Can't Get Enough (Skyland, #3)

by Kennedy Ryan

I’ve also seen the flashes of joy this experience can bring when we least expect it. How the human mind, which can betray us, can also delight and astound when we’ve underestimated its capacities.

“We got discernment,” Aunt Geneva replies with a wink and a smug smile. “God gon’ always tell on you.”

“When they say it’s like fire shut up in your bones, I bet they meant hot flashes.

“We are not magic,” she says. “We are resilient. It’s not a wand. It’s work. We work harder and shine brighter to survive. Excellence for us has been a matter of necessity. In a climate where less than half a percent of venture capital funding goes to Black women, women founders still perform sixty-three percent better than all-male founding teams in the first round. With those odds, we can’t leave our success to chance and we for sure can’t depend on magic.”

Memory is often imperfect, a menagerie of omissions and reshaped recollections,

There are women like me who are mothering in our own ways, but have never carried a child or been a parent. We’re teachers and mentors and social workers and godmothers. We find ways to pour love into the world, to shape the world for good without bearing a child. It’s not about our wombs. It’s about our hearts and how we share them. That is bodily agency—me getting to decide what I do with my body in this life.”

“My life won’t be measured just in what I did, but who I did it with. Who I chose to be in friendship with. In relationship with. I think that’s where real contentment is found, and I think I could find it with you.”

Strength is not always control. Sometimes it’s surrender.”

I think there are words that aren’t said, but speak to the soul. That’s the beauty of jazz. You have to have a receptive soul to truly appreciate it. For it to speak to you.”

When life deals you the worst hand, the biggest test is how you get through it. Laugh, cry, wail, whine—doesn’t matter. Just through.

Are there words in the lexicography of human emotion for how it feels to lose the love of your life? It’s articulated in wails and tears, in the impenetrable loneliness that comes with losing such a vital part of who you are. Your person, closer than anyone to you, is now irretrievable, beyond reach. A mourning with no sunrise. You never know what to say when faced with that kind of devastation. I’ve learned to say nothing at all. No platitude or condolence could make it any better. All I can do is be human enough to listen and try to understand.

“I’ve been so mad at God for letting this happen. You think I’m in my devotional every day praising Him, and yeah. There’s some of that, but we been in that room wrestling, me and God. I been asking Him hard questions and not always sure I can live with the answers.”

I’ve felt desired before. I’ve felt needed. Now I know what it means to feel seen. To feel known.

“He home yet? I told him not to… didn’t need that ice cream.” It’s astounding how obstinately her mind clings to certain things and lets the rest float away. I squeeze my eyes shut, but silent, hot tears scorch my face. That damn ice cream. That night is suffused with could’ve beens and never should’ves, the hours that her mind circles over and over again searching for a different outcome. One where the love of her life is here. That night is a door that stays cracked open; one that deprived her of one last kiss. Of a final farewell. And in the fog of her memories, that door remains ajar.

“Let her walk into every room like a hymn sung high, a Black woman named Beloved, hips swaying like the gospel beat she was born to… I want love to arrive freely for her— like light breaking into a room at dawn, gentle but sure, a thing hers without labor.” —Frederick T. Joseph, “A Black Woman Named Beloved”

I’ve watched my mother survive nearly everyone she loved throughout her life until now there are so few left. When I couldn’t be there, her sister was. Her church was. Her neighbors were because she’d extended herself all her life, not just to me, her child, but to everyone around her, and they wanted to extend themselves to her. That’s community. Yes, there is power in making your own way and joy in sharing it. Sharing it with your family. Sharing it with your friends. And—if you find the blessing of it—with the love of your life.

“I want my love to be the most extravagant gift I ever give you,” he whispers, his voice deep and reverent. “I want it to be outrageously unconditional. I want it to overflow and spill into every crevice of your life, every corner of your heart because that’s what you do for me. You overwhelm me, Hendrix.”

Seated on a bench that bears my parents’ initials, surrounded by the flowers that symbolize their lifelong love, I’m reminded that I wasn’t sure I could ever have that. That I’d ever find a man I could trust with my heart, with my goals and dreams; whom I could respect with the assurance that he respects me in return. Maybe I’d subconsciously resigned myself to a life alone, or if I found someone, to a shadow of the love I’ve seen in those closest to me, but this isn’t a shadow of anything. This is blinding light. This is the heat and passion of a thousand suns. God, this is love.

This one’s for the girls… Who have been pushed down, beat down, or put down, because they didn’t want you to discover how strong you truly are.