One Less Broken Heart on the Block

In 8th grade, I found out my heart could beat outside my chest and vibrate the entire walls of my middle school. This discovery came once I stormed up to the second floor and flung myself in the empty hallway space across from my American History class. My legs were too weak to take me another step forward. Who knew heartbreak was so heavy? My vision was blurred and blinded by the tears I refused to let anyone see fall. During this conniption fit, I stopped and let the cold unsanitary steel of the lockers lining the halls carry my weight.

I’d just heard the hardest thing a 8th grade cheerleader that dates a basketball player ever has to hear. “I’m breaking up with you.” Why? His mom was taking him out of our middle school and transferring him to another school in a completely new city. I had more questions than he had answers. If you’re not transferring schools until next year, why are you breaking up with me now? It was the middle of the 2002-2003 school year. We had only just begun the power couple fairytale of our love a few months prior. In my mind, we were just hitting our stride. I was already letting my guard down and going against my better judgment by dating a young man a whole grade lower than me. As an 8th grader, that was social suicide. However, for Mr. Donovan Stone it was well worth the risk.

This was my first boyfriend. I snuck on my grandmother’s phone afterschool and talked to him, breaking all the rules. We danced to Andre 3000’s “Hey Ya” video together from our respective living rooms. When I was feeling really moved by the spirit, I would sing to him through cracking vocal cords lines from Alicia Keys’ “You Don’t Know My Name” song. I really emphasized the beginning skit where she promises Mos Def that she looks a lot different outside her work clothes. For me, I was working to convince sweet Donovan on the phone that I was a bomb shell outside my school uniform. I was risking it all and had no idea the end was just around the corner from the beginning.

It was a random day after school and like always, we met down under the breeze way next to the snack stands to kiss goodbye as he caught his bus and I started cheer practice. The super long cherry Laffy Taffy in my hand lost its taste when his words burned a hole in my spirit. This day, he didn’t kiss me, instead he looked right in my face and told me he was breaking up with me. Not only was he breaking up with me, he was leaving the school altogether. A devastating blow I was utterly unprepared to face. However, cheer practice was still starting at 3pm so I had all of thirty minutes to deal with the drama. I kept it cute as he explained the situation. As soon as he turned to catch his bus-- I tossed that Laffy Taffy and beelined it for the closest building I could turn and hide my emotions inside.

When I stormed up the stairs to find the classroom doors all closed, I just paused in the hall and slid down the locker-lined wall. No this lil boy did not just play in my face like this! Outside, with so many people around? Why? My heart beat so loud, so hard and so fast. It was teenage rage, anger, devastation and confusion. My heart had the whole building on a tilt. Then, all of a sudden, this one line popped into my consciousness. A moment that showed me God’s ability to speak through music.

“Ladies is pimps too, go on brush your shoulders off.”

My man, Jay-Z came through in the clutchest of all times. The year is 2003, so that song was in heavy radio rotation. Thank heavens my subconscious stored it for this exact moment. Although, my teachers condemned us for making more room for rap lyrics in our brains than our school lessons. I heard the music and felt the words etch into my heart.

“Ladies is pimps too, go on brush your shoulders off. N*ggas is crazy, baby don’t forget that boy told you-- get that dirt off your shoulder.”

The tears that had escaped dried up in no time and in a fraction of a second, I felt a cosmic shift in my emotions. That one line in the chorus of Jay-Z’s song was powerful enough to literally pick me up off my feet. I immediately stopped feeling sorry for myself and conducted my own initiation into the pimp game. If I were to be a pimp, the kind that Sean Carter speaks about, ain't no way I was gonna let this moment be the breaking point.

The clarity that came with the best rapper alive’s declaration of ladies as pimps was all I needed to get up off them people’s cold, nasty lockers. I sniffed and wiped my tears with the back of my hand and felt lightning jolt through my spine. Those lyrics were the battery inside my back to never be the broken hearted sad girl who’s world ends along with her relationships. The show literally had to go on. Cheerleading practice was starting in only a few minutes and there was no way I was going to miss out on doing what I loved because a silly boy stole the joyous taste of cherry Laffy Taffy from me.

Jay-Z had let the tiger out of the cage and on the entire walk back to the volleyball court for cheer practice I was literally brushing the dust that was Donovan off my shoulders. It was the peace that came with acceptance. If I were to take my rightful place in this world as a female pimp, it was going to involve heartbreak. This was just the beginning of a long line of broken hearts on my shoulders. The way to clean up the mess was simply remembering what the song taught me. Get. That. Dirt off your shoulder. If my 7th grade boyfriend could look me in my face and tell me he was leaving then proceed to catch his bus, I surely would keep on rolling just the same.

Those lyrics and the electricity of that song galvanized me into action to own my outcomes in relationships. Even if I am not the one calling it quits, I still have the choice in processing the breakup. I could grieve and mourn for weeks at a time or I could recall the time where Jay-Z said ladies are pimps too. Needless to say, the next basketball game, I gave the best cheer performance of all time. Overnight, I processed and released the relationship. There was no begging, pleading or pick-me activity from my end whatsoever. The rest of my middle school experience was filled with so much fun from boys that were in my own grade. Donovan left the school and I was free to roam the halls of McKinley Middle as if it was a pimp’s paradise.

Had Jay-Z not intervened when he did, I don’t know what kind of pimp I would be today. Even though I’m married with two puppies, only God knows if I would have realized my own healing abilities without “Dirt Off Your Shoulder.” In order to make room for the man of my dreams, I leveraged music to exit the nightmare of dysfunctional relationships with all deliberate speed. Music gave me the permission to heal heartbreak in a heartbeat. This is a gift I will forever cherish. Of course, my heart has been broken many times since middle school. However, the bounce back and recovery for each one harkens back to the one song that can never do me wrong. Don’t forget that boy told you, get that dirt off your shoulder!