#DCMeltDown

We decided to travel to DC for my birthday this year, me and my girlfriend Leah. Leah and I have been through quite a bit, which I will explain here during our 2 years of on/off dating.  During this trip I also scheduled a meet up with my long-time Facebook friend Kiana.

Leah and I took the train and arrived in DC tipsy and ready to have fun. We checked into our hotel and ordered the best cheeseburgers I’ve had in a long time. We chatted a bit and went to sleep. The next day we were up early and headed to the Mad Hatter for brunch, we enjoyed the “hangover” breakfast entrée, although we weren’t hungover. I decided to call my friend Kiana and find out how her morning was going, turns out she was already out and about so we plan to meet up at the best department store in all of North America: Macy’s.

After several failed attempts with Lyft drivers to pick us up and take us to Macy's; at this point I’m not sure why I’m in charge of travel because I had more than a few mimosas’ and at least 3 shots of patron that I can remember. So standing out in front of the Mad Hatter I’m typing in Macy’s in the Lyft app and its showing a Macy’s in Arizona. Cleary something has gone wrong, and this whole situation is tragical. Yes, I said tragical. So I call Kiana and she sends me a screen shot of the Macy’s were are suppose to be at, whewww 15 minutes later in the pouring rain we arrive at a colossal 5 story Macy’s in DC and not Arizona.

Leah and  I wonder around Macy’s about 30 mins before my phone rings and it’s Kiana, she has arrived at Macy’s, she asks where are you? And I’m explaining I am at a makeup counter and I look up, and see this tall, stylish, beautiful lady walking towards me, and I sense—her aurora first, that I was looking at no one other than Kiana, it was a knowing just a confirmation in my spirit, it was her.  Still on our phones I ask her are you wearing a blue skirt? She says “ I am “ in that quirky cute way she speaks, and before I could close the space between us, we hug like Cecily and her sister being reunited in the field in The Color Purple. “Me my sister must never part” It was a wonderful moment; Kiana and I have been chatting online and phone for close to 10 years. We always checked in after major life events and even the little likes and hearts on Facebook posts. What a joyous moment it was to finally meet face to face, as the day went on her presence in this story would turn out to mean everything.

The day pressed on we buy a few things at Macy’s and head back to the hotel; the plan is to go to a club to celebrate my birthday later that night. But first we stop at the liquor store and I buy $90 dollars worth of alcohol, so we can pre-game before the big party, right? During this Lyft ride, there is alot of shinangins; such as Kiana telling me that I should join the hand ministry at my church, because I speak with my hands all the time, ha! However, the purchase of all that alcohol was Step 1,  in the making of the #DCMeltDown.

Shortly after arriving back at the hotel,  the three of us begin drinking and talking about life, memories, and relationships (Step 2). It was all fun and games until the emotions came out, tears, and sobs..I remember kinda watching a trainwreck slowly unfold before my eyes. Leah, reveals her intimate story of being raped and then brings up how much I hurt her when we previously broke up(that story will be a post all by itself because it's a completely different story). I try to console her, Kiana—who just meet her 5 minute ago..tries to console her in the bathroom. This was Step 3 and TKO in the making of the #DCMeltDown.  I keep taking shots of the Tequila I bought and start wondering are we still going to the club for my birthday? Shit I spent $500 to get here plus I have a banging ass new dress to wear. Looking back, was that selfish of me, kinda. Leah disappears into the bathroom and goes into full crisis mode (Step 3 in the making of the DCMeltDown). Meanwhile, I put on my dress;( because at this point I just want to escape, re-box the emotions and run) but damn I need someone to zip the back of my dress and tell me to stay and face this.., Kiana walks over to me in front of the hotel mirror and whispers to me: “This isn’t about you, this is about Leah, I asked her if she loves herself and she has yet to answer me”, and if you want to fix this relationship take that dress off and go talk to her, because going to club tonight will not solve this”.  So I sucked it up, on my damn 42^nd birthday, I took off my dress (wiped tears from Leah’s face and said we would talk sober the next day) and hung it on the hook on the back of the bathroom door, wrapped my hair—ghetto girl style, and went to bed, joined soon by Leah and Kiana, we took a few silly selfies and have much lighter conversations. About 10 minutes later Kiana heads out for home and promises to text me upon her safe arrival. Leaving me and Leah in a very awkward state of affairs; we have problems--big problems in our relationship we need to work on. Part of me feels so disappointed that Leah fucked up my birthday,  then part of me feels guilty because there are things we haven’t addressed in our relationship that are clearly unresolved. And most importantly, I realize Leah cannot love me as much as she claims, because she doesn’t love herself. I remember around this time before Kiana left she said something hilarous: "The Lord was here earlier, but He had left", meaning at first we had a powerful conversation about faith and love, that quickly turned into a crisis of emotions and deep hurt being revealed probably from the 3 of us, but Leah being hit the hardest. However, I believe everything happens for a reason, and I trust God, even when I was sad I didn't celebrate my birthday the way I planned to. I just remember holding back tears, because didn't I deserve to be happy on my damn birthday??!! But also recall wanting to just hug Leah and take her pain away, love is so hard sometimes! I wanted US to be happy all the time, not just on someone's birthday. 

The night ends, I learn a lot from the experience. And the fact that I met Kiana in person and sat down and chatted with her made my trip to DC worth it.  Leah and I talk the next morning, she buys me flowers, a teddy bear, and offers deep apologies and more tears. I half-heartily forgive her because I’m still in my feelings. Then something hits me, people can only take you as high as they are in their own life. I cannot expect Leah to solve her entire life hurts after drinking and opening all those wounds. And I realize Leah has to learn to love herself before she can love me. I say a prayer to myself to try to forgive her, the way she has forgiven me for past mistakes, but this will take some time. We pack up and head for the train station. I tell her I love you and I forgive you, and I’m not going to leave you for pouring out emotions and not going out to the club. I understand now, it was important that all those emotions came out—so they can be addressed. I did explain to her how disappointed and hurt I was that we didn't celebrate my birthday as scheduled. She just keep apologizing. When we returned home, we both decided to work on ourselves in therapy and work on our relationship. The moral of the story here, priorities, our relationship is more important to me than clubbing on my birthday, had we gone out that night, it would have been a miserable time, and pretending to be happy. Leah and I need to deal with this shit. And we are, it's just a process. 

And lastly, I will ever be grateful for having a soul-sister friend in Kiana, thank you for being you 

#DCMeltDown