Real Life:Diary of an Addict: Detox Week #5
Pocahantas has settled in after leaving behind her Mr Unavailable and moving to NYC to start a new life. This week sees Pocahantas being surprised at how much she has settled into life in New York, but also trying to reconcile herself with missing him and trying to understand why her culture, or lack of it made him cast the stone of judgement…She still misses him though…
I knew I’d love New York. I just didn’t know how much.
I’ve moved a lot in my life so I must admit that I was expecting the first few weeks to be cool, you know, acclimation to my new job and environment, meeting up with old friends, meeting my co-workers, pretty much stalking the few people that I know out of sheer loneliness.
Fortunately it hasn’t been like that at all!
You’d be very disappointed in me. I found my niche immediately!
My roommates and I went out to this spoken word spot in Harlem last night; it was the hotness. I must say that I wasn’t really prepared. It’s nothing like that little place downtown in ATL where you’d take me.
The artists were so alive. So intense. So real. I don’t know if that’s the right way to say it, but I would have felt embarrassed to get up there. Everyone was on another level. It was like Apollo, right there in Harlem.
It was fabulous.
J, my roommate from the Bronx, wanted me to go out for a drink afterwards, but you’d be proud. I stuck to my “grownupness” and declined -mainly because it was ALREADY 2am, I was already slightly tipsy, it was a Tuesday night, but also because J has been known to duck a tab or two… my other two roomies let me in on this.
My place is cool. It’s really taking getting used to, this sharing a place. I also share a bathroom, with a guy. It’s not cool. J has more hair than me…I know can you imagine. He wears it braided most of the time, but lately he’s been on this afro tip and it’s freaking everywhere! Like I understand why you used to be grossed out. I really didn’t want to share a bathroom with Lily because #1 she’s a total slob and #2 that would require being on the second floor, in a smaller room, which I don’t want to do. I got my piano into the house and I like the fact that I can actually fit it in the space between our rooms. You have to see it. It’s too cute.
I’ve been all over and this weekend, we went into the city to see The Color Purple. You know I just watched the movie for the first time like last year!
You called today. I know you got my number from your aunt. Probably why I gave it to her in the first place. Your message was sweet, a little poignant. And yes, I accept your apology. I know that you were just scared. Trust me, I was petrified. Not just of leaving you, but of the possibility that it actually was the right thing to do.
Truth is, I miss you. Everything about this place reminds me of you. I experienced the New York outside of Manhattan for the first time with you. Brooklyn, Queens, even the Bronx, remind me of you and every time I board the wrong train and end up on the opposite side of the WORLD from where I’m supposed to be I find myself wishing I were lost with you.
Remember that time we took the J train to visit your grandmother and that crazy man with the machete got on the train? I’m surprised that he wasn’t stopped, you know after September 11th and all that, you know, but this is New York, and like they say, anything goes. I’m still petrified of that train. I live like ten minutes from her house by train, but I REFUSE to take it; I always drive. I can’t abide the J, especially not at night.
I went to see Ma on Saturday, I think she’s becoming a little senile like my grandmother; she thought I was Vanessa. It’s all right though. I ran a few errands for her and helped her clean up a little. Ma Strong wasn’t home, and thank goodness because I know that she agrees with your mother’s assessment of me. Hmmm, let me see if I can remember, “I’m a lazy, worthless, shiftless, AMERICAN, with no culture, broughtupsy, or class…” Yep, I think that’s just about it.
It’s just being here with all my West Indian friends that I started to really understand why she hates me so much. I had no idea that, to your mom bringing home an American was the equivalent of my brother bringing home a Caucasian. Not that I thought Black was Black. I’ve always known and respected the difference. But I always thought that I’d be judged on me, not on where my parents were from. Of course I, again, was terribly mistaken.
J told me that his mother accepts him dating whomever he wants, but he knows better than to tell her that he’s considering marrying any of these girls. She will only accept a black West Indian. I asked him did it matter what generation she was, and he said no, only that she “had culture.”
That hurt.
I have culture. Everyone else’s and none of my own, but I definitely have culture. American is just that after all; a melting pot of cultures, a meeting of civilizations, a breakdown of long held and antiquated stereotypes that have defined individual cultures into a functional, fully assimilated society…right?
Is that what the problem is? Is it my “culture,” or, to let your mother tell it, lack thereof?
I still want you. I still miss you. I still call out your name in my sleep.
J & Lily have told me, quite succinctly, that you will not marry me.
I believe them.
I’m so glad I’m gone.
Have a good night dear.
TTYL.
Have you read:
Real Life: Diary of an Addict: Detox Week #4
Real Life: Diary of an Addict:Detox Week #3
Real Life: Diary of An Addict: Detox Week #2
Real Life: Diary of An Addict: Detox Week #1
Pocahantas is a 23 year old fiesty female with loads of common sense and yet an unstintingly healthy dose of cynicism when it comes to men and relationships. Tune in weekly for her reality check on single living in the great US of A.
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