REFLECTION: Your Anger at Jada is Rooted in Misogynoir and It Shows

That title was clickbait. But, if you want proof that your anger at Jada Pinkett Smith is rooted in toxic masculinity and misogynoir, you need only search through this hashtag.

(Also, for your reference.)

—-

Anyways, I’ve come to the part of quarantine where I really am just looking at old pictures of myself taken in random places. And marveling at the bravery of that previous person, and all she’s come to be.

I remember taking this selfie on the front porch of a row house in #GardenDistrict, New Orleans. It was sticky there like it is in Winston today. It was post-one of several hundred somatic therapy calls I’ve had over the last five years. 

I was posturing here.
Seeing myself only for the sake of an acute desire to be seen. 

I was falling in and over myself in love.
Holley and I were on her first book tour (planned and executed by moi) and it had just dawned on me that I was willing to do just about anything to make her dreams come true, and according to Elizabeth (the facilitator of all that previously mentioned #somaticwork), I needed to (loosely) trust Holley to show up - or not care so much whether Holley - could help do the same for mine. 

Both, and. 

Holley and I fake argued (well, as two professional communicators, we just talked continuously and then not at all, on repeat, for the bulk of this NO trip) about where we’d live and why, and what we needed - out of life, our trip, in a city. 

(Oh.
Have I failed to mention that while on this tour, we were also in the middle of a cross-country move?)

Neither of us really knew anything for sure. Both of us were (mostly) just spiraling as two individuals presented for the first of many times with a brand new thing: not floundering out of survival, but rising into real choice. 

In that previously mentioned convo with Elizabeth, I was complaining about Holley never waking up before 9 am. And unpacking the tendency both of us have to harm ourselves in order to manage the other’s experience. And repeating my desire to be in the South, away from bustle.

And a farm.
I wanted a farm. And more animals.
And Holley wanted constant flight. In a million cities if she could make it. 

The convo also circled around how I hadn’t quite figured out if either of us were fully healed from years of trauma. Or whether I’m a person that owned the capacity to ever find themselves satisfied in romantic relationship with others when so much of what I’d ever called love was really a euphemism for disappointment, or a painful lesson, or unrequited growth and/or effort.

Today, Holley and I are married. We live on what I like to call a 3-acre homestead. We’ve added another dog to our small family and are always thinking about the next. We’re still fake arguing over the idea of being ready for kids. We mostly wake up between 6:30 to tend to pets and plants and do things like change out all the light bulbs in the garage so we can build garden beds together.

We’ve nearly broken up at least twice. We cried because of, at, or with each other at 2x a week from November 2019 to at least April of 2020. We literally use that “man, you get on each other’s nerves” tone with each other at least once a day. And I’ve deeply loved at least three other people during our 4 years of being absolutely mad over one another.

I don’t know how long Holley and I will be together.
No one’s been able to predict accurately quite how long forever is.
I don’t know how many more human beings she or I will find and hold in/with our hearts.

But … I believe … if all you can find to focus on in Will and Jada’s Red Table Talk (where they shared commentary on their 25 years of marriage) is your inability to handle that some words provide better connotation and understanding of the complexities of short and longterm engagement than others, then maybe you’ve never had to communicate openly and transparently about the ways in which your actions have had unintended consequences in your life and/or the lives of other parties you love, and then take responsibility for those actions, reach amicable understanding or resolution, refuse to punish yourself for something you do not feel guilt around, and still remain growing and learning in intimate relationship.
And it shows.

Ok, so maybe the title wasn’t clickbait.