Syd&Dre-Brown Sugar

As I sit in my living room reading the acknowledgements in the back of “A Belle in Brooklyn” I can’t help but to think of the movie “Brown Sugar” which I came home and watched at 3am last week Saturday and it’s been on my mind ever since. I never appreciated this movie but I do remember being no older than a pre-teen in the movie theater thinking “I am going to end up just like Syd with my “massager” and my journalism job too busy for a man.” As I live life through my early twenties I am realizing that Syd’s reality is not too far off from mine. Somehow in the last couple of months my life changed from being a college student to now studying for the LSATS and writing blogs to pursue an unrelenting passion for writing. But to add fuel to the fire I have an ex. Boyfriend Trey who has grown into one of my close friends, possibly my best male friend and I am in love with him. He’s one of my great loves and my only one at this point in my life because I haven’t met another one. Nevertheless I shutter to think that our lives could possibly end up like Dre and Syd in Brown Sugar.

            Trey is the type of guy that loves beautiful and exotic women (ie. I am far from exotic). Growing up with him as my boyfriend I was so consumed with being jealous of Alicia Keys I couldn’t appreciate the quality of her music until recently because she was Trey's idea of a perfect and ideal woman. I always believed if he doesn’t end up with me he’s going to end up with a beautiful girl possibly Spanish with fair skin, and long hair maybe even light colored eyes similar to Dre when he married Reese (Nicole Ari Parker). She was beautiful but was he essentially settling in his marriage? Think about it, Reese had the brains and the beauty but she was not Syd. Syd was simple, intelligent and beautiful. Moreover she was Dre’s best friend in the whole wide world who he was completely comfortable with and could tell anything to. Syd was the “homegirl” and time and time again we hear that great marriages start out as great friendships.

Furthermore in my analysis I have come to the realization that Sydney was too tight lipped and she was not upfront with her feelings for Dre. In the game of life you have to take control of your own life. I can’t wholeheartedly compare my own very complicated life to this movie because like I said it’s a movie with a room full of writers dictating what will happen to these two characters. In my own life I am the sole writer who will be responsible for my fate (along with God of course ).

It’s evident that Syd loves Dre because it’s written all over her face but she doesn’t want to come into terms with her feelings and I kind of understand why. Your risking the demise of a friendship and essentially rejection. However unlike Syd I’ve made it very clear to Trey (I was drunk as a skunk) that I was in love with him because "True LOVE never dies." He can never say that I didn’t scream my love for him in the streets of Manhattan as we were leaving a roof top party because I did and I meant every second of it. I don’t want to be Sydney sitting in the second row of her best friend/love of her life wedding trying to be supportive while denying her inner thoughts and feelings. I want to essentially be the one at the alter (years from now).

            Syd and Dre’s love for hip-hop is similar to me and Trey's love for music, specifically R&B. I’m well aware that with all couples there’s a song that you share. When he hears it he thinks of her and when she hears it she thinks of him. Trey and me are no different. Our songs range from Nelly “My Place” to Jay Z and Beyonce “03’ Bonnie and Clyde.” When we go out it always seems as if music is our driving force. One bar we went to one night played “Cupid” 112 and we just slow danced the song away. We reminisce constantly on the past whether it was our past mistakes or the day my mom popped out the bible to show where Jesus denounced getting tattoos and marking your body with piercings when Trey got his first tattoo. The history that we share is outstanding and sometimes we surprise ourselves that we are still friends because most people like us hate each other by now. I love where our friendship is, I love that he is someone that listens to me and takes my words seriously. I love that when he needs encouragement or is going through something he can talk to me. I love that whenever I need him he’s always there. I love that he still gives me butterflies after 8 whole years of knowing him. But I am afraid that maybe we will never be together and that is enough to shoot all my dreams to pieces.