To All The Boys I Loved Before...

To all the boys I loved before......
Thank you for showing me what I don't deserve and teaching me that not every guy can be or will be for me. Thank you for causing my heart to break and shatter into a million pieces. It may have taken over a dozed years to stitch back the broken pieces that you each contributed to, but I learned so much through out the process. Thank you for sharing with me what I did right and what I did wrong (verbally & nonverbally). Thank you for the good times and the bad. Thank you for making me take the time to reflect, grow, mature, and discover who I am, who I truly am without YOU! Each experience, each lesson, opened my eyes to the qualities/characteristics I want and don't want in a partner/relationship. The pain you caused was worth it. I needed to feel it, to teach me not to go back there again......


Cause I put my heart on it, Don't try to stop me when I leave. I put my all on it and look what you did to me...
~Inayah Lamis


Dear Choir Boy,
Where it all began. With you was the first time I think I ever got a taste of love. It was also the first and last commitment I have been in since that 'puppy love' stage we all experienced in high school.You taught me what love was not, and I've been searching for what it really is ever since. Looking for love in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways. I was traumatized by the hell and the betrayal I felt when you put your hands on me. The way in which you treated me made me bitter, angry, sad, pathetic, needy, paranoid, afraid of serious commitment and okay with settling with being #2. All of these things I learned from you. I learned to hate myself. I allowed myself to feel less than and unworthy. I allowed myself to believe every negative thing anyone ever said to me or felt about me. I internalized Every. Single. Word. It build a hell-of-a beast inside of me. A beast I am STILL, after 17 years trying to tame. What you did to me has tried to break me down for far too long. Once a habit is made it is a BITCH to break without willpower and determination. You have to be transparent when looking into the mirror, own what you see and not what you imagine. I wore a mask so long trying to cover up the fire you ignited that I forgot who I was and lost my strength to fight.

Dear Dro-in-da-wind,
My time with you was special. I didn't realize then what a great man you are and were back then. I met you my freshman year, before all the dramatics with Choir Boy. I was a newbie and trying to acclimate myself to college life and being on my own. Life was fun, I was meeting people, making friends, partying of course and trying to maintain a good GPA. I wasn't ready for a boyfriend because my high school BF and I had just broken up before we started college. Wasn't a bad break up, we just knew we were going separate ways. When I met you, you were...I believe in your junior year. We spent time together but you never really pressured me into anything. For the most part we kicked it, had fun and although you did ask me once to be your GF, you didn't waiver when I declined and we remained good friends. But, 'there was this one time in band camp' (sorry I couldn't resist), when we had a quarrel. I was then a sophomore and you a senior. We both acted immature and out of character and it caused a riff between us. For weeks, I attempted to apologize to you, but you weren't having it! You wouldn't answer my calls or return my texts, and would walk right by me like I wasn't even there. But eventually, you came around and we smoothed things over. Knowing now what I didn't  know then, I wish I had paid more attention to how well you treated me and carried that over with me into new relationships. You were a real gentleman and I didn't even see it.

Dear Red,
My-oh-my..... I remember it like it was yesterday! The Rose Supper Club.
By now I have had my share of failed interactions with guys. I have given up hope and have become complacent with whatever a guy was willing to give me. Now, I was not one to 'get around' in college. Don't get it twisted. I had more homeboys than anything (non-sexual friendships). I came to the conclusion that I was not girlfriend material to most of the boys and I would either become their homegirl or their late night girl. I became 1 of the 'boys' in the crowd I hung with. If I wasn't the homegirl, I was the girl the guys wanted to sleep with cause they said I had a big ass.... go figure right. College boys and Big ASSES....(they are BIG asses).
Anyhoo...I saw you, you saw me and the rest is history. You were a hot commodity on campus. FreshMeat. Thick lips. Redbone. Hella Swag. The girls thought you had it all. And you did! After some time passed, I began to get my hopes up that more could possibly be in store, but yet again I was let down and disappointed when you choose someone else over me. It hurt. I was crushed.... But I stayed near cause I didn't even care. Told you that Choir Boy did a number on me, right... I can't be #1, its cool, I'll sit back and play my role as #2, I need to focus on this school work anyways- I'm going places. Things get rocky, we part ways, but we always come back and our friendship evolves each time growing into something real, no longer superficial. You've been there for me when I needed it and it's much appreciated. Though out this decade old friendship, you have taught me that things may not always go my way. I learned that breaking bread and taking trips will not buy you a man. I learned that a man and a woman can be friends after being intimate and that sometimes just sometimes a season will last longer than you expect to give you just what you need. Been rocking ever since, 15 years strong.

These are a few of the lessons I have learned in my few years of courtship (as the old folks say). It has been tough. I grew up surrounded by black love. My parents are still together after 42 years of marriage. I have dreamed about and prayed for love like that of my own so long- and to have not found it yet has been more than discouraging. I use to dwell on the fact that I'm getting older and I won't be able to have as many years with my husband as my parents have had together. But this week, my 'cheerleader' told me this "it doesn't matter how many years you have (left) to spend together, what matters is how you spend the years that you do have together". But I know, when the time is right, my God will send me exactly who I need and it will be right on time. I know he will send me a love far greater than I could have ever imagined, longed for, or felt I deserved!