Rihanna I Hear You

CATFIGHT :: A few weeks ago while walking the dogs a newspaper headline caught my eye. Apparently Rihanna and Joan Rivers were doing battle on Twitter. “Rihanna confessed to Oprah Winfrey she still loves Chris Brown. Idiot! Now it’s my turn to slap her.” Rivers is alleged to have tweeted.

“Slap on some diapers,” Rihanna is said to have tweeted back, along side other ageist remarks.

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Rivers rebutted: “Honey, Rihanna, everyone knows: If he hit you once, he’ll hit you again. Read the statistics.”

Such was the fallout after Ri-Ri appeared on Oprah’s Next Chapter. Oprah flew to Rihanna’s homeland for an intimate talk.

I’m a big Rihanna fan. Not so much in concert, but I love her studio work and I’ve been watching the saga of her and Chris Brown carefully.

Related Reading : Forgiving Chris Brown

In her interview with Oprah, Rihanna blew me away. Wise beyond her years, poised, lovely, thoughtful. Oprah went deep into the the horrible mess that went down with Brown. Which was when Rihanna explained that throughout it all, despite it all, she still loved him.

Love goes for a ride.

This is when many, including Joan Rivers went, understandably, berserk.

Trouble is, those people often are equating “I love you” with “I’m ready and waiting for you to do to me again what you did to me before.” Hence Rivers’ Twattacks, Rihanna’s responses and then a heavy media re-focus on the getting-tired “will-they-won’t-they reunite; will-he-won’t-he hit her again” debate that, frankly, isn’t anyone’s business but theirs, and misses an exploration of what I think the broader part of Rihanna is really saying, which might go something like:

I am an unconditional liver and lover of life, and that includes all things past, present and future. It includes all people, past, present and future. I’m so in the knowing of who I really am, that even Chris Brown isn’t responsible for my happiness, only I am. I don’t like what happened, but for me to go on, I forgive him, think of our good times fondly, and feel so aligned about this that I will even publicly state what I know in my heart to be true: I love Chris Brown, anyway.

Anything less makes her a conditional lover of life, where people and circumstances all have to meet up with her specific criteria in order for her to move on and expand, and that’s what holds us back and pinches us off. Having reached a similar point in my life with many, I hear what Rihanna really said to Oprah, and respect her, as she does whatever she can to find love, even in a hopeless place.

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