From THEN to NOW: the JOURNEY continues...

9 years, 1 month, and 21 days is how long Nikki and I have been friends…

Within that time frame I have gotten to know my sweet friend pretty well. In the beginning we spent many summer nights in silence losing ourselves in music. I would sit at one end of the sofa and with Nikki resting comfortably in my lap, I'd caress her head and just listen to song after song into the wee hours of the morning. We’d also hang out at her “Real World” parties on Tuesday nights and the occasionally go out with mutual friends. Shortly after becoming friends I left Milwaukee and moved to Atlanta, but still our friendship remained connected; sharing music, emails and visits when each of us was in town.


1 year, 10 months and 10 days is how long we’ve been in an intimate relationship…

There were many flights from Milwaukee to Atlanta and Atlanta to Milwaukee. As our routine long weekends approached our excitement intensified. For the next 3-4 days after arrival we’d play catch up on wining and dining, movies, quiet evenings, long talks, listening to music, visiting friends, and doing all the things we didn’t want to do in each other’s absence. Then that dreadful day would come when we would have to make that trip back to the airport. Those rides worsened as the months passed: tears, attitudes and silence. I couldn’t stand making the drive on departure day. On arrival day I-285 South was my best friend. However, on departure day I would curse at every exit: Atlanta Road -I hate this place; S. Cobb Drive-I can’t wait to leave here! Hollowell Pkwy - tears stream down my face as I try not to make eye contact with Nikki because I see the tears streaming down her face as well. By the time we'd reach Hartsfield-Jackson we were emotional wrecks. It was always a bittersweet visit; loving the time spent but hating to see it come to an end for the next thirty days or so.


3 months and 4 days is how long we have lived together...

Finally I am here and it’s been lovely. Getting to know Nik on day to day basis is interesting and appreciated. Before my arrival we had the "live together talk" and she thought I’d be the OCD one because I am rather organized. Not to say that she isn’t but for some reason she thought I was kind of over the top because all of my hangers are white, bed has to be made before I can get in it, toilet paper roll is under and seemingly I was always cleaning. Au contraire mon soeur (on the contrary my sister)! Nikki my sweetheart, love of my life, woman whom I plan to marry in less than a year-- kisses! A few weeks back she was looking for something that belonged on the second shelf in our toiletry cabinet and it wasn’t there but on the shelf below. Laaaawwwwwd you would’ve thought the world depended on this item being in its place. It was then I learned the cabinet is important to her. It has to stay ‘in order’ or me and all three girls will be in TROUBLE! After our Wal-Mart trip, she sat on the floor and quietly organized this cabinet to perfection while placing the items we just bought on their respective shelves I didn’t say a word only laughed to myself. But this right here… this right here (in my Katt Williams voice) takes the cake. One evening we were putting pictures on a stand in the family room. Me, I just placed them up there and thought it was okay. Uh-uh… nope. It wasn’t that simple. Can you believe we were in there for well over an hour strategically placing picture frames on a shelf! Like for real… really, are you serious the picture can’t stay right here?! She shot me ‘that look’ so I sat on the sectional and watched her mull over where to place a 4x6 photo frame on a shelf. I sat there in disbelief as she looked from every angle in the room at this shelf and the picture. By this time I am cracking up but she’s dead serious--still I am cracking up and started teasing her until finally she had positioned the picture to her liking. During this phase of our journey it’s been amusing to experience her quirky ways of doing things as I’m sure she finds humor in mine.
 

10 months and 10 days until we say …. I do

We have so much to ready ourselves for: Briana leaves for the U.S. Navy 10/24/11 and Jasmine and Courtney graduate 06/12. After those significant events we will then exchange vows and begin our lives as wife and wife.


#ourjourneyshallcontinue

 

©BNasha, September, 2011

My #1 Passenger...

Being with Brandy in the same city has been wonderfully awesome. And now that she’s here there’s so much we enjoy doing together. We love going out to eat, catching a movie, and shopping at the mall... We venture out and about with friends, travel to Chicago quite often, and ride downtown to work together on a daily basis. As you see, we drive A LOT.

It didn’t take long for me to pick up on B’s habits while I’m driving. If I’m at a stop sign looking left, then right, and then left again, B is right alongside me doing the same. If I’m at a median intersection waiting for an opening between cars, B is next to me looking for the right opportunity to enter as well. Point is, I quickly noticed that B is a side-seat driver.

My first stubborn Leo-like thought was, Why is she looking too? I’ve had my license over twenty years and never had an accident-I got this. So of course me being me, I called her out on it. B’s response was obvious and expected; she was only double checking to make sure I “had it.” Me: I got it. Since then B has attempted to minimize her passenger seat driving ways, but every now and then I catch her in my peripheral when she must think I can’t see. It makes me smile inside.

See, I finally understand the greater meaning behind B’s actions. She’s not trying to take the wheel and drive for me, she’s simply my look-out. My support.  She checks my blind spot if or when I fail to see. I say this literally and metaphorically. In my everyday movements she’s always there, allowing me to travel the road that only I can, while she silently meets me at every turn, intersection and sometimes road block. She speaks up if there’s oncoming danger I don’t see. And if it’s too late, she’s my seatbelt keeping me safe from harm. If I happen upon an unexpected dead end, she helps me map out an alternate route to ensure I reach my destination. She’s my side view mirror, air bag and GPS all wrapped in one, there for my assistance, protection and guidance as needed.

I no longer cringe when I feel B peeping traffic with me while I drive. It’s a constant reminder that as I journey my life’s roads around mountains, through valleys, and along smooth stretches of highway, I have a partner buckled in at my side, taking in the view right with me. J

© Nikki Rashan, July 2011

Prepared: She is READY

The many flights over the past year and a half: ATL to MKE and MKE to ATL are distant memories.  Eight hundred plus miles no longer stand between us.  Now we can simply reach out and touch each other on a daily basis. 

J & C welcomed Briana, Bailey (my Maltese) and me with open arms.  Fez (her yorkie) is slowly warming up to my hyper Bailey; he’s no longer hiding under the bed from her so I think they’re making progress. What’s most comforting is seeing and feeling how prepared Nikki was for my arrival.  I have space in the closet, the drawers, the nightstand, the linen closet, the basement, the garage etc… Those are the physical aspects of her preparation which helped to get ‘my stuff’ settled in. We’ve turned her home into our home.

It is one thing to make space in the home.   What reassured me beyond words was the room she made in the following:

Heart- accepting me for me and loving me unconditionally. She emotionally caters to all of me.

Mind- understanding my likes/ dislikes, wants/ needs and desires while making them a priority.

Spirit- allowing me to coexist within her being on a higher level.  Trusting me with all of her…

She doesn’t allow her independence to hinder the dynamics of our togetherness.  Her selflessness, patience, and consideration are to be much-admired.  I’m not tooting any horns here but um…TOOT-TOOT to my babe for preparing for me beyond the physical.  Kudos to her for being attentive to my needs and meeting them, loving me a little more when I needed it most and being patient and understanding during this beautiful transition. Preparing beyond what can be seen is so appreciated!! 

Coming together under one roof isn’t just a physical preparation.  It is also a spiritual, emotional, and financial blending of individuals into a partnership.  It requires more than making room in the house.  You have to think, feel and be beyond yourself. It is necessary to be in tune with the happenings of your partner.  You have to ready yourself to love harder, understand deeper and coexist on a higher level together.

Tell us, how have you prepared?

©BJenkins, July 2011

TEAMwork: Together Everything Amazes Me...

I almost let the month go by without posting a blog for May. Contrary to an earlier blog, this was not due to procrastination. J  I simply had a lot going on this month. There was work-work-work along with writing my next book, and then I closed out the month with a wonderful five-day stint in Atlanta. Busy times, but wonderful times…

I thought I’d take a quick moment to write about teamwork. We’ve all learned about teamwork on the job and heard or used the old adage, “There’s no ‘I’ in team.” Though I get along with most everyone and work well with others in a working environment, I most enjoy teamwork in my personal life at home. I love those days when my girls and I clean the house in an organized and cooperative manner: we each handle our assigned areas and get the job done. And yet still there are those other days when I just want to clean all by myself. I know the house will look the way I want it to with everything in its place the way I like. Frankly, it’ll get done my way.  I’m not controlling nor do I have a dominating personality. But what I am sometimes is obstinate and this isn’t necessarily the best quality to have the best relationship.

Recently I encountered a problem I needed to tackle and I tossed, turned and flip flopped over two nights trying to determine a reasonable solution. Initially I didn’t bring the issue to Brandy’s attention because I thought it would be yet another moment where I would appear lost and she’d have to find the answer. I was determined to figure it out myself! On the morning of day three when I was about to make my move on what I thought I should do, my insides didn’t feel right. My belly -that glorious intuition we all have that guides us - screamed at me that first, I was headed in the wrong direction and second, to share with Brandy so we could work together for a solution. So I did. And my entire body exhaled… I realized instantly that trying to do things “my way” only hinders our growth together.

The saying is true, there is no “I” on the N&B team.  There’s Nikki and Brandy with our own individual attributes that we bring together to openly solve any problem and accomplish any goal effectively. While I am certainly my own person with my own ideas, thoughts, and ways of handling people and circumstances, I am a better me when “we” put our heads and hearts together and work through a situation as one.

©Nikki Rashan, May 2011

You play Too much!

How many of you play the dozens with your partner?  Laughing until you cry, joking one another out to no end?  Nikki and I have spent countless hours playfully teasing one another about any and everything.  We go IN on each other until- unbeknownst to the other- a soft spot has been hit.  Trial and error reveals a ‘not so funny’ exchange of ridicule has occurred, and I (or she) is left with that nervous chuckle wondering if the other is about to:

1.      Silence

2.      Come out of the bag and snap.

3.      Hang up the phone/ walk out because feelings are hurt.

Leo vs. Virgo for some reason can almost always get us fired up.  We start out really playful and light.  Somewhere in-between me declaring Virgos are the best and Nikki suggesting I’m afraid of the lioness, our discussion slips into a battle of egos.  Ego fighting is never fair or friendly.  As you can imagine our eyes are probably rolling at the implication of inferiority of the other.  While intense neither of us wants to back down. Sly laughter and mockery with an added undertone of arrogance is a perfect recipe for the actions I listed above.  We’ve never pushed the other this far but that line has been grazed.  Silence has filled the air. (Blaming Nikki for this one) J

AWKWARD feeling at its worst!  Reminds me of that Southwest Airlines commercial, “Wanna Get Away!?”  It is in those moments I’m like, okay, no more playing because I don’t like feeling this way nor do I like going there- there being that dark place of uncertainty pondering what the hell just happened because we were only ‘playing’…

Everybody has soft spots.  Only when things have gone too far are we made aware of our partner’s no-play-zone.  I’m sure we have all experienced it or am I the only culprit?  I know Nikki has found mine and I am super guilty of finding hers because I play a lot (and she does too). Sometimes too much. J  However, I’ve learned where not to go and I stay clear of those soft areas.  I tend to tell her, “No babe, we cannot play because you do not know how to play well with others.” I’m laughing but am very serious. In the midst of laughing, I will stop and proceed with caution to the next subject.  The joking, playing, jonezing, casing, ribbing, whatever you may call it, it ends.

So tell me: Do you play too much?  Does your partner play for real?  By for real, I mean they start saying real stuff and the playing turns into an argument?  I’m cracking up because I want to know!!  Share your thoughts people…

© BNasha, April 9, 2011

The never-ending debate: how gay are you?

Yesterday I read the status update of a Facebook friend that prompted over 60 responses. The topic was about bisexuality and although I decided not to respond as I tend not to comment on most status messages I read, I definitely had an emotional reaction. The responses to the status varied and created a heated debate and I hope a couple friends of mine don’t mind my extracting pieces from their conversation and creating this blog. I’m doing so because a portion of it hit a certain nerve that I’ve dealt with in the past and occasionally still encounter. A few years back I similarly tackled this topic via a myspace blog after I met a woman who challenged my sexual orientation based on my appearance and assumed I was bisexual, likely straight, but certainly not a lesbian.  Reaaalllly irked me. The bothersome pieces of the messages I read yesterday were that if a woman has dated and/or been married to a man in the past and she now engages in relationships with women, that she’s not a “real” lesbian and that she’s bisexual. Hmmm….

I can only speak from my own experience as a woman with that background and when I hear comments such as those I find it personally offensive for anyone other than me to tell me who/what I must be. The Kinsey scale suggests that a person’s sexual past can be labeled by a number, with 0 falling at exclusively heterosexual and a 6 at exclusively homosexual, with many tottering somewhere in between. I’ve engaged in conversations with literally hundreds of women and while they sit in various ranges on the scale, I can say that I, personally, only know one 6. And that’s including some of my wonderful “stud” friends as well. But does that mean that these women are bisexual and not lesbians because they were with men in the past? I don’t believe that to be the case.

Sure, we all know women who swing between relationships with men and women and rather than allowing them to express their freedom to love whomever, we label them confused. And I’ll gladly admit that I’m just now getting a better understanding of women who fall into that arena. Often we do want them to “choose” and when they desert women for men, we shun them. If they leave men for women, we congratulate them for joining our team.

If bisexuality is sincerely the attraction and ability to love a man or a woman, then I can 100% confirm that bisexual I am not just because I was once married and because I have children. If I was sincerely able to love a man the way I love women (Brandy ;-)), I would have stayed married without question. Saved myself, my daughters, and their father the turmoil that surrounded my choice to disrupt my family to live what is true to me. It’s an unfair statement to suggest that I’m bisexual (again, based upon a few comments I read) when my heart and my being know otherwise. So I’m not a full-fledged 6; no problem, I can live with that.  Do I have an attraction toward men? Nope. Do I foresee the possibility of being with one in the future? No, I don’t.

My walk to this wonderful place I’m in now was not easy.  As a matter of fact, for a couple of years I tried to convince myself that I was bisexual. These were years of guilt, hurt, depression and suicidal tendencies, all in coming to terms with my truth as a lesbian. If I were bisexual that wouldn’t have been the case; I believe I would have had the capacity to live the “American dream” others saw for me and I, too, thought I could live as well. But that wasn’t me.

We welcome your thoughts/perspective….

©Nikki Rashan, March 2011

Valentine's Day...Share the love~

Nikki: The past couple of weeks Brandy and I have been toying around with blog ideas and have come up with many ideas ranging from “roles” in relationships, ‘in the closet’ partners, spirituality to raising children. We even had a request to discuss a particular topic which we certainly might cover in the future. For now, we wanted keep this blog light, short and sweet.  With Valentine’s Day right around the corner we thought it would be a fun idea to share our favorite Valentine’s stories. Hey, maybe even throw in the worst if you choose.  What does Valentine’s Day mean to you? How do you recognize your significant other? Whether you’re single, in a relationship or married, what are your 2011 Valentine’s Day plans?

For me, Valentine’s Day is a wonderful opportunity to remind your loved one just how much she means to you.  It doesn’t have to be through an extravagant gift or over lobster in a fancy restaurant (though I won’t complain ;-)). It can be as simple as a card or an extra “I love you”.  If the gesture is sincere, genuine and from the heart, I’ll take it.

I remember for several single years my dearest friend and I would celebrate V-day together. We’d toast to our friendship and although we loved each other greatly, I think we’d each silently pray the following year wouldn’t be the same. Thank goodness those prayers have been answered.  She’s now off in married bliss and I’m on my way.  J

 Last year Brandy and I spent Valentine’s weekend in Atlanta. I remember it snowed the day I arrived which put a freeze on some of our plans; however, we made up for the monkey wrench in other ways and created some of the best Valentine’s memories ever. J  This year we’ll be celebrating together a few days late…  Although the “significance” of the day will have passed, we’ve realized that the quality of our time together doesn’t necessarily have to fall on a certain occasion—we’ve committed to gifting one another with our love in a variety of ways and through different measures not only on February 14^th, but each and every day of the year as well. Happy Valentine’s Day to all! ♥

Brandy: Valentine’s Day should be called “Embellish Day” in my opinion!  I think it’s a day to reiterate your love for your sweetie.  Granted, I’m sure Nikki knows and feels my love each and every day, and I’m just as sure the ‘embellishment’ on this day is greatly appreciated as well.  To celebrate our love in the midst of everyone else doing the same seems pretty cool!

I can’t say that I’ve always been a fan of what I call the “Hallmark” holiday.  When all of my friends were in relationships or dating and I was home alone, the “made up” day wasn’t on my high list of celebrations. I remember turning off my phone and having a shutdown day/weekend until it was all over.  Much like Nikki, I too would pray for the following year to bring about the most wonderful person to share in the day with.  All I can say to that is, how lucky am I?!

I must admit I’m a bit suckered into the day NOW that I have my sweet Nik.   I’ve been thinking of ways to woo my sweetheart and make her day even more wonderful. J  Surely I do not wait until February 14^th to love her up, but I will use the day to be extra chummy! So now I have to see if I can do better than last year... ha-ha!  This is going to be a wonderful celebration… y’all just don’t know!

Use this day to add a little extra loving, hugging and snuggling! It’s a day to give emphasis to: thank you, I appreciate you, I love you, I am so happy to have you, and all of the other wonderful sentiments you share with your special someone.

Happy Valentine’s Day! ♥

© Nikki Rashan, Brandy Nasha February 2011