Posted on Sunday, July 27, 2014

Couples’ Night – Going From ‘Single Lady’ to ‘Smug Married’…

“In my heart, I will always be a single girl.”

Check the uncomfortable heels, the short skirt and the sassy pose – a single lady pic fo sho…I was on a cruise with other single ladies too..

This on point observation was offered by a married friend in my book club after she read one of my many, many, many single girl/lady blog posts a few years ago. I didn’t know quite what she meant at the time because I was not married, but now that I’m married, I do get it and I so agree…

Two weeks from today, I will have been married for a total of one year!!! Wow, my head is still spinning because I’m such a single lady in temperament, training and time lived on this earth. So in honor of my wedding anniversary, I have decided to devote three Sunday blog posts to going from a single lady to being a smug married. First of all, if you are unaware of the pop culture references I’m making when I say “single lady” and “smug married,” let me illuminate that for you. In many ways, Beyonce’s 2008 supa dupa hit song “Single Ladies: (Put a Ring on It)” captures one of the goals of many single women: getting a man to put a ring on it. “Smug Married” is a term from the wonderful 2001 movie “Bridget Jones’s Diary” in which Bridget, a true single lady, talks about her dislike of married people who see singlehood as a subservient state.

Now that I have defined those terms for you, let me get to the subject of today’s post: Couples’ Night. To date, I’ve been to three Couples’ Night/Excursions and each one makes me feel like I’m in elementary school. And I guess I am in elementary school of sorts. If being single was college, I would be Dr. Jackie and on a speaking tour. And if being married was college, I would be a kindergartener learning my colors and maybe my letters.

1. On my first Couples’ Night last September, three couples went to a club/restaurant type of establishment. I had been at a convention all day so I didn’t really feel like going out and if had been single, it would have been one of those nights that I would have stayed in. But since I’m now part of a team, I took one for the team literally and figuratively. I must confess, my look for the night was lackluster. I threw on some jeans, a cute but not slay-worthy top, some flats and headed out with the hubby. We ended up in Atlantic Station on the same weekend as the BET Hip Hop Awards. You already know. I felt like Mrs. Frump or President Obama in his mom jeans. And as I looked at the collective of us, we all looked pretty comfortable if you know what I mean or least suburban.

The club/restaurant was filled with young hotties whose skirts were short and heels were high. Lustrous hair flowing all the way to the floor it seemed was atop everyone’s head. And their makeup was shoot ready. In fact, I felt like I was an extra extra extra in a rap music video shoot except I didn’t make the cut. The next day on the way to church, I told my husband how I felt. He made some comment about how a 40-year-old woman shouldn’t look like they could star in a rap video and who wants that kind of woman anyway. I smiled with gratitude, but this is what I was thinking:

At this age, no, I don’t want to star in a rap music video, but I at least want to look like I could be asked…

Maybe it’s a stereotype, but coupled people tend to look comfortable. When a dude used to hit the gym a few times a week and be on the go, that same dude, once he gets married, starts finding excuses to not workout or stay at home because it’s less expensive. When a lady used to get hair done done on the regular and wear the latest, hottest outfits, that same lady, once she gets married, tries to hold out a little longer between hairdos to save some money and wears flat because heels hurt. My mom told me that my grandmother told her a few years after she got married that she needed to keep herself up so my father’s eyes wouldn’t stray. (TMI yes! But my mom heeded her advice.) The truth is: we all tend to get more comfortable, the older we get (single or married), but for some reason, being married seems to accelerate the process…

2. On our second Couples’ Night/Excursion, four couples traveled to Chateau Elan to celebrate Valentine’s Day or as some people say Single Awareness Day since Valentine’s Day is more of an event when you’re single. Even though it was meant to be a relaxing weekend, I must confess I was so nervous. Instead of spending just a few hours with couples, it was an overnight trip. As I said before, I have a doctorate degree in being single. When you’re single and traveling with your girls, there are various behaviors and or conversation topics that are acceptable. For example, if you want to go off by yourself and explore, that is perfectly acceptable on a single girl trip after all you are single. Or if you want to stay in one night and watch television, while not optimal, that’s cool too. And while we can talk about anything, inevitably, the conversation will shift to men and we compare notes, get updated, laugh about them, cry, swear them off, etc. But on a married couple trip, it seems like you must be grouped in two at all times. And no one really gets into the nitty gritty of their relationship because for the most part, what happens in a marriage stays in a marriage…It’s real pc and settled like….But I’ve only been on one couples trip so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about yet…

3. My third Couples’ Night was last Saturday. It was a game night. Every couple had to bring a game. I, in true single lady form, brought my “Sex and the City” trivia game. Hey, what can I say? It was a nice night. There was a personal chef who cooked Asian food that rivals if not beats the best Asian food I’ve ever had. It was in a home so there was pressure to BET rap music video worthy. It wasn’t an overnight trip so there was no pressure to figure out what to do or talk about for hours and hours. But then we played a marriage game in which couple had to guess the favorite video, food, etc. of their mate to get points. (We did something like this in premarital counseling.) It was the last game of the night, and I thought everything was going pretty smoothly until then. When you’re single, you’re expected to be an expert on nobody but yourself. But as a married person, not only do you have to know yourself, you have to be an expert on someone else. I don’t know about you but I’m still figuring out myself. It was only 10 years ago that figured out that I’m a commitment-phobe in most areas of my life and that was only because of counseling. So hubby and I got three out of six questions right. That would be 50 on a test. An “F” in other words…Hey, we’ve only been married for months…

Since I pray I will be married for many more years and or until death ( 🙂 ), I hope to experience many more Couples’ Nights and learn all the rules of this new fraternity of sorts that I have joined…

But as today, I still feel more like a “single lady” than a “smug married.”

Any thoughts?

Posted on Tuesday, June 17, 2014

The Stones That Built Me Strong – New Book Alert!!!

Hello World,

As I’ve said before in previous posts, summertime is the best time to catch up on your reading…Over the past few weeks, I’ve featured fiction books so today I thought I would feature a non fiction selection…Presenting The Stones That Built Me Strong: Turn Hurtful Stones from Your Past Into Stepping Stones for Success! by Alissa R. Jones…

Are you holding on to something you need to let go of?

Have you ever felt like all the odds are against you to succeed?

Have you ever felt like you fell in love with the wrong person?

I came up against these questions at life’s most trying moments. For many years, I was silenced by fear and suppressed the bad memories of my childhood. At the age of 11, I was abused by a man my mother let rent a room in our home. I discovered my dad I’ve known for 13 years wasn’t my dad biologically. I looked for love in the wrong places, trying to fill the void of all the things important to me being taken and leaving me hopeless.

When we don’t deal with our past it can’t be healed. I made a choice to marry a man for the wrong reasons. In hopes of holding on to him, I continued to lose myself in the process and deal with situations I should not have.

With each stone thrown at me, I have come to know peace, understanding and forgiveness through turning to God. After turning to God, I learned that what was once a negative and a hurtful stone can turn into a positive one. I realized sometimes God places these obstacles and trials before us to humble us, and prepare us for what He truly has in store for us.

The Stones That Built Me Strong: Turn Hurtful Stones from Your Past Into Stepping Stones for Success! is available on Amazon.

About The Author:

Alissa R. Jones is an author, motivational speaker, project director, woman of God and the list goes on…But most of all, she is a survivor. She is the Founder and Director of S.W.V., Survivors with Voices Foundation with a mission to help survivors embrace seen and unseen scars, find a voice, and heal. S.W.V. provides an outlet in which their voices may be heard. Alissa R. Jones was born and raised out of Springfield, Ohio. She currently resides in Houston, Texas with her husband Robbin A. Jones and their children. For more information, visit the author online at survivorswithvoices.com.

Posted on Sunday, June 15, 2014

The Giving Away of a Daughter – A Father’s Day Meditation…

Hello World,

As you hopefully realize, today is Father’s Day! Last month, it seemed the world over celebrated their mothers for Mother’s Day with unabashed praise and adoration, but for many, Father’s Day is decidedly less shiny…If Mother’s Day is a sun high up in the sky, brilliant day. Father’s Day is a sun behind the clouds day, a day that could go either way…Maybe it’s because Father’s Day dredges up painful remembrances of fathers that did not live up expectations for some…(Hallmark has even created a Father’s Day card for black women 🙁 )Or maybe Father’s Day is not as shiny a day as Mother’s Day because although children are created by mothers and fathers, mothers literally bear a more tangible connection to their children…

Thankfully, I cherish my mother as much as I do my father…I have written about my father in “Color Him Father, Color Him Love (An oldie but goodie…)” and “Reflections on being a Preacher’s Daughter Without the Reality Show…” and now I have a new memory to share…As I was preparing to get married a year ago, I was not only aware that I was taking Robert’s hand to walk with him for the rest of our days, I was also keenly aware that I was letting go of the hand of the man that had loved me best…My Dear Ole Daddy :)…And it made me sad even in the midst of my joy…And I was nervous too…Although I had been living on my own for many years, I always felt that my Dad was watching out for me…While we did not expressly talk about all of this, I think he was processing his own set of feelings too…Sometimes I would catch him looking at me. And though his eyes were directed toward me, but they would be focused on something or maybe some place else…

When it was time to actually plan the events of the reception, I waffled about asking him to dance with me at the reception…After all, this was the same man who showed up at one of my high school dances wearing his pajamas and a trench coat to drag me out of there…But my mom suggested I ask him anyway…I was surprised when he said, “yes.” Our Father-Daughter Dance was kind of awkward, but I think it illuminated what was going on in our hearts…I imagine it’s incredibly awkward to give a daughter away after you remember when your daughter was just a thought and then that thought became a tiny human being that you watched grow into a woman…And as much I looked forward to moving forward with Robert, it was awkward to realize another man would be the keeper of the treasure trove of my heart…

And although that transition is taking shape every day that passes by, I’m glad I’ve (or rather God) chosen a man that possesses the kindness of my father…My father makes the effort to be kind to all living creatures from animals to human beings…I remember when I was in fifth grade, I had a fluffy black dog named Buffy and she would follow my father and I as we walked to my bus stop each morning. One morning, after I was picked up from the bus stop, a car hit Buffy and she died. My father carried my bleeding, dead dog all the way from the bus stop down a hill to the back yard of our home where he buried her…I see that same kindness in my husband when I feel like I’m about to unleash hell with my mouth until I look at Robert…He doesn’t even have to say anything. With his eyes, he tells that he doesn’t want to fight…And nothing makes you feel more savage than picking a fight with someone who refuses to do so…

According to the June 12 The Atlantic article “Masters of Love,” research has demonstrated that “kindness (along with emotional stability) is the most important predictor of satisfaction and stability in a marriage. Kindness makes each partner feel cared for, understood, and validated—feel loved.” I’m so grateful that I have a kind father and now I have a kind husband…

Wedding planning for a woman, like no other event, forces you to reflect on the relationship you have or don’t have with your father…And now that I have planned a wedding, I’m drawn to wedding planning…I’ve been watching the wedding planning of Real Housewives of Atlanta star star Kandi Burruss to Todd Tucker…In last week’s episode, Kandi and her father discussed their troubled relationship which included him being absent from her life for a year at a time sometimes…Still, she asked her father, who is now a pastor and presumably a changed man, to officiate at her wedding…See the exchange below…

Tonight’s episode ( Bravo, 8 pm EST) promises to be just as if not more dramatic as Mama Joyce, Kandi’s mother, has a showdown with Todd Tucker’s mom…You remember that I wrote about Mama Joyce and her now legendary disapproval of her fiance’ in “Mama Joyce Gets Us Straight…And Steps Back…And Keeps Stepping…(MY INTERVIEW).”

So to all of the fathers, I wish you “Happy Father’s Day.”

Any thoughts?