Monday Reflection: Crafting Our History -Part One

Being reunited with a former lover has made me think about some of my past relationships. It's made me think about the time and context spent not just with him, but with others. Being an historian, it has also made me think about how we remember relationships not just what we remember.

How we remember and make sense of relationships and recount history is never neutral. While most historians use primary documents to recount history, which documents we use, will determine the outcome of our thesis. For example, if I only read the journals of slave women then I will only have their understanding of their relationship with the slave master's wife. Then there are the slave women that couldn't write, and whose version of  memory in the oral form do I use to help me write that history? And what real meanings are lost in the translation from oral to written history? And then, if I read the slave masters wife journals also, how will that help to shape my conclusions about the slave and slave masters wife? Historians looking for more than one truth will use multiple sources to write the story.

With that being said, the memory of intimate relationships, I contend, more often than not are shaped differently. While they too are not neutral, we don't search for the different truths like historians, instead we craft  that history in the values of society. For example, how I write the history of a relationship with a married man will be quantified based on Judeo-Christian values of adultery in order to meet the values of the society that I encounter the most. For me to say that a relationship with a married man was beautiful and that it added value to my life, without saying it was wrong would cause me criticism in the worst way. If we value what people think of us and our status in that society, then we allow that to drive how we recount the story. We feel a need to say yes- but, and the "but" is for everyone else, not always for you.

I remember when I was writing my memoir Unprotected, Mrs. Jacqueline Jackson said to me, once you have written it all, go back and re-read the manuscript with two lenses, the fall out politically and the fallout socially, and whatever fall out you are prepared to live with keep it in, and those that you are not, take it out. In the end I added more because I wanted to be authentic across the board. If I named one lover in the book, then I named them all that made the cut; there are no aliases in my memoir. I tell it ALL....

 But by the same token, in my memoir, if I couldn't say that no one told me what sex was or that my big brother wasn't supposed to touch me, then there would be no sex scenes with my step-brother. For me, the not knowing told just as much of the story as the actual sex. To wipe blood and semen from my 9 year old vagina and not even know what semen was, was important too. Not as a way to gain sympathy, but to tell the full story on one level and to help people have insight on sexual molestation that they might not otherwise understand.

 Society is quick to label a girl "fast" and the girl has no clue of what it all means. I undressed for my big brother every day at lunch time, but I had no idea what semen, or an orgasm was. For years I just knew that there was some kind of tingle I got when he touched me and I knew that he deposited this wet stuff inside of me that seeped out when I went to the toilet and made my panties wet. I had no idea what it all meant. But make no mistake, I enjoyed my "special relationship" with my big brother. I didn't even know that I was being hurt, even though I could feel the pain each time his 19 year old penis entered my 9 year old vagina.

So for me recounting the history as authentically as possible is important, but it is not neutral, there was an end point for me, to help people understand at minimum what my abuse looked like. My step-brother died years ago, in his early twenties, looking back, I wonder if he would say it was abuse or did he see me as "fast" too? I wonder how he would explain the rights and the wrongs of what he did every day at lunch time to me.

While, I can be authentic with many areas of my life, why do I find myself when it comes to a relationship, sometimes  crafting from what society wants to hear rather than in absolute truths. Now don't be confused I tell a whole lot and I NEVER lie. But somewhere along the line, sometimes I hold onto, simply because of judgments. I also find that it's easier to tell the truths of relationships years ago, but those close to me in history I hold onto. Is it because I want people to say she is no longer the woman that got her to HIV, but in reality I am that same woman that got me to HIV. I can no more cut that section off and expect to live, like I cannot cut my heart out and expect to live. If I box me into parts I will not be whole.

 Is there still a part of me that is trying to meet the standard of "respectable"? Someone asked on Facebook the other day, "Do I have any decorum? Is it always, anything goes?" My answer was I that I live my life informed by my journey and this is true... But today I came to a larger understanding that there are some things I have been bound by, not because I think it's wrong, but because I think you think it's wrong. I'm letting that go today. It I feel the need to name it, whatever that it is, then I will. My journey is my journey, I should not have to explain it in a way that will make you like me. In the end, if I do craft my history for you to like me then you will like me under false pretense anyway because you do not know the true me.

Like my last serious relationship was with a married man and when he moved into my home, I believed that he would divorce his wife and be with me forever and truth be told, I still believe if he could he would, but his life is far more complicated than marrying or being with one woman; but that's his story and not mine to tell. I can only tell where our lives intersect. Yet I have done a blog on the fact that he was a recovering addict without going into his detail, just the impact it has had on me. But at the same time, I have maybe mentioned in passing that he is married. Markeeda say's I keep nothing a secret. That I have mentioned him in a blog.  I can't remember, but for sure I have guarded my relationship with him like Ft. Knox. And in the end, how silly was that? Especially since many people knew that he was married to another woman and living with me. I shared my holidays with his family, they certainly all knew. And then all of his friends knew and my friends knew.  Well honestly, I kept the details from one friend, because she was so fucking judgmental, and in the end that didn't even matter because she stopped being my friend over some bullshit.

And then even his wife's friends knew she couldn't keep it a secret. And then people talked, so there were people who knew that I didn't even know.  So what was the original point of keeping the secret when the secret was already out, it's just you didn't  know the secret because you didn't hang in the right circles to get the scoop. Why didn't I care of what his family thought, or my friends or his friends, but I cared what people thought who I don't even know, but look to me for something. Did I think you would think differently of me? Did I think it would undo whatever goodness you got from your encounters with me, in person or on my blog?

So why do we distort our history to be in relationships with people when in its reality the relationship is crafted out of falsehood?  Just something to think about? What are the truths in your life that you deny in order to be "accepted" by others.


Postscript: Crafting history from our hearts, rather than our truths coming next....