Part 2: No Stranger to Pain

I am no stranger to pain. I would venture to say many angry black women are on a first-name basis with pain. Maybe even women who are not so angry... that's the deal with pain... Pain is NOT monogamous. I am sure many of you reading this right now have your own Pain Tale to tell. We, angry black women, have common ground. I have had my heart broken into a million teeny tiny pieces - many times. How about you? At one time, I did not think that all those fragments could ever be put back together. My mother died when she was 56 years old.... pushing when she was tired of pushing... going when she just couldn't go anymore. I was even beginning to walk in those shoes. Working a job that I had come to hate... working 6 days a week sometimes 12 hours or more a day. Gaining weight... Hair falling out... and then I had the NERVE to get adult ACNE of all things. Hormones all in an uproar, for many reasons, but the primary reason is lack of sex... I took the purity challenge (I know... how old am I? LOL... it doesn't matter, it is never too late to become celibate again and listen, it is not such a bad decision considering all this down-low mess). Yes, I'm still angry. I have unnamed family members who think I am out of my mind. How in the world did I just up and quit my job like that? Did I not hear about this economy? Besides just quitting, I moved clear across the country... I got the heck outta dodge. Yeah, I'm angry! Mad at myself for not quitting sooner... that's just if you ask me... Leaving my City of Detroit job was the single best decision I ever made in my life. I quit for me! Working to the point of exhaustion... letting myself go... I really quit caring about ME... the ME in ME! What was I doing all that for anyway? A three bedroom house in the Burbs? A three bedroom house in the Burbs is NOT worth my premature death. I was so miserable. I didn't even know the depths of my misery until I quit. I had become so accustomed to being miserable, I just thought that was the way it was supposed to be. I was no stranger to pain... hell, it was par for the course considering my life. To my surprise, there was a WHOLE new world waiting for me. I bet I learned that from my mother's death. You don't have to keep pushing when you are plain tired of pushing. You don't have to keep going when you just can't 'go' anymore. What are you doing all that for anyway? I guess by the time I finish posting my Ink Spots, I'll be less angry...LOL you never know though. For now, I'll settle for being on a sir-name basis with pain... pain and I are not as familiar or as close as we once were... and I thank God for that, dear reader.