Revolving Mirrors: Anger. Men. & Sex.

Chapter 2: Friend Therapy

After the very long and releasing session with Dr. Codwell, I knew I needed some time with my girls for our monthly friend-therapy session. Dr. Codwell is extremely good at listening and helping me figure things out, but I needed someone to tell me the raw unfiltered and unrefined truth, and this particular group of women would give me exactly that, and then some. First, there's Michelle. I've known Michelle since birth. Our mothers were best friends going up. They got married, conceived, and delivered Michelle and me around the same time. They both got divorced within the same year, as well. Michelle's mother got remarried to a younger man a few years after her divorced and had 2 more kids. My mother did not. She lived as a single woman for the remainder of her life. She dated here and there, but she never found anyone she connected with. I felt like her heart was always searching for someone, but she never found him.

Back to Michelle. Chelle was the type of person to tell it completely how it is. Well, completely how she thought it was. Whatever came up came out- if it hurt it hurt if it didn't then it don't. She is unapologetically rude, and I envied everything about her brashness! She is bold, confident, in control, and could walk away from a situation without a second thought. She rarely let anyone see her softer side; I wasn't even sure she had one until I saw her shed one a tear at my mother's funeral. One single tear. I never saw another one after. Her only downfall was that she struggled to be happy, and her boldness pushes people away. Surprisingly, she worked in human resources and customer service. It is surprising because she hates to hear people complain, and gets frazzled at the mere fact of having to think about solving someone else's problems.

She's never really been in love and is inexperienced when it comes to relationships. She dates for all the "right" reasons i.e. financial stability and... that's about it. Just financial stability. She dated and based all of her longtime relationships on what a man could do for her. A concept that I obviously didn't grasp. She was smart. She let her mind lead while she aggressively told her heart to shut up. Did I mention how beautiful she is? The natural version of Nikki Minaji with obvious Nigerian roots. Full lips, very small waist, hourglass figure, and a big head. A very big head. Literally and figuratively. Long soft jet black hair that swayed when she walked. Michelle was only a few feet taller than I am. I would dare to say she is only 4'11. With all that body and beautiful face she is what we would call the shit and she definitely knew it.

"What's up bitches?"

I forgot to mention, bitch is one of Michelle's favorite colloquialism for a friend. In fact, it's actually biiiiittttchhhh! Today it's just "what's up bitches" wonder what's wrong with her.

"Must you continuously address us as bitches? We have evolved way past that word. What about queens, goddess, something uplifting. Not the name massa use to call us in the slave house."

"Ahem, excuse me, my queens. It slipped my mind about the new lingo. I forgot yall be on that fake voodoo spiritual African shit all of sudden. Y'all all woke and what not. Just last year you were a bad bitch. This year you a dreaded Queen. Next year what's it gonna be? A giraffe jungle woman? Give me a fucking break!"

"Girl, shut yo ass up and have a seat. Ain't nobody fake 'round here but you and them DD implants."

That's my friend Jannie. She was one of the only women I knew that would stand up to Chelle and shut down her bull shit. Whenever Jannie and I got together it was always good vibes. We always shared stories about men, our body hang-ups, sex, food, shoes, shopping, and our latest avenues to making money, you know, the important things in a girl's life. She was one of my dearest and most interesting friends. I like to describe her as a quiet storm. She appears to be meek and mild with a very docile demeanor, but underneath all that doth was a roaring lion. Jannie was short like me as well; only 5'2, but unlike myself, Jannie was 130 pounds of pure muscle. Her arms and legs looked like branches from an oak tree. Her neck was wide and thick like a boxer that held her muscular square-shaped head in place. The interesting thing about her is that she's never worked out a day in her life. Her parents must have been the creme de la creme of pit bulls in their past lives because she is a pure thoroughbred. She also had an hourglass shape, big boobs, and a half butt. Her half was on the bottom.

Jannie and I met 12 years ago at Starbucks downtown. She was having what appeared to be an intense argument on the phone with who I later learned was her ex-boyfriend, Evan. I remember walking past her table and I unintentionally made eye contact. Her eyes had a red glossy tint as she had just finished crying. Her brow was set downward and her mouth was moving like an illegal train carrying bricks to El Chapo. Even though she was totally into her conversation and experiencing some pretty heavy emotion, when I walked past the table she paused long enough to let me know I had tissue stuck to my butt. I recall her quietly screaming into the phone, paused, followed by "excuse me girl but there you have some toilet tissue stuck to the back of your dress, ain't no blood or dookie on it so you good", and went right back into telling her ex how he was a "slimy sack of potatoes". Later, I also found out that Jannie had no clue how to curse, talk slang, or knew anything else street, hence the slimy sack of potatoes insult. She was green as grass, but she was also very clever. She could research and dig up dirt on anyone from Oprah Winfrey to the druggie junkie that hangs out at the corner store.