I don’t do a lot of reviews here. It’s not things don’t inspire me, its that reviews generally require a level of objectivity I rarely display in this place. I prefer instinct and emotion and reviews as I feel the need to present them don’t require either.

I’m not generally a fan of Tyler Perry movies. I don’t know if he wrote this, frankly although its predictable its not his signature. There is a general lack of Jesus and misygogny. Perhaps he just put up the money and in that case I want him to do more of it. My feelings haven’t evolved much beyond my Tyler Perry post here, you can find it if you search I am not going to do a link.

I appreciate all of the Blackness.

This movie though, she could have been me.

Brief synopsis for those who haven’t had the moment:

Woman meets man. Woman falls in love with man. Man has big ideas, big dreams. Man falls in love with woman. Woman gives her blood sweat and tears for 20 years until something happens which makes her finally tap out. 30 seconds after they are divorced man’s dreams finally manifest. Woman loses her mind.

There is no happy ending.

I had some time today and I went for a search for something to watch and Hulu came through with this movie. I figured I would have it on in the background as I folded laundry and such yet there I was actually watching the movie. I know the story of this woman.

I know meeting a man when you are young, and still beleive in love as the books and movies tell you it can happen. I know the deep unyielding, all encompassing all consuming passion and dedication that comes with that love which borders on the unhealthy.

I know dedicating yourself to the idea of the commitment that you made and waking up one day almost 20 years later wondering what happened to the promise 20 year old you made.

I know losing your ability to carry a child at the hands of a man, and wondering later what life would have looked like if the two of you had a child.

I know not understanding what life looks like without waking to to that person, touching that person. Yet, still loving that person almost more than yourself.

I also know what its like to look up one day to see that you’ve been ‘replaced’. That some other woman has now reaped the benefits, is inside what you were promised, is deliriously happy with the man who promised you everything, and left you with nothing. Well the girl in the movie didn’t have nothing, but I did. I had memories, I had nightmares.

I can understand the crazy, and the lengths you will go to so that you are seen. So that you are heard. So that one day just maybe that man will have the humanity to admit it wasn’t anything you did or did not do, that it was always him.

I remember the long drive on Route 202 trying to hear WHY. I remember the night the van almost skid off the road and my son and I almost died. Because I couldn’t leave him alone in the house, so I always wrapped his sleeping body up and off to the location we went.

I remember that afternoon, once more with the kid, and hearing the fear on the other side of the door. The woman was afraid of me, and it wasn’t ever about her, and I am no one to fear. I remember making a face, not that different than the one in the picture above in a courtroom, as the man I once thought I would die for lied under oath.

I remember taking him back after that hearing.

I remember the gaslighting, because when you are that connected and that devoted, when the change happens you can’t miss it, yet being told, nothing is different. Although time displayed that yes it always was, and yes you were always right and yes its happening again, because you allowed it to happen 4 different times.

I never turned completely into Taraji, but I see how it could have happened if the Universe had never wrapped her arms around me and said no. I went to places I will never go again. I can see in hindsight why the new girl, or the girl who eventually became the wife might not understand, might be afraid, especially if as I was told once……she’s just crazy.

I certainly have some DSM certified conditions, but I am not and haven’t ever been shoot you in the gut and chop you with an axe crazy. For just a moment while watching this movie, until it got bloody, I could say to myself in a way….I understand.

I can also say, that girl doesn’t exist any longer. For that I can only thank the Universe and Father Time. It’s funny in a sense because you wouldn’t know anything about me, Vizionz happened because of him. These years started back at a time when I thought that dream I was sold, and held onto could be reality. That’s not my karma, he’s hers now.

I’ve been okay with that for longer than I’ve been willing to type. I mean, after the last 4 years I do know a pain greater than the loss of that dream. I also know something else….the love I thought was once only to be found with that one particular person, isn’t his. It is always with me, it will always be returned, and I am always worthy of it.

I understood this woman’s loss of center, her absence of balance, her inability to figure out for some time what life looks like outside if it. I understood her sense of betrayal that after all she’d suffered someone was living the life she was promised.

I don’t understand chopping with an axe, but my life is not a movie. It will make a hell of a fucking book one day though.

Aphrodte Brown