This weekend has been...interesting. A little unsettling. Frustrating, even. I was temporarily knocked for a loop, but now that I'm myself again I'll tell y'all all about it.
As the more astute among you might've guessed from the title of the post, I find myself single again. I truly have no idea why. For the past several days he hasn't returned my phone calls or texts. Maybe he didn't like the lasagna, cause that's the last time I saw him. Since he's completely silent on the issue, I'm left to guess as to what went wrong. That irritates and frustrates me no end. Have the common decency to call me and say something like "It's just not working out" or "I met someone else" or any one of a hundred stock phrases that folks call on in this situation. If it's one thing I can't stand, it's a man with no spine.
But what irritates and frustrates me even more than that is the attitude of some of my family. I told one of my cousins, who is like a brother to me, what happened. He said, "Face it, honey, you just cain't keep a man." This is a little Southern-attitude town we live in, and my family tends to have a very traditional view of gender roles. To say that a woman "cain't" keep a man can cover a lot of ground (she's most usually either a bad cook or a bad housekeeper) but it always, always means she has some glaring character flaw and it's all her fault that the relationship went sour. A woman who can't keep a man is destined to be single forever, and in my family a single woman over the age of about 30 is viewed with equal parts suspicion and pity. This I have known for years, so I should've known better than to go ranting to my mom about the situation. "Well when you run into [Reed] in the future, I want you to be nice to him," she said. Why should I be nice to someone who can't give me a five-minute polite brush-off? Because he's from a good family? Because women are supposed to know their place? Because in my family, but for a few notable exceptions, women put up with all manner of bad behavior just to stay married and eat crow once a week for supper? Well, I'm sorry, but hell no.
Looking back on my short relationship with Reed I can recall several things that irritated him: that my hands have calluses and a couple of scars, that I'm quick to speak my mind, that the sound of a fire engine's siren is usually followed my the sound of my phone ringing and one of the guys telling me what happened, that I have more tools than he does and am more handy, that most days I don't wear makeup, that I sleep til noon more often than not... But all those things are who I am. I can't change that—and more importantly, I don't want to. It's my life and I love it. I am blessed with a beautiful house and the ability to work on it myself, an unconventional job that I really like, a quick mind, and friends who love me just the way I am. Someday maybe I'll find that one guy who loves me just the way I am. Or maybe that's not what God has in store for me. Either way, I'm still me. Faults and talents and all, I'm still me. And if being true to myself means that I can't keep a man, then I'm alright with that.