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What is it about changes in weather that seem to push feelings to the surface and make some begin to re-evaluate their life? I don't know because, quite honestly, I do it more often than I care to admit. For me, it's usually the onset of fall and the changing colors of leaves that bring about that sense of nostalgic reflection. I know that the running joke is that it's cuffing season when people begin to focus on their draft picks for the upcoming colder months. I can say that for me, as a Scorpion woman, it rings true that my senses seem to heighten right around late August or early September. And then again, in spring, when the coldness gives way to humid days filled with pollinated blossoms and warm wine-filled nights.
I become hypersensitive to everything around me. I can pick up on a different kind of energy surrounding me. I feel a heightened sense of carnal sexuality that engulfs me and increases my desire to want to feel a man's naked body sliding over mine. Believe it or not, when I walk outside, the air feels different against my skin. The sky looks different to my eyes. I just feel strong gravitation of love, and yes......I feel a strong desire to draw closer to those I carry inside my spirit.
What's funny to me is that as I am sensing these changes, so are others. More specifically, past loves and situationships to which I was once connected. As soon as the NFL slides on those preseason game team jerseys or the NBA Finals are drawing near, it whispers in the past loves ears, "You should reach out to Chloe."
Suddenly I begin getting the proverbial, though not said in that way, "Hey, Bighead! What have you been up to? You have been on my mind a lot lately."
Or, I get those who come to sit in my inbox confessional that they've always had a crush on me for years but didn't know how to approach. Hmmm. *insert dramatic eye roll*
What bothers me most is that many of these black men weren't careful with me when they had me. I am strong, yes! However, I am also very fragile when it comes to the giving of my love. I always say during discussions that I love to depletion. And if you are unsure of what that statement means, I'll happily expound. When I love you, I love you within every fiber of my soul. I am a SCORPION woman, and to many, that may not mean anything but to those who do, you fully understand. I love unselfishly, and I love fanatically. I give every iota of what is me – bountifully and boldly. My love is sensual; it is sexual, it is material, it is mental, it is spiritual, and it is erratically spontaneous and non-methodical. But sadly, instead of it being valued and treasured for the beautiful gift that it is, most often, I've learned it is more than many men can handle. Or, at worst – due to its depths, it creates a sense of entitlement and comfort that eventually is taken for granted.
I cannot help remembering being once said to me what they said to someone else, and as troubling as it is for me to think that at that time, I still didn't walk away, I know that it was because of my own doing.
"I told them that I know that mutha fucka loves me. If I was ever in trouble and she had to get out there and sell her pussy to help me, I know that she would."
And if I am honest with myself - at that time in my life, my love for him was such –– that he was probably right. I had shown him time and time again, through all that we had been through, that no matter what he did – I loved him more than I loved myself. Whatever I had to do to make sure he was good – and I kept him in my life - the probability of me doing such saddens me. The thought that I had shown myself to be that much in love with him - that my feeling constantly a need to prove to him just how much I loved him - saddens me even more. He was right. If I had no way of coming up with the money to get him out of jail and I had to sell my body to do so - I would have.
Not too long ago, as I was riding and thinking, I reflected on my life. My past relationships. And sadly, my plethora of past situationships. I began to review the timeline from my first boyfriend at 12 years old, who cheated on me with my best friend at church because I wasn't giving it up, and she was, through my high school years, on to my child's father, and from there I continued up until today. The way that I love, I once was so proud of. My level of commitment was undefeatable.
You could never say that anyone, past, present, or future, would love you, support you, and ride for you like me. I thought that was how it was supposed to be. Yet sadly, nowhere in there during so many of my I'm going ride with him and even die for him - years did I honestly figure in my own needs for reciprocity. I wanted to be loved, yes. However, I was so caught up in proving my love to them that I honestly rarely factored in what I was honestly getting in return, which was minimal efforts to match mine. To love me just as passionately. To desire to make me just as happy as I was trying so desperately to make them. I thought my happiness rested upon how pleased I made them. I thought my worth rested upon what I could give to them and prove that I was worthy of being with them.
Now, as I look back, how remarkably sad is that? To not even comprehend that as you love others until depletion; that as you are giving away your soul to someone who, in all honestly, is in no way imparting the same energy into you.
How do you replenish when you allow someone to drain you dry? Quite honestly, at this point in my life, I am a highly weakened shell of who I used to be. I can't honestly say when I was full of love the last time. I can't honestly say that I genuinely feel that I can love as deeply as I once have. I CAN honestly say that because of this, it scares me that I may cheat the one who can love me with all that he is out of what he could have once had with me. I can honestly say that yes, I am damaged, and I am not confident that the damage is repairable. Because in the past, they weren't careful with me.
Nowadays, I give up so easily. I walk away swiftly. I can be really into you on Monday, and come Thursday; the most minute thing can have me with zero desire to ever talk to you again. I dated someone that took five years for me to get over. I dated someone that took three. Now, it can be done in as little as three - days.
I'm not the same person I was. Time and experience have, in so many ways, though it honestly scares me, hardened me. However, the desire to be loved still lingers…..only not in the massive capacity as before.
I'm not like Cardi B when I say to be careful with me.
Because if you slip, I won't slide. Without fanfare, arguments, or tears, I'll simply walk away and not look back. I don't need a dramatic goodbye or even closure. All I need is peace of mind.
Love, Chloe
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