I Finally Did It... #ShoopShoop

*takes a deep black breath*

Like I legit had a waiting to exhale moment in 2019. *queues up soundtrack because that whole thang slapped* I have seen that movie 50-11 million times, including my watching it on network television with all the commercials last week.

Man, listen. A whole exhale.

I have so many favorite parts of that movie/story/epic series of events in the lives of 30-something black women. However, my favorite (even above Robyn throwing that orange at Troy’s leather in the summertime wearing ass) was Bernie and James. Angela and Wesley. (but at some point we are going to have to talk about how Patricia (janet) came through with the most excellent remix of Bernie and that burnt car tho #ItIsTrash #ThatGolfClub #YouKnowHowMadYouGottaBe? *queues up Tweet* pass me a cigarette Bernie #iDigress)

How many of us have found ourselves in a completely vulnerable, devastatingly silent, and extremely public place dressed impeccably in the shambles of our life? Example: At the bar of a hotel looking at the remains of your broken marriage while a couple is taking wedding photos in the lobby. That was Bernie. If you're me *hypothetically, of course ... in my lyfe jennings voice* you're crashing a conference and you meet someone else who is crashing the conference too, and you go hang out together because the friends you're with are conferencing, and well, you're crashing. Anyway, later that evening Bernie and James would make the night beautiful and then return to their lives, to grieve the dead (her marriage) and dying (his wife). An isolated moment in time with reverberations so strong, they needed to be written, double enveloped, mailed, and well, read.

I’ve waiting as long as I could to contact you. I’ve been thinking about you a lot, Bernie. Every day. All the time. I’m embarrassed to even write that down, but it’s true.

Bernie, I fell in love, in one night. You know what’s even harder for me to understand – is that what I feel for you has never undercut the love I have for my wife. Now, how is that possible?

I still watch her every day. So beautiful. So brave. I just wanna give her everything I’ve got in me – every moment. She’s hanging on, fighting to be here for me, and when she sleeps, I cry over how amazing she is, and how lucky I’ve been to have her in my life.

You’re the only person in this world I ever knew I could tell this to – and even if this never finds you, and we never speak again, you’ve changed my life.

I know it was the 90’s but this man wrote her a whole letter, y'all. He used all his words; he used all his real words. Have you ever felt that with someone? You tell them something you haven’t told your family, parents, spouse, or even closest friend. Sure, there may be something to the we’re never going to see each other again quality of the interaction, but that isn’t why you said it. You actually never planned to say it, but there you are, face to face, exchanging real words with each other. And everything about what is happening makes complete sense.

You know what inspiration is? It’s someone who lets you know life will go on and something beautiful can be waiting somewhere. Somewhere, when you least expect it.

I spent an entire day with a man who was absolutely curious about me, because me. The End. He looked at me, in both mine eyes, absolutely focused on me. He engaged with me in a way that showed me my life was going to continue, and something beautiful was waiting on me somewhere. When something dies, that thing that was everything, you begin to see the eventual death in everything living around you. We believe in the pain before we believe in peace because hurt is a more trustworthy emotion than happiness. Why is that? (hello, hello, hello heartbreak)

But he looked me in my eyes wrought with death and offered me real living words. He did it promising me absolutely nothing. Much like James never leaving his wife under any circumstances, what he offered me that night was basically las vegas, by way of los angeles (I mean, they are close enough, in distance and distraction). Though calculating and crisp with his words, he did not say it that way. He carefully remarked that he had one job, and we fist bumped because he did that job well. Splendid.

It was a good ass night. And you know me so you know that I have collected (and conspired) plenty a random of good ass night in my time with super great people that I literally just met as the night commenced. But everything about me now, about who I am, is a life after death experience *big ups to biggie* There was the time prior to mid-2017, and then there is all of this here. I have not had a good ass night in any of this here. What's worse than not having one, is believing with some certainty that there wouldn't be one ever again. Not because I was undeserving or unworthy, but because that's just what this here is all about. I couldn't see it as being possible. I mean, do you know how hard it is to see mustard seeds, fam? My faith-sight ain't what it used to be *somebody grandma pray for me...i need a fan wavin, control top stockings wearin, wig shakin prayer*. But he, doing his one job exceptionally well, shared the good rev. dr. line brother’s word about believing when we aren’t seeing, huddled over his sermon notes captured in a “smart device” likely done using this thing called “y-phi”... They help you work when you're far away from the office.

So, I went on and got some nerve. I did it. I closed my eyes. And I exhaled.

There is no guarantee that I am ever going to see this man again, I had a wonderfully innocent experience with him, and I’m certain that it changed my life. All imperfect pieces in a puzzle that we made fit, in just one night. We kind of left like Bernie and James, grieving, in a good way. Who we were beginning to pass to make space for who we are becoming... *so’which’one’a’yall gonna send me that book tho, #treysongzvoice*

He inspired me. And in turn, we made the night beautiful, in an old fashioned way.