Thinking Kinky : The Nappy Haired Diva

photo courtesy of Eccentric Old Lady My mother is now in her 60's and while she cleans up really nice, most days she has no interest in wearing anything else other than baggy pants and an over-sized v-neck. She usually slaps a cap on and uses a store shopping bag to carry her purse. From the outside looking in, I would say that my mother looks beyond eccentric. Every other weekend, my mother comes to the house and "watches" the kids. Usually she is out the door by 10 am and walking to the Dollar Tree to go on a shopping spree. Her grandchildren are used to her walks. She will walk miles and miles and come back with all sorts of items for cashew milk to children's underwear for the kids. I always know when my mother has used the bathroom because I can smell the overwhelming scent of bleach. My mother douses the toilet seat with it before and after she uses it. No toilet is ever clean enough for her. She scrubs my light switches and screws up her face in disgu...

match.com, eHarmony, Christian Mingle, Black People Meet, Plenty Of Fish...these are the sites that I have tried in search of a man that I can see myself in a committed relationship with. You know the story, I'm a single mom, divorced, two kids, trying to copy Stella and get my groove back. I work full time, weekends are typically spent at church, cleaning and doing activities with my kids. I don't have much time for me. I don't have time for happy hours, I am skating home to meet my kids. I don't have much savings and what I do have doesn't allow me to justify the expense of a sitter. So I work, I come home, I cook, I help with homework, sign permission slips, pay for field trips, hustle kids to bed and when they are finally in bed... I surf the dating sites. Initially it was fun. I was in communication with men from all over from Massachusetts to Maryland. I got to chat, message, email and even text some of them. I knew that I would have NEVER met any of these...

I was in an abusive relationship for about at least nine years. I was emotionally abused, I was financially taken for granted, and there were other types of abuse that I prefer not to elaborate on. The bottom line is that I was in a relationship that put me in a dark place and I became quite comfortable with the pain that I constantly endured. He was the first man I had ever fallen in love with and I didn't know anything else. I functioned within the dysfunction and while I knew things were not "right" I still stayed. Eventually it had nothing to do with love but much more to do with habit. Then- I ended it all. Each man I have met and dated since has been a better fit for me than the man before him. Each man I have met and dated since has shown me what it is that I deserve and has given me a glimpse of what happiness within a relationship can be like. Recently I met someone that has been a ray of light in my life. He is smart, he is attentive, hard-working, s...