This is what I decided to do

I had two worlds. My home world. My Army world. I wasn't sure how to reconcile them to one another. I wasn't sure if I wanted to.

I just wasn't sure.

Do you remember Connie's Lipstick? That is what it was like with me and SSG Newsome, I was color blind. He wasn't a black man, he wasn't the black Sergeant --he was just him. That's all. I wasn't aware of his skin color because I knew him as a person, a man.

But you see, that was the problem. Back home they weren't so color blind and back home that was --that world and I was in this world. It wasn't that I was two different people but I had changed. The Army changed me. Germany changed me. Newsome changed me. I was different but home was the same. They were the same.

So soon after Newsome came to visit me, I had a panic moment. I was weak and I was afraid but mostly, I was confused. I wasn't sure if my Army world and my Chicago world could coexist. But to be quite honest with you, I wasn’t sure I wanted them to coexist. I didn’t want to shake the up trees, upset the status quo. I didn’t have that kind of courage.

Remember, I signed the statement.  I hadn't been to OZ, I had no courage.

The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced marrying Staff Sergeant Newsome wasn’t going to be an option. It felt like other people or circumstances had already made that decision for me. I could fight it. I could swim up stream but that seemed over whelming to me -- very much so. There was also the fact that he was a career soldier and I was going to live the rest of my life in Chicago.


Because we technically weren’t even exclusively dating; sure we dated and spent a lot of time together but as far as a commitment made between us, that had not been done. And we had not know each other that long . . . and Newsome had other things he was dealing with, personal things that seemed too big and too grown up for me. It made me cautious and careful and –scared.


This is what I decided. After PLDC I’d tell Newsome how I felt.