settle

September 30th:

My younger sister is getting married tomorrow.

Of course, this is making my mind spin a little bit.

I keep wondering what this time will look like for me.  A wedding.  A new name.  A life with a man.

I simply cannot even imagine it anymore.  I cannot fathom the sort of man it will take to match up with me. The sort of man who would voluntarily (or not so voluntarily) pick me.  And not just pick me.  To be honest, I get picked all the time.  I am no longer invisible as I once feared.

But I want to be chosen.

I want to be the one and only.

This, my friends, is much harder than you remember it being.  And much harder than you might imagine it to be.  Only you who are standing right here with me know.

I am inventing myself.  Building myself.  As I always have.  Fighting for the future.  I am a scrappy girl. Who loves black culture and wildflowers.  Who wears scarves and doesn't brush her hair and wants a son with an afro.  I am comfortable where most people walk in fear.  And my ability to sink, to plant myself -- to just sit and watch the world -- is inexhaustible.

I have survived.  And crashed.  With open eyes and strong arms, I'm learning slowly how to put one foot in front of the other.

But over time, through heartbreak, through the development of calluses and the thickening of my skin, I've begun to believe a lie.

But the reassurance I live with is that I know how to do this.  I am independent.  And brave.  I get stronger every day.

The only thing is...  I really want to wake up in the morning with him next to me.  And I don't want to raise children without a father.

But what I know, what I grew up with, what I've experienced the last few years, just isn't going to cut it. It's just not enough.  It's just not worth it.

So I'm alone.  Just me.  Independent and self-sufficient.  Busy as hell and feisty.

The lie creeps in late at night.  It's in his eyes and in his hands and it's on her left hand and it's all wrapped up in the phone call I didn't get.  I fight against it like I fight against cycles of poverty and violence.  Like I fight against apathy and hunger.  An invisible enemy with visible effects.

But I know one moment will change it all.  Whether I am aware of it as it passes over me, or I recognize it in retrospect.  When I am chosen.  Seen.  Above the rest.  When I am the only one he sees.  Then the spinning tires will finally find traction.  And a journey will begin.

We'll see what happens.  But I'm resting now, knowing I know who I am.  I am stronger than before.  And when it happens one day, I will have a whole woman to bring into the equation.