In the last few years, my mother told me two sayings that I wish she had given to me earlier  in life.  Of course I might not have been able to hear them or to absorb and believe in their wisdom when I was younger but it would have been nice to have had them.

The first saying comes from my great grandfather, Papa Pillow.  Mama says that he always said that a relationship was supposed to be "good, better, better not good, badder, badder."  She said that he meant in the early days of a relationship it's supposed to be good, a honeymoon phase where one delights in finding, meeting and knowing the new love.  This is as opposed to relationships that start out with an attraction and then go almost immediately into negatives and drama, lots of drama, ups and downs, starts and stops, and general crapola.

A lot of my sister friends aim too low in relationships or they try to force a fit because they "just don't want to be lonely."  A lot of my brother friends can't see the good woman while check out the babes.  A lot of very good people miss each other because they are looking for specific physical attributes.  I'm working on a piece about this called A Few Inches to Happiness.

Our goal should be to have a great and good love.  Dating is an extended interview to see if the person has the values, personality, habits, outlook, etc., that make them worth your precious time.  A lot of people skip dating, become sexual too quickly, and end up in a relationship without a period of courtship and getting to know who it is.  We become sexual and try to make sexual encounters full relationships.  Of course I'm simplifying to be brief but I've seen so many women share everything they have - family, friends, resources, their precious Vee at lightening speed only to figure out later that they don't know the person and don't even like them.  Then they feel robbed, angry and cheated.  I myself have been here, done this.

The other pearl of wisdom my mother gave me is "Man's rejection is God's protection."  Knowing this would have saved me a lot of anguish in my 20s and 30s.  It's only been more recently, after life has batted me around a bit and I've gotten the view from a distance and I've come back across a few people and seen who they've become and what I might have become had I stayed with them, that I can say,"Thank you, God, that so-and-so left my life.  As I said to my beloved husband in my vows, "It wasn't right before, because it wasn't you before."  My sister says, "you can't make nobody love you and you can't make nobody fall out of love with you."  It takes consistent effort to maintain and nurture love but it shouldn't take a lot of work to see love when it first arrives.

There is a time in our life for playmates and dating freely, but when we choose a life partner we should look for someone who we thrill to the sight of, we should look for reciprocity, we should be accepting of their shortcomings and foibles (as they are accepting of ours).  This point needs to be reemphasized - if you cannot accept a person just as they are, you don't love them.  People do change but that change generally comes their own internal motivation even when stimulated by external influences.  It is as hard to admit to yourself that sometimes the person you love just doesn't love you and won't.  Sometimes it's a matter of timing and maturity.  Move on.  Next.

Most of all, I recommend that we look for a great and good love, not mediocre and ordinary.  And when you find love, embody those lyrics from the song by Sade, "hang on to your love."  Cherish it, nurture it, celebrate it, show it.  This is true for all of us and it is especially true for Black people.  We've got to love each other and pull together as couples and families. We are suffering, deeply, because not enough of us love together and walk together as partners. 

Hang on to your love.