Being Best Friends

Jay-Z and Beyonce don't keep their relationship a secret.  They keep it sacred.

You have to be your lover's best friend.  It's about the basics.  The foundation, the crux, the groundwork.  You have to be each other's best friend.  I've titled this year "The Recovery."  It has been almost 365 days of applying the lessons learned in the last year.  There have been epiphanies and condolences.  There have been whirlwinds of truth; the type of truths that knock you off your feet; that require you stand before God and weep.  How dangerous is shame?  It makes you lie to yourself, convince yourself that you deserve better while still living in a very mediocre manner.  It's a shame, it's a bleeding shame that we crumble underneath our own truths.  And we focus so hard on being the perfect partner and we forget to be an honest human.  

I may not always have a boyfriend, but I will have redemption.  It will always be within my grasp.  I always have the opportunity to become a phenomenal person, I just have to decide that being phenomenal is worth more than being afraid.

How many mistakes have I made?  Countless and yet there's been an improvement anyway.  This year, I can count the mistakes on hand.  Before, I had so many mistakes, I could fill a football field with the type of regret I had weighing down on my chest.  That's God's mercy moving.  It's not enough to fix everything but it's enough to have faith that everything will be fixed.

I'm probably not the girl you want on your arm, or the girl who made all the right decisions.  But I see you the way God sees you.  I see perfect blood in your veins.  I see sculpted excellence.  I could drink a case of you and still be on my feet for the simple fact that your humanity is so sobering with a divine lens.

You are magical and I probably don't deserve you.  Thank God we don't reap what we really sow.  And thank God, I'm different from you.  You stay even though you don't forgive me and I hide in the shadows and forgive you anyway.  But I miss my friend the most.  Not even his lips, or his skin, or the way his bones curve underneath his flesh.  I miss the faith he had in me.  I miss the days he thought I was the most beautiful woman in the world and I miss the days where I thought our love was sacred instead of thinking our flaws would be a spectacle.  Somewhere I started doubting the man, I started worrying myself with the concerns of others.  I started performing instead of living and I lost my best friend.  And I miss him in the most gentle way ever.  It's as if he was a beautiful flower in an unlikely place.  I wouldn't pluck him from the ground.  I would simply watch his petals dance in the wind.  I would just watch and inhale his scent.  I lost my best friend and now when I look at him, I'm just happy to be here.

Be your lover's best friend.  Friends have a way of making us feel safe.  That safe place, where you can lay your burdens at the door and roast your truths into the warm fireplace, that safe place is where healthy relationships are born...

Fall in love with your best friend.  And if the first time doesn't work, fall in love again anyway.  It is the wings of best friends that allow us to fly.