s not forget “Strange Fruit,” Klan rallies, and Jim Crow, but that’s in the past…) And none of this has anything to do with my reason for this post, so I digress. And I LOVE literature. Just thought you should know. Now, to the point…

Recently, I discovered that I’m having to walk down a road that I thought I’d traversed. A year or so out of undergrad I had this roommate whose actions I just couldn’t understand. She had man drama and I could not understand why she just would not walk away. I’m very impatient with folks who fall into the “stupid people” category, and I was just about to put him and her in that category when I decided to try to think from her perspective. I knew she was reasonably intelligent and not dumb, but this guy had some kind of hold on her that I could not understand since he was playing her in her face and successfully lying about it. My thought were that either she was dumb or he was just that good of a liar. I later found out that he IS just that good of a liar–really sincere and totally believable in his madness because he actually believes himself. Scary.

Anyway, since you’re judged by the company you keep, I had to decide whether or not to keep her in my life. I examined our relationship: lots of laughter, honest sharing, dependability, and a whole lot of just being real. Outside of the dude, she was real cool. So, I made my decision–to love her where she was. I had to let go of my missionary zeal to convert her to the congregation of common sense and accept her right where she was in her life without trying to change her. Black and white to me was a collage of colors to her, and we honestly talked about it because I, too could be a piece of work. We both decided at that moment to accept each other “as is” with all of our flaws. (Forgot to mention that I had some of my own, but don’t we always.) Found out she wasn’t bad company either because a few years down the line I would need her to reserve my seat in the congregation of common sense when dealing with the same nut, but that’s another post.

After that point, I pretty much applied the same rule for everyone else. Accept people where they are and it makes life easier. A lesson I thought I’d learned well since the old girl became one of my best friends, and I thought I’d learned it well until yesterday. I’ve been frustrated with a certain friend of mine’s habits for a while now and she with some of mine, and we’ve gone back and forth over some things. Confrontation isn’t a bad thing if you can keep it peaceful, so we had one, and in the course of our discussion (it really was a discussion and not a yelling match), it hit me!! You forgot the cardinal rule of dealing with people–accept them with all of their flaws, and love them in spite of them. There just are not perfect people, and though you may not gel with everyone, the chances of gelling with more are higher if you can decrease the number of the things that aggravate you about someone by just accepting them as elements of their personalities for the right now. Because all people change, constantly. Just think, if I can love you where you are today, maybe the words that I share with you in love will make you a better person tomorrow. (So, I’m an optimist, what can I say?) Really, it just lightens my stress load and helps me be realistic about how much time I really want to spend with someone when I know which of his or her behaviors will just push my buttons.

This works best with friendships, the zone where you can just enjoy a relationship and weed out those that are unhealthy. And since all romantic relationships of substance SHOULD begin with frienship, the rule is useful in the friendship stage. Now, after your friendship has shifted to something more, there shouldn’t be too much more of accepting where the person is if where s/he is takes you to a bad place. I’m all about self preservation in the personal realm, and I see that I’m set to ramble, so I’m out…

Just my thoughts.
Enjoy the blog.