"I need a husband."
I wrote this message to the man I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with, some time after our relationship had already ended in 2019.
I've actually wanted to write this particular story for the Ladies of Hive Community for some weeks, by the way, but I wasn't keen on revisiting the past (which means I'm healing in full now), so I've avoided it.
But I really felt like writing for LOH today, so I dug up the LOH prompt for this week and, although I had a story planned (yes of course, I checked the prompt some days ago), I'm weaving this other bit into today's post as well.
This way it'll be done, dusted and will get out of my head for good.
"I need a husband."
"He has to be white and affluent though." was the next line.
This was only half a joke.
I wrote this message when I was in the middle of a sh!t gone horribly wrong criminal and legal situation, after I'd approached a variety of departments in our Department of Social Development in the Western Cape for help.
I sent my life-partner this message after I'd been educated on how our system "works" and I'd realised that I was being completely ignored, and was losing ground fast, because I'm walking the earth in the body of a woman.
I figured I'd need an affluent, white male's arm to dangle off, to make me seem sane and worthy, who could do the talking for me so that everyone might actually listen and take the situation more seriously.
My life partner was not so white, by the way.
I've shared around here, how my side of things was neither believed nor investigated quite enough, I think.
But I haven't shared my ex life-partner's side of things. And, since nobody in a position of authority ever cared much about him either, I thought I'd just put it up here on the blockchain for our government to (hopefully) be slightly embarrassed about one day.
Although it seems pretty clear that they're pretty much shameless at this point.
Because not once during the two year sh!t storm, was my not so white life-partner ever asked for his side of the story either. Not once was he allowed to defend himself or his reputation. Nor was he ever asked to meet with anyone (supposedly) investigating anything.
This despite the fact that the entire situation unfolding was based on a false allegation against him.
He was not even asked to speak, or given the opportunity to refute or corroborate the events I shared, by any of the authority figures busy (not) investigating the "case". Not even when it became clear, very early on, that the allegation was a total and utter load of rubbish.
Rather... the police actually (after dropping the investigation within less than two hours) chose to refuse to answer further emails at my requests to clear my partner's name so that we could all get with our lives.
You see what I'm sayin' here?
No investigation because clearly nothing happened, but we aren't going to allow you two to continue on with your lives together either by clearing anything much in writing.
Either they were somebody's b!tches, or old school white South African cops still don't think a mixed racial couple should be a happily forever after anyway.
Prolly a bit of both as it turns out.
When I finally figured out why nobody was bothering to talk to him, or investigate my side of the events, and one person was simply being believed at every turn... it was already too late.
Yes. I was naive enough to believe that the truth and justice would prevail.
My bad.
I think it's because we humans tend to assume everybody else has the same or similar perspective as we do. Some of us, anyway. I am not a racist, for example. I honestly don't understand how any vaguely educated person could be.
I'm also gender fluid and consider myself non-binary.
I take out the garbage and I pay my own way. I pay for dinners that I invite men (or women) to. Of course. It'd be rude not to, I reckon.
I believe in equality, you see.
Pro rata financial equality now that I've been better educated on gender-bias, to be clear. Boy did I get taken for a ride by some of you men. Yeah - it does work both ways, guys! 😆
"I need a husband. He has to be white and affluent though."
It was something like that.
And it was only half a joke.
The thing is... I didn't believe in the institution of marriage anyway and my partner knew this full well.
I don't date anymore either, by the way.
I have tried, briefly at times, but I haven't felt as though I've been ready yet.
I also loathe dating apps and it seems, after my personal experience and how it's changed me in so very many ways, that there are a great many broken people looking for love in all the wrong places...
for all the wrong reasons.
Nobody is coming to save you. You have to, and can, save yourself.
If there is one thing I'd teach my children about "love" it is this.
We still raise our kids on Disney ideals of "happily forever after", but nobody talks about what happens after the wedding. Or after the commitment if you're not keen on weddings.
Work happens after the wedding, I think? A lot of honest, vulnerable communication happens after the wedding. Not so fun at times. But very, very, very f*ckin' romantic if you really are determined to make it a forever after.
Getting to know someone in all their awkward humanity and choosing to love them unconditionally and forever is (arguably) the single most romantic thing in the world.
I know this because the tiny bit of actual love that I did experience with the person I met when I was four years sober enough to be fully cognizant, be accountable for my own sh!t and to learn from my mistakes...
was the single most exhilarating, terrifying and beautiful connection I've yet to experience.
And we were pretty far from being "perfect", btw.
(although most of you also know I think we're all already perfect being only human anyway)
“The bottom line is that (a) people are never perfect, but love can be, (b) that is the one and only way that the mediocre and the vile can be transformed, and (c) doing that makes it that. Loving makes love. Loving makes itself. We waste time looking for the perfect lover instead of creating the perfect love. Wouldn't that be the way to make love stay?”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker
And boy oh boy did we work on creating and boy oh boy did we stay.
And boy oh boy, did I learn more about myself than I ever knew by being curious, listening to and learning about this person. And from him being curious, listening to and learning about me. To see, and experience, things from somebody else's perspective in an intimate relationship is quite mind blowing as it turns out.
I think this is what a "good" relationship is supposed to do.
It's kind of like a mirror, joy ride of enlightenment and an accelerated journey of personal growth if two people are actively working on the relationship. And on themselves.
They should teach conscious relating in school.
I don't date because I want a "happily ever after".
I'm not looking to have it all fixed and taken away for me. I don't want to be someone's glass covered, grumbling flower on a star. I want to see and experience as much as I can. And, sometimes, that means hitting my head a few times until I figure stuff out. On my own. Even if I am in a relationship at the time.
I also believe that the folks out there who are desperately searching for "the one" who will make it all better for them...
their other half (*gag)...
are only going to be repeatedly hurt and disappointed.
And that they're only going to do the same to the poor souls they are in relationships with, who try to meet such impossible demands in return. Coming from the background I do, I think most of what we think is "romantic love" is simply another form "addiction".
Which I see, in a nutshell, as repetitively using anything outside of yourself to avoid your own feelings, even if it has "negative" consequences for you.
Although love addiction is a very real thing, I reckon dating pathologically (or having one relationship after another) is also a way of avoiding oneself. This will make a person repeat patterns and go around in circles, never learning anything really. It'll also prevent a person growing into their full potential. And, sometimes, it'll end up that they never really know who they are themselves.
That's a negative consequence right there.
Only I can "make" myself happy.
Only I can do this by creating the life that I want. And by letting go of the things that aren't in accordance with this. There is not one person in the entire universe that is even remotely capable of doing this for me.
How cruel to even try to make this someone else's responsibility.
How irresponsible as well.
But if I were to date again at some point, I would now never, ever pretend to be who I am not.
Be f*ckin' honest. About everything.
This is my one and only rule these days.
I don't have any other rules anymore, because I also know (now) that I don't really know much after all. I do know that things I once thought were carved in stone have changed with knowledge and with different circumstances.
I also know that being open-minded really helps me to be open to the possibilities and to learn more quickly.
And there's no pressure now, you see.
This is when I think a person may be ready to meet a someone.
When there is no need involved.
When there is space for (what I understand to be) actual love.
Which is action, I think.
Again.
I say no pressure because I'm super happy flying solo these days.
I cherish my solitude and the freedom and peace it affords me.
I guard it quite jealously.
Since relationships do take so much communicating and are such work at times, and I prefer a great deal of silence, I find being single simple, liberating, creative and exciting. Sure, it can be lonely every now and then (hardly ever when you're creative) and, sometimes, I have an experience that's so awesome I do wish I could share it with someone, but hey...
now I have Hive so that may never be an issue again.
This really happy with me, my own company and my own pace happened after I got sober from alcohol, and substances, and I moved into both emotional and mental sobriety over the following years.
Yep. Emotional and mental sobriety.
Nope, it's not the substances that are the problem. It's the programming and subsequent thinking. The substances are the easy part to quit and only the tip of the iceberg. Once you abandon alcohol and/or drugs (same thing, but one is a legal drug and you drink it - let's be honest here) the real fun, or terror if you're gonna be all dramatic about it, begins!
So I've been really careful about my motivation for wanting to date.
And as most of you know... since I lost my sh!t (at the government), all of my financial security and everything else along with it... I haven't considered myself to be in a position to date at all these last almost four years.
It would be plain irresponsible of me. Wouldn't it?
Not really fair to foist my somewhat bizarre history, and consequences of endless stupid decisions and blindly chronic naivety, onto an unsuspecting potential partner. I'd consider it highly unethical, in fact.
I'll date again when I've sorted my sh!t out. Which I'm busy doing now. I'll think about meeting a someone when I'm fully happy with the life I've created and I feel as though I can invite someone in, who'll both benefit from and enhance that life.
A team mate and a BFF. A fellow adventurer, free spirit and seeker.
Again. I know you're out there... 🌺
but now I'm busy gettin' ready to meet you.
Hang ten.
I'm almost done.
And when we do date, I'm not gonna be anything other than I am.
That's the rule, you see. The one golden rule of dating. For me.
So you'd better be you as well, because I can see things now.
I mean I can see f*ckin' clearly now.
And all I can say is that authenticity, honesty, vulnerability and personal accountability are hot and sexy as hell. I don't care what you have in your wallet or what car you drive. That's the small stuff. It's even the worst stuff if you have all of that for the wrong reasons.
How well do you know yourself?
How fearless are you?
How deep down the rabbit hole have you been?
I could say I won't sleep with anyone on the first date.
It's highly unlikely I will anyway.
It takes me time to warm up to people.
It takes time to get to know people.
But hey... you think you know yourself and then you find yourself with a backpack, two bags of linen and a few odds and ends, all alone in a village by the sea with almost none of your life left...
and you're the happiest and most at peace you've ever been in your whole entire life.
It's at this exact moment that you think...
anything really is possible.
Eternal Seeker
Hardened Dreamer
Mother
Warrior
Determined Dancer
and Stargazer
still...
Beyond fear is freedom
And there is nothing to be afraid of.
To Life, with Love... and always for Truth!
Nicky Dee
Featured image montage created with Photo by freestocks on Unsplash
and Photo by Vince Fleming on Unsplash