Know thyself. For the first 23 years of my life, I thought that I did. I thought that I knew who the hell I was. I thought it was all set in stone. I thought the person that was me would never change. Who would have thought that would have all changed one fateful day back in 2010? It was destiny when I met her on August 2, 2010. I've never met a woman so captivating. I've never come across an aura that was so alluring. Something about her just made me gravitate toward her. Her smile, more beautiful than any sunrise or sunset that I've ever seen in my life. Her beauty, so radiant. Her personality just makes you stand in awe as she talks to you. To meet, converse, and even have the privilege of dating such a woman is nothing short of the awesome glory of the Lord Almighty. 2 years later, and in spite of everything that's transpired between us a lot of things have been build up inside of me and have been dying to try and come out, but every time they get close to the surface, either my feelings aren't cared about enough for them to come out, it creates an argument that pushes them back down again, or I'm simply just afraid of saying this. Yahweh, I've spoken to You time and time again about this, but for some reason, I feel as though I just cant get over this. SO, we're gonna try it this way. I'm gonna try to write it out and maybe if I can see myself writing this, then, hopefully, I will feel much better. I'm gonna be honest, blunt, and real, God, and completely put myself in a vulnerable position. I don't care about the opinions of anybody else who just so happens to read this nor do I even care who does read this. The only opinion that I care about is Yours and this is only meant to get to 2 individuals, Yourself and, you, Juju. By the end of this, you'll know how I feel, and this can be done with.
To You, my Lord, and Savior,
I, first, just wanted to come to You and say thank You for the initial blessing of Ju in the first place. Never have I been with a woman who has shown me most of the spectrum of life. It's not enough words to describe the last 2 years of my life with her, but there are 2 things I can say for sure that they've been. It's been both a blessing and a learning experience. I've experienced a plethora of different feelings and emotions while being with her, but I won't change none of it for anything. Experiencing this showed me how strong I was and how much you have and still continue to strengthen me by what I was put through. It showed me how deep and how hard that I love. If I had to gauge how hard and deep I love Juju compared to how hard and deep I loved Neshia, Juju wins, she wins by a LONGSHOT. I wanna thank You for giving me what I needed and supplying me with what I needed to take care of her. I know for a fact that I couldn't have done even a quarter of the things that I've been able to do if it wasn't for You, so thank you, Master. I also wanna thank You for putting the things in me to even get her attention in the first place. I'm not the easy person in the world to deal with. That I know. More of a reason that I've always kept to myself to never put anyone through what comes with me. I'm difficult, I'm stubborn, I have a tendency not to listen, and I tend to just talk without thinking sometimes on feelings that I think are real when they are just me being frustrated. I know I'm not always right nor do I want to be, BUT, I have that tendency to think so. My patience gets away from me sometimes, and I can be impatient and think everything has to happen at the time I feel that it should. I have a temper, I do have a possession streak when I love or care about people too hard. I feel my emotions too hard and that gets the best of me. Sometimes, I do stuff just to get back at people who I felt have wronged me in some way, and sometimes I tend to hang onto things longer than I really need to, but in spite of all of my downfalls and shortcomings, I'm dependable, I love hard and deeply. I'm extremely protective, I'm romantic, I make sure my woman is cared for and adored, I'm a goofy person which makes people laugh, I'm understanding, I've recently learned that I'm empathetic, I'm loyal, I'm a faithful person, I'm a patient person, and if I ever had to, I would die for those that I love, You know these things about me because You were the One who put them in me. I just hope that these qualities were able to show and shine a lot more than my downfalls did and I hope my strong points are enough for you to remember why we fell in love with each other to begin with.
God, I can definitely admit that it's hard for me to let go of my feelings and my emotions. Not because I don't want to, but because I have nobody to talk them out to. I refuse to talk to anyone else about them because if another person tries to talk down on her name while I'm trying to explain how I'M feeling, I'm stabbing them directly in the throat, WHICH REMINDS ME, I still hope that You can forgive me for that mishap last year, You know the incident I'm talking about, I just HATE people speaking on her name like that and it gets upset. I hope You have forgiven me for that. God, I love this woman so much. You know I do. You were there with me through my year of tribulation. You saw how bad I was feeling, how much I was hurting, all the tears that were falling. You saw all the times I cut, all the attempted suicides, how everyday, every hour, was a constant war trying to fight off insanity. The many times that I wanted to and the times that I did give into my dark side. How evil I felt, how I wanted to lose myself in it, how close to the edge I came to actually doing it. I'm glad that You were there with me, giving me the strength to fight each and everyday to keep my sanity. Honestly, it was the love that was still in my heart for her that kept me going. I honestly, to this day, have no idea how, but it was the very thing that kept me going. For that, I say thank you because only a blessing like that could come from You.
My heart is still in shambles, Master. I know that's she's told me why. I can definitely understand why, I truly do. I wasn't ready for the same thing that I said I've been wanting in a woman, and I never thought I was gonna get it until August 2, 2010. I can see why she would be afraid. I can understand why she would run from me. I can even understand the immaturity thing. The thing that's been putting me at odds with it and why it hurts me so much is how you could you say you LOVE me and do that? Who could do that to someone that they said they love so much and how I was the 1 she was looking for all this time? That question could be answered more than likely, but right now, the answer eludes me and that's a reason why it bothers me so much. Another thing would be how she could give herself freely to everyone else but the 1 who hard earned everything? Now THAT I finally just learned the answer to and it wasn't even from her. I never really read about how Pisces women are and just how trusting their nature really is. I didn't know how much their trusting nature and wanting to see the good in everyone gets them into situations that they don't wanna be in. I'm sure she told me that about herself before and either I didn't remember or I thought that she could have come out of that with myself. The fact of the matter is that she may or may not ever be able to, but it's that's something that's left to her to handle, it's up to me to understand that and have patience with that.
God, I'm a man. You created me to be 1. I didn't always know how to be 1 because of issues with my father and him not always being around, and my mom and Nana raising me. I thank You a trillion times over for the many men and father figures that You've put in my life. From my brother, to my cousins, to the men of the church who took me under them and raised me and especially to Pastor Williams and Deacon Smith. Those 2 men were my father for a few years and all that I learned and experienced from them is completely invaluable and will follow me to my grave. Thank you so much, Father, for that. But with those experiences, I was taught that a man shouldn't show emotion. He shouldn't discuss his feelings. He shouldn't be open. He should keep everything in and find other ways to deal with them. I guess that I love parkour and I cant stay off rooftops when it rains. That's why I always find myself at the lakefront, just thinking and talking to you. It wasn't until I met you, Ju, that I could talk about what's going on in me. What I feel. How what I've gone through has made me feel or how it shaped me. How it created my dark side. When I was able to talk to you, everything went away, everything felt right. I felt as though I was completely and truly connected to you and that you were the only 1 who was never gonna judge me. I felt safe around you and I allowed myself to be vulnerable because you know how opening up was and that I was in a vulnerable position. You helped me to become free. It's because of you that I learned the last part that I needed in order to become a complete man and to shake the ignorant dogma that all men seem to think. It's cool to express your feelings and it's OK to be sensitive in certain cases. Only men who have an insecurity to hide behind only act like and with you, I was able to open and honest as possible. It's not like that anymore. You rush me through my feelings. You "CLAIM" I'm "whining" because of what I feel or tell you. To just clear the air on that, I know how many clown ass, bitch ass niggas you've been with in your life, and for you to say that about ME, is bull. You know how hard it is for me to speak on anything to begin with so that's out. When I do tell you what I'm feeling or frustrated about, I'm never whining about anything. I just explain to you how frustrated I am or I'm pissed about something. NEVER had I said I cant do something that I know I could do. NEVER have I had to come to you to beg you for anything or ask you for anything. NEVER had you had to tell me to get up and do something that was beneficial to me or us. NEVER had you had to tell me that I was being lazy and I could get up to go get food, or weed, or cigarettes, but I couldn't get up to look for a damn job. NEVER was I ever jealous of you in ANYTHING you've accomplished and I often and still continue to praise you and push you to keep going and keep accomplishing that which you set out to do. Most importantly, I NEVER ONCE complained to you about how much pain I'm in and how it causes me to stay confined to some place. I've lost count of the times you have literally had to threaten me or practically beg me to just take it easy or stay at home or call off work because I was too hurt or too sick to do something or go to work. That's not whining by any stretch of the imagination, lil mama. Frustrated? Definitely. Proud of you? All the damn time. Wanting you to surpass anything I've done? hell yea, I want my babe to be better than anything I could do so that women and your kids and family can be proud of the person you've become. A whining dude? NEVER. People in hell will get a cool day and 1,000 years of awesome drinking water before that happens.
Lying. I don't even need to get into all of this, but I'll just leave it with this. I know that we are both human and I know that we will tell white lies or lie not to hurt each other's feelings. BUT, we really shouldn't even be doing that much. If it's gonna hurt that much that we have to lie about it, we might as well just get out, right then and there because it will feel a hell of a lot better afterwards.
I honestly feel like I cant even talk to you anymore. In the beginning, that's all we did. We talked, from sunrise to sunset. We talked about any and everything under the sun. Even in spite of our contrasting schedules, we found a way to make it work, and in spite of all that happened, we flourished because of that 1 fact. We were able to talk. We were able to argue and never be nasty to each other. We were able to debate and see each other's point of view. Now it's not like that. Our conversations seem so stiff and not lacking. Honestly, I really cant expand on a lot of the stuff you talk about because either I have no idea what you're talking about or I have very little knowledge about the topic. I don't want you to think that you're talking completely to yourself, but at the same time, I would like to talk back to you and actually feel like I'm a part of the conversation and not just some spectator on the outside looking in. It also seems like anytime we do talk, you don't really care about what's going on with me, but you just ask to just be respectful. It also seems like any other time we do talk, it's always about what you need. I love helping you and I will definitely go out of my way to do whatever I can to make sure you have, even if I have to go without, but as of late, it just seems like that's all we talk about. Things I don't know much about, things I don't know anything about, and you asking me for something. I wanna be able to converse freely, goofy like, lovingly, awesomely and above all, honestly, like we used to. It's those kind of things that makes us get into arguments a lot. It seems like we cant even go a full week without a conversation turning into world war 3. I love you so much, but I'm tired of all the arguing. After 1 particular argument, I realized that everything we've argued over to that point is COMPLETELY TRIVIAL AND POINTLESS. We were getting upset over things we wouldn't have given 2 shits about back in the day. Because I thought of that, it made me think of when this whole arguing era started, and it's a very traceable date. Our constant arguing started the day that I left you, March 6, 2011. Just the very way that I left was enough to spark it. We didn't get a chance to say I love you, give each other that 1 big last hug, or that long passionate kiss that makes you eager to get back to your love as soon as possible. Then once you incorporate everything else that we have gone through since me leaving home and it all adds up. We NEED to be around each other. Yeah, we'll still have disputes over things, it's only natural. But the biggest problem would be eliminated, we would be around each other.
Most importantly though, I don't feel loved by you anymore. Yes, I know you still love me and you know that I love you now and forever. We have our funny ways of showing it because we haven't been used to that, I know, but I know that we love each other. The thing is, I don't feel that love from you anymore. I'm not gonna sit here and say something like that acting like I've been doing all along myself because I know I haven't and I wanna change that which is why I'm saying it. How we were in the beginning, we were madly in love with each other. In spite of all that happened, we came running back to each other and loving each other to the point of nobody else in the world existed to us except us. It was frightening at first because we were afraid of losing ourselves in each other. But a bunch of bullshit and 2 years later, I find myself asking, what was wrong with that? Yes, I know we didn't wanna lose ourselves in each other, but going through the things that we have over the last 2 years, what's wrong with doing that now? We've been with enough people during that year and change apart from each other only to find ourselves back into each other's arms again. What's wrong with being madly in love with each other and showing it? What's wrong with loving each other as hard and deep as humanly possible? Yea, we've given our hard earned love to stupid ass bitches and dumbass bitch niggas who didn't deserve in the past, but we have been to hell and back and in spite of everything, we've always found our way back to each other, so what's wrong with just loving each other they way we should have been doing all along?
As I close this letter, God, I hope that I've gotten everything out. If there are things that You know are still in me, please bring it to my heart and to my mind, so it can be talked about and put to death immediately. I'm tired of living with past ghosts that continue to haunt me. That ends now and I'm not going through this ever again. I thank You for that. I know that I'm a lot of things and some of them are not easy to deal with all the time, but I thank You for having so much patience with me and not striking me down when that would have been the easiest thing to do. It's Your love, Your patience, and Your promise keeping that I strive to wanna be like, even though I may fall short at times because of my humanity. I love You so much and I thank You, my king.
Your loving son and servant,
Lincoln
I'm still learning about who I am and that which I am capable of. Some things about myself I love. Some things about myself I'm working on, and there are absolutely some things about myself that I absolutely hate, but know that they are still a part of me and I have to live with them regardless. At the end of the day, regardless of what anybody says about me or about what I should do to change or how I should be. When I look at them and I wanna cuss them all out, I only think of what I should care about and not caring about what they think. It's all about 1 thing: Temet Nosce.