His text said he wasn’t sure he wanted to do “this” anymore. His mouth said I nag too much. His body said I wasn’t enough. His mind said I was too much. His soul said he wasn’t my mate.
My text said I wasn’t sure I understood what he meant. My mouth said he didn’t listen fully. My body said he wasn’t enough. My mind said I was too much. My soul said I wasn’t his mate. And that’s why our marriage failed.
Shame and hurt be dammed. Impending homelessness beckoned humility in hope. Humanity amid humiliation. I cried so much that I wanted to be upset with God. But, I actually felt released. I felt relieved. I felt like forever could be bearable again. And I promised myself I wouldn’t do love like that again. And marriage was definitely off the table. I was gonna be someone’s girlfriend for as close to forever as possible. I didn’t want to learn birthdays and favorite foods and Social Security numbers. I wanted to know me. Like me. Love me. But I’d planted a seed for my husband. And, when I prayed, I purposely let myself remain open to whatever God thought was best.
The funny thing about seeds is they can grow in almost any conditions, even when (sometimes especially when) you just let them be. It doesn’t matter how deeply planted in the heart of the soil. Joy amidst chaos provides the light. Tears, the water.
I was only almost moved out when the seed first germinated. I had a shown up to work and they sent me home with pay. My homework was done and the “with pay” addendum meant I didn’t have to spend the day recalculating my budget, catastrophizing the cost of a day’s pay when I’m about to be homeless and what might happen if I do whatever necessary to prolong things and buy time.
I had a whole day of sunshine to myself to do whatever I wanted. So, I went apartment hunting. While out, I felt compelled to stop by my old job, especially since an old coworker friend had been on my mind. I just wanted to make sure he and his family were doing well. He had always been kind to me.
“Yoooo! You been on my mind I was hopin’ you were good!” was my former coworker’s reaction when he saw me step out of my car. My eyes widened. He was the exact person who I had come to see for the very same reason. “That’s wild,” was my response. The other person present, B, looked between us in confusion.
M’s smile could light up a room. “You good?!” I matched his, but didn’t bother to hide the truth, “I’m good. Life is…a lot, though.”
“I figured,” he nodded, before diving into the dreams he’d had about me. In one, I was wearing yellow and black. I was standing next to someone taller than me and they were holding my hand as I looked toward the ground. “Someone at the front called you,” he continued, “but you didn’t go. Not at first.” M tells me that something the person at the front said made me lift my head and that’s when he saw that I had been crying. He said I let go of the hand that held mine and walked to the front. He said people gathered around me. Not necessarily around me as a person but just standing in the same general area, he clarified. He told me I cried the whole time I walked toward the front. But that when I got there, the strangest thing happened after I stood still, staring off into the distance for a bit: I lifted my arms, angels surrounded me, their wings spread wide to encircle me, and I stopped crying.
“And then the other one. I don’t know what to do with that one,” he said with his brow furrowed in confusion. His head shook. His hands rubbed over his hair and down his forehead before stopping at his mouth. It was as if he wanted to force the words to stay where they lived.
“Go on, now. You already started and I’m invested!” B exclaimed.
M looked at me with hesitation and discomfort; I looked at him with expectation. “You were sitting on a bed. Nothin’ crazy. You were fully dressed, I mean…There was a window beside you and an open door in front of you. The light was on. Your man was standing next to the door and y’all were arguing. He said something to you that made you cry, and then he walked out of the room. You sat there on the bed with your head in your hands. And then an angel sat beside you. You looked up, toward the angel like you saw them, but didn’t see them, and again, you stopped crying.”
I stood in front of them both, silently mulling over what M shared. Part of me wanted to be surprised or creeped out, but a larger part felt affirmed. I hadn’t told anyone what happened. I hadn’t talked to M in at least six months. For whatever reason, God must’ve shared what I wouldn’t. What I couldn’t.
My words came in measured doses. “The first dream, I was at church. It was my sister who had been standing next to me. She had offered to go to church with me because I was having a hard time. I wore a yellow cardigan over a black dress that day because I was sad, but I didn’t want to be.” The real events from the first dream came after the night of the door removal. I told them what happened. I told them how, the very next Sunday, I was at church when the pastor shared that God placed on his heart to pray for marriages. He started describing my situation to a T. He called all young, married women to the altar. My sister told me to go up there and offered to go with me if I didn’t want to go alone. But, I felt compelled to go alone. I cried as I walked toward the altar, each step steeped in guilt, shame, hurt, and frustration. When I got up there, the pastor asked older, happily married women to fill the space and bridge the gap. “Lay hands on the young wives,” he asked of the older wives. And he prayed for us all. Suddenly, peace came over me. I just knew that I didn’t need to cry anymore. It would be ok. I just had to trust that my seed would take root.
The real events from the second dream came after the first. I had just finished doing my hair in the bathroom when my (then) husband came into the main bedroom—the one I slept in, the one that no longer had a working door. He asked why I was doing my hair, who I was trying to impress. He surveyed the room and bathroom for hiding places–again–while explaining that he wanted to talk about whose responsibility it was to repair the door ahead of the renter moving in. He felt I was responsible for it because I made him unwelcome. I thought he was responsible for paying for the repair because he was the one who broke it. And who put the house up for rent. It turned into an argument. In my frustration, I began to cry. “Here you go with that again,” he retorted, and he walked out.
I told them about the seed I’d sown and the anointing event. How I’d sat on the edge of the bed lamenting how my seed and the anointing were supposed to have made things better, not worse. Then, the same kind of peace from before washed over me. I knew I didn’t need to cry anymore and that it would be OK.
“Somebody lying! Y’all pulling my leg? This isn’t crazy to y’all?” B shouted.
“I ain’t know you were going through all that. I’m sorry to hear that. For real.” M commented sorrowfully.
“I know you didn’t. No one did. I mean, God knew. But you get what I mean…” I trailed off.
“I’ll be praying for you.” M said.
B was still in disbelief. “Yea. Yea, me too. I ain’t know all this either. You sure y’all ain’t talked. Nothing on Facebook? Nobody said anything?!”
With stunned silence, M and I both shook our heads, our mouths mumbling the same “nope” our brains struggled to understand.
When Sunday came, I thanked God for the signs that I was on the right track, even if I didn’t understand. I affirmed my trust in the Creator’s plan and my gratitude for the moments when there were just one set of footprints.
When service let out, I crossed paths with a woman whose daughter was one of my weekend hair clients. “You changed your hair,” she chirped, “I like it.” She went on to explain that she wanted me to meet her son. “Finally! You both are here at the same time.”
“I don’t think I need to meet your son. Does he need his hair done, too?”
“No,” she giggled, “I just want you to meet him in case there’s a strange man at my house, you know if it’s him.”
“If there’s a strange man at your house, that’s a you problem, not a me problem.” I responded pointedly.
“Y’all are going to be good friends,” she chuckled.
Then, a light —a glow, rather—averted my attention from her and our conversation. A man, just beyond her, was looking at me. Something in me leapt. There was a familiarity like I knew him, but I thought I’d have remembered him—either by face or by feeling—if I actually knew him. I couldn’t place him and I am good with faces. The throng of people seemed to make way. With a clear path between us, I took in the soft golden glow, wondering what light source could be creating that. Where we were standing, sunlight couldn’t pour in enough to do that.
Then, the woman’s voice interrupted my thoughts: “Stop it! She’s married.”
The man’s voice was closer to me now, and his eyes never left mine. “She don’t love him,” he stated firmly, with conviction.
I dropped my eyes to the floor as quickly as I could. He had somehow climbed into my mind just by looking into my eyes. Alarms blared in my mind. I stared at my ring while they continued to talk. She told him my name, that I did his sister’s hair, that I was working on earning my Master’s degree, and that she wanted us to meet so that we know who the other one is if we cross paths at the house. She said I just changed my hair by adding that red ribbon of color in the front. “Ain’t it cute?!”
He started speaking and I lifted my head thinking I could steal a glance at him while they talked. I was wrong. I looked up to find his gentle gaze resting on me. Again.
“It is. She is. But, wouldn’t I know that she’s the one doing hair if, when I see her, she’s the one doing hair?”
I felt myself start to blush.
Another giggle. “That’s the same thing she said! Sunshine, are you blushing? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you blush.”
“How about you let her tell me what she wants me to know,” he said. His tone was thick with compassion.
“I’m sorry, Sunshine. I just got excited.”
“It’s OK. I get it. That pretty much summed it up.” I thanked them for the compliment and politely excused myself, using homework as my reason of choice.
“I thought you said you finished your homework early this weekend so you could have more free time.”
My face feigned confusion. His fashioned amusement. “Uh…yea, I’ve got some reading to do and lesson plans to fine-tune.”
I made a beeline for the first visible exit and rushed to my car. I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until I’d plopped into the driver’s seat and exhaled. “Music. I need music. I need a distraction,” I mumbled aloud.
I started the car and put my entire music library on random shuffle, hoping that would increase the odds that I’d hear what I needed to hear.
“Does he do it…like I do it…I bet he don’t do it the way I do…”
Skip.
“Not again. Oh, this ain’t supposed to happen to me.”
Skip.
“I’m waiting…for someone who could turn my life ar—”
Off.
I drove toward home in silence instead, trying not to think about the glow I saw or the familiarity I felt or the danger alarms that sounded off, all while wishing I hadn’t lied about having homework to do.
bloom + flow 
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