Journey to Empowerment by Maria D. Dowd

with. How could I be? They were in my life on my terms. I was receiving the benefits of being someone’s girlfriend, but without the responsibilities. I had it made! That is until they started ending their relationships with me to be with the very women who “didn’t understand” them. But I thought that I was the understanding one!
    To the contrary, I’d been lying to myself and they’d been lying to me. My relationships were built upon falsehoods and denials. I was not the cure, but the Band-Aid. Sure, they wanted me in their lives, but as a diversion or vacation. I wasn’t considered the main, the only woman. Then, I began demanding to be. But it came too late. When they ended it, I was hurt and lonely. I felt cheap and used. While sex had distracted me from my pain, it was something I no longer enjoyed. What had the potential of being healthy friendships ended as toxic relationships. I disliked them for not loving me and they did not trust me enough to learn how. I was now addicted to this way of living and it was causing me to die a slow and steady emotional death.
    One day, it dawned on me. My problem was my lying. So, my solution had to be to tell the truth.
    â€œI am attractive.”
    â€œI am not a doormat.”
    â€œWhen I am not honest with a man about what I want in a relationship, I cannot blame anyone else but myself.”
    And the biggest revelation of all was, “I AM A QUEEN!”
    And, “Queens deserve no less than kings.”
    The day I came to know these truths was one of the scariest yet most exhilarating moments in my life. I knew that in order for me to live free of self-affliction, I had to give up the drug that once provided so much comfort and relief for me—self-deception and incongruity. No more convincing myself that my heart and body should be taken casually. No more inviting low expectations from men. No more mistaking lust for love. No more camouflaging piercing, ardent pain with temporary, carnal pleasure. I deserved much more. And what I wanted was a monogamous, moral, upstanding, permanent relationship first with myself, then with others.
    I’m freeing myself from the secrets of my past, and I’m excited about my future. I am thankful that God granted me the opportunity to come into this revelation. Relieved that I can do nothing about yesterday, I’m grateful for a chance to change tomorrow. But mostly, I’m appreciative for today…a day that will be filled with no lies.
    Only truth.

She Sings
    V ALERIE A YRES
    S he sings off-key. But wears her voice like the beautiful family quilt her grandmother stitched one corner at a time. It was an heirloom pattern; colorful but never out of style…loud but not overbearing. Stitched beside the wood stove that the family used for heat and cooking everyday meals. Her granddaddy named that stove Betsy. It was black, potbellied, short and heavy, but don’t let looks fool you ’cause it could heat up the whole house in a matter of minutes with a little help and simmer up meals that had you licking each finger twice. “Just like Miss Betsy,” the menfolks whispered to each other. Her voice not one to gossip with such foolishness, instead sings chords full of life in radiant spring hues like her family quilt to family, friends and neighbors alike…always in key.
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    She sings off-key. But wears a piano like a second skin and plays like she’s been taking lessons since birth; plays by ear with a gift only God could have given her. After hearing the first stanza of a song, she will pick it apart key by key and make it her own. She first will stroke the ivories like brushing a baby’s head and, by midsong, she will bam out the chords as if they are being twirled toward the welcoming sun all the way from her soul. You, the listener, will walk away feeling the heat, shaking your head wondering where she hid the sheet music and how someone with all that class