Notes on The Social Suicide of Finding Love as A Black Single Mom

Healthy love makes me realize not only how unhealthy my perceptions of love are, but also how unhealthy my community is.

AND the message from one of my closest friends went something like this: I am happy you have someone but I am afraid you’re moving too fast, don’t want to see you end up with another psycho nigga like your babydaddy. I remember the iron taste in my mouth after reading this. & the pain of immediate unacceptance, or was it the unbelief that maybe, by the standards of my own growth, I had found a safe loving Black man?

And trust me, I get it. For a long time, those men did not exist for me either.

LAST WEEK, I celebrated one year with my partner. Our relationship came as a last resort to seek companionship during my depression. I had been in Texas, living alone, working only to afford legal bills, to regain my rights to my then, 2-year-old daughter. I don’t know what was more painful, living in the same city as my daughter and not knowing where she was; or living in the same city as my daughter, and not knowing what was next for me. When I had been a single mom, alone, living day-by-day with my baby girl, I had mastered solidarity. The love of a child is filling. Consuming. Her existence engulfed the first 24 months of my motherhood journey. She was pure beauty, pure mystery. My greatest gift. The idea of one day, falling in love, was far distant. Maybe when she is older, I would tell a friend, maybe when we are safe, done with this custody battle, I would tell another, maybe when I feel sure about life, about who I am as a mother, I would tell my sister, who was in a relationship with the father of her child, but fighting weekly, if not daily, against the thread of drama stemming from their separate pasts. It seems that becoming a mother outside of marriage can prevent you from being viewed as a potential first choice for future partners. I would often listen to friends about their back and forthness with their babydad’s, feeling nothing but pure gratitude that I had dissociated from mine. There is a rockiness that comes from once being lovers to being parents, to being now babymom and babydad, and nothing more. I witnessed that gray space with my own parents, though they were never married, they never stopped loving each other, and often live in the unknowns of "we used too." & it almost makes situationships seem romantic, endearing. When in reality, it is a star-crossed fantasy, something that can never be.

THE relationship with my child's father had become legal. The courtroom gave us the option to no longer speak to one another. I almost appreciated him for taking that route, though it was manipulative and life-threatening to my daughter and I’s safety, it was also a wall. I was a co-parent. A joint conservator. Not a babymama. But always, and forever on record: that child’s mother. And so; when my daughter was placed into her father’s custody; and I was placed back into singlewomanhood; I did what most black women do when they are broken: I went to church. I ran myself down with reading books and doing coursework online. I worked on the parts of myself that were available. Not my heart– but my mind. All my moves became calculated. Until I met my partner last November.

My relationship with my current partner comes as unexpectedly as a pregnancy, as all things spiritually belonging to me. He was direct, purposed, and sure from the moment he saw me that he wanted to be a part of my life. There was no convincing, no trauma-bonding, no uncertainties. Just honesty. Pure connection. The day my heart surrendered to his, was when my car engine died on the side of the road and he insisted on pushing it all the way back to my house. In the Texan sun, he pushed my car two hours. As I steered in neutral, I roll down my window to hear him praying: God, thank you for allowing me to be here to help this woman.

When did my love language become acts of service? When did I calculate that someone might care enough to put their life on the line for someone.... like me? Our love is nothing short of sacrificial. It is nothing short of bloody, wild, unpredictable. Healthy love makes me realize not only how unhealthy my perceptions of love are, but also how unhealthy my community is.

That day I fell in love in deep protest: Why do you want me? I am dead, I tell him. I do not think it’s healthy. His response is: I don’t think it’s healthy for you to be alone right now. The simple act of companionship becomes an explosive revolution for me spiritually. His friendship, a simple act of sitting with me at coffee shops, picking me up from work in traffic, the long drives home in the red sunset, holding my hand while I sit on my patio praying to the trees about my baby girl’s disappearance. His love comes silent, comes loyal, comes safe. And so, I become slow to text back, calls go to voicemail, and the people who become dependent on my depressive state vent the homelessness of our friendship. My sister says I have changed. My mother says I am distracted. My circle curses me for opening my heart. The words go something like this: you don’t know him, what about your daughter? Are you still searching for her? Don’t forget who you are….

And who was I without love? A woman scorned. A woman, scared. A woman in the dark, sitting in a car crying alone on the side of the road. Why does a Black woman in love often face the challenge of her community's fear of her own demise?

Six months into my relationship, my daughter returned to my care. Her father had been arrested, and I had been summoned back into her life. That day, my partner was there in faith, crying with me, and praying with me. I wondered how our love would change with the love of my child back in my heart. I learned quickly that the love I have is agape. My superpower: I can love selflessly, wholly, without running out or running over. Each day, I wake up to the overwhelming art of affection. We balance loving God, loving our children, and loving each other, all while loving ourselves.

People are praying daily, expectant of my downfall. Friends are waiting for me to call to say all has failed. They are waiting for me to join them once more, battered, beaten by love. And I mourn those friendships, those family members I can no longer speak to candidly. And part of this distance keeps the fire in my relationship with my partner burning wild—I nestle it close, I protect it. I harvest and reap our love throughout the seconds of each day, and it manifests in ways I never imagined. Call it esote

ric. Call it the honeymoon stages. Call it a myth. But maybe love for a single Black woman is deserved. Earned. And who the fuck cares what comes tomorrow, whether it be tears, self-realizations, or gossip: I want many more years of the unknown, for the sake of the journey, and all journeys in love, being intentionally reckless, beautiful, and idiosyncratic.

What are your thoughts on loving after losing? How is your dating approach different now that you are considering both yourself and your children?

Would you share it with me? I’d like to make a note of it.