Exit Interview
Pancreatitis made me have to calm down and chill out. I had to look at some things in perspective.
I had to learn to let go of:
Of outsiders being workable. I’ve had outsiders be manic towards me, screaming at the top of their lungs at me over things untrue that made me look bad. I’ve had it happen in Missouri, Washington, and a modified version of it in Alaska. It took me twenty years to realize that those who look like me have completely different goals. Black women don’t want to engage in the politics of personal destruction. One, they simply don’t need to - they don’t get a mood enhancement by kicking me, especially if I’m already down. Two, I COULD be their brother, son, husband, so there is no point in making the NEXT black woman’s life miserable by poisoning me.
I can’t get an apology from someone who believes I have wronged them, but who believes they have NOT wronged me. I can make sure that those who are willing to shout over me, talk bad about me, and avoid working WITH me are kept in the dark. Let them fight each other.
My ideas of what makes a female partner. Bahiyyah is a self-confident black woman who isn’t going to tell me no out of being super insecure about being a female listening to a male on anything. So it’s less of an emphasis on race and gender, and more on the PARTNER aspect. Obstinate or obstructionist white women are a dime a dozen.
Women who want to build rather than bitch come around so rarely, each has to be examined. YEARS may go by without meeting new people that Tue can talk to without the person being so insecure, that everything has to be filtered for their consumption. Tue can say stuff to Bee Ree that is odd, weird, or sometimes spend minutes on the phone with her where neither are talking. Even when we are not speaking, there still is a positive message: I’d rather hear her talking to her daughter, giving instructions, than give most other people the time of day.
Perfect egalitarianism. If you look at Tue’s intimate history, it roughly matches the country’s demographics as a whole. (Romantic history doesn’t at all match America’s population.) And Tue likes to think that all people are children of God. But looking at the behavior of the women he’s interacted with, he has experienced Simone, Jessica, and other black women at least tell him why in a calm, non-bullying manner. To be perfectly egalitarian to the good and to the bad is insulting to the good.
Every relationship with every woman has changed, from Tue’s dead, to Tue’s mother. And the exhaustion that Tue has from taking abuse from those from the outside while pretending everything is OK. He doesn’t have the energy for the theater.
Being mad. Gray hair and twenty years aside, he’s made his detente with outsiders. There isn’t any point in letting outsiders take his peace months and years after he has decided he’s better off without them.
I got to let it go. I’ve got to take everything I’ve valued for twenty years, and let it go into the wind. I’ll leave more to what I value NOW in the future.