Anyone who knows me will tell you that I don’t smoke or drink. Like…nothing. Not even hooka. Never have. In fact hooka bars remind me of a crack house. I know that will ruffle some feathers but I’m an 80’s baby and I’ve seen too much ok? But the crack era is where it began for me. Growing up in West Baltimore in the 80’s & 90’s was exactly as you’d imagine it…like the Wire. Of course there was tons of goodness and I was a recipient of some of that goodness but the harsh realities of the “this is your brain on drugs” era shaped my outlook on life and also what I would fight to get up off me for the majority of my adulthood. I can remember like it was yesterday walking to the corner store to get penny candy…yes candy used to actually be a penny and passing by a corner full of boys and young men selling drugs. I can also remember seeing all the neighborhood superstars riding up Park Heights from Druid Hill Park on a Sunday afternoon in their fancy cars, music blasting and fly girls being passenger princesses just along for the ride.
By the time I got to middle school my male classmates wore coogi sweaters, starter jackets and timbs with thick herringbone chains, thigh pads made of wads of cash and pulling up to the school in whips even people’s daddies couldn’t afford. Those were the boys I was surrounded by. Those were the ONLY types of boys I thought existed. In my high school years my first boyfriend was too old for me and had money to blow. There was no way I was paying attention to any of the boys I went to school with when my boyfriend at the time was taking me on $5000 to $10,000 shopping sprees in New York City. Mind you I was only 16. So when they say Auntie, you don’t know ball…I say WHO?! That would set the stage for my delusion when it came to money, earning, love and REALITY.
THAT is where my addiction began.
It never occurred to me that there were young black men who DID NOT sell drugs. Every boy or young man I knew was associated with the streets in some way. It wasn’t until my freshman year at Morgan State that I learned that there were actually young men who had never been in the streets. When I say mind blown…MIND BLOWN! That was the first time that I had been in close proximity to a different type of young man. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that there were young women who’s parents actually bought them fancy things or paid for their cars or even their parents were the ones who gave them a weekly allowance. I had only known my boyfriend to do that. My mother worked hard but she wasn’t giving me all the extras, ya know.
By the time that relationship ended my sophomore year I was already hooked on the street life. I wouldn’t dare think of dating someone who couldn’t continue to keep up with the fancy lifestyle I had began to live. The clothes, the brand new 99’ white Lexus GS my next boyfriend bought me was no match for a regular guy. Not to mention there were no “regular” guys that were even interested in me. Or maybe I just didn’t pay them any mind. My world was made up of fast money, fancy things, dangerous surroundings and a skewed idea of real love.
Love was transactional for me. As a love interest, if you couldn’t provide what I wanted then you were of no use to me. It never occurred to me that I should be contributing more to a relationship than just the vibes. And there were plenty of vibes. I spent most of my 20’s being artsy and free. You know…street dude loves an artsy girl (ghetto with a runway quality). Living in this city or that city trying to find my way. It’s by God’s grace that I didn’t end up in much more dangerous situations. I lived in LA for some time…sooo not my vibe. Everything seemed superficial. The irony right? Then I moved to Atlanta during the height of the Jeezy the Snowman era. When I say a time was had! Babyyyy, the funds and fun were endless. I would travel from east to west coast and a few tropical destinations in between thinking that this was how life would always be.
That’s the thing about growing older, you realize that things change. Mainly, my appetite for connection. The realization that money can’t buy love slowly crept in and by the time I was 25 I was love starved, disillusioned and yearning for something real. The money though; how would I ever ween myself off of the high of counting cash, buying bags, copping whips and doing a bunch of super fun shit without a care in the world? How would I loose my desire for the BOSS. You know him; the quiet one in the cut who didn’t say much but ran everything? How would I develop who I was outside of being a fly girl? How would I live a regular life after all I knew was money, money, money? Everyone talks about drug addiction from the users’ POV or even the drug dealers’ POV but what about the women addicted to the life? The women who are recipients of the financial windfall that the streets create? The women who get addicted to never asking questions and never knowing the full story? Or even the women who get addicted to the bad boy persona of their partners and never desiring the good guy? What about the women whose self worth becomes contingent upon all the things they acquire or who their dude is and not ever contingent upon who they really are?
It took me years to settle into a regular life; fighting my desire to just go get me somebody with some money. Then I wouldn’t have to do the work associated with my own self development. I wouldn’t have to reframe how I thought about myself. Cause low self-esteem will have you accepting all kinds of unfavorable treatment from people. I wouldn’t have to raise my own moral compass. Cause how you do one thing is how you do everything and if being a recipient of ill gotten means was any marker of immorality, well I hit it right on the spot. I wouldn’t have to be real with myself about what I was capable of producing on my own. Cause making your own money and making a lot of it requires planning, commitment and execution. (Sidebar: That’s one of the reasons why entrepreneurship has been so good for me. It has been an extreme exercise in self reliance, humility, consistency and persistence.) Not to mention putting into practice BEing interesting and loving who I am for myself first but also having something to give that isn’t based on superficial things. Reality is, everyone needs something from you but that THING being only surface level cheapens the exchange. I had to learn to like for the sake of liking, love for the sake of loving. I had to learn to show up fully, honestly, flaws and all before I could ask that of anyone else. Being interesting attracted interesting people. Being kind attracted kindness. Being LOVE attracted real love. In fact foregoing superficial connections opened the floodgates to real connection. Now that the money was no longer the motive I could LOVE.
