Brookey's Cafe Blog

As Marty from the movie Madagascar would say, "What's crackalackin!?"

(can you tell I spent A LOT of time with my nephews this past weekend?)

Anyway, today's blog came to me by way of...you guessed it....Amanda. For those of you who don't know her, she's a dear friend of mine - not my secret lesbian lover that some of you have personally asked me or insinuated via email! Not that there's anything wrong with being a lesbian...but I'm strictly....well, you know.

ahem....like I was saying :-)

I hadn't heard Beyonce's new song or seen the video, so Amanda sent it to me with the subject line "yeah...exactly." Now that was her inside joke way of asking "who does this remind you of?" If you haven't seen the video for "If I Were a Boy," take a look and then we'll get into it.

I'm sure all women (and men) have been in relationships with people who didn't respect them in that relationship.

When I watched this video, the first thing that came to my mind was a line spoken by Shug Avery from The Color Purple. She said "I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it. Everything want to be loved. Us sing and dance....trying to be loved."

Shug also said "God love admiration." Celie asked her if God was vain. She said "nah, not vain, just wanting to share a good thing."

I think that's how we feel in our relationships. We want to be admired. We want to share the good in us with one another. We want to be validated. We want to be seen. We want to be heard. We want to feel like we matter in our relationships. When the person who is supposed to love and respect us doesn't, it can be the worst feeling in the world.

Love without respect isn't worth much. It isn't worth much of anything really. We can "love" anyone in our own special way. But without respect, what we're really saying is "I don't care how this hurts you," "I don't care how this affects you," "Your feelings don't matter to me." Saying you love someone means nothing if your actions don't support it. Respect is loving even when you want to be unkind. Love is a verb. It's an action. It moves us.

Once you truly love AND respect someone, you instinctually become aware of their force in your life and the unity it creates. You can't ever forget it. It becomes a part of you and everything you do. Finding unity in variety, finding those likenesses, finding a pattern becomes second nature to you. Once you have found that key, that clue, that path, nothing or no one should be able to steer you from it.

But if you find that you are not on the same path, that there are NOT ENOUGH likenesses, that you CAN'T find that rhythm, or there isn't enough variety in your unity to sustain you, be HONEST about it. Let each other go so that you CAN find that path with the right person, should that be what you are seeking.

Keeping someone on your path when you clearly want to go in a different direction is selfish. It's mean-spirited. It's abuse.

Honor the other person, even if the love is gone. There is no rule that says if your heart has moved or if the connection is lost that you have to hold onto something that no longer exists or holds true. However, respect should always remain. It's important that we learn to communicate honestly about our needs, our likes and dislikes and letting the other person know our feelings. We also need to remind ourselves that we brought them into our lives for a reason. Our challenge is to be open to discovering the parts of ourselves that the other person mirrors in us, and then see how we learn and grow from that person - what they teach us, how they inspire us, and then, when we no longer complement each other - to let them go but to keep the lessons.

Make a conscious decision to face the differences between you with courage, with honesty and with respect. Appreciate the actor or actress in your life, even if you don't like the role he/she is playing in your movie. Release them so they can star in someone else's film and let them shine and your movie can be a success with someone else :-)

Speaking of actresses, I gave all of my female friends a chance to become someone else when I posed the question to them: "If I were a boy, I'd_____________."

Now before all my male friends get their boxers in a bunch, I will pose the same question to you for another blog...maybe tomorrow's :-)

But for TODAY, these are the answers I received from my lady friends who want to send a message to the menzes :-)

If I were a boy, I'd :

- cheat today, dry your tears tomorrow, and next week act like it never happened.
- be a complete gentleman and I would court the women I date.
- be a drag queen cause i love being a girl!!! lol
- call when I say I would or not even waste your time.
- be man enough to tell you why things didn't work out instead of you never hearing from me
- be running the world by now.
- stop trying to feed you stupid ass, insulting lies
- let you know that you’re important to me
- make you feel safe
- keep you smiling
- make sure you want for nothing
- always remain faithful
- make you feel wanted
- work on becoming a man

I think men and women want the same things...but if my man friends would like to answer the question - "If I were a girl, I'd________", then please email your responses to brookeybaby73@yahoo.com.

Thanks and have a blessed day!!