I have a type apparently. I’ve been flipping through these matches on the dating sites and I’m trying to be open minded. I have not put any parameters on the men I have been looking for. Race or religion does not matter as I figured the more open-minded the better the chance I have of meeting new and like-minded people. I’ve paused a few times on a couple and even tried to do the google search to make sure they are not on America’s Most Wanted list. Today I googled one more and much to my surprise (though no surprise to my friends who know me so well) I am cosmically drawn to a type.

I don’t go out and intentionally seek this type but my heart just seems to know who they are and I don’t know how to feel about this. I don’t know if I am supposed to like this type or go against my norm. I will say that my ex, whom I was with for almost nine years was not my typical type and it was tumultuous, stressful and a very negative unhealthy situation. It started off good, as all relationships do and by the end I felt as if we were both auditioning for a role in the “Shining” oh well you live and learn.

However going back to my “Type” my heart from very early on has been ruled by music. A good beat will stir my soul and fill me with life and energy. Add a great rhyme and you have the makings of the songs in my heart. Hip hop music personified who I was and my love affair with the music led me to love the men behind the beat. Not in a groupie way, but in a way that related to my wild, rebellious yet introspective soul. I was in love with Hip Hop and Hip Hop loved me.

In the early 90’s, Rap City , Yo MTV Raps and mix tapes ruled my life. I wrote poetry and slammed with the best of them. I had the VCR perfectly timed to record videos and I made mix tapes and CD’s for those I loved. Naturally I was drawn to the same crowd. Music was everything and I would spend hours upon hours scouring The Source when it was in newspaper form and trying to get music from New York because Niceville, Florida didn’t get the latest and greatest music. When I would “discover” a new artist I would call my boys and talk as if I had found the holy grail. We would share our music and dreams and talk about our future. When we made it big that we would call it SugarHill. (Yes after AZ’s Sugar Hill) Fast forward a little to when high school ended my friends moved up north in pursuit of their dreams. The music scene was thriving and the chances of being heard and appreciated for their art was better than staying in a small, sleepy beach town. I stayed behind and went to the local community college and studied recording engineering. I was one of the only females in the class and at the studio that I interned at. But the music scene was not as lucrative in the small town so i would take trips back and forth up north to feed my fix for music and love and it awakend my soul in a way that i would never be able to satisfied if I stayed where I was -the sleepy beach town.

I moved to Atlanta some years later in search of something different, something big and got sidetracked. The dream eventually died because I didn’t nurture it and I decided to “grow up” when in reality I stifled my growth. I betrayed what my heart said I needed to do to keep my dreams alive and I settled into the norm and what society expected me to be- a good girl, who didn’t question authority, played by the rules and didn’t ruffle too many feathers.

During those times and in between it all I loved hard and looking back to even recently (excluding my ex- it’s not that I didn’t love him it was a different type of love) I realized that I was attracted to the dreamer, that I would look for men who personified my passion for Hip Hop and music. The guy who strummed his guitar was strumming my soul. But they get me, those types. I can speak for hours with them and even though I am doing a disservice by lumping them into a type make no mistake that they are amazing and unique in their own way. Beautiful souls who were tortured and tattered in some bit and found music as an outlet. Who became one with the instruments be it a mic, a guitar or a turntable. With every beat they bobbed their heads in time with my heart and I’ve never felt more alive more in tune with the music.

For over nine years the music stopped in my head and I fell into a robotic trance. At least that’s what it felt like. I stopped doing what I loved- writing, art, drawing listening to unsigned artists and I fell into the trap of believing if I changed everything about myself to become the perfect mother, the perfect partner that I would somehow find happiness. Mother’s weren’t supposed to dream, we have our duties, our priorities. I need to be a perfect partner. I was young and naive and foolishly bought into what i was being told by outsiders who didn’t know me well at all. What I realized later, is that in denying who I was and not being true to myself I couldn’t show my son what passion truly was. I owed it to myself and I owed it to him to allow him to know his mother as a true person as her true self and her true form. Which is what this year is about. My heart was searching for a creative outlet and I thought that love could be my muse.

Now I’m not saying that loving these men brought me any more joy and less pain, In fact I feel it hurt on a deeper level, a soulful level. When I think about them I think of them as favorite songs that bring you back to a time when things were simpler. I have a soundtrack to my heart and each one filled a place. When you love somebody to your heartsong it is profound and deep and spiritual and nothing can compare. Its like finding the “perfect verse over a tight beat “-Brown Sugar

When it’s over its tears and anguish and pain. It’s like losing a piece of your soul. Every time its as if the music gets a little quieter and I don’t know if this is a good thing.

On one hand my “type” brings me so much joy, so much life, so much of my creativity is awakened. It’s as if the creative soul is yin to my yang, but the thing is about loving these souls, is that they are free spirits and they go where the wind takes them. They are in search of something more. They hold themselves to a standard that can never be reached, an insatiable appetite that can never be satisfied. They are the roamers, the nomads, the passionate lovers gone in the morning and women like me who love them are the forgotten muses, inspirations for the songs and the ones who believe we can tame them. But why would you ever want to tame something that is free and beautiful in the wild?

I myself am a wild spirit, I am Independent, I dance with the wind and I love hard and strong and with all my might. So I get it. We are the same, we are one. I don’t know if that is a good thing. I’m 36 and I have a child. I cannot afford to love with the wild abandon that I did in the days of my youth. Nights spent chatting away about dreams and music are replaced with homework and bedtime. Which I cherish and love. Days are spent clicking away on a computer because of my own responsibilities and my fear to follow my dreams. Which is why i love the “type” it allows me to feel alive even if for one night.

My soul is drawn to these people. Seriously. You could dress 15 men in the same suit and line them up, same haircut, the same shoes and my heart will find the one. The lover of music, the one who stirs my soul. And to be honest I don’t know if that’s a good thing or if it’s what I should have been doing all along. Wading through the emotions of it all and feels so raw, so ill leave you with this:

Hip Hop, wherever you are. If I ever get to meet you – you’ll know that my heart beats to the rhythm of your soul and I’ve never felt more alive …..

or maybe Ive already met Hip Hop…..

And maybe Hip Hop is me and I just need to dance to the rhythm of my own beat.