Daddy's Magic

Do you ever wonder how some people can do certain things? Not like when we wonder how can Chaka Khan sing so effortlessly. Not how people do good things, or let goodness manifest itself through them. I'm talking about wondering how people do things we can't imagine ourselves doing.

For instance, having a baby - your first baby is a memorable experience. It's not an easy occurrence to sweep out of your mind. Watching your child grow and seeing your own image in them is amazing. Someone having fingers and toes that look like your own, lips and eyes that remind you of yourself is awesome. Then it goes on, they grow, they learn about their world - and they adapt to their situations. As a parent you have the pleasure of being a witness to that life.

I wonder how a parent can watch, see, experience all of those things and not do everything in their power to take care of that child. How could a parent put others well being before that of their child? Their first child, the one that looks just like them. How could a person provide for and raise another mans child - and not see that his own child needed provision and rearing? But larger than that I wonder how the same person could make a promise to the Creator to care for the little person entrusted to him, and so callously renege. How could that parent then show up later looking for applause?!?

How is that possible?

If I didn't call, keep promises, visit, protect, honor, cherish, guide, direct, discipline and provide for a child that was my own, I would be ashamed to show up with some "yep, look what I did, ain't she smart....that's my daughter" bullshit.

I just couldn't do that.

What's even more astounding is the child's unwavering love and support for the father.

I say it's astounding, but maybe it's not. I've seen it before and I'm intimately familiar with it so it should not astound me - but it still does. I didn't want to add to the chances of her love for him changing, so I've never spoken ill of him in her presence, I made excuses for his un-kept promises and out right lies. I over compensated for his short comings in an effort to lessen her disappointments. I thought he would come to his senses at some point. But he did not.

I did those things for me as much as I did them for her. You see, I too had a father who fell miserably short of reasonable expectations. I did not want that for my daughter. I know how important the relationship is between father and daughter. In many cases girls/women follow the blueprint of their relationship with their fathers in their relationships with men. I wanted my daughter to have something different. That has not been the case.

Fathers like my daughters' and mine are powerful conjurers. They work their gris-gris into spells that cause us to long for them to do the right thing - all of our lives. The spell is so potent it impairs our vision. We begin to see our fathers in places they are not. In other boys and men. With our blurry sight we look to them to give us the love our fathers did not. We look to them to choose us, to protect us, to keep promises, to provide for us, to be faithful to us and to tell us the truth. But we choose men who are like our fathers and as such they cannot give us what we need.....what we want. So, we do the blind choosing over and over again.

I do not want that for my daughter.

Let Me See Yours And I'll Let You See Mine

Brother West got me to thinking about what we see when we meet a prospective mate as opposed to what is really there. How much do we really want to know?

I've got this dating idea - and I think it might work. It requires total and complete honesty, which disqualifies 60% of available daters. It requires self-knowledge and acceptance, which disqualifies 30% of available daters. So now we have 10% left.

Here's how it would work. Each person fills out the "All About Me" , "All About My Family", and "Stuff You Don't Usually Find Out Until You're Already Sprung" sections, including facts and figures and about their life. They would then give said information to perspective mates for review. After review of each others information - they could decide if they want to date or not.

This is how the sections might look:

"All About Me"
My name is Suzy Q. I'm 32 years old. I have a great sense of humor but I'm moody sometimes. I'm the oldest child, and kind of bossy.

I was married for 5 years, and then divorced. My ex-and I divorced because I got us into serious financial debt, and he cheated. I have bad credit and I'm working diligently to rectify the problem.

My ex and I have a child together. He has a relationship with the child and takes financial responsibility for him. My ex is intrudes into my relationships and still has feeling for me. I, however do not have feelings for him. I would have another child if my mate wanted one, however not after I am 40, under no circumstances.

I like to have sex a lot, and need a lot of attention. I do not enjoy anal sex and I will not try it again, under no circumstances. I enjoy performing and receiving oral sex. I am not interested in a mate with a man with a small penis, under no circumstances.

I'm a hard worker. I keep a clean home. I love to cook and I am good at it. I do not like to wash the car or cut the grass.

All About My Family
I'm Troy H, and I'm 45 years old. My family is pretty messed up. My uncle molested me and my male cousins until we were 13 or 14 years old. My family has never dealt with the issue of abuse in our family - so holidays and family get-togethers are really bad, and usually end in fights. My mother is an alcoholic and will probably need to come and live with us because her liver is failing. My brother is on crack and should not be allowed in the house, under any circumstances. My sister is cool and she an I are close.

Stuff You Don't Usually Find Out Until You're Sprung
My name is Cassie. I'm 27 years old. I did a lot of cocaine in college. Now I just do it on the weekends - unless I really need it during the week. I slept with a few guys in your fraternity but it didn't mean anything and I don't sleep around anymore. I have herpes.

Now, to participate is this exchange, you must be prepared for the ugly truth. When you're reading the other person's remember your real truth ain't so pretty either. The truth is never pretty - but it is necessary.

(The above mentioned characters are fictional. Don't email me trippin'!)

Questions
Would you want to know those kinds of things about a perspective mate before you dated them?
Would you be willing to disclose that kind of information about yourself to a perspective mate, could you be that honest?

Angie's Life - The Soundtrack Part 3

Old post I decided to finish.

The one the only Bobby Womack !

I have always been an old soul. I like older music and older men. So - Bobby Womack speaks to me. I like his swagger. He acts like he's the most handsome man in the world, even though he knows he's not. He has confidence. Women like that. We like it a lot. Not over confidence mind you - just confidence in the right dosage.

Bobby knows women - and he talks to us like he knows us. If men would take the time to get a PHD in their women everyone would be happier. But I digress. Back to Bobby. I didn't just discover him - he's been with me for a long time now. He says things that make you want to turn the lights down, drink dark liquor, and take your panties off.

Let me try to explain my fixation with Bobby Womack. I'm a Southern girl, a Pisces with daddy issues. I'm attracted to strong men. Men you know better than to get involved with, but you do it anyway. Men who spit game like Bobby's lyrics -but you don't know it's game, because he's that good or because you don't want to know. Bobby's been spitting his particular brand of game to me since I was a teenager, and I'm not tired of him yet.

In I Wish He Didn't Trust Me So Much he's talking about how he's in love with his friends wife. Not good right? But get this, he spins it! In the end it's his friends fault for trusting him too much. You gotta love that!

You're Welcome, Stop On By, is an invitation to a married or otherwise engaged woman to feel free to come on over to his place. He tells her he's there for her, however, he's getting a little tired of being "that second guy." Mind you, he's not tired enough to stop - he's just putting that out there so she thinks he wants something more. Psych!

I could go on, and on but I'll stop at my favorite. Woman's Gotta Have It He pretends to be talking to men on this one. Telling them how to get, and keep us - that we have to have it. Fir good measure he throws in, "Give her what she wants, when she wants it, where she wants it and how she wants it." Now in reality Bobby is speaking to us, to women. He's letting us know that he knows us. He knows what we need, and he can give it - when, where, and how we want it. Works for me!

So when Bobby's on, the Southern girl in me sashays her hips, the Pisces slips on the rose colored glasses, and the daddy's girl is reminded of her father.*Head nodding, sipping from glass - Sing it Bobby!

Happy Blog-Aversary To Meee!

There's one thing in particular this anniversary has made me realize. Time passes by so freakin' fast!

It's already May! How can that be? It was just January! What the hell is going on ?

When I was a little girl time seemed to pass so slowly. I couldn't wait to grow up. I wanted to be my own woman and do my own thing. Couldn't wait to be on my own. The years just seemed to crawl by, as slow as a snail. As I got older they began to speed up. My teen years went by like a slow trotting pony. I still didn't feel like that was fast enough. The pace started to pick up in my late twenties. It went by at the speed you drive in a school zone, not the 20 mph your supposed to do, but the 25-30 mph that you really do. Now that I'm forty, Lord have mercy! Time is now going by so fast - I don't even see it. It must be moving at the speed of light, or that mach speed they used to talk about on Star Trek.

There are so many things that I want to do. Places I want to go. Foods that I want to taste. Smells that I want to smell. So many things I want to share. People I want to love. Love I want to make. And so little time.

So, I need to get my hustle on. I'm going to pick 5 things I want to do by this time next year. And just do them! Do them one by one, or two at a time, but do them. Let's see now....

1. I want to go to a winery here in Ohio.
2. I want to go to New York and see a Broadway play.
3. I want to volunteer to read to kids.
4. I want to go to stay in a cabin in the mountains, near a lake.
5. I want to learn to speak Spanish.

Okay, I need you guys to keep me accountable for working on this list. Maybe you have some ideas that can contribute my getting them done. Know a place in the mountains? I'm open for suggestions and free stuff (especially the Broadway play tickets).

Seriously, I'm going to work harder to focus on the moments in my life. I'll take in the now more. Maybe that way time won't go by so fast.

Remedial Cycle Breaking 101

This class is for those of us* that have put ourselves into situations that brought us pain. This class is for those of us who consciously or unconsciously re-create situations that hurt us in our childhood. We re-create those situations through relationships in our adult lives.

I’m Angie and I’ll be your classmate and teacher for Remedial Cycle Breaking 101. This quarter we will learn how to break the cycles! We will learn to value ourselves and only become involved in relationships that are healthy for us! We will stop dating the same kind of people and having the same thing happen.

Let’s begin by identifying our “re-creation pattern.”

Ask yourself, “What did I want/need in my childhood that I did not get?”

Chances are we are trying to get it over and over again in our adult relationships. For instance, if your answer to the question sounds something like this,

“I experienced some really terrible things when I was a little girl and I just wanted someone (my mother and father) to see my value and choose me. I wanted my mother to pick me over some other choices she made, pick me over her fear, choose me over her preoccupation and insecurity. I wanted my daddy to choose me over the streets, other women and the “outside kids”. I wanted him to choose me and change. I wanted to be valued and chosen.”

You probably re-create situations in your relationships in which you want the other person to see your value and choose you. To choose you over the other people they are involved with. To choose you over their fucked up character. To choose you over their own sincere needs. To choose you over their greed. To see your value and move heaven and earth to be with you.

When the relationship doesn't work out, and they never do, you feel just like you did when you were a child. You feel just like you did when you didn't get what you needed. The yearning can become addictive. You don’t know how to set up situations so that they have a different outcome – so you become addicted to that feeling.

But we can change that.

Said change is not easy or quick, but it can be done. We must learn to change our patterns - to teach our brains a new way. We must retrain our brains to respond differently to that feeling of want, to work towards getting our needs met in a different way. For instance, the person who answered the question above would begin to change her pattern by following the steps below.

When you are attracted to or are interested in someone:

1. Ask yourself if I you like them, not if they like you.

2. Don’t invest too soon.

3. Don’t sleep with them right away, no matter what.

4. If they : are dating another person or people, are “separated”,
spend lots of time away, do not communicate well,
don’t keep their word or lie, are emotionally unavailable,
are wishy washy, are negative or weak….

Walk away! Don’t talk it over. Don’t question it. Don’t think they will change. Just walk away.


That’s it for our lesson today class. Please join us for our next session entitled “Mantra’s For Cycle Breaking”





* I do it too.