What Do I Bring to the Table in a Relationship? The Stages of My Life have Predefined My Offerings Based on Age

I saw a post recently on FACEBOOK which brought me to the realization a woman's life goes through stages. These life stages happen because we age. I have watched many women in my family age from the youngest to the oldest over my 51 years of life. The stages most profoundly impacting their lives moreover than anything else seems to be age.

This post is my reflection of how as I have aged on this journey called life how it is pretty much categorically defined its own stages with what I have brought to the table in relationships.  Now we all know a woman's first relationship is her interaction with her father, grandfather, and other important male role models during her earlier years.

For me, from infancy through my college years all I had to bring to the table was a cute curtsy and a smile. My daddy provided all my needs, wants, and desires. He took to the amusement park which my absolute favorite thing to do. We went out to restaurants and he always paid and left the tip and just sat on the other side of the table with a proud look on his face as it was an honor to have someone like me in his life. 

My grandfather was all so important too. I have had people call me to just let me know how special they thought it was when I was a little girl and my grandfather would always hold us on his lap when he was sitting out on the front porch. He was my shield when I was trying to escape my grandmother's lashings and he shielded us from her by hiding us under the covers so she wouldn't lash out at us as severely. He took us to all his friends house. He showed me he was proud to be a grandfather. When we were born we became his purpose. He often told us stories to reiterate how much he cared for me, my family, his friends. He was a very caring and sincere man.

What I bring to the table is a person who knows how to appreciate and is grateful to a man who know the meaning of being a king. I bring to the table the willingness to love, embrace, and enjoy time with my significant other. I know the role of a team player. Now in my earlier years I was spoiled by men who knew how to be men and learned from women who allowed the men to be men. I bring a knowledge of how i should be accepted, love, appreciated, adored, and treated.

As the years have passed there has been some degradation in the quality the man brings to the relationship. As I age I learn men give a lot less of themselves and everything else. I recall recently when I over a month and a half time cut my grass myself. Grass so happens to be my number one allergen. I remember the days when men where would offer to cut a woman's yard rather than see her cut it herself. Back in those days I was living on a street with much less traffic. Now I live on a street with way more traffic and men don't stop and offer to do anything.

As I age I realize age brings increased responsibility as to what a woman has to bring to the table because things don't fall in her lap as easily. When I got married at 32 it was because I had small children and I learned the next man just had to be stronger than the last man to make the last man step off. Fast forward to today with me at 51 I don't even have a man issue. No longer are the days when everything multiplied with no action required on my part. In fact I got married because I got tired of being chased by several men at once and even though I knew I was not involved with these men who were lavishing me with gifts, trips, whatever, the image was bad because I had children. Trust and believe it made for a lot of haters and I didn't need that. I too wondered why how I with three children was able to pull so many men without even trying and women with no or one child couldn't even pull one.  

No one could believe I was just being showered with large ticket items by some men just for them wanting to get to know me. Men who I had no interest in at all and I felt bad about it. I began to really feel bad about it and realized I needed to have what I thought would be stability (marriage) into my life. I have never been the type to play with anyone's feelings. I have always been strong enough to take a stance if someone wants to know where they stand with me I am the one to ask. I have had men make the mistake of asking someone they think I am close to. And I'll be nice and end that point right there.

When I was married for many years until my ex suffered an injury I only had to pay the phone bill. My income was substantial enough to pay everything. What I brought to the table at that time is I had a home, a car, a paycheck, nice clothes, nice shoes, most any and everything I wanted. I traveled to Atlantic City most every other weekend. I did volunteer work. My life was full. After divorce things went down hill as far as what I brought to the table. What I had brought to the table I feel had been mutilated. All my dreams, hopes, and aspirations I put into a person I thought I could trust and hope to build with instead of being torn down. When he walked away with a huge settlement and didn't give me a dime I was crushed. He could have at least paid my way out of all the debt I had before him. Because I didn't bring any personal debt to the table. My mortgage payment was so low I was able to pay both my mortgages by adding a $100 a month to the rental income I received.  

The next chapter in my 40's after divorce I found there are men who prey on recently divorced women. It taught me to hold back on what I had left to bring to the table because the dating scene was totally different. Everything you put on the table men will eat it up and leave you broke, down trodden, and homeless if you let them. At first they start out as good as gold. Then gradually things go south. Wait for it long enough and they do too they are busy plotting for the next victim when they see an exit with you. And trust and believe a man will even create his own exit.

What I bring to the table is a lot of bitterness for the rough years I had when it didn't have to be that way. The bitterness of having helped men I cared about reach a higher level for them to downgrade me. I bring the unknown in that I was hurt when I felt the man I waited 32 years to marry betrayed me. I bring failed situationships that I walked away from not keeping count but looking for things to count which to me is more important than any reputation. I want my reputation to be one of someone who cares enough about herself not to tolerate mediocre treatment. Yes I will high step myself my way out of a failed relationship. You can't change a person and you can't make someone want you. Men treat women too much as being disposable nowadays. I don't want to be porcelain either something a man keeps up on the shelf like fine china and only places it on his table on special occasions.  

My relationships have never been about the sex. In fact even with having three children I know the exact date they were conceived because in my earlier years with my first sweetheart he got plenty elsewhere. To me it is just not logical to have to compete for someone's affection. Affection to me is something deep. If you really love someone you're not attracted to anyone else especially repeatedly. I strongly feel you can't make a man love you.

Welcome to Black Book Nook!

One thing I have always been a strong proponent of is reading.  As a child reading was my guiding light.  I read books, poems, short stories, encyclopedias, dictionaries, magazines, and almost anything that was a published work because I loved to read.

Most of the reading I did was in seclusion.  I would either read alone in a room, at the library in a spot with no one or hardly anyone around, in a park, or just about anywhere else I could escape to.

Even though math was my favorite subject and everybody called me the human calculator I loved to read and write.  On most tests that involved math and literature I often scored higher on the literary portions.  I would read from the time I got home from school until the time I went to sleep at night.  My love for reading carried over into my early adult years.  Reading was something fun for me.  It gave me an escape to and away from everything that was not happening in my life.

I enjoyed teaching children to read from an early age.  When I was pregnant I would read out loud so my baby in the womb could hear me reading.  I read at least an hour each night to my children from the time they were born until they could read for an hour daily on their own.  They were all three accelerated readers in school.  One child even was in the top 2 percentile for literature on college entrance exams.

Books were something that were very plentiful in my home.  Once things started being more online I would buy educational material for my children to keep them engaged on the computer.

The saddest day of my life was when my ex threw away my book collection that I had accumulated over many years.  He felt I paid more attention to my books than I did to him.  I was so crushed by that incident that I really gave up my passion for reading for a while.

I was one of those people who would read even the fine print on most things.  When I was in junior high school I remember reading a high school course book.  It is the way I found out I needed to be taking classes ahead so I could take advanced placement and accelerated classes once I reached high school.  By reading so much I even learned what expectations I had to meet to test out of some of my freshman year college courses.  The benefits of reading and knowing stuff as a result of reading was invaluable.

When I would go to the student centers I would always pick up literature.  My first college internship was a summer position at IBM in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.  I found out about it by reading the Black Collegian.  Most of the jobs listed in the publication required applying by February to start during the summer months.  Just doing reading not required really made a profound impact on my life.

During my freshman year in college I would stay in the library until midnight every night.  I remember how being on campus and walking off campus reminded me of the Bigger Thomas character I had read about in Richard Wright novels.  Jackson, Mississippi made Norfolk, Virginia seem like a big city town.  When I stepped off campus in Jackson it was just like I was walking through the scenes of some of the many novels I read about covering the black experience in the South.   Early on Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Langston Hughes were my favorite writers.  I was inspired by reading Ebony Magazine, Jet Magazine, Black Enterprise, and other publications that chronicled the successes of Black America.

I enjoyed the era where books were often converted to movies.  I would always try and read the book ahead of the movie being released.  It allowed for a contrast and comparison of how well I liked the movie over the book.  Most often I enjoyed the book most because it provided so much more detail.

One of the memorable books I enjoyed reading was "Any Way the Wind Blows" E. Lynne Harris.  His writing style was impeccable.  Yes I was one of those readers who could easily spot if the novels did not transition smoothly.  When I get caught up in a book I don't want to be like "oh no" it is now unbelievable because an earlier event cancels out something I read later on in the book.

I am very analytical by nature.  I try hard to live life easy and for the most part I do.

The reason for starting the "Black Book Nook" was to have a place to go with substantive content.  I feel the black literary experience has been one of the greatest experiences in America and I hope it lives on forever.  There are some black pieces that are literally works of art.

At fifty one I am still trying to figure things out.  As I work on this blog figuring things out I would be most appreciative of any and all feedback.