What me married? or If I like should I put a ring on it? or My marriage clock is ticking,tick tick tick

What’s up My blog readers? How are things? Well this post is one that….well its one of those things that if you get it your way it could end up biting you in the ass, check it out. I was asked recently how long would I date someone before I would marry them, I said I haven’t put a time frame on it, it could be 1 year or 5 years it depends on the relationship and how I feel about the person. Their response was it should be 3 year max!!! So like I normally do in situations like this I began to survey people and with their express written consent via text message I got quite a few responses. I have taken the liberty of listing them below.

Suga Foot-“No time period if your following your heart, while on the other hand if your following your head that is when rationalizing comes into play, so I guess its really a matter of choice depending on what the individual chooses to follow”

Ebonii- “When the two people are ready if one is ready before the other then they should reevaluate the relationship. But neither should settle”

Jasmine- “ Personally I think marriage should be brought up till some years later, that way you get to really know the person and all tha shit” (LOL one of my favorite quotes)

Angie- “Yes there is a time limit dependent upon age. I think shit if I’m 30 I’m more inclined to have a smaller window of patience”

Kendra- “I feel like it just depends on the feelings you have towards the person. If it’s real it can be a month, a year or a decade...you just gotta feel its right”

Mark- “Depends on both maturity levels”

London- “ There is no time period to marriage cause some people date all their lives and have been with someone all their life and never been married. I really don’t care for marriage but to each their own”

Little will- “Not feeling that can you. It is when YOU as a person DECIDE to makes a commitment to a MONOGOMY and of course your mate would as well! That’s what starts a marriage and keeps it. It’s a decision you make to start and continue to make throughout a marriage.”

After reading all these Reponses I began to revaluate what I stated earlier. If you forgot what I said scroll up and look it’s a blog not a conversation. I still feel the same. I mean I do want to get married weather it’s a church wedding, notary or city hall I would like to be. I also would happy just being with a person for years wrapped up in love knowing that that person was there for me and me there for them. I also feel people put A LOT on marriage thinking that once you get married all your problems and marriage certainly doesn’t mean that the person will stay with you. I have also seen people stress out because they have to be married by a certain time. The absolute worst is seeing someone in an unhealthy and unhappy marriage for the sake of being married. All these quotes and responses are just opinions I ask everyone that reads this to make your own decisions about marriage. Marriage is not to be taken lightly; it’s not just something that you do. Marriage is a sacred thing that should be decided on by both parties and if both parties can’t agree then maybe it’s to leave the relationship.

Wake yo MIND UP!! or Put yo goodletts up!!!

 So me and good ol Goodlett were having this discussion about the state of minorities, people young and old, and by minorities we were referring to any and all enslaved or colonized people .Several things came up during this discussion that were both upsetting and comical. Goodlett brought up two terms I had never heard before:  “Post traumatic slave syndrome” and “Post traumatic colonization syndrome”. They both refer to how people act and what they choose to do with themselves after they have been oppressed. Goodlett and I both reside in Oakland, California so the demographic we were talking about was mainly the African American and Mexican American brothers and sisters of the area. I say to Goodlett, “Goodlett, there is no excuse why people don’t get up and do something with their lives. I mean, there is a tremendous amount of resources for them to pull from if they used even half their asses.” Goodlett replied with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen, “I’m with you about there not being an excuse but there is a reason, its called Post Traumatic Slave syndrome.” He went on to say that a lot of us are broken by the thought that we don’t deserve anything more then what we have or feel that it’s pointless to try and change because the world only sees you as this stereotypical figure; people have the desire but have been brain washed for generations. All I could say was “WOW,” wow because of all the conversation with my brothers and sisters from the neighborhood, conversations with the children I work with, a similar theme kept coming up in my memory bank: all the conversations ended with, “I want to do it, but man you know how it is.” How deep did these syndromes go with my fellow Oaklanders? So like I do I started asking people questions, because of convenience I started with my African American people, I started asking them about the middle passage, the holding cells in Ghana and even about slavery here in the states. Sad to say that most knew only what they saw in movies or what they briefly learned in school. How could my people not know their own history and just accept what they were told? Furious with what I just heard I interviewed some of my Mexican people; their response was parallel with those of my own race. I think one knew that Spain had occupied the country at one time. Is not knowing our history the source of all the confusion throughout our community? Is it appropriate to blame outside entities for our current position in life? When should we stop making excuses and start making history? I don’t have all the answers nor do I have a formula for success, all I’m saying is what ever the reason, what ever the cause, all of us need find that inner strength we all possess to stop surviving and start living.