Discovering your Friends are Associates

In life you grow and when you grow there are things, people and places that just can't come along with you. It's a fact that unfortunately won't get any easier to deal with.

I have grown to be the type of person that if I recognize that someone or something is not good for me I will make provisions for that thing or person to no longer contribute to my quality of life. In the past maybe 5 years I have had to do a lot of cleaning in my friends circle and although it isn't easy it is something that needs to be done. I personally don't think that there is anything wrong with changing the relationship level of people in your life. I have had to do it several times in my life and actually very recently.

When I first moved to New York I didn't know anyone. It wasn't until I moved into my own apartment and during the 2013 storm Hurricane Sandy that I actually met some women that became my friends. The week of the storm my then roommate asked if she a few people could come crash at my place until the storm cleared out. I of course welcomed them and in two days had a house full of people. Being that I had been living alone in an unfamiliar place I was excited to have guests. Three of the girls that came over where actually my neighbors during my first month in NY and two where in my masters program. We had all hit if off pretty well and decided to hang out more even after the storm and they were able to return to there housing.

Over the next two years we got really close. Shared a lot of personal moments, had your typical girls night out, Saturday brunch, and even many nights of tears. I thought I had found the people that would become my family away from home. That was until I go engaged, moved out of the city and started a whole new life.

When I first moved the group would take turns to spend time whether it was in the burbs or in the city, mostly in the city though. Things seemed to be normal but eventually you could tell that the relationship between me and the rest of the group where starting to shift. To be fair I wasn't the only person experiencing life changes. Everyone was going through their own personal shift but to me it seemed that mine was the biggest and effected everyone the most.


To get down to the point I had decided with my fiance that we didn't want to have a big wedding or wedding party. We also decided that we wanted to have a very private and intimate wedding ceremony and a big reception to celebrate with with extended family and friends. Once I informed my NYC friends about this change they were not too happy. It was to a point that it brought about feelings they had towards me ever since I had gotten engaged and my life had began to shift. They had thought that I had essentially cut them out of my wedding and felt that as my friends of two years I should include them in the ceremony. I thought that it was my wedding and I should be able to make whatever decision I wanted and not answer to anyone. I understood their pain and respected it but I wasn't going to allow anyone to guilt me for this decision.

It has been over a month and a half since that conversation and almost a month since my wedding. It turned out that only two of the four women showed up to my wedding reception after I invited everyone.

The point of all of this is that even though things played out the way they did I am not sad. I cherish the time that I had with those women and the moments we shared. I have grown to know and accept that people will grow and out grow each other. That's life and in life change must happen.

Holy Cow, I'm Getting Married!!

Last September my life flipped upside down. Not in a bad way, but it definitely flipped. My boyfriend of a year and some change asked me to be his forever. Cliché I know but I like that mushy stuff. What surprised me the most, next to the actual proposal, was my reaction to the proposal. I laughed, a very awkward laugh. I always imagined that when that moment would happen in my life I would be crying so hard that snot would be running out my nose. However, my mind found comfort in laughter. I remember that night so clear, but I won't go into full detail now click the video here to hear the entire story:

I still laugh when I think about it. If you are a normal person you would be asking yourself,  "What in the world was so funny?" The proposal itself was beautiful,  well planned and executed. my laughter came from within myself.

Just two years before this all happened I was living in DC getting stood up by guys I met on OK Cupid (if you don't know what that is that's actually better for you). I had gotten to a point where marriage wasn't even a question. On top of all that months before I met my now fiancé I was heartbroken over a guy I was madly in live with and who could give two sticks about my feelings. So, to see myself in a relationship with a man that loved me and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me was just too much to handle. Don't get me wrong I knew then and still know now that I am the shit.  I had a lot going for myself and a lot to offer an man that would want to pursue me. After years of searching, crying and wondering what was I doing wrong I realized that I wasn't the problem. The men ( or boys) that I dealt with were the problem.  I was also trying to rush something that God wasn't ready to give me yet. Then, one day I met this tall, chocolate, quiet, Haitian man and everything changed. Everything that I was looking for in DC was right here in NY waiting for me.

Here we are almost two years later and I'm getting married. Something I had confirmed within myself that would never happen is happening in two months. I am excited to say the least and can't wait for the day to come. In two months I will be a married woman. Yeah, still not used to saying that yet.

I will keep you guys updated on what's happening and my journey to marriage. I hope you guys are ready for this ride because it will be a wild one!

Peace and Blessings

Dominique 

Letters to My Father: A Young Woman’s Journey to Finding Her Birth Father

These are letters that I wrote to my birth father, one right before graduating college and the other earlier this month, three years later.  When writing the first letter I had every intention of mailing it off, but unfortunately I never had the courage to. I went through a lot trying to find my father before graduating, but back then I didn’t care. I had to know who he was. However, three years have passed and I do not feel that way anymore. I have grown into a woman who understands that what happened with him does not define my future. Therefore, the second letter is a reflection of how I feel about our "relationship" right now. Enjoy!


April 9, 2010

Dear Father,

All I know about you is your first and last name. No birthday, no family history, no school names, no favorite colors, no genetic diseases, no nicknames, not even a middle name. So if I was to try to look for you, it would be almost impossible to find out who you are. I knew nothing about who you were for a long time. I didn’t even know that you existed. It wasn’t until high school that I really began to wonder who you were, but at that time I didn’t really care to know who you were. I always thought that I would be better off not knowing. That was until I would see other teenage girls to have their fathers in their lives giving them boy advice and telling them the rules of dating. I didn’t have you to teach me how to fish, ride a bike, throw rocks, build things, take them apart, or to learn about cars. I’m not saying that since you weren’t there I never learned these things, but these are things that a father should teach his daughter. My mother did everything that she could to make up for what you didn't do. But the reality is that she is not a man and can never be one.  I think that I would have been a wonderful daughter to you. I would come to you to tell you about my day, to ask you all sorts of questions about your work. I would have been the daughter to cherish her daddy and be proud of him, for the man that he was. I would have been the daughter to want any boy that I date to be just like you because I would know that I had the daddy who would love his daughter unconditionally. I would have been the daughter who would want you to give me away on my wedding day. I would be the daughter who needed your protection from all men.

In my freshman year of college, I told myself that I would find out who you were before my graduation day. I won’t look to you for money.  I just want to meet you, to see who this other half of me is. I want to know where I got my lazy eye from. I want to know who is responsible for me having small fingers and toes. I want to know if you bit your nails when you were younger or if you still do. I want to know what you look like, if you look like what I imagined. Are you short and brown skin like me or are you tall and light-skinned? Do you walk the way I walk and talk the way I do? Are you a people person and love to be around a big crowd like me? Do you like to read and write? What was your favorite subject in school? Did you even like school? What were your goals in life? Did you want to have kids? Did you love my mother? Or even care about her? Did you know about me? Did you ever think about me or did you want to find me? Have you been watching me from a distance all these years? Do I have any other siblings? Or a step mother? If so, what are they like? Do they look like me?

I have spent all fours years of my college life trying to find you. Calling many homes with the only information that I knew about you and having no success in my search. Asking around with people who I thought may know who you are and where you were. Many told lies and didn’t say much about you. It was if you never existed. I remember giving up in my sophomore year because I would get so tired of finding dead ends. Then after I came back from studying abroad in South Korea, I figured I could try again. I remember calling houses and people's jobs explaining who I was and what I was trying to do. One lady even got mad at me for asking about the wrong person. I just knew that I was going to meet the man who blood ran deep in my veins. I have since then been unsuccessful with finding out who you are. I still only know two pieces of information about you, which is your first and last name. I don’t know your birthday, your favorite color, your family history or even your middle name. So if I continue to look for you it would be almost impossible for me to succeed. If I ever get the chance to meet you and tell you anything it would just be thank you. Thank you for showing me what a man and a father shouldn’t be like. I thank you for letting me experience hurt and pain. I thank you for abandoning me. It has made me much stronger than I ever would have been. Thank you for not being there when I didn’t want you there. Thank you for not being able to tell my secrets and to stop me from doing all the wrong things I did. Thank you for showing me how much you cared about me.

Your daughter,

Dominique

Three years later...

April 13, 2013

Dear Anthony Simpson,

It has been seven years since I began my journey to find you and seven long years it has been. In my previous letter I felt the need to please you and let you know that I was the perfect daughter. I felt that I owed it to you and myself. However, after much failure and frustration my feelings have severely changed. With no help from you I have graduated from Tougaloo College with honors. I served for 2 year in AmeriCorps, helping families and organizations around the country that were in need. I mentored to children, without parents, who needed a big sister and friend to turn to. I am currently studying for my Masters in Publishing and started my own website. I don’t have any children. I have never been in trouble with the law and a wonderful and supportive mother who has been there all the times you weren't.

A year ago I found out some less than flattering things about you. One in particular I’m sure that you are very aware of and that I won’t mention. Unfortunately I never learned if I had siblings, your favorite color, if you wanted children or if you even know who I am. I thought for a long time that not knowing you would have a negative effect on my life. I have now come to the realization that not knowing those details about your life has only made me stronger. It has taught me to be independent and self-assuring. To love myself even if no one else will.  Yes, I have had some struggles in life but each and every time I have picked myself up and kept on living.

Anthony I want you to know that during all those years I only wanted one thing from you and that was recognition. I never wanted money or even five minutes of your time. I just wanted you to know that I have succeeded far beyond I can imagine. I am only 24 years old accomplished many things beyond what I could have ever dreamed with still many more years ahead of me. I have allowed your absence to severely affect my relationship with many people in my life. I spend so much time trying to get people to love me and accept me only because you never did. I always thought that my relationship with you, the back and forth of fighting for you to love me, was normal. That same behavior reflected into the rest of my life. I have experienced too much heartache because of your nonexistent love. So, I officially give up trying to find you. I no longer care about your middle name, your favorite food, if you have other children, or what you want to do with your life. I have lived this long without you and I intended on keeping it that way. I have been blessed beyond my means and I owe none of that credit to you.

Your daughter,

Dominique Ingram

Sheldon and I

For the last six days my life has been in a tiny bubble. Filled with laughs, smiles, great Thai food, Game of Thrones marathons, and hours of much-needed conversation. Thankfully my bubble stayed safe from intruders, judgement and naysayers. I traveled across the big pond to visit a friend that I haven't seen in nearly 3 years. I met Sheldon, my friend, when I was very young. He is a year older than I am, but that really doesn't matter. I won't go into great details because that would take more time than I can spare at the moment, but I will say that our relationship is truly a rare one. As I said before I spent six days with him, catching up on our lives as they are now, reflecting on pastimes and discussing our dreams of the future. I was originally hesistant to make this trip because I was a unsure on what I wanted to gain from it. We hadn't physically seen each other in 3 years, but with the help of Facebook, Skype and email we were always only a few clicks of a mouse away from each other. So having the opportunity to physically reconnect was definitely something that I could not miss. My trip started Thursday afternoon, I was eagerly awaiting my arrival to a land that was rather unfamiliar to me. After landing in the new place I had to go through the usual customs dance. While examining my passport and other paperwork, the customs agent questioned my relationship with the person that I was going to see. After informing her that I was visiting a friend from college she still asked if I was visiting my boyfriend. I unconsciously replied yes. What did I just do? After customs and a quick cleanup in the bathroom I see him, Sheldon, waiting for me just like he said. Ecstatic about seeing him we leave and go on about our way. Sheldon is just as I remembered him. Same smile, dimple on each cheek, and same smooth lips. What I don't remember about him is calmness. Not that he was a hot head before this was different. A difference that I definitely enjoyed. Each day following that was perfect. Aside from good times with friends, great food and a little touristy adventures the most important moments to me happened in the comfort of his own home. Sounds crazy to travel so far to just sit on a couch, but I was more content than ever. The point of this story is to explain the importance of friendship over love. After many talks about what we wanted from each other and the future it was clear that what needed to be protected was our friendship. The most difficult thing for me to do was tell Sheldon that I was in love with him. He too told me of his feelings for me but his hesitations were not being ready for a relationship. That I completely understood and respected. The last thing I want to do is rush into something prematurely. However, it was very important to me that he knows how I feel and vice versa. Talking with Sheldon as adults put a lot of things in perspective. Perspective that my little eyes and heart needed to hear and see. On my last day I was in another world. Sheldon, not understanding what was wrong, thought that it was something that he did. I reassured him that everything was ok. I just needed a moment to reflect on my trip and to make sure that I was making good decisions. In the end I have no doubts nor regrets from this trip. I may still be a single woman but I gained something much greater. Sheldon is no longer that immature selfish boy I once knew, he is now a man who has grown into someone I would've never imagine. So if it means that the universe never puts us together as husband and wife but we get to remain in each others lives through no matter what then that's fine by me. So to Sheldon, I said it once and I'll say it again, I love you, always have and always will. And I'll always have your back, literally. ;)