A Man Like Marcelle

I just came home from dropping off Marcelle & Ify (one airport trip to save gas, two different destinations for my friends [Ify, 25, just came from Boca Raton, FL...job interview; Marcelle, 35, just came from Brazil after a 3 week winter vacation to see her family...she lost her mother to lung cancer just before Katrina & watched the news from Rio, wondering if the home she's renting in NO was flooded, and while she was in Brazil, her niece was diagnosed with lymph node cancer...oh the humanity!]). I was late in meeting Ify (my former boss' daughter...he's from Nigeria [a whole 'nother conversation], she & I connect as daughters of african born men), because my girlfriend in TX (Charlotte) called for a sanity check.

Char had gone out last night and was feeling a little disheartened & a little annoyed at the men she'd met. She wanted to know from me if she was crazy (in the immortal words of Charlotte's friend, "When they have you thinking you're crazy, it's time to leave"). The men were needy and a little insecure, but Charlotte wasn't sure if she was having issues. I shared with her that having my prayer partner (a very needy young woman) in town has been a challenge for me. When she asked why, I told her about how my pet peeves & idiosynchrasies were causing some friction in my relationship with my prayer partner, Alicia. Charlotte said, "It sounds like we're getting set in our ways." I agreed and said, "everyone has their issues, we're just at a place in our lives that we want someone to accept us as we are and we're not willing to accept less than that!"

I told Charlotte about my challenges with having Alicia here (me being a neat freak, and having a different background than Alicia, which leads to some fricition). I told her that I was exercising as much restraint as I have to be patient with my prayer partner in the few days that she's staying with me (because as my mother used to say, "fish & company begin to smell after 3 days"). Charlotte asked if it was a time-space thing with my prayer partner.

I told her no because I was thrilled to have Marcelle with me for the week that she was here after Katrina. Char said Marcelle's visit was only for a week. I said I didn't want Marcelle to go. A lot of it was because Marcelle & I have similar lifestyles (we're both neat, but Marcelle makes me look like a slob), we have similar food styles-no pork (but Marcelle's a vegetarian, which makes me look like an animal), and we both work a lot (but Marcelle is thinking of working this afternoon after just coming home from vacation from Brazil...I'd at least wait until tomorrow which, if I were her, I'd justify working tomorrow because MLK day may be a holiday in the US, but it's not in Brazil). I told Charlotte that in that moment I realized I that the perfect man for me would be a man like Marcelle.

I want a man who will love me unconditionally, but guide me in the right direction when he thinks I'm going left. I want a man who will have his own life and allow me to have mine, where we can come home at the end of the day and share our experiences with one another. I want a man who is comfortable enough in his own skin to tell me the truth (which goes back to the day when Marcelle made the statement to me which let me know we would be friends forever, "I think you look old & tired when you wear all brown" which compliments her statement, "I think you dress like an old woman") and isn't concerned with how I'm going to react. I need a man who has his own life and is beautiful enough in and of himself to compliment me (and I don't mean verbally) in my shortcomings (Marcelle's only 5'2"), but loves my son (as Marcelle does) maybe more than I do. I want a man to be the other half of my 90 degree angle, where together we are 180 degrees. Marcelle is that in female form...I just don't know that I've met the man who has the Y chromosome to compliment my two Xs yet.