Kabuki│Queen: April 2014

I am so close to making this blog into a sisters empowering sisters type joint. I am fed up with hearing stories of women selling themselves short and settling for much less than they deserve. The culprit: self-hate. I promise I will go back to fashion after this post, but this needs to be said. I refuse to scold you all because low self-esteem is not everyone's issue; however, I will let you into a little of my story in hopes that someone will find solace in knowing they are not alone.

Listen, we all want to believe that we are the reason a man will just wake up and want to be a better man, but the reality is that what you see is ultimately what you will get. He may grow up as he ages, but as my good friend likes to say, "We will only become the best of who we are," translation: we will never be so different that we are no longer ourselves. You cannot will yourself to be someone else (since when has that ever been successful for anyone?). You will always be you. And the sooner you learn to be content with that fact and change the things about you that you can and leave the rest, the better off you will be.

Men like confident women. I don't care what you have seen and what you have heard. All the bs about men liking submissive women without a voice is just that, bs. Men like a challenge; they do not like passive women who will just roll over and play dead. Granted, they are annoyed by women who are never satisfied, i.e. "have an attitude", but who isn't? You have to come to a place in you where you deal with your dissatisfaction with life in the confinements of your own home. Everyone has it rough out here, so no one will have sympathy for your sob story because we are all struggling. So, whatever it is that you are dealing with that makes you seem attitudinal to most, you either need to sit this one out and stay in the house to pout, or put on "face" and leave that drama locked up in your room.

Now, I said I would share a little about myself here, but really I will just mention that in doing some soul searching as I spend time away from the states - my comfort zone - I have found the patterns in my dating life that are truly alarming. I have dated nice guys, and not just any ol nice guys but men I would have actually married. The problem was that I did not have any standards set for the type of guy that I would settle down with. And I did not stay single long enough to trust God to bring me the man He had for me. I found myself in "comfortable" situations that did not challenge me to grow as a person or in my relationship with God. I settled on these guys because I found security there; they were safe, they were void fillers until the next best thing came along. They were idols in my life. And even as I type this know that I still struggle in this area. However, I am learning that God cares about me enough to not make the mistake of marrying the wrong person; His grace has let me only go so far until He reels me back in, bringing me back to the place where He shows me that He is more than enough.

Trust Him one more time and leave the guy you have built your life around because when you look up, you'll realize that the person you once judged (e.g., the live-in girlfriend), is the person you have become. And marriage is no longer an option. Hear me when I say, "You are not the exception." Set your standard and stick to it so that guys will have no problem respecting it. Do not be wishy-washy in your stance because it only causes confusion and creates opportunity for your partner to take advantage of your inconsistency. I love you all and do not want to see anyone else fail in this thing called love. Learn to love you so when you go out in the streets, people will be attracted to you for that reason alone.
Sincerely,

Your Fellow Single Sister Nel