We have deep voices

Reflecting on my mother and my sister..

Three generations of women in my immediate family. All are strong and all have deep voices. She has a sense of humor that is witty, jovial, and raw. Cross her, and you will never remember the sound of her laugh. Cross her and a sternness, a deep burrowing voice, a tongue sharper than any blade, will bring you to a new reality.  You will come to understand that you should never underestimate her kindness, her laugh, her tears, or the deepness of her voice.

When a woman loves a man... Billlie Holiday

"Tell her she's a fool, and she'll say I know.. But I love him so. And that's how it goes when a woman loves a man" - Billie Holiday

I think my love with you is obsessive and sometimes ridiculous. It's a grace undeserved- the same that is bestowed upon us by God. In a way, I want you to love me the way God wants us to love him. Here is God, giving me free will, the room to choose to do what is best for myself, yet I continue to go the wrong way. And still, God is saying, "I haven't given up on you- on us! I have not given up on the potential we have together. Please, get to know me and I promise I can change your life- for the better!"

Funny because I don't trust anyone, not you or God. That's the bottom line. How can I trust God if I don't try to get to know him? The sad part is that in many ways, I blame God for the bad things that have happened to me- yet these were things (in some cases) that I allowed. At least, the things that have hurt me the most have stemmed from situations I put myself in. No, no one deserves to be cheated on. Yes, I have been on both sides of this coin and do believe it possible to truly be in love with someone, but so unhappy and insecure that you find that solace in another lover. It's not right, but it happens.

Why am I torturing myself? Why am I lying to my family and friends and God and myself?

The truth is that no man will love me if I do not love myself. The truth is that if a man can get your love, your sex, your money, and your time for free, he will. Why would anyone turn something good and free down?

But is this really better than being alone? I mean, I feel alone all the time anyway. And when I am alone, I am tormented by the thought of your hurting me. I literally cannot sleep at night because I am so consumed by grief, worry, and fear of what may happen.  I don't want to trust you because I am afraid you will simply betray me again. I am a good person, but I cannot honestly say that you have valued me for what I am worth. I get no pleasure from saying these things, from telling you the truth about yourself. I only say them aloud because I need to hear myself speak about what is so painful.

I have to move on, and although I am still in love with you, I know it can never be- at least, not without some radical change.. changes no one is willing to make. I try to recall what it felt like to no longer be in love with the one before you. I went on for years, wrapped in my activities, thoughts, goals, job... and I simply didn't think about him until I had to on the weekends. I knew he was cheating on me, but instead of losing my cool (at least once I had reached the point of not caring anymore) I simply resolved to let it go as soon as I found a clean break.

School was that break for me. I see moving, at the very least, as that break for me again. I know I won't truly be able to get this out of my system until I am away from here and you. Strange, because you think the same about your "situation." I wonder if you still sleep with her knowing it won't truly end until you move away. I wonder if you use the same twisted logic to convince yourself that what you are doing is only temporary.

Somehow, I have to learn to trust God more than the empty promises you spew. I guess I just need someone to show me that I can be loved and loved well. I promise you, heavenly father, if you send me someone who loves you first, and who really loves me, even if we end only as friends-- I promise I will be the most grateful woman. My life is in shambles. I smile on the outside, but inside I am dark and crumbling. I want to know true love, a love where I am not dishonored. I want to know love that is real and sweet and caring and honest and kind and beautiful and intense.

I am not asking for too much. I am asking for what is mine! I am asking for what I deserve! I do not want your best. Your best is weak, lazy, and cowardly! I want what I deserve. I want my power to be honored. I want my wisdom to be honored. I want my love to be honored. I want my God-state to be honored!

Narrow is the gate.  So many go through the path widened and falsely sweetened. But narrow is the path, uncomfortable and tight, narrow is the path

The root of it all...

"It all has a root. And you've got to find that root to pluck it." For Colored Girls

I don't want to be sad anymore. I am so worried that my life will continue to repeat itself with the same lessons in a harsher fashion. I seem to be learning about what I don't want to happen, but not how to make it stop. I now understand what the root of my problems are, and yet I continue to subject myself to misery- all this in the name of a few moments of pleasure? And pleasure for whom? Me, you suppose? Certainly not. Because I lay there with tears dripping from my eyes, mind racing about the displeasure of those above us, internally silent because my fear of disappointment, rejection, sabotage and revenge precludes me from taking pleasure in those moments. I lay there and pretend to reach a point that no human has ever been able to bring me to in that way. After, I can think only of the moment it this will end and the real will begin. Right now, I'm taking your advice: Fake it till you make it.

I am the root. I allow the pain. How do I pluck myself out of this?

Parenthood

"All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, and a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces. beyond repair." - Albom

Lately, mostly because of coincidence and the approaching holidays, I've thought a great deal about my parents, my family, and my future as a mother. I am afraid to break my children, if I am blessed to have any, into jagged little pieces...

I am imperfect, and my parenting will be too. I just want to be a better person for everyone.

If all went as it could...

I would have given birth today.

I also realize that today is my father's birthday.  He, by the way, called me last night to tell me that things did not go as he hoped they would for him either. He is currently at 1600 Hazen Street, East Elmhurst New York, 11370- Number: 1411018115.

If things had gone as they could have for us all... If we had all done the very best we could to make the very best decisions for ourselves...

To be honest, I am not dwelling on either of these unfortunate happenings in this life. Although I regret that things are not different, I have chosen to release the pain that once consumed me in relation to any of this.

No more pain.

Everything ain't all good, but everything ain't all bad either...

Today, I am finally beginning to let go. I am on the fringes of knowing what it means to have no expectations of you. Knowing what it means to not care if you call or lie to me. Knowing what it means to wish the best for you, and believe you will do your best in every moment, all without the feeling of disappointment when you fail.

If I could ever have the chance to understand God's mind-- a thought process so elevated that it could come up with something so complex as a star all the while crafting us in a manner that reminds us that we are made of the same stuff of stars... How special...

If feels good to approach this emotional freedom!

Feeling Lost...

For some reason, I feel so lost today. Maybe it's just the rainy weather and wind that's getting to me. Or maybe it's that I can't be with you.

Today, someone said, "You've been looking melancholy lately. Is everything ok?" I also got, "You look tired."

I believe I have the look of someone who is heartbroken in secret. I have to go through this on my own, and though I have the comfort of God surrounding me, I just can't feel it yet. I've got to draw closer to God, and He will draw closer to me-- I know. I need something right now. Just need something to get me through the days when they seem so long.

All I want is what I can't have. I have to let go. I don't know how.

Have I met you?

Have I met you already?

I wonder, sometimes, If I have already laid eyes on my husband. Does he know me yet? Have our paths crossed already? 

Maybe I saw him buying lunch at the Loose Goose Cafe. Maybe we walked by one another in Walmart. It's possible that he and I have attended a professional development meeting for work and that we even sat next to one another.

I wonder, sometimes, If I have seen him without truly seeing him... without actually knowing what our futures together will be.

I am grieving the loss of the greatest story never told. I am replaying "Broken-hearted Girl" in my mind and really feeling the lyrics. I don't want to discipline my heart or my body.  I just want to be with him.

Vindication

Vindicate: to set free; free from allegation or blame
Vindictive: disposed to seek revenge

Funny how the two words are nearly the same in spelling but represent two different things in the English language...

I want you to suffer. I want you to crumple down on your floor in a heap of tears and snot and pain and breathlessness so deep and powerful that all you see is the darkness hovering before your eyes. (Don't worry about me becoming jaded by what has happened, by what we've all done to one another- because I take some of the blame. Don't worry because I am. I am jaded. Ha.)

I want you to hurt. I want you to feel a grief so overwhelming that your one desire is to disappear from the face of the planet.

I want you to know what it feels like to want to crawl under a rock and die. Go down, down into a place so wretched that you know what it feels to want to exist no more- to be nothing!

I don't hate you- at least, not all of you. I hate those pieces of you that are spiteful, vindictive, and vengeful. I despise your petty nature and immaturity in matters of the heart and fairness.

All I want is for you to suffer in the same way that you have made me. But I wouldn't hurt you if I could.

"One day, [you'll] fall into your brew and take down some of the boys with you too. -Sade.

No room for pity

Today I am feeling down, but I have had reminder after reminder that there is so much for which I should be thankful. No, everything is not alright, but I am here. I am alive, with a place to sleep every night, enough money to put gas in my car and food on my plate. I am of sound mind and body. Though my heart is broken and my spirit is weak and confused, I am here.

I don't want to love anymore. I am afraid. I am so afraid to love you. I don't want to hurt anymore! But the pain is driving me now. It makes me stronger. Those hot tears dripping down my face are just a reminder of what had transpired and what will be no more. One day, I won't have to cry because someone who really loves me, really and truly loves me, will be here to wrap his arms around me and hold me tightly.

Today I feel like breaking down, and every little piece of me is holding on for dear life. All I want is some joy.

Pretty Wings

I should have showed you better nights, better times, better days...

Pretty Wings by Maxwell is playing in the background. It's one of those songs that rings with me on so many levels. On days like today, I miss Philly a lot. I miss how incredibly happy I was while a student at UPenn. I saw a young lady today who had on a bookbag.. She looked mature, like a UMass grad student. She was walking away from Barnes & Noble-- gave me the thought that she might have been studying moments prior. I know. I put a lot together from a 5 second passing with a random girl, but it all brought me back to Philly, and the first thought I had after she and I crossed paths was that I really want to be a student there again.

I need to be there.

Because here, there is nothing for my heart. I am trying to nourish my spirit, but some days, my heart isn't in it. God knows I am weak. God is protecting me from harm and temptation because he knows I am weak.   I need to change my ways, thinking...  Discipline my heart...

I have been waiting for something to change for so long; Now it's time for me to change things. New clothes. New make-up. New hair. New attitude. New outlook on life. Final step: New Location. Summer 2012 can't come fast enough.

Let things fall where they may

Sometimes I wonder why certain things happen to each of us... the negative, positive, unexpected... Things we just do not understand. I'm reflecting on how quickly things you have been given can be taken away. I am beginning to understand again, though, what it means to be joyful. I want to know what it feels like to be free.. free from the burden of what everyone else expects and desires of me. I want to be myself, uninhibited by anyone or anything. I want to die fearless.  But this morning, I thought, I am not ready to die. I am NEVER going to be ready to be in a state of nothingness. But at least it is nothing to fear- death. I know God does not take pleasure in my dying. That was never his intention... He wanted me and you to live forever. Stupid Adam messed it up, lol. Just kidding! It was the Liar.

What I know about Women...

What I Know for Sure About Women
By Mark Leyner

1. Even little girls, in all their blithe, unharrowed innocence, have a presentiment of sorrow, hardship, and adversity...of loss. Women, throughout their lives, have an intrinsic and profound understanding of Keats' sentiments about "Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu."

2. This sage knowledge of, and ability to abide, the inherently fugitive nature of happiness somehow accounts for the extraordinary beauty of women as they age.

3. Women have an astonishing capacity to maintain their equilibrium in the face of life's mutability, its unceasing and unforeseeable vicissitudes. And this agility is always in stark and frequently comical contradistinction to men's naïvely bullish and brittle delusions that things can forever remain exactly the same.

4. Women are forgiving but implacably cognizant.

5. Women are almost never gullible but sometimes relax their vigilance out of loneliness. (And I believe most women abhor loneliness.)

6. In their most casual, offhand, sisterly moments, women are capable of discussing sex in such uninhibited detail that it would cause a horde of carousing Cossacks to cringe.

7. Women are, for all intents and purposes, indomitable. It really requires an almost unimaginable confluence of crushing, cataclysmic forces to vanquish a woman.

8. Women's instincts for self-preservation and survival can seem to men to be inscrutably unsentimental and sometimes cruel.

9. Women have a very specific kind of courage that enables them to fling themselves into the open sea—whether it's a new life for themselves, another person's life, or even what might appear to be a kind of madness.

10. Women never—no matter how old they are—completely relinquish their aristocratic assumption of seductiveness.

And here is one last thing I know—and I know this with a certitude that exceeds anything I've said before: that men's final thoughts in their waking days and in their lives are of women...ardent, wistful thoughts of wives and lovers and daughters and mothers.

Mark Leyner, a husband, a father, a son, and a brother, is the author of eight books and a co-writer of the movie War, Inc.

I loved her fiercely..

I loved her fiercely... A line I am thinking about from the ending of For Colored Girls. I wish there was a man who loved me... really and fiercely. I know, plenty of people love me. God loves me and so does Jesus. My mom loves me, and my dad, and my sister and brother... But I mean a romantic kind of love... Not obligatory or heavenly... but a lover's love.

What am I doing? Why am I waiting? Everything is yours to be taken, including me. I have been taken- in so many ways.

All I want is to want nothing. Not you. Not us. Not an answer. Nothing. I am so tired. I am so tired I can't cry. No more left inside me. So tired.

In need of a pick-me-up

What I like most about this is that it's just for me. No one is following my blog space, and I like it this way. It's a place for me to express my thoughts immediately. Sitting at my desk, when I feel what I feel, I can just write it out.

Today, I woke up so sad. I had tears coming down my face. But I turned on my music in the car, listened to a couple of sad songs, and then I felt better. So many people love me and I should tell them I love them back.

Anyway, I need something to lift my spirits. Just to make me feel up again. I'm officially searching for my joy. That happiness I had in the midst of everything. I miss school. I miss my friends, my real friends, and my family.

Some day, I want to marry someone and have lots of babies, and grow my own food in my own soil, and be good to all people all the time. I just want to be at a place where I am ready to give again. Where I can truly say there is something left inside of me. Today, there is no song in my heart, but I will sing anyway.

PS: Even my song ain't got no spunk today. It's just a squeak. BUT I AM HERE.

My world is falling apart. I loved you more than I loved myself- and that was the problem. Right now, I am hurting beyond anything I have known, especially because I feel I have lost so much, so greatly. "When you lose, don't lose the lesson." That's the comment of a very wise person. What are the lessons for me to learn here?

In relationships, I tend to lose my values in an attempt to compromise.
Unfortunately, I am in love, so breaking up hurts. I'm not sure when or if it will get better. I feel empty inside, and nothing, not even the sunshine can lift me out of this pain.
I try to look forward to my future, prospects of loving someone else, prospects of finding a love that is true and kind, and respectful, and honest, and loyal, and faithful... But when I do think of this, a knot wells in my throat, tears come to my eyes, and I feel sick because in my future, all I want to see is you.

I keep thinking of past offenders, people who have hurt me before; None have hurt me as deeply as you.

I feel numb. I'm just trying to drag myself through the days. All I want is to lay on my couch or bed until all the pain goes away. I just want the pain to go away.