Me and Music

I AM HIP-HOP!  Or should I say, "I AM MUSIC!".  I can honestly say that music raised me and has been in my life guiding me for as long as I can remember. It moves me mentally and emotionally. Even when I'm in church, I hear what the pastor is saying but NOTHING moves me like a good choir. I have had this love affair with music for as long as I can remember.  I actually would use a song to describe my self to someone that has never met me to clearly get my point across. When I think back I can remember the songs that represented different times or eras in my life.....  kind of like a soundtrack. 

I can remember when I was about 6 or 7 and heard Stevie Wonder's "Over Joyed" for the first time.  My mother told me that I would run around the house singing it all the time as loud as possible. That and Queen's "Bicycle".  (hahahahaha) I can remember seeing "Westside Story" for the first time as a kid and the feeling of amazement that I felt to see a movie that was expressed primarily by songs and dance. Then a couple of years later I got that same feeling again when I saw "Grease". Around that same time I was blessed with a music teacher by the name of Mr. Doster in Elementary School that taught me almost everything from the spanish alphabets to all of my 50 states by song. (If your from the Boro you remember him too) :o) I can remember when I went through my phase of running the streets, drinking and smoking with my older brothers and friends on the Hike I listened to 8 Ball & MJG's "Coming Out Hard" thinking that was what I wanted to do. Once I started to mature a little I can remember going back and listening to Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" cd and being able to really listen to songs like "Mercy Mercy Me" and "What's Going On" and being able to understand what those lyrics were about.  Around that same time someone introduced me to a song that is lyrically one of my favorites..... "Redemption Song" by Bob Marley. I can remember being in college at Valdosta State and getting to an age where I wanted to get closer with God and reading the Bible because of some of the things that I was going through personally at that time. I was invited to a concert that VSU's choir was having and at that concert a young man performed a song that at the time I had never heard before that touched me so much that it made me cry. That song was Donnie McCurklin's "Stand". It was something about it lyrically that touched my heart and what I was going through. I can remember taking those same feelings to Athens and UGA with me and meeting a BEAUTIFUL young lady that I eventually married that told me that she would be here to help me with whatever I was going through and that a song that she loved reminded her of me and how I would be once I got through my situation.... and she played Yolanda Adam's "Since I Saw You Last Time".   I can remember the day I proposed to her that I listened to Stevie Wonder's "Too Shy to Say" over and over with my eyes closed praying and thanking God for bringing Aliceson to me. Then I can remember that on our wedding day when she was walking down to me that i gazed into her eyes and the only think I could hear was Smokie Norful's "If I Don't Have You". 

These are songs and moments that have shaped me into who I am today. I have so many more that I could list.  I'm sure if you think about it you can find the soundtrack to your life. You should try it..... write down the soundtrack to your life. You don't have to start from when u were a kid. Start from 5 years ago or start from when you met the love of your life. Let me see the songs that have captured and represented that time in your life. Maybe through your soundtrack I will understand more about you or where you were/are mentally during that/this time.

They Meet, The Chase, Junior

THEY MEET

The most important part of the relationship is the initial meeting. Sometimes it can be the biggest mistake. I only say a mistake because sometimes we can give off an appearance that really isn't us. And sometimes that appearance can give the person we're pursuing the wrong pre-notions. But never-the-less it is important. Important because it sets the pace and standards of the relationship. I've always been pretty good with women but I have never been the best looking, the smartest, or the most of almost anything for that matter. But what I have always had is crazy confidence and a mean conversation. (And I'm not that bad looking either) lol hahahahaha  See the conversation is SO important because like time it exposes all truths. There is NOTHING that conversation can't and won't expose.  NOTHING!! Physical appearances got me a girlfriend but conversations got me a wife.  

Sometimes we rush into the relationship, establish it, and then try to find out who this person is that we're with. That's backwards to me. The best way to establish a good foundation to a good relationship is conversation. See em before you meet em. What I mean by that is talk to them. Then ask a co-worker, ask a friend, ask the librarian, ask the pastor or someone else in the church, or ask the bartender or waitress what they know about him/her. It's a big decision to be with someone so treat it like you treat all the rest of your big decisions. You didn't go to the first college you heard of, you didn't buy the first house you saw, nor did you even buy the first car you saw without doing some type of inquiry about it. So why not your relationship? Lord's will, you will be in that relationship longer than you will be in school, your home, or that particular car. So why not invest the time to make sure your getting what you really want. 

THE CHASE

See to me, how you pursue what you want says a lot about you as a person. Because it reflects your confidence and, some strange way to me, it shows what you're going to do once you get him or her. My mother always told me that, "anything worth having is worth working for" and until I got a little older that made absolutely no sense to me. LOL!! But now I know she was just saying if I really wanted something to work for it. Even love.  

And women if you want that man go after him. Sometimes sitting back waiting for him to approach you throws the wrong signals or makes him think you're not interested. And other times causes you to lose him to a woman that didn't know you were feeling him. Break all those old rules. Love doesn't have rules. It's like Monopoly..... we add the rules as we go. hahahaha Sometimes you have to embarrass yourself to relay to your partner that "I'm in this for the long haul".  I did so much that I had never done before to get my wife.....like holding hands in the mall, pda, long phone conversations, and even put my boys to the side for a while. That may not sound like much but for me that was a milestone. But look what I got in the end. A wife and a friend for life.......AND my boys are back. :o) 

Then spend time with each other. Real time. I read in "The Five Love Languages" that "Quality time is togetherness. Not necessarily proximity.... but focused attention". What that means is that just being in the same room physically but mentally elsewhere isn't really spending time together. Cut off the tv or the game and just enjoy each other. Or talk on the phone with no distractions. One of the things my wife did for me that will forever keep her in my heart was call me every night at 9pm, for about the first 5 or 6 months of the relationship, to read the Bible over the phone with me because I told her I wanted to get closer with God. Most of the time in a relationship it's not what you expect to make your partner fall for you. Find out what they want and be that something. And they should do the same for you. "If you want to have an intimate relationship you need to know what each other desire. If you want love you need to know what each other want". 

Relationships aren't nearly as hard or bad as we make them to be. We just have to do what's necessary early to avoid the problems later. Good luck with your relationship.