Close the Door (No Teddy Pendergrass)

(1. I'm back!; 2. A Bitch Named Gender is coming...I double-triple swear; 3. QUADRUPLE SWEAR)

I’m a firm believer in the idea that life will give you an exit out of a terrible situation. Metaphorical, of course. When shit gets hectic, there’s always that one moment that allows you to see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. And when you venture through it? The euphoria, the “I did it. I needed this to happen” commences and you’re done.

You think.

Every relationship I’ve been lucky to experience has given me exits on countless occasions. Disrespect here, a pregnancy scare there. I’ve had reasons – viable ones, too – to abandon these relationships to just, I don’t know, get my sanity back. But for whatever reason, I ended up walking right back through the door where I made my exit.

You start to second guess yourself and your decision to leave. You wonder – at some point – if you ever should have left at all. But whatever your reason made be, you’re back. Back to the same bullshit and problems that allowed that exit to manifest itself in the first place.

The central tenet of forgiveness is moving on. When you move on, you feel at peace. Your brain’s cesspool of emotions evaporates. You feel free. For me, I feel as if I don’t want to split this person’s wig in the streets. No love, no hate just… just.

I’m at a point in my life where I’m doing that, feeling that. These past few months have been filled with purging. Purging of the people and situations that frankly made my ovaries hurt. These situations gave me exits, a whole bunch of them actually, and for whatever reason, I stayed or left and came back. After being told to 'exit, stage left' by my conscience and my conscience’s conscience, I went back. Back to getting hurt. It’s like a “No shit, Ciara” moment in the making.

So to move on is a pretty dope feeling. To exit of out of doors that close once you leave is good. They close because you’re in a better place to allow them to do so. When you’re used to getting hurt and letting others hurt you, you become a vessel for someone else to voyage through and hurt you. People canread hurt. People can read pain. Some people prey on that. I’m at a point in my life where once I’m out, I’m out and I’m truly confident that I won’t be walking back. It’s called growing up.

Oy vey, I’m growing up.