CHAPTER 1
FIND AND POLISH THE TRUE YOU
What I had to do for myself, and what I encourage other people to do, was to figure out my faults and where they came from. I had to try to improve on those qualities or at the very least try to keep them from affecting our relationship. That way, working on me becomes working on our relationship!—Taj
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We could have called this chapter "You and Your Baggage." All of us have it. We certainly do. A few people seem to travel light—women with maybe a handbag's worth, just enough to get through a night on the town, men with not much more than you could toss into the glove compartment. Others travel like they're moving across the country, with more cases, trunks, and bags than you could cram into a U-Haul, lugging all kinds of drama, fear, and regret into every new situation. Most of us, we think, are somewhere in the middle. We all wish we could travel lighter, and we're not willing to unpack everything, especially in front of that special someone we've just met and hope to start something brand new with.
We all have "histories." That's what makes us who we are, good, bad, or indifferent. And whether or not we want to acknowledge it, that history has shaped our ideals and our wants and needs. The reality—and remember, we're being real here—is that we'll never get rid of all our baggage permanently, but the two of us are living proof that it's possible to minimize it, to turn liabilities into assets and negatives into positives.
This chapter is about working on you because that's where all your relationships start. A healthy you is the basis for any healthy relationship. When you're in a good place, your mate is more likely to complement you than to clash with you. Now, in order to become the best possible you, you have to face the you that exists now—and that means learning to see both the good and the bad. In this chapter, we will teach you how to recognize and pump up your best qualities as well as acknowledge and improve upon your bad qualities so that you're able to accept the love that God has placed in your life.
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I can honestly say that both Eddie and I travel with a lot less baggage than we used to. We both had some from our childhoods and the relationships we'd been in before, but I think most of his came at the end of his NFL career, at that point where he had to adjust to a brand-new life. I'm proud to say he's worked through that. I don't think he's carrying much more than you could fit in a fanny pack. As for me, a lot of stuff still pops up, and I can get very emotional on short notice. Sometimes Eddie talks me down out of the tree, and sometimes I can coach myself out of it. But where I used to have a mountain of luggage, therapy and the kind of work we're talking about in this book have helped me cut it down to just a backpack! —Taj
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My idea of family was shattered at the age of five when my mom and dad divorced. I really didn't know why they were splitting up, but I thought it was because of me ... because I didn't help my mom with the chores around the house. As sad as that is, that's what I thought. No child of five can really understand what splits up their parents' marriage or what adults are capable of thinking or doing. All I knew was that a spike had been driven through the family, and I still carried the thought that I had caused it. As the years went by, the relationship between my mom and my sister was affected also. They just didn't get along. My family was dismantled for reasons I didn't know at that time.
My mom was a flight attendant, and she was gone a lot. My sister and I lived with our grandmother most of the time while I was in grade school and high school, and we only saw our mom on the weekends.
My father was in and out of my life a lot during those years. He lived right around the corner from me, but he was emotionally unavailable. My father's distance had a big effect on me and eroded my confidence and self-esteem and chipped away at my very identity.
During those years, with no one I viewed as a real disciplinary figure, I became quite the little menace. I wasn't doing things like stealing or robbing people— it was more like skipping class or skipping school altogether, not studying or applying myself academically. I didn't care about school. I cared about football. That's where I poured all my dreams.
What kept me grounded through all of it were the people around me—my mom, my grandmother, and my uncles, Kevin and Derek. They were the ones who said that I could accomplish something, that I could be somebody. They were the ones who said, "Here are the possibilities."
My mom saw what was happening and decided after my sophomore year at Abington High School in Philadelphia to send me to Fork Union Military Academy in Virginia. She saw my potential, the part I was using and the part I was wasting, and she made a huge financial sacrifice to send me away to school.
It was there that I was given the opportunity to change my perception of what my life could be. My football coach was a huge anchor in my life at that time. He challenged me and pushed me hard. He told me I could be a Division 1 running back, maybe even a Heisman Trophy winner.
All of us have good and bad influences battling inside us, and despite the people who were pushing me to do well, it was very difficult for me. I put a lot of defense mechanisms in place just to survive because there had always been other people and situations that were negative when it came to what I was doing or wanted to accomplish. Those defenses would stay with me well into my adulthood. —Eddie
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I grew up in a violent household with a stint of molestation from a cousin. My stepfather, who came into my life when I was three years old, was a serious drug addict who was physically abusive to my family—mostly to my mother. To go into detail about the abuse that he put my family through would require a book in itself. We'll save my stepfather and cousin for a to-be-continued autobiography. My biological dad died when I was nine, my mom when I was fourteen. My three brothers and I were then split up. I had to live with a cousin who was not nurturing at all. In fact, I pretty much lived the Cinderella story—the first part, before the fairy godmother. I was miserable and resented my mother for leaving us by ourselves. Something she used to say to us when we worked her nerves would haunt me in my sleep. She'd say, "Y'all better appreciate me now because when I'm gone, no one is gonna treat you like your mother." She was so right! I wasn't allowed to do anything. And I mean nothing! I wasn't allowed outside, I couldn't use the phone, and I wasn't allowed to work on the weekends, which was tough because all of the fast-food jobs required at least one day during the weekend.
Living in a one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment in New York City with six people was a bit crowded. That I could deal with. What I didn't like was having to clean up after those who were home all day and unemployed, especially since Monday through Friday I was attending school, followed by work. I had to wash dishes every day, no matter what time I came home, and clean the bathroom, which was about the size of a large closet. It was just horrendous for me. I wanted my fairy godmother!
To go into detail about my cousin would require a full section in my autobiography, so we'll save some of that as well. I had my complaints, but my brothers had it far worse than I did. My brother Henry had just turned eighteen, so no one in my family felt there was a need to take him in. Almost a year later, he joined the Marines hoping to find stability. My brothers Robert (seventeen) and Wayne (sixteen) were not so lucky. My grandfather drove them to Bristol, Pennsylvania, to live with Robert's father, who had been absent for most of his life. He gave them both twenty dollars and left. And I felt that my cousin acted like she'd been forced to take me, I annoyed her, and as a result, I always felt out of place. The family that should have loved and taken care of my brothers and me didn't even want us there.
The experiences with my stepfather and molesting cousin definitely shaped the way I felt about men and relationships. There wasn't a healthy model anywhere to change my perception from negative to positive. Growing up, I can't remember seeing a couple who made me say to myself, When I have a boyfriend, I want my relationship to be just like that. Every person I knew was having some kind of physical or emotional abuse or marital problem.
I felt like I couldn't open up to anybody, so I closed myself off. It became hard to manage my emotions around people. When I did find someone who seemed to reciprocate my love—who ended up being a boyfriend—I became so attached and overbearing that I think I just pushed him away. I was eighteen or nineteen and ready to be in love for the rest of my life. I realized later how crazy I must have seemed. I just wanted an incredible marriage and a family that I could depend on, and I would think, I've found it, every time I found a boyfriend who treated me nicely (at first). I would believe that with him my life could finally have some kind of foundation. Of course, there aren't many boys that age ready for anything like that, so I found myself sabotaging my relationships almost from the start. —Taj
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None of us gets through childhood and adolescence without some baggage, some bumps and bruises to our psyches. Life is a contact sport.
Preparing ourselves for a great relationship doesn't require that we eliminate every bit of baggage. It does mean dealing with it and learning to handle the situations and emotions that could turn into new baggage. And it was a learning process for us. As we have grown and matured, in our faith especially, we see that our premarital sex had a cost. Once sex enters the equation, there is no going back. It is a game changer, and it could easily have turned into new baggage.
So, where do we start?
It all begins with facing your history, and there's no better way to reveal the past to yourself than with paper and a pen or that trusty computer keyboard. There are a couple of advantages to putting it down in black and white. First, writing forces us to think, which is something a lot of us don't like to do with potentially unpleasant topics. And second, it puts good and bad in perspective. Our problems feel bigger and more complicated when they're running around inside our heads. Putting them on paper usually lets us see that they boil down to a few simple emotions, or a few simple tactics we use that aren't working anymore.
When you begin writing, you'll be tempted to spend too much time on what other people have done. What's important is not, What did they do? —although you need to acknowledge that—but What did I do? People are going to say and do things that hurt you. Sometimes they mean to; sometimes they don't. But finding the best you doesn't mean dwelling on others' mistakes or misdeeds. It means facing yours so you can change your actions and attitudes.
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It's hard to say whether I even knew what a good relationship was when I was a kid. At this point, I'd say it should be stable and enjoyable, for starters. The primary relationship I saw as a kid was the one between my parents, and it wasn't either of those things. There was always a lot of tension. None of us knew what was going to happen from day to day, or how our lives might change at any second.
The one intact relationship in my family belonged to my grandmother and grandfather. My grandmother was pretty much the rock of the family. She was the one who prayed a lot. She was the one we'd go to with problems. My grandfather was strong and stern, but he didn't say a lot.
I was a late starter when it came to relationships. In junior high and high school, I didn't have a social life of any kind. Just didn't have one. I was trying to find where I fit in, and I didn't. I wasn't a nerd, but I sure wasn't cool. I didn't have a girlfriend, and I didn't really reach my potential as a cool guy or whatever you want to call it until later on. In fact, I was Mr. Irrelevant, Mr. Cellophane. I left Abington High School for Fork Union Military Academy and then went back to my old school to visit a year later, and people didn't know I had left! These were my friends, and they hadn't realized I was gone!
I didn't date in junior high, and I sure didn't see a lot of girls in an all-male military school. I had very little experience being around or talking with women. The only real exposure I had was what I saw on television or heard from my friends. Consequently, I was really shy with females. People thought I was arrogant or stuck up, but in fact, I was just nervous.
When I got to college, I had my first real girlfriend. I was eighteen or nineteen years old, and I really wanted a relationship. Most of my freshman year I was either at her apartment or driving her car around; I wasn't involved in campus life. It was cool up until spring quarter when I looked around and I saw a plethora of females on campus. Then I said, "Wow! I'm a freshman, and I have three more years of this! Why be with one girlfriend when there are all these girls walking around?" Let's just say I broke it off quickly, and I didn't settle back down until I married.
And I was still dealing with the self-esteem problems and the other things I'd confronted as a child. Everybody saw a tough, physical, hard-nosed football player, but on the inside, I was afraid of failure, of going back to where I was. I was scared to death. —Eddie
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I realized I needed to work more on me after my exboyfriend broke up with me. It was a tough, bitter ending to the relationship, and I refused to let go. I thought, Maybe he's just not thinking correctly. Maybe if I could just give him a couple weeks off and then come back, he'll realize that we love each other and that we're supposed to be together. I was holding on to my personal dream of a strong foundation with someone who didn't want the same.
Even when he started seeing other girls, I kept thinking, This is just temporary. He just needs to get this out of his system, and then we're going to be together forever. Once he realizes that they don't love him like I love him, of course he's going to come back to me.
I was on tour with Sisters with Voices, and I had to be in D.C. on this particular night. I hadn't talked to him in maybe two or three weeks, which was like an eternity, because normally I would call like four or five times a day. I decided to call him. He was excited to hear from me, and I was excited that he was excited. I was thinking, It's working! He's gonna love me! He told me that he had a game that night and that as soon as he heard my voice he knew he was going to have a great game because I was his good luck charm.
So I went off and did my show and came directly back to my hotel room. I turned on the TV because I wanted to see if he had a good game, and he scored thirty-four points! I was like, This is it! I am the good luck charm, and we are going to be together forever. It's gonna work now! Thank you, God!
I picked up the phone and called him, so excited to talk to him and for him to tell me that this is going to work now. But his new girlfriend answered the phone. What was left of my heart just exploded into one hundred million little pieces. So I kind of pulled myself together because I didn't want to sound like I was going to cry—I knew that would push him away—so I said in my best voice, "I'm so happy for you. Congratulations." And I got off the phone as quickly as possible. I couldn't hold in my pain any longer.
And when I did let that pain go, I literally cried for three days straight. I mean nonstop. I would eat and cry, I would call people and cry, I would get in the car and cry, I would lie down and cry, I would exercise and cry, and then I would cry some more. And I realized it was because I had to cry him out of my system. It was a detachment because I knew I just couldn't put myself through that anymore. More important, I realized at that point that it wasn't him doing it. It was me doing it. I kept allowing him to drag me through the mud. I kept going back for more. I kept believing that something was there that wasn't there. Realizing that and facing it were the hardest things for me to do, but that harsh realization set me free.
The next day, the third day, I woke up, and I stopped crying. It was almost like I just dried up, like I didn't have another tear left to cry. And I realized that I had to call that day and sever all ties with this person who didn't want anything to do with me anyway. It's almost as if he was doing me a favor by putting up with me. That's when I made that call and officially broke up with him. I said, "I know you can't change, but I have to change for my sake. It's not healthy for me." I told him that we shouldn't talk anymore, that this was it. I never talked to him again.
