Dear Queen:
"Protect me."
"Honor me."
"Love me."
The asks from you, our sisters are deceptively simple; yet executing those asks, for too many brothers, is apparently too hard. I should know. It's been hard for me, as much as I'd like to lie and say it wasn't.
Showing care shouldn't be complicated - especially when those same women shower me with examples of the care I can't seem to reciprocate.
This isn't to say I don't know the worth of Black women.
Oh, I do.
I love your brutal honesty that, almost always, is accompanied by an offer to help; a wisdom that borders on clairvoyance; an almost obsessive desire for self-improvement; endless empathy for the disenfranchised.
I appreciate your walk, emboldened with confidence culled from the spirits of a thousand ancestors, all sashaying in unison with your stride; selflessness that borders emotional immolation, yet ultimately yields communion with the divine; loyalty that extends beyond reason; so far beyond reason, in fact, that it breaks rules of time and space, creating the confidence to validate your loyalty in the first place.
I value your ability to laugh at the inane, the insane, and the immature; a supernatural focus on setting, measuring, attaining and celebrating goals; multitasking skills that allow for so many very different things (child-rearing, jobs, weekend side hustles, brunches with the girls) to be done at the same time, well.
I appreciate your style - all of your styles, from the bourgie to the round the way to everything in between - that are emulated but never fully duplicated.
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I appreciate the intentional way you approach life. Always thought-out. Always planned.
Always true.
So yes, I know what I love well. And I know so much - too much - of what I love is centered around enduring and overcoming the obstacles I place in your way.
I struggle with expressing my love for Black women, then, because the things I appreciate too often come from acceptance and forgiveness of my shortcomings: patience because I was lost; kindness because I needed healing; strength when I was not enough.
My entire concept of appreciation, then, is rooted in selfishness. The fact that Black women know this and still choose to love me despite me is a point of appreciation, sure, but also a point of guilt.
I have not protected you when the protection did not include me. I did not honor you when they could not hear my voice. I only loved you to the extent I received that love from you two times over.
I have to do better. I must do better. I will do better. And the first step in doing better is admitting that I was not doing enough to begin with.
So, for the Black women who say, "I love you Black man," but don't hear it back. For the Black women hurting for Ahmaud and George but feel like Breonna was forgotten. For the Black women who work under Amy Coopers but don't have the luxury of videotaping her, I love you. I always have. I always will.
And I will work on myself so I can finally show you better than I can tell you.
Dear Queen is a series dedicated to letters from women and men written for themselves and other women. Have a "Dear Queen" letter? We want to read it! E-mail your letters to submissions@xonecole.com. Subject: 'Dear Queen'
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Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak