Oh Lord, Help Me Keep My Panties on - By Lynda Burton

PREFACE

All women, sooner or later, come to terms with “the other” person that lives in their body. That person is armed and dangerous and under the right circumstances can overrule head and heart. Until discipline is achieved, hopefully somewhere around thirty, women spend their time in a vortex somewhere between Oprah, Jerry Springer, church, and the Brady Bunny Ranch. With an assistant from the unruly tenant, the game can be called on account of pregnancy.

What’s a girl to do? She’s expected to make reasonable choices while preparing to be chosen. She feels like a flower opening and closing literally. The heart is opening sexual doors that promise relief from the constant secret heat, while the head is closing off memories of lessons learned in ladylike behavior. This confusion is set to the music of “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” It’s a hell of a dance.

The survivors will tell you to learn to balance all aspects of womanhood with the desire to have no regrets. The tenacious tenant tells you to “do whatever floats your boat.” Time will teach you that tomorrow will come and that shit floats too.

Jordan,

As I look back on all of my past relationships that I was involved in, I realized that you are the one person that I will always cherish in my heart forever. Never before in my adult life had I experienced love, peace, harmony, and passion with anyone until you walked into my life. Your gentleness filled my every void. The strength of your soul gave me the courage to open up mine, and from that point, I wanted nothing else but to be loved by you. And if I had to interpret or describe to anyone what we had, I would say, “Our love affair was perfect in every way”.

We were brought together that night to experience each other’s need for love, and to bond as one, and we did. I believe that you were the reason why I was put here on this earth, to know true love, in the purest form. When you went away on tour and I on vacation, I could feel you near me, and I still do. I fell in love with you from the very start of our relationship, and learned to appreciate the arts and a variety of things I was never exposed to before.

On February 20th, you felt it necessary to turn your back on us (our relationship) and walk away from what we shared. You left and went seeking to rekindle a past that had soured due to an unexpected and unplanned pregnancy. You went hoping to be the father you didn’t have and to be the man in someone’s life other than mine. Since then, we moved in different directions and no longer keep in touch.

I just want you to know that the memories and love we shared not only bring a smile to my face, but also makes me laugh and shed a tear when I think of you. That’s how I know what I felt for you was real and unique. I’ll call it UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. Jordan, thank you for loving me the way you did, and thank you for letting me love you.

I had just been dumped by a guy a few hours ago and needed to celebrate my freedom again. “Free at last!” I shouted. It was a strange relationship from the start with John. John and I grew up together and lived two doors away from each other, in total, sixty-five steps from door-to-door. He was three years older than me and a real buff. Yeah, I know, what the hell was I thinking! My family and friends thought I was crazy for dating a guy that lived next door. But it didn’t bother me at all, well, at least not in the beginning. I had nothing to hide, and it was real convenient. I came and went as I pleased and so did he. If I went out with my other friends, I extended him the courtesy of a phone call, and he did the same. After high school, he attended Brown University and recently moved back in with his parents. His plans were to find an engineering job in Manhattan and to live in the city. But as things go, he settled for a job in law enforcement. So he buckled down and started saving his money for his dream house. To make the down payment, he allotted himself three years to save