In Spite Of...

I am happy to report that I am enjoying myself in spite of.
Pretty sure you’re wondering what the hell I’m talking about –in spite of.
Really have little complaints and I should’ve been this way for a long while.
Perhaps it is the company of love and genuine friendship…or laughing my ass off until it hurts.  Either way I know that this feeling has been sitting in the pit of my stomach begging to be released.  Having always found comfort in my sorrows I never thought I would experience the true elation of possessing the things I honestly need. 
I won’t lie –I was always a bit confused when it came to my wants and needs.  Guess you can blame that mostly on my desire to always want more –thinking; what I need –would show up when it was ready.  Yet I’ve realized just in the last few hours that the things I want have since changed.  And yes they will always change –but today and tomorrow I know I have the wanting part down.  Now onto the things I need.
Needing is like the curse we are never willing to accept.  The subconscious is a motherfucker.  Never fancied myself a drinker until I stopped and never saw myself as a liar until it was permanently tatted on my face.  But this is where I am today.  Needing to face my bad side and aspire to find the good in myself to share it with the ones I love.  It blows my mind to know that I could be a liar, a cheater, an unreliable friend and a menace to my own self –yet there are a circle of people who stay surrounding themselves with my presence. 
That right there is Love. Finding the beautiful pieces of anything means you have the patience to understand it.  I can honestly say right now that I am grateful I have women in my life who continue to dissect me –criticize my flaws and encourage my talents.  They have been my backbone all along –though I always felt I was missing something.
As if a man in my life –father or male figure alike –would have undoubtedly changed me.  As if my mother and her strong hands didn’t mold me just as slowly and meticulous as a God would.  I cannot lie on this part.  I am the complete, proud female I am in this moment thanks to every woman in my world and even more so, for lack of every male thereafter.
These ladies have shown me that the phrase “in spite of” was more prominent and authentic than my very own hand in front of my face.  That “conquering” is a form of passion only the most attentive lover could possess –and they continue to dominate and rule the very ground I cry on.
How they continue to work long hours, always laughing with me till I cannot breathe, motivating me to follow my dreams, rolling over and cuddling me in the night of a mare, annoying me to the core of a new resolution.  All of these things –these tasks; these roles my women have in my life.  They have managed to maintain them in spite of heartbreak, loneliness, fatigue, outsiders’ notions, and the world crashing around them.  They have harbored my soul and hosted a whirlwind of memories, I myself hope to never forget.  Yet if I do, I know somehow I will be muttering in my old age of the years in which I was in perfect clarity –in spite of.