Practicing What You Preach. Vanessa Davis Griggs
money (especially money), and everything in between. She’s the one who takes care of the family—immediate, extended, and those who merely call themselves family. She forever places herself last on the list, which normally means there’s nothing left when her turn finally rolls around. And at fifty-two that’s what’s slowly taking a toll on her. It’s not the high blood pressure and cholesterol her doctor has her taking pills for daily. Putting everybody else’s needs and wants above her own is what’s dragging her down.
Well, I’ve decided at age twenty-eight that my mother’s fate will not be mine, no matter how much people claim I’m just like her. I want a lot out of life, and I don’t intend to put my goals on the back burner. I just need to figure out how to say no to things I don’t want to do and stick with it after I say it.
Those two letters—n and o—when knitted together form a definitive answer. But for some reason I’ve not been able to make them work for me effectively. Sure, I may start with the n but it will invariably come out as, “Now?” or “N…oh, you really want me to?” Or worse: “No problem.”
Two days ago my friend Nae-nae called and gave me a chance to test just how far I’d come with this “saying no” business.
“Peaches, I have something I have to do that I absolutely can’t change,” Nae-nae began, calling me by the nickname reserved and used only by a few family members and my closest of friends. “Can you take my mother to the grocery store for me tomorrow?”
“No,” I said firmly, fighting off my normal knee-jerk reaction to add something else to it in the form of some type of acceptable excuse.
“No?” she said as though I had no right to ever say that. “What do you mean, no?”
“I have some things I need to do myself,” I said as I began to slip back into my usual role of not wanting anyone to be upset with me because I’d dared not please them.
She laughed. “Oh! Is that all? Well, you can just take her after you finish what you have to do. It’s not like she has to be at the grocery store at a certain time or anything, although you know she is slightly disabled and shouldn’t be out too late at night. Come on, Peaches, you know I don’t have anyone else to help me out. I’ve always been able to count on you. Please don’t start being like everybody else and let me down now. Pleeeaaase?” she whined.
“Okay, fine. I’ll take her,” I said even quicker than I suspected I would. She thanked me and hurried off the phone. I had caved in yet again.
What I should have said was, “Well, if your mother doesn’t have to be there at a certain time then you can take her after you finish what you have to do.” That’s what I should have said. But no, that wasn’t what I said at all. I’d merely given in once more.
It’s so funny how later on you can always think of stuff you should have said. So my new goal is to learn how to say what I mean and stick with it no matter what. I just have a hard time telling someone I can’t do something when honestly I know that physically I can. Just one more lovely trait I can attribute to my fine upbringing.
My mother never believed in telling lies, not even the little white ones folks basically say it’s okay to tell. You know like, “No, you don’t look fat in that.” Or “Cute outfit.” What about, “Oh, no; I really do like your hair. I was only staring so hard at you because it’s so…different.”
Not my mama. It was “Girl, now you know you’re too old to be trying to wear something like that.” Or “Somebody lied to you. Go back and try again.” Or what about, “That looks good, it just doesn’t look good on you.” Still, she will do anything for you.
I started planning special events as a hobby about two years ago, but lately it appears this could someday become my real bread and butter if I continue to pursue it seriously. Everybody says I’m great at putting things together. That’s what I was doing yesterday after work—taking care of some pressing business for an upcoming wedding. A wedding, incidentally, that’s huge and could really put my name on the go-to-for-event-planning map.
I pushed myself to do what I had to do after work, then managed to take Nae-nae’s mother to the store. It took her two whole hours to shop. Two hours I really didn’t have to spare. She insisted on doing it herself. Seriously, she could have given me the list she’d already written out anyway, and I would have been done in fifteen minutes. Tops. Instead, she ended up riding in the mobile cart the store provided. She’d stand up, get an item, put it in the basket, sit down, then ride sometimes just to the next group of items, only to begin the slow and tedious cycle all over again.
I don’t know, maybe I really am as hopeless a case as Cass said. Cass is my ex-boyfriend. His real name is Cassius, named after his father who was named after Cassius Clay the boxer before he changed his name to Muhammad Ali. If you ask me, I’d say Cass thought his name was short for Casanova. But truthfully, he was the one who got me started on this self-evaluating journey I’ve been on lately. Cass flat out said I was too easy and a real pushover. Well, he should know, since he treated me like a disposable pen, then pushed me over and threw me away when he felt my ink was all but used up.
And to think he had the nerve to break up with me and make out like everything was all my fault. He claimed I was too self-centered for him. Give me a break! So I was supposed to believe that I was too easy, a pushover, while at the same time believe I was self-centered. All righty then. Looking back, the best thing Cass ever did for me was to move his narcissist-self on. Now, you want to talk about somebody being stuck on himself, then that is Cass, the guy I dated last for a whole year, to a T. After Cass, I started listening to my pastor and decided to pray that God would send the right man into my life, because I sure wasn’t doing all that hot on my own.
This was all too much to be thinking about this early in the morning, especially with very little time before the alarm was going to sound. But I still found a way to doze off again. I hit the snooze button three times before finally dragging myself out of the bed. Standing in front of the window, I took in the stillness of the day’s beginnings, then hurried to dress, made my way to work, and got to my desk with two minutes to spare.
Marcus Peeples was walking out of Dr. Brewer’s office when I arrived. He often comes into the OB/GYN’s office where I work. Definitely not the most handsome guy I’ve ever seen (especially with the glasses he wears), Marcus is around 5'11" and sort of lanky, particularly compared to me.
Some label my body type as thick, which means curvy in all the right places. My mother said we’re just big-boned people. “Absolutely nothing to be ashamed of,” Mama always said. It’s never bothered me. After all, Marilyn Monroe was a size fourteen, same as me.
Marcus seemed like an all right guy. He was usually trying to push (what I assumed) his pharmaceutical products on my boss, who must be too nice to tell him to buzz off. But lately, every time he has come in here with his fancy briefcase in hand, he has tried to strike up more and more conversation with me.
Two months ago, he asked if I was married or dating anyone. Having just broken up with Cass a few weeks earlier, my answer pretty much conveyed that not only was I not dating anyone, but that I wasn’t interested in dating anyone anytime soon. He promptly dropped that line of questioning for a few weeks. Then it happened. Today, in fact.
When Marcus walked into Dr. Brewer’s office, he stepped over to my desk and without his customary hi or how are you said, “How about you and I go out on a date.”
I flashed him a quick fake, polite smile, and replied, “Thanks, but no thanks.” Who says I can’t say no and mean it?
He nodded as he smiled back at me. “Oh, I see. You must only be interested in the kind of guys who like to break your heart, then leave you to put the pieces back together,” Marcus said.
For someone who reminded me at best of a reformed nerd, at worst of someone almost anyone could take down in a fight, that statement took me totally by surprise.
“No. I’m just not interested in you,” I said, pointing my finger at him on cue with the word you, not caring