Growing Pains - One track at a time

I just pressed play. Growing Pains plays in the background as I type.

It's hard for me to let her finally grow up! I want her to forever be that young 20-something diva, with door knocker earrings, black lip liner (no blend), rocking a jersey with knee pads. Or better yet, looking like a Grown Woman but still holding on to the fountain of youth & the blues that accompanies it.

Fast forward to today. She's thirty-six. Happily married, he seems to be everything she could ask for, and she has a newfound outlook on life. Beats are at the root of her music now. Where her rawness of inexperience & uncertainty made every song more relatable to her audience, now it's been replaced with sassy & up~tempo beats that make you dance and not cry.

I'm not criticizing her. This is not a critique at all. It's only a way for me to come to grips with a Mary J. that I didn't know even existed until a couple of albums ago. Rewind to the track No More Drama, I started feeling this newness, awareness, and self-realization that Mary was beginning to accept into her life. But then, after the therapy and once everything is realized, accepted, and healed, there's apart of you that dies and yet another, that is born. Then comes the acceptance of a new you. See, as I was holding on to my own drama, it was hard for me to accept the rehabilitated Mary J. Blige in The Breakthrough, Love & Life, and No More Drama. I'm still singing to My Life, Share My World, What's the 411?, and all the other classics from soundtracks and collaborations. And I'm sure, she's over that...probably even has a hard time hearing it too much! Maybe even singing it!

So, here are I am...sitting at my computer listening to my Itunes library play one track after the other. Then the track "Stay Down" comes on...I'm doing a little sway back and forth to the intoxicating beat, as she repeats "Did you know, did you know, did you know...". Quiet for a moment. I even stopped typing. Listened to what she had to say about a relationship that's enduring a test. At the moment, it seems to be overwhelmed with drama & stress, but there is one thing that holds her there. The fact that relationships are not perfect, but good ole' love conquers all. It's what makes the good and the bad worth the ride. One day we'll look back on this, we'll be like remember this and it's gonna make us smile. Cause in the end we stayed down. I know that's right! I feel every word in that song. I immediately get off of my nineties-Mary J. Blige-hiatus and accept the fact that our life is surely and certainly not defined by others. Yeah, maybe we influence her financial portfolio, but nonetheless, her happiness is not measured by whether we accept her personal revelations.

Then Hurt Again comes on. OH Sugar Honey Iced Tea!!!!!!!! That's my current anthem when it comes to affairs of the heart. I've been there and I've done that and I promised never to get hurt again. Never again. You drive me crazy but I promised myself never to get hurt again... I don't deserve it. I can never get hurt again, never get hurt again....never!

I sigh. Place my fingers back on the home keys and search for the right words to bring this blog on home. Mary's CD continues to play in the background and every apprehension I had prior, has become a fading memory that I'm thankful I can't remember. Mary's all right with me. You know why? Because I've changed a lot from the person I used to be and some people want me to still be that person forever. I mean, are you the same person you were five, six, ten years ago? But new and improved, some people don't like the look and are more accustomed to accepting you as you were in the past. The first sign of productivity or improvement, some, not all, are quick to put you back on the memory bus and make judgments that it's fake and impossible. Well, Mary, now I know exactly how you feel. Here I was about to do the same thing to you, that some have done to me. No, you can't make everyone happy. Yes, some won't like the new you. Yes, some people will think it's impossible for you to change. But be for damn sure Mary, they can listen to this CD and fall in love with Growing Pains. Something that all of us have had or are still experiencing. We're all a work in progress.

Workin',

K'