You know I have always been a big proponent of not looking back to grab your future partner. I’ve argued for years that it is much harder in reality to be with someone from your past, than it is to start fresh with someone new and unknown. I argue this position for a number of reasons and I will break down why I feel this should almost always be the case. Why there are always exceptions and how to know when something is a chapter closer and not a chapter starter. If you’re not careful, a reunion with a lost flame could prove to be costly or harmful to your progress in the present day.

As has been commonly said, looking behind you doesn’t really do you any real justice. It doesn’t help you to see what’s happening in present day and it doesn’t do a lot to prepare you for what’s to come in the future. Looking back, in my mind, is used to teach us lessons and to help grow us from what we were and used to be into who we are and will ultimately become. It gives you a memory of experience to draw off of should you encounter a similar situation down the line, ensuring that you will be able to use more tools to better handle the situation should it present itself again. It works for reminding you of why you left someone alone, or why something didn’t work in the time period that it did. It serves to be a hallmark of where that past person must climb to just to be considered fairly relevant. But that’s where the problem comes in at. Too many times they reach the old bar, but you’ve graduated to an even higher bar that they must over come, and most people forget that when that past comes roaring back to the forefront.

Lately, I’ve felt like I’ve been having a lot of reunions with my past and I’m really not sure why this season has been presented to me over the past eight months. But, it has definitely served to do some of the work I believe it was intended to do. It also caused some deep wounds and pain that I’ve been working through. Well, add two more people to the list of the returned and one blew up in a ball of fire less than a week after it got going. I’m glad that I have the ability to know what the past is primarily used for. Also, I’m glad that I have an understanding that not everything is black and white. There is a lot of color and gray area where we have to make decisions and be prepared for the consequences of those decisions. This guy from a few years ago, came back around to me again this time and I really thought that this was going to be something worth investing my time into. He was someone that we didn’t end on bad terms, we both just needed so much and neither of us were really ready to give each other what we needed. So we left things alone and life moved on.

Last week we reconnected, and for the most part, it was just like old times. Catching up, revealing feelings hidden and things sought and wanted from the other. So we began to talk heavy discussing whether or not we were going to finish the work we started years ago. I agreed and so did he, that we would attempt to make this work in the improved versions and forms of ourselves, than 3 years ago. Before that opportunity could even be tried out, he pulled the fag move. Got to the city and disappeared. Not talking any longer, not answering phone calls or returning missed calls. It showed me that he was meant to close a chapter. His bluster and bullshit, while sounding good, was nothing more than a time filler. Wasting my time and energy and his, because I guess he was bored. Or maybe he wanted a backup plan, while I was thinking I was primary, because he claimed he was spending his time talking to me. Which, from all accounts has proven to be false, cuz I haven’t seen the bitch since he arrived in town. It reminded me that just like all the others who have returned, these are chapters mostly closing and not new ones being written.

It reminds me that the truth is you only go back for one you believe is the one. A soulmate that you know fits you perfectly. That no matter how many years pass or how much time goes without you two being together as lovers or in each others presence, you still have a bond that is unmatched. It needs time to recalibrate to account for the changes that both of you have made. And then you write a new chapter, aiming to see if this is something that needs to be further developed, or is it a new chapter to close the prior partnership, opening a new friendship while closing the relationship portion of life together. That is a hard thing to decide that you need to do, but it becomes the right choice if it becomes obvious that only one of you is still into it and the other is just living their best life. See, you have to be prepared in great detail for all options to happen with people that you reconnect with. You have to be very careful to protect you energy and time. You don’t want to extend yourself for something that is really dead and trying to be reincarnated into something different.

I really don’t feel that there are any other real reasons to examine a past love for reignition. Don’t buy into the I still want to love you. Or the lets try this again and make it work. Or the you’re stuck with me now. None of that bullshit is true if you don’t see the actions matching those words. Don’t cancel plans that you made or adjust the way that you move until you are sure that the person is serious. That you two are really building towards something special. If this isn’t happening, then you’re just writing final chapters for people. And to be honest, you need that in life. Closure! A word that many say they want but when they’re given the opportunity to take it, they run from it. Because it means letting go and moving on and so many people want to hang on to things. Wanting to use what is familiar and comfortable as a basis for their new happiness. When in reality, it’s when you go outside what you know that you grow the most and usually experience the success as well.

So here is the summation. Don’t let yesterday become today unless yesterday and done all the work to become the present and future. Not just catching up to what was. And don’t let sweet words and matching rhetoric equate to love matching and compatibility, because you never know the reason for the season. Take your time, flush it out and when it’s time, write the final sentence and close that chapter. Move On and be happy.

Bruh, I’m gone keep it all the way real with you right now, if you a man and date men, you know the nigga actions tell you when he’s moved on to someone else. Women same thing to you, you should know when your man got his side chicks or whatever, because his actions towards you will change. I think it’s actually quite comical when people say, Oh I didn’t know he was doing this. He never treated me different, then one day he was gone. Or one day he broke up with me. Those are the bold face lies that you tell yourself because you don’t want to acknowledge that the shit was right in your face and you ignored it. A nigga will show his stripes, unless he was already showing you them and you got caught up. This post is not for you, you are a dumb ass and if you get played that’s your fault. This is for the person that been with a nigga and then things changed and y’all weren’t together anymore and you thought it was sudden, when in reality it happened before you took notice.

If you have ever been in a relationship with someone and you broke up over what seemed to be a steady decline in the relationship, or one day you had an argument, minor one at that, and shit ended right there, I’m here to tell you it was over long before then. The truth about men is that they will always show when they’ve reached their peak, and essential end with you. A man almost always marks his proverbial territory but the energy that they put out on a daily basis. The more that man is giving of himself and time and effort to you, that more you know that they are with you. That have their full attention and that they are committed to you. It is my opinion that the first time you see that energy waver and the same gusto isn’t there, it is at that moment that he has began the process of entertaining other people. In my mind when he first shows the crack that there is unstable energy, that is the moment where y’all need to talk, see where that triggered from and how to go about fixing it. Because the longer that you wait to start realizing the drop in effort, the less likely it is that you can save your relationship.

Let me clear about this, when you are in a relationship with a man who says he is only with and for you, you will always know if the man is not fully interested by how he acts with you. If you are in a relationship with a hoe who is just trying to survive, you lost from the opening gate. See when a man has to share his time in more than one place, there is bound to be an energy drop off at some point. Usually because they get tired of trying to give 110% every day to two different people, if their emotions are in it. That overwhelms him, so he will eventually choose one of the two, and the one who isn’t chosen, if he doesn’t tell you, will know by the small things he does or doesn’t do anymore for or with you. Conversely, if it has been just the two of y’all for a while and then you feel a shift in the energy and effort department, time for concern if that energy isn’t increasing. And I know, some may say well you can’t give that same constant high energy forever, you will get worn out. The level is bound to decrease at some point, it’s just natural. You can’t say that just because the level decreased it automatically means they’re done. And I say to that, yes you can.

One of the common arguments against what I have said being the tried and true fact, is well look at how many people went to therapy to fix their marriage or help to give tools to repair it. Look at how many people stayed together and how many people made it. My comeback would be, it’s because the energy and effort given never decreased, it just changed its composition during the relationship that led to the need for issues. I would say there is a difference between things becoming more negative versus energy just being absent and void. The two can be interchanged, but it would be incorrectly done so because too often the two are linked together. A person can become negative because they lost interest, or because there have been too many arguments, too much nit picking, someone becomes too controlling. Energy and effort becomes lacking and missing when someone is tired of being together, when one doesn’t want it anymore and has moved on to someone else.

Now also to be clear, moving on to someone else could mean they just to be with themselves for a while too, not always being with another man. But, I want to make sure that it’s clear in this example, when the guy starts to give less to you, he is already out the door with someone else. It’s just up to you to figure this out and decide what you’re going to do about the situation. Some people say let the nigga leave. Can’t or won’t try to keep someone who as decided he doesn’t want to be kept. Some say, if you got history and love, try to fix it, maybe it’s something that can be done to boost that energy level again. Wherever you land on that spectrum know that you need to pay attention to your man, he is always going to give clues that he’s not feeling it. If y’all use to do a lot of playful stuff, and joke around a lot and shit like that, and that changes.. he is likely moving on. If y’all usually are very affectionate and touchy, all up under each other when you aren’t working, and that changes, he is likely already gone. If you use to always call each other pet names, and then all of a sudden he starts to use your name more often, he has likely moved on. The obvious one, if the sex level drops for no real reason at all, he has likely moved on.

Pay attention to the mannerisms and movements of your guy. Pay attention to his actions, how he intentionally act towards you, the words he says to you, the way he caresses you. When these things start to change you need to be concerned. Don’t wait until it’s been weeks and months before you address it, because by then it will be too late and they will be gone. Maybe that’s for the best and maybe it’s not. That’s for you and him to decide, more you than him, because his actions show he may already be a foot and some toes out the door. Either way, know this, you must always be present and attentive in your relationship, a failure to do so will lead you to missing signs and opportunities, and probably you will end up single.