The test becomes the testimony. . . . Touching the World through Writing.
Even Me
By S. RenaeAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 [S. Renae]
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4670-4123-2 Contents
Chapter 1: Tell Me Who You Love ... I'll Tell You Who You Are.....................1Chapter 2: Adam and Eve...........................................................11Chapter 3: When You Are Feeling Lonely............................................15Chapter 4: What's your Kryptonite?................................................18Chapter 5: Love versus Self.......................................................23Chapter 6: Adversity Introduces You to Yourself...................................26Chapter 7: Inhale, but Exhale.....................................................28Chapter 8: Beauty for Ashes.......................................................31Chapter 9: The Truth..............................................................33Chapter 10: Proverbs 31...........................................................35Chapter 11: Meekness—Our Authentic Selves...................................38Chapter 12: Even Me...............................................................40
Chapter One
Tell Me Who You Love ... I'll Tell You Who You Are
What makes an educated woman whom God has brought through so much still want a Man that can hurt her to her soul? What makes an attractive women want a Man that belongs to another? What makes a woman who comes from the most loving family possible feel like she will never be chosen? What makes a woman with the most extraordinary father want a Man that is so selfish it makes her sick? I am not sure the answers to these questions as I venture out to write this book, but I am sure to know the answers when I am finished. I am not sure the answers, but I hope as I take this journey I will discover more about God and how all this relates to how He sees me and how the enemy fights against that image.
I've watched the Maury shows with all the episodes of you are not the father and cry. I cried because I felt so deeply for the woman searching for their babies' fathers. I am moved because I understand what it is like to be looking for love in all the wrong places or should I say in too many places and coming up short. Then when these women finally find a good Man, they cheat on them. I can relate to these women not feeling as though they deserve a good Man. I too could be a woman of Many children ... not knowing the father. These are some of the very reasons I am writing this book. I need to come to terms with what this is all about and why I have found myself here Many times as well.
It is a scary thing to look back and consider who you love as a reflection of who you are. When you embrace this, you must embrace the reality of it too and that sends a great big OUCH through my body. The way we see ourselves is reflected of who we chose to love beloved. We just can't get around this. So, when I was in love with the men of my past, who was I then? Well, let's explore this by starting with my first love.
The first man was an amazing young Man that I dated as a teenager. He was nice and very well liked. He had lots of friends and very popular and large family that loved him so much. The first man was a man that saw the best in everyone and loved people quite deeply, especially his family and friends. I, on the other hand was the total opposite at that time. I had no idea who I was so as a result, I was cold and closed to most. However, with the first man, I became popular and accepted even in the state of not knowing myself, so it felt right. I was able to get in the crowd through his charm and he was very charming indeed. I loved this man very much, but not so much for whom he was instead it was more about the prominent image our relationship gave me. This was where I was at the time ... trying to find out that I was somebody and I did become more of a somebody with him. This is who I loved and this is who I was. I was someone looking for acceptance, but most of all I was someone who wanted to be chosen by a Man for others to see. Does this sound familiar?
The first man was the sweetest love I have known and until this day while I write this book, my greatest love of all in terms of a man that is. I did not have to pretend with him. I did not know who I was, but with him, that was okay because with him ... I was always somebody. With him, I was somebody in the community which expounded across many cities of his influence, not just my own hometown. You see, I had lost some points in my own city through an incident in middle school with a boy. This incident rumored that I was having sex in the hallway and cost me a reputation and popularity. My rep was what I was trying to get back, but true love which beloved is so rare is what I found. As much as I loved the first man, I loved the acceptance and fame in the community also. I became widely accepted and preferred by him and others. I was living in a dream for many years, but that dream would surely shatter once he left for the Air Force. Who was I once he left ... a hot mess trying to keep up with all that relationship had given me ... acceptance.
I continued hanging with the people of his circle, but now with the first man gone, I had no idea who I was with them. I knew with him physically, I was his girl and in the family. Without his presence, it was not the same. Now, I would have to fend for myself for acceptance so I began doing what the community did ... have fun, hang out and get high. This is something I would have never done with the first man's presence, but he was gone. As much as I tried to hang onto him, I wanted acceptance and he was no longer giving it to me. Again, he was gone. So, my new way of being accepted began happening in the streets with the same family and friends of that circle he created with me. This was who I loved and who I was, but more than that, I had become someone looking for approval. I got approval with the first man. He is someone that I truly loved then and will always love. However, during the college years with The first man gone, I would find another level of acceptance in Man in an educational setting.
The second man was a very kind and gentle man, but most of all, he was very popular in college. He was what we would call a big man on campus and known by most as a Man of integrity. He was heavily involved in the politics and advocacy issues on campus which was very attractive to many women. He also was a gentle Man who showed care and concern for many people. He came from a wonderful loving family ... Oh how I loved his mother. Anyway, soon after we started seriously dating, he became the president of one of the most affluent clubs on campus. So, I became somewhat of a first lady on campus. What a place to be ... first lady.
In this role I received high respect and with him, I was so popular and regarded with high esteem. This was a great place of shelter for my brokenness because remember, I was still that girl looking for acceptance and love, so this felt like perfection. He was highly respected and I got to share in that. I loved the glory of it all because I could be the great pretender not dealing with who I really thought I was ... nothing. I could be highly respected and keep my secrets of how I really felt ... not worthy. I could also be in the forefront of so many important things at college without revealing what I really thought ... if they only knew who they had upfront.
As much as I was able to pretend during these college years with who I was, I was not able to pretend that I was in love. What I felt for this man was situational and about our environment together. I loved him because of the acceptance and respect that was afforded to me as his girlfriend, but when I graduated (being a year in front of him) our relationship ceased almost immediately. He no longer fulfilled my needs because he was still big man on campus and I was no longer part of that environment. Sometimes I think back on it and wonder if he had a similar experience with me ... when I left, did he also feel a void that I only filled when I was there? Whatever the answer ... this is certainly a Man that has and always will have my utmost respect because he deserves it.
So, I went back home to the same chaos that I left because I really had not changed. I was still that wounded girl looking for love and acceptance. However, now I would surely be looking in all the wrong places. I was out of college, had no boyfriend and open for whatever ... Beloved, never be open for whatever. It is just a place where you will find just that, a whatever. There were many men I dated after the second man. Most of them were from my hometown or another hood that I would frequent. I was back involved with fitting in, so that meant back involved with some level of recreational drug use and hanging out. Of course as I lived, so should be the man that I would attach myself to.
The third man was someone who was very loving and kind to me. He did what he could to please me and was very popular in the streets. He received love and respect from the streets and with him, so did I. He had been someone that I had known for many years. There was this comfortability we had with one another that made our union seem right. He was a very honest man and for the first time in my life, I found myself telling my secrets to him. He was able to comfort me knowing some of my secrets and numerous mistakes and still cared for me in spite of them. Even though my secrets were usually told to him in all night talks while we were intoxicated, it was still a place where I felt accepted by him and the community, again. Just like with the first man, the community was accepting me through my relationship with him and I longed for that.
The third man and I had a good run with each other in the utmost deception. Our relationship was really surrounded by our desire to be intoxicated. When I think back on it, the only time we were really deep in relationship with each other was when we were high. Anyway, as we continued our relationship, I got pregnant and we got married ... talking about acceptance, I was now not sealing a deal of being accepted through serious commitment. I would have thought that being that girl was only looking to right the wrongs of my past and that this would provide the healing that I longed for. However, it was this relationship that shielded my faults and wrong-doings even more because beloved, now I had a partner that accepted it.
The third man accepted my drug use, my promiscuity and my own self-deception. He accepted what I projected. I did not have to pretend with him and nothing I did or said surprised him. You see the third man was in the place where my deception caught up with my need for acceptance and love. I was able to live in my fears and short-comings comfortably while being not only accepted in spite of them, but because of them. It was my short-comings and self-deception, which now I know was pleasing the flesh to minimize my greatness, was right on his level. He was doing the same thing. He was pleasing his flesh too with intoxication to minimize his own greatness. What a perfect pair ... a marriage of convenience and deception with all the acceptance my heart could hold.
I was still broken, but respected in the community while being allowed to feed my flesh garbage within the confines of a relationship. At the time I thought this was a win-win situation, it was a sum total of few of the worst years of my life. We lived like savages, simply longing each day for intoxication. Getting high, hanging out and having a good time became our life together. It was complete chaos. What I thought I wanted in acceptance was a complete disaster. Living with the acceptance of all the non-okay parts of me, was simply not okay and I knew it. As much as I cared for this man and the honesty afforded to me ... I could only rise to his level and that was not enough. I was still broken with him and depression grew strong. As much as I enjoyed being accepted, I did not enjoy what I was being accepted for. As such, I would move on from this relationship into another level of acceptance. This time these men would be behind bars. Who would have thought?
Now, many women do what I just described, date men that are in jail and beloved don't judge them. They too are looking for acceptance and men in jail have no real choice but to accept and love the women who while in jail accept and love them back. These men are a captive audience in which we can do what we want, while giving them what they need ... support. We can be accepted and loved by a man in jail because they have the time to take to feed us what we need ... attention. These men will show you concern and acceptance because it is simply what they want in return ... someone to hold them down. All they really have is love and time to show affection and when you are broken, this is so attractive.
So, the fourth and fifth men were part of the incarcerated population. However, they were two men from my hometown that I had known as good friends since I was a child. There was this sense of responsibility to support them being from my hood and all, but also a sense of acceptance and attention that I had not experienced. Because of their situations, they both showed me lots of attention through letters and phone calls that cost me a mint. I had their undivided attention and their affection. For someone who is broken beloved, this was almost the perfect relationship. Many women who are lost and broken have them. These are the relationships where everyone is just accepted. What I got wrapped up into is the mere fact that these men knew me and my past, but saw lots of good in me. In fact, they both focused on the good stuff which made me feel first-class. They both knew some of my drug use history, but would focus more on my college degree and how I was helping the community. They both treated me as if they were lucky to be with me ... me, and that was just what my ego ordered at the time.
Relationships with men who are in prison provide a lot to women like me who are seeking love and acceptance. They provide stability. Where is he going? They provide attention. What else does he have to do but write you every day and run your phone bill up? Most of all though these men want the same thing for the most part ... support, love and acceptance. The fourth and fifth man provided me with these things, but what they also gave me was the opportunity to do whatever I wanted, like see other men, get high and hang out without question or their knowing. It was like having my cake and eating it too. I got to do what I wanted and with them, no consequences ... they were still choosing me. All I had to do is show attention back; concern back, love and acceptance back and receive these same things in abundance.
What a good feeling you can get when in relationship with the incarcerated population. Though these relationships really do not last outside the walls of the prison, they made for a good ride of continued deception. Once these men get out, all that you received was lost in their need to obtain acceptance from the community. At the same time, this was not the community acceptance I was looking for once they returned to the streets. So, continuing in my longing for love and acceptance I thought I had nailed it with a very interesting and long term entanglement with the sixth man.
The sixth man was one of my greatest loves because the woman that was with this man was not the drug user and wasn't hanging out. The woman in love with this Man was a community organizer and leader. The sixth man was a man that I served the community with. He did not work in the same place as I, but served the same people I did, so we had a service level bond from the start. I don't even think he knew of my past and I surely never told him because, what a feeling to be accepted for all your good. This was a place of not even dealing with the past and just living solely within deception. I wanted to be what he saw and I loved him for seeing such good in me. He saw me as smart and a strong leader and asked me to help him on a project that required thinking and writing. This at the time was the ultimate acceptance. This man accepted me for the greatness in me that I had not yet acknowledged in myself. He saw the good and I longed to be what he could see.
This place was new to me and I fell hard for this Man because of my desire for his vision. This man was highly respected in the community, but what was most attractive is that he was a servant in the community just like me. I was so drawn to this level of acceptance so much that I gave all of me to it. I felt like healing was occurring in this relationship, so much that I did not even deal with my past. I just started being this other person ... the one that he could see. This level of giving of myself landed me in the worst place—completely deceived. I knew what the past looked like, but living in hypocrisy just felt better. I knew how much I longed for love and acceptance, but living in deception did not hurt anyone. However, I would surely find out that I was digging the largest opening ever as my deceptions growth and high regard in the community would finally collide bringing me to one of my darkest hours.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Even Meby S. Renae Copyright © 2011 by [S. Renae]. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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