hownottocryeveryday

Y’all. I wrote this whole long post for the first time in a long time, and then it all got deleted. I talked about letting Grace find you, being good to yourself, and Loving yourself like you would Love yourself if you were your own child. And not being fixated on issues with others. Being all right with having a good life even if people didn’t like you or forgive you or approve you or even if people never said sorry or made amends or acknowledged your pain.

We have been prisoners. No judgement. But we have been prisoners. Today, for the first time in weeks, I am off the bed and productive. I’m using my imagination to imagine what it would feel like if Grace found me. How would it feel to just not hurt anymore. I know there are so many good things I have not experienced, but would I allow for the possibility of experiencing something good? Could I choose to practice something good.

I also made an announcement. The days of being dominated by negative emotion are over. Finally. Now. Today. The days of pushing away myself and not accepting myself and living for the approval of others is over. Now. Today. Not in a mean way. Not in a me against the world way. But in a committed way. Mainly to forgive myself and be good to my own sweet soul. And to treat myself as if I was my own child, with Love and Kindness. At some point I’ll treat others that way, too. But start with myself. I’ve needed it for far too long. Build an unshakeable foundation of inner integrity and well-being.

And be good to yourself, OK? This is so not as deep and raw as what I originally wrote, but it’s time to go now and face this world. I ask you, God, to help me as I am finally ending this loop. Cutting this chord and breaking free.

Ameen.

Day 553

Loop Ends (Be Good To Yourself)

Hey. I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out what to do with this day. So many things pulling for attention. Part of me wants to hide forever. Throw in the towel. I am tired of this world. My beauty has been a curse. My gifts and talents have been a curse. My love has been a curse. They only make people want to take from me and resent me when I don’t give what is wanted of me. I do not get to paint my toenails yellow and put shea butter on them without someone I love feeling jealous or someone I don’t want feeling angry with me and withholding because I won’t be with them and let them touch said feet. I don’t get to have my skillset without everyone in my life feeling like I should use my skills for their agendas without having fulfilled my own agendas for myself. I don’t get to love without others feeling like my love is only for them and I don’t need any true love in return. And getting angry and hurt if I dare seek love for me. I have hurting hurting hurting. Probably hurting for a very long time, but feeling it deeply these past few months. Crying every day. Feeling trapped and stunted in my life. Not really knowing how to solve problems. Not really wanting to face problems because all answers seemed to lead to pain and more pain. But the problems are not going anywhere. They are just compounding. My WhatsApp is buzzing alerting me I have messages. It is only people wanting stuff from me. Stuff that has nothing in it that’s good for me. I’ve retreated into numbness and apathy. It is easier than feeling the pain of feeling so un-loved and feeling so used. Something funny? The nicest person in my life right now is the last person I ever would have guessed. My brother. I never realized how Loving my brother was, but that is another story. He’s nice to me. He treats me with respect. He helps me without me having to ask. He sees me without me having to tell him things… I am grateful for that small Grace, Allah. I want to to dump. Sorry, this might not be a motivational post. I need to talk to someone. Someone who understands. Someone who sees me as good. I want to be right. I want to be seen as good. I want to be understood… What happened, you ask? So much has happened at one time. But family stuff mostly. Situation(s): Where to start? Family. Sisters. I went overseas. To heal the world. The world was broken and full of shit. I guess that’s part of the heal the world premise. You’re going into broken stuff. Moana stuff. Demons throwing fireballs at you. I didn’t factor that whole part into my overseas ambitions. The demons throwing fireballs part. And the fact that you might get hit by fire. And the fact that it hurts and might kill you. And the fact that most people will not understand the depths of your pain or sacrifice because they have not faced off with demons throwing fireballs that almost kill them. But anyway. That happened. I went overseas. To start a relatively small venture. Some people didn’t like it. They wanted the land I was using. They were jealous because I did what they had wanted to do but couldn’t. There was much backstabbing, betrayal, etc. It was a lifestyle. Men wanted me. Not because they wanted to give me anything. Because I was a possible meal ticket. Possible sex ticket. Possible way out of the land of fireballs. My grandma had died. I knew her life was in danger but nobody listened to me. And six days later she died. I was sad that I couldn’t save her. Nobody wanted to really know what happened to her, at least nobody demonstrated it through action. They didn’t want an autopsy. They didn’t want to videotape conversations. They didn’t want to press charges or go to police to investigate. They didn’t, through action, show interest in knowing shit. The person whom I suspect was responsible for my grandma’s death is a family member. I suspect he wanted her dead because he wanted her house. Shortly after my grandma’s death, my mom had the audacity to say she was thinking of giving the house to said person – no investigation needed, no autopsy, no nothing. Because this person was family. I realize I was involved in a looney bin tale. Maybe I was part of the loons, too. But I just couldn’t sit by and let such a grave injustice happen. I loved my grandma. I hadn’t spent much time with her, but in the small time I spent, I loved her so much. She was mean as hell when she wanted to be, but just as sweet as she was mean. She would lay her head on your lap or let you lay your head on hers and hold your hand and tell you stories about life and joke with you. She was deeply loving. And beautiful. She had beautiful hands. And she wasn’t scared of shit. And I couldn’t imagine what really happened to her during her final dying hours. But moreso, if she was murdered, I couldn’t imagine giving up her house to the person who was responsible for her murder. I went overseas. I also had a farm there. I had started the farm with my mom. I loved working with my mom. Our bond. We fought over a lot of things. I almost died and was deeply sad after realize the nature of my relationship with mom. I threw a bottle at the wall at one point and then our relationship shifted. Somehow, my mom and I came to a place of genuine Love and respect. I don’t have to bend my back when I’m around her anymore. I Love her deeply and can be myself with her. It’s been a dream of a lifetime. And she loves me, too. But I knew that after grandma died, everything would have changed. My mom’s reason for being overseas was to take care of my grandma. She may not want to be there after grandma’s death. I may not want to be there without mom. I didn’t know. I really loved working with my mom. She’s a gem of a human being. Don’t get me wrong, she’s got a million issues, but having her on your team in whatever is such a Blessing. Because at the core, she really really Loves you and wants you to win, and that takes precedence over all issues. That’s good enough for me. So, situation. I went overseas. Was there for months. Farm lived. Decided to keep going with it. Joined a film program. Learned about filmmaking overseas. Worked on a script that I had started in the states that had been getting traction. I was working on a rewrite. One of my sisters was helping to sponsor my trip and I had also gotten some money from a grant I had written. And I had a little bit of passive income that was coming in from the states. So that was carrying me. That sis had a project that she was starting in Africa and she wanted me to shoot some videos for her and connect with some characters – I’ll just call them actors – to be in her project. A shot a video and connected with the actors. Put up ads. Made phone calls. Had meetings. A lot happened. Maybe I’ll explain in another blog. But it was time to come home. I don’t even know why I came home. My mom was worried. Other sibs wanted help with stuff. I wasn’t feeling one way or the other about coming home. With all the drama overseas, my life there was a bit better than here, because I was living on my own terms and I wasn’t lonely. The people in my life in America just wanted me back because they wanted stuff from me, and I wasn’t really feeling it… My creative work had gotten some traction, and I had planned to come back to the states, put all my energy into selling the script that had gotten traction, get myself right so that I could finally get a man, and prep for the harvest of my farm before having to go back overseas in the fall to harvest. So, here’s the situation. My sis, who had sponsored me and has also been supportive of other things over the years asked if I could go overseas in early fall to essentially lead the production of her project. She didn’t say lead the production of her project, but that’s how I saw it, because I am the only one on our team who speaks the language of the country and knows how to produce. Having just been in a film program in that country, I know that working there on a film project is a full-time commitment. Also, having worked with the people on my sister’s team before, I know that they are all type A overachiever types and they will be working on the project nonstop from the moment they talk about it. Which means, if I lead them, I will be working on the project nonstop from the moment they talk about it. Which means I will not have the time or mental space to finish my script, get a man and/or prep for my farm harvest correctly, ‘cus I’d be busy with pre-prep for a whole other brand new project. In April or so, I told my sis that I wanted to support her on project and could be more involved at a later time, but for the time being, I couldn’t commit to coming back overseas for her project in early fall because I had these other priorities which I just spelled out and I didn’t want to commit to anything else which might force me to forego my other priorities before they had come to fruition. And my things were time sensitive urgent. Hers really wasn’t. There was no reason for her to come in early fall versus a time when it would be easy for me to help her except that she wanted to. But somehow she seemed upset or hurt that I said I couldn’t commit. And I felt upset and hurt that she, knowing my struggle, knowing my age, knowing my lack of success in just about every area of life, knowing that I had finally come to a place where success was on the horizon and I could very well break through in three months if I just focused on myself – knowing all this… Knowing that I melt down with too much stress and I struggle with keeping my physical and mental health balanced – I send her pictures of my muscles twitching and tell her about my meltdowns regularly, she was backing me up against a wall. Either I work at a super stressful pace: Rewrite a script by a certain time, which would require a twenty hour a week commitment full of high mental energy because I don’t know how to to do it. Plus prep for a farm harvest, which would as well require at least a twenty hour a week commitment full of high mental energy because I don’t know how to do it. I’m done by then as we all know. I’m beat. My energy betrays me at the worst times when I do hard stuff. But get up with my muscles hurting and nerves twitching and get excited about taking classes for a new business sis is starting and writing grants and getting on phone calls with overseas people who love a good scam and making creative plans with type A’s who are on the dominate or be dominated interpersonal vibe. Forget about a man or free time or self care or time for joy with this plan. I was mad that my sis would even want me to be on this plan. When she didn’t have to. I don’t even know if she cares that much about this business. I don’t think she does to be honest. It’s a hobby and she’s just excited about starting a business overseas in general, but she don’t want to run this business. She wants me to run it. And I don’t want to run this business. It’s not feasible or sustainable. Not for me. I’m so not interested in the high paced super busy life anymore. It doesn’t work for me. It makes my muscles hurt and gives me no time to smell roses, laugh or love. My sister lives at high pace and maybe she’s able, but I’m not interested. So that was my one big situation, which is still not resolved. I told my sis about all this and she still wants me to lead her project. Still planned to go overseas at a time that would either make me sacrifice my goals or move at a pace that’s unhealthy for me. So, my only options are to help her at a pace that’s healthy for me and allows me to meet my goal timelines, which is not fast enough for her to be prepped by the time she goes and then her results won’t optimal; or move at her pace and then flop and fail at my timelines and be nerve buzzed and muscle pained to boot. It’s a bullshit situation and I’m mad at her for putting me in it. Because she didn’t have to. She could have everything she’s doing – I could have done it for her even – in a few months after I had seen some success in my own endeavors. The other situation was another sister. She had plans for me as well. She generally asks me to help her with stuff as her first responder and always treats me the worst when I help her and is the most ungrateful and disrespectful and abusive as can possibly be when I help her. While I was overseas, she asked if she and her son could move into my apartment. Whatever whatever happened in her life and it was urgent. I said yes and she had moved in in a few weeks, with the idea that I would be living with them when I got back from overseas. She told me she wanted to remodel the apartment and I was fine with it. She asked me if I wanted to contribute to selecting the decor and I wasn’t interested in contributing – we don’t have the same sense of style and I didn’t even want to try. We had tried before and don’t agree on style. But I didn’t care, because I like her style. It’s just not my style. I told her that the only thing I cared about was the couch. We agreed that we would select the couch together once I arrived. Before arriving, I was on a conference call with her one day and I stepped away. While away, I heard her ask the other person on call, “When is Laydie coming back? Because I need a babysitter.” I was crushed. Here I was actually excited about coming to see my sister and here she was trying to play me as usual. When I came home, my place was beautiful, but there was no indication that any consideration had been made as to where or how I would live there. There was a queen sized bed in room and literally all closets and all shelves in the entire apartment were filled with sis and son’s stuff. There were two work desks in the living room – one kid desk and the desk I used to use now had my sis’s big desktop on it. My sis had panicked in prep for an event and ordered a couch before I got there. She said that she ordered it before consulting me because I was traveling and she couldn’t reach me. She hadn’t tried to reach me and could have reached me had she tried. The couch was cute enough but not functional. You couldn’t sleep on it. I mean, she could have gotten a futon. She could have gotten a sofa bed. She could have gotten a king bed. She could have gotten anything that would indicate that she had thought about where I was gonna sleep, but she didn’t. We had lived together before and every time one of us slept in the living room and had closet space in the living room and one of us slept in the room and had closet space in the room. I asked her where I was supposed to live and she started crying. Said she had been used to being coupled up where her and her person shared everything and slept together and she didn’t think any differently when moving in with me. She said I was supposed to sleep in bed with her and son. Or that I could decide. And went on with the waterworks. It was clear to me that she hadn’t thought about where I would sleep, or she had thought I’d sleep in living room. Sleeping in living room could have worked for me if I actually had something to sleep on. But the couch wasn’t appropriate for sleeping on. It was too skinny. On top of all that, she had invited or allowed another family member, my 6’4″ nephew, to come and visit for the summer. So now there were four of us in apartment. One bed and one non-sleep-able couch. I slept on the floor because I don’t believe you invite guests to your house and have them sleeping on the floor or force them to sleep with you unless you absolutely have to. I had a script due – something that could change my life – in a few weeks if I was going to be on track. I would write and she would call me a workaholic. My muscles were hurting. She had planned a birthday extravaganza and had written me into babysitting duty and whatever else on the plans. I fell off a scooter and scraped my arm up real bad and kind of banged my body out of place. She noticed in the moment but forgot about it later. After our neighbor came upstairs and rudely complained about her son jumping up and down, she changed our internet name to a real adversarial name – “***** witches upstairs”. She thought it was funny. I thought it was destroying about ten years worth of relationship building and also I didn’t like the idea of identifying as a witch even in jest, and I asked her to change the name. She didn’t. Had one excuse after another. Thought it was funny. I had a work meeting with a colleague whom I had invited over the house. He wanted to log into the internet. I had to tell him the internet name was “***** witches upstairs”. It was humiliating. Anyone who knows me knows I’d never name my internet that, including my sis. But here I was. I had welcomed someone into my house and I was being bullied, sleeping on the floor, got an effed up internet name, couldn’t do any work because sis acts offended if she’s in my space and I’m not giving her my full attention. I had had a super opportunity to be recommended for this prestigious film lab. I had previously applied for this lab twice and been denied. This third time, I had a shoe in. I was recommended. All I had to do was show up with a project. I had several friends who would have died for me to bring them into this opportunity. But I reached out to my sis, because she’s my sis and I wanted her to win to. Told her I could bring her project in and all she had to do was write it. She was with it, but at the end of the day, she didn’t write it. We didn’t get into the program. She had nothing to say about it. When I brought up my disappointment, she starts crying and talking about how she had gone farther than ever with that project and how she never finishes anything. Never said sorry. Full of shit. While I was out of town, I had introduced her to an ex of mine, who is a neighbor, thinking she could use a friend and she could use some help with stuff. They connected, and she would tell me when they chatted. When I got back in town, neither she nor he would tell me they are in communication, and I didn’t even think they were. Then one day she tells me she’s going running with him that night. I was shocked. I had just spoken to him that day and he had told me no such thing. “How are you going running with him?” I asked. She was taken aback and said “You can come if you want.” I didn’t say anything. My ex didn’t tell me about it. They went running together and hadn’t thought to invite me at all, even though I had been focused on exercise and my sister knew that. He told me it was last minute – that he thought she was going to flake and didn’t know they were going till 10p (my sister had told me they were going around 6p)- and that’s why he didn’t invite me or tell me. She told me she thought he was going to flake and that’s why she didn’t invite me, but I was welcome to come. I was welcome to come???? How is my sister going on a one-on-one with my ex and telling me I’m welcome to come? Some bullshit. My ex told me about an eyebrow raising incident that happened during their run. My sis never told me about it. My ex told me that my sis had messaged him at some point on one of those days asking him to take her to the farmers market because I was asleep. My sis never told me about it. I generally wake up before her in the mornings… And all this time sis is walking around the apartment like she’s doing me a favor by being there. She’s doing me a favor by getting my internet turned on and labeling it a name that makes me feel disempowered, offended, and disrespected every time I see it. She’s doing me a favor by getting us a couch that I can’t even use. It’s the thought that counts, they say. But I’m sorry. I really don’t see any thought of me in her actions. In fact, I see thoughts to hurt me. I call bullshit. So this was my life in June. This was going on while my other sis has designed a whole business model around my potential leadership. My mom is calling me asking me to help my brother and if I tell her about any of my small wins, her immediate response is to tell me to help my other sister, who didn’t make it to the blog today. I am offended. What is she talking about? I stay helping somebody’s sister, brother and friend, but it’s too much. And the worst part is, I be giving blood for people. Blood they don’t get anywhere else, but somehow I am resented by those same people for whatever reason. I don’t get it. Nobody is asking me how I’m doing. Nobody is noticing my drained energy or my teeth chattering or the amount of deep breaths I have to take before walking out of the house. People acting mad and calling me selfish if I dare mention me in a convo… I came to my brother’s house in July. He had gotten an operation and needed help. I needed a place to sort things out. It worked for both of us. My sis eventually moved out of my apartment. But now today here I am. Hiding. Mad. My sis is planning her overseas trip and she’s overwhelmed. She doesn’t know how to do it. She never planned to know how to do it. She doesn’t even speak the language there. She planned on me doing it on her time, even though I told her it wouldn’t be good for me to do it on her time. I actually know she cares for me deeply and she can’t see how this is negatively impacting me. But after being in a situation where a family member was literally trying to feed me what I thought was food poisoning that could kill me – not because she wanted to kill me – because she couldn’t see how she was negatively impacting me, I’ve become a bit hardened. I don’t care if you don’t mean bad for me. If you’re affecting me badly and I’m telling you and for whatever reason you can’t hear me and I’m doing my best to communicate to you, I have to stop and just do what’s good for me. I’m not suicidal. I can’t wait for you to understand. I might be dead by the time you get it. I don’t know where this blog started of where it’s going, but I had to tell someone what happened. Maybe you will feel sorry for me. Maybe you will understand that I am not a bad person. Maybe not. I just received an email that makes me think my sis can do this project without me. I am relieved. I’m sure she’s mad or feels whatever about me, but I’m giggling. Thank God! Wow. Y’all. What a realization just happened. Is happening as I write. They can do it without me. Let them the eff go! Lawdamercy this feels so good. They not gonna do it the way they would do it with me, but that’s fine. They’re smart and talented and even my wanna be witch betraying ass sister got some good qualities somewhere that will come out at some point. I think this needed to be done. I think I needed to fall back so that they could be mad and out of whatever motivation prove to me (and prove to themselves) that they can do shit without me. Oh, Lord, thank you! Wow! I can go work on myself without feeling guilty now. Just in this moment, I am realizing that they can do it without me, and with that realization there is a possibility of hope. Maybe they will approach me for stuff because they want to, not because they feel like they have to. So I did do a good job? I did the right thing. It has been so hard to not be accepted by them or be disapproved of. It has been the hardest thing. It has been the hardest thing in life to not be accepted or approved of by so many. I’ve been a dumb ass sacrificial lamb wanting people to love me or approve of me or accept me, and at the end of the day, I haven’t usually even gotten those things after giving what feels like so much to me. Y’all… We got somewhere in this blog. A spell just lifted. I feel like I can go do me without guilt. And I can get over my stupid sister’s roommate transgressions. I ain’t coming close to her until I see demonstrated action that indicates she is loving and kind towards me, but suddenly, I can get over things. Oh, man, this feels so good! In this moment, I am starting to feel free. I guess telling on everyone makes it a bit better, even if I’m just telling it in a secret blog. But also recognizing that they can do it without me lifts some burden off my shoulders and allows me to think a bit wider. My mood has shifted and there is energy in my hips. Thank you, God. Ameen. I don’t know what to title this entry. This is a long one. And there’s more to it. It has occurred to me that I’ve been over here in the mud for far too long. And I’m over it. I’m so over it. Something has got to give. That’s the title of this entry and this chapter. Not in a romantic fantastical way, but in a way that works. Something has got to give. This life can’t just be about surviving and solving stupid problems and making it through. Somewhere, there has got to be the chance at thriving. Somewhere, there has got to be the chance at something good. Not just the chance. The realization. God help us. Ameen.

Lit or unlit? That was the question my therapist told me to ask myself when making a decision. That was over eight months ago. November 2020. It was the last time we talked. “Fight for your happiness. Or rather, allow your happiness” are the thoughts in the back of my mind.

Attachments. Like scary things on my back. This is the post. I am over myself. A word dump. This life has been a dump for me… The dumps I am down in. I am down in the dumps.

Unlit. That was what I saw when I looked around at my life. “You have gathered your self-worth now. You have passed the test.” I hear My People’s voice. My self worth has left me with nothing but myself. Misunderstood. Hated. Judged. Treated badly. Not always. I am aware that some of this is true and some I am taking too far, but all of it feels true. Everyone feels unsafe, taking, eating of me. Wanting. Always wanting. Not much giving of what I need. No awareness or interest in my needs for that matter. This is how I feel in this moment.

Low… Bitter. Most people think I’ve been bitter for years, but no. It is now, in these few weeks that I begin to know the feeling that I’ve seen on so many others’ faces for years. The bitters. Resentful. I am mad at so many people for asking so much of me that they never would imagine to give. I am mad at the world for not allowing me to be safe and sweet. I am mad at myself for taking so long to see. I am mad that I am not allowed to be mad even when I am mad. These strong girl tears are resented and the ones you have cradled while they were in the mud throwing mud at you are the same ones that have no arms for you in your pain. Instead, they lash you for not being their hero. They lash you for being low.

I am sad. And not delusional again. I say again instead of anymore because it is the thought pattern of the language I picked up from my mother’s land. Broken country. Broken language. Broken English.

“And what are we gonna do now?” My own thoughts taunt me. My own thoughts aren’t even nice to me. I swear to God, I can never get no pity. Not even from myself. So what will we do now?

I don’t really want to run away from anything. Go find some way to bandage pain. I finally admit I am too deep for that. I have been running for years in a circle. What is it I don’t want to face? My sadness? My failures? My inadequacies? They don’t scare me that much. So what is it?

My bigness.

I wanted to reach out today because today felt important. I was going to be brave and have all these talks, but I didn’t quite know what to say. Relationships have been falling apart, but I don’t want to save them. They were founded on shit. Excuse my language. But they just won’t do no more. Not as is. They’re full of shit and holes and so many things that no one wants. And maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m the sh*tty part, and if so, I just won’t do anymore. Not as is.

But something in me doesn’t feel like I’m that bad. Because I am always the one leaving and others want me to stay and are always calling me back. But they don’t love me while I’m there. In fact, they mostly hate me, but love whatever I bring to them. And that is hard to know and feel. What is harder, though, is not knowing what to do about it all. Because I Love them anyway and I wish they loved me, too. For real. Like I wish that I could feel it. I wish that I could feel Loved. I really do.

I’m sure it’s there. I’m sure I’ve done something good in this world and I’m even sure that some of the people that I feel so hurt by Love me… but I wish that I could feel it instead of sitting here crying all the time. I wish I could be happy for real.

It’s been a long time here in the mud, thrashing. Moving but not quite. I will say that I have made progress and find a way to celebrate. I have made progress and come a very long way. I was not even in my body when we started this journey. Was just hanging out on the outskirts trying not to feel pain. A hypersensitive empath coming from a people that are probably the most gangster humans I’ve ever met. What a comedy, God. And then you made me a girl. And super ugly first and then super pretty but not even knowing that people think I’m super pretty. What a set up for quite a story. What I want to get to now is the next chapter. In fact, I want to close this book. The end. The girl died. Yep. Dead. She gave up trying to figure all this painful stuff out and just poofed out of this world. Freedom at last! The ones left behind were just fine. They were impacted by her life and she was impacted by theirs and all for the betterment of themselves.

She failed at some things. She was not the hero they all wanted. She succeeded at others, but she didn’t know what those were. It was not for her to know. The seeds had been planted. And the angels applauded. She had tasted the bitters but they passed through her and did not stain her heart… And then what?

I guess why I am here today is to answer that question. Then what? I can’t really be here forever, in my brother’s room, hiding from decision and action. I mean, I could, but I’m pretty sure that’s not the answer anymore. I gotta say thank you, God. This is what I needed. I needed space where it was okay to be sad and mad and feel and see what was in me and take baths and not be bothered and have clean stuff and food around and at least if I wasn’t loved, to be around someone who didn’t hate me and was appreciative of whatever little I could give. Who would have thought that my brother whom I beefed with for years would be my saving grace right now? He gave me money, too, just because he thought I needed it. And I’ve been helping him, too. He needed help with stuff right now. I am glad to help him. I am realizing as I write this that we have made amends. This is our amends, isn’t it? … Thank God…

I took a break from writing this post. And on the break, I read a Facebook post by a lady claiming her age. She’s older than me, but not too much older. And she acknowledged her “Holy sadness… Sadness (she)… is actually feeling because (she)… knows better than to stuff it.” And I am saved. This.

This part. This is about holy sadness. Not just holy sadness, though. Good grief. Grown up stuff. This is about me finally accepting that I am grown up. I have lived a bit, and in it all, I have learned a thing or two. Not everything. But I have learned how to get out of this sh*t. I ain’t do all this crying for nothing. And yes, I could poof away. That is an answer and that is the answer for some people. I’m not judging them. I have learned, finally, not to judge.

I am not going to poof away. I have already poofed. That Laydie from just some months ago, from years ago, is no more. Nope. She has transitioned and I have been trying to hold on to a ghost. She has become a butterfly, but not really. More like a moth. Or a dragon or something without name. A beautiful wing-ed beast. I can paint the story however I want, you see? This is the freedom. The question I have now is do I want to paint or do I want a story to be painted through me? I am still intertwined in many’s lives and I will always be. I am the one to break the generational curses, I know. My momma been pushing it on me since I was a kid. I don’t know how or why I signed up for this sh*t, but it’s ok. I don’t have to accept this bullsh*t mission, but I can. We’ll see…

Maybe I’ll have sex. LOL. I don’t know if this post is going to make it to published, bc it’s maybe bit realer than I usually share. But, from the start till the end of the post, my mood has changed. The change in mood was instigated by reading an older lady claiming her age and not wanting to be identified as young and infantile, and realizing that that is an issue for many of us. We don’t realize that we are not kids anymore. We are old. Grownups. Not only that, but we don’t realize that we’ve learned a lot and it’s a good thing. We can solve problems differently now. We don’t need to be moored to a bed for years because someone we hoped would feel a certain way or treat us a certain way doesn’t. We can be hurt. It’s ok. This we have learned through our age. We can feel things now and it won’t sink us. We don’t have to escape our bodies like we did when we were little. We can be right here and feel, and the magic is, when we feel the stuff, it passes through us, and then we can feel good stuff again, too. Sometimes it takes a while to feel good again, but we can wait. We know this because we are old and we have learned patience. And wisdom. Wisdom has come. It has always been there, but we accept it now. Slowly. At a pace that doesn’t break us or make us feel manipulated. There are some urgent things, but most aren’t. Tend to the urgents. Just do it already. You don’t have to be happy about everything while you do the right thing. You can do the right thing and be mad. I learned that overseas. It’s a cool realization. But mad and resentful are not the same things. You can have feelings… I hear all my mentors and advisors clapping for me as I write this. I have passed some sort of test, it feels like.

I am finally flirting with the idea of letting go. Finally I felt the pain I had been carrying. I’ve been carrying a lot of bullshit pain. For a long, long time. It was a lot. Mine and so many others’. I had been afraid to let it go. But this will no longer do. I hear my guardian angels telling me to be careful. Just because I have let go does not mean others have. So be discerning. This has been my mistake before. Open up to everything, including the hells of the Earth, or shut down to everything. I can be discerning, because I am a grown up now. And I don’t have to do it all on my own anymore. I passed that test, too. I am so proud of myself! I passed. I was willing to be alone rather than betray my own knowing. I knew – I didn’t have the words, but I knew how certain people felt about me. They would not admit it, until I poked the bear and then they spit it out. I am this, that and the other and so I deserve all the malice and bad treatment in the world. That has been the nasty root of all this nonsense shitty shit shit. And I am sure that somewhere in me, conscience or sub, I have believed the same about them and about myself. That we are this, that and the other and so we deserve bad treatment.

Don’t give pearls to swine, my teachers voice whispers. I don’t know if I agree. If you give pearls to swine, just know that they are swine. Don’t expect them to value them and know that you have given something of great value to someone who will not value. Just do it on purpose for a purpose… I guess what I’m saying is that writing this entry has helped. And I have moved from feeling unlit to lit. Lit inside. I don’t know what to do about my relationships at all still, but I am excited about the thought of forgiving my own daggone self. Letting go of every Blessed debt. Every single one. I have been a hostage to these emotional debts for so long. I feel a bit freed up. And letting go of all debts I felt were owed to me. I have poofed and vanished. LOL. Debts canceled. No kids to take them on.

I will set a new intention now. To be intentional. This is what grownups do. I did not get to see what fathers do too much, but that’s OK. My father loved me anyway. But I know what mothers do. I know what my mother did. She made intentions for us. She didn’t get eight kids out of the ghetto by doing nothing. She planted some good seed in us. She made her own mistakes, but she has my forgiveness, too… I am rambling now.

I’ll post this. I’ll accept this opportunity to start anew and give others the same chance, too. It’s called Grace. But everyone doesn’t get to come back ’round. You gotta be nice to me to get this new frisky smile that’s forming. You gotta actually like me and act like it. And respect. Ooooh, I can’t wait to see what it feels like to be respected by someone near me. Awww man, that must be so awesome. I wonder if I could be one of those women who is cared about by a nice man. Someone who thinks they’re worthy of being held and puts up with all their issues. That would be so super. I keep thinking I gotta go get ready or do some healing to be worthy of like, even thinking that I dare be lit up, but it’s not true. I’ve already done the work.

Can I just say one more thing? I failed. Yep. At many things. Some things are salvageable, but some aren’t. My grandma is dead. Six days before she died, she was robbed and her security cameras were disable. I told my mom, “You need to send someone to the house. They are trying to kill (grandma)” the minute I heard she was robbed. But no one made it to the house. I didn’t make it happen and no one else did. And she was dead six days later. I don’t know if she was killed. Only the people who were there with her truly know how she died… I feel like I failed at keeping her safe and like I failed at so many other things. Like my life should have been better than this by now. So many people looked up to me and look up to me to save the day and pave the way for so much. I didn’t fully realize the scale of superhero-ness with no support that people expected of me till this recent breakdown in relationships. But I get it. I’m big. And people see it in me even if I don’t see it in myself. I’m finally starting to see it. I just want to say something, though, for the big people who fail. For the big failures. I’m not going to sugarcoat it and say you didn’t fail because you learned some lesson or blah blah blah. It’s not true. You failed.

But what is true is that you can forgive yourself. You don’t have to beat yourself up for it for the rest of your life. You can forgive yourself and try again. And if you aren’t able to try again, if it’s too much, that’s ok, too. Sometimes it’s too much. Sometimes you really will die if you try to do certain things in certain circumstances and the thing is not what you’re willing or wanting or needing to give your life for. So forgive yourself, K? Even if the person you hurt won’t forgive you. Say sorry if that’s what you feel in your heart. Make amends if that’s what it’s supposed to be, and let yourself go. Let yourself be free.

I’ve talked a whole big fat mouthful in this blog and I don’t even know where I was going or coming from. I’m not rereading or editing this. Not even going to scroll back up to see where I started. Kind of want to share something raw because I think it helps. This time, it will help someone. I know. I started off thinking about being lit and unlit, with no hope for lighting my fire. But before I finished writing, I see a small flame in my belly that is, in fact, still lit. I’m going to go and find someone to have sex with now. That’s it. To light this fire. I know I’m not supposed to say or share that, but that’s the doggone Truth.

Be Blessed. Stay Well.

Love,
Me

Day 551
This Fire (Good Grief)

My last post was “Apply Knowledge” three months ago. Very timely. Hello world. I’m brand new again. Wanted to touch base with you. I’ve been hesitating on telling the truth, even to myself, and definitely scared of telling the truth here because so many people I know read this blog. But I need to tell the Truth so I can move on. My life sucks. It’s amazing, but it kind of sucks. My relationships are not what I want them to be, especially my relationships with family. And if I tell the Truth, I’m gonna say a lot of mean things about family and friends, and maybe they’ll say a lot of mean things about me, too, but I’m kind of carrying feelings that I don’t want to hold, and so I need to unload. I have run away. From my house. Because I have some work to finish and my living environment was not the ideal place to get it done in the timeframe I need to complete it… I don’t want to say too much, except I feel guilty focusing on me all day at home, because I feel like my housemates want my time, attention, and help and they resent me for focusing time on myself instead of doing whatever it is they want me to do when they want me to do it. My key housemate is my sis. Let me tell you bout my sis. Or rather, let me tell you bout this relationship dynamic. When my sis was seventeen, my mom left town for work for a while. I was an adult and I had just faced the first real disappointment of my life. Up until then, I never even realized that everything I had ever put my efforts towards, I had always gotten. I didn’t even know that failure was an option until I failed real big. I had joined with other siblings to buy a big house for my mom, and, through a series of events, we lost the house. I tried my very best. I had did my part to make sure we kept the house, but my partner in the house buying didn’t do her part. And we didn’t have the money to keep paying the mortgage. I found out late. I hustled as much as I could, gathered people together to pay mortgage, but I couldn’t find a job to save my life. And at the time I was in grad school. And grad school was hard. And it was around the time our thesis was due. I failed. We lost the house. I didn’t do my thesis on time. And I took a year off. I had an apartment with my 23-year old sis, and my youngest sis moved in with us. She was 17. Long story short, she was doing teenage stuff and lying about stuff. My spidey sense suspected as much and so I looked through her phone to see what she was up to. I found out that she had had a plan to skip school. Talks of boys and friends were in the plan. And so I fronted her. It was actually kind of interesting. She was supposed to use my mom’s car to execute her ditching plan. I, too, needed to used my mom’s car so that I could go somewhere that day. So I asked her to use the car that day. Said I’d drop her off at school. She made up a bunch of inconsistent lies about why I couldn’t drop her off. At the end, she dropped me off and then I asked her what she was doing that day. She told me whatever and then I asked, “Are you sure you’re not doing such and such (whatever I had seen on her phone)?” She was shocked. She started crying and saying I violated her for reading her phone instead of apologizing for lying and trying to play me. Later, we talked. I told her I wanted us to be sisters and share things. She told me she didn’t feel comfortable sharing things with me… That was many years ago. And that’s the dynamic I feel we’re in today. I had written a whole thing about our issue today, but WordPress deleted the middle of my entry somehow and only left the ending. So we don’t need to talk about our situation today. It’s for the best. The root of the situation with sis is not what’s currently happening. The root of the situation is me not feeling Loved or valued or appreciated or respected… My sis not feeling like I’m there for her and constantly guaranteeing that experience by asking for help at the very most inconvenient time possible with little notice and being downright unpleasant, disrespectful, closed off, sneaky and ungrateful when I’m there for her, thereby shifting my interest in wanting to be around her, ‘cus I ain’t tryna abused or disrespected or taken for granted, and therefore I leave and end up not being there for her or being there for her but not really feeling it… This will be funny to the people who can’t stand my guts. God told me to not change a doggone thing. Learn to forgive myself more. Apologize and/or make amends for whatever hurts you’ve given out and then forgive yourself on behalf of all the people who won’t forgive you. Set boundaries and expectations in your house that include emotional safety for yourself and others. Lead and encourage the youngers to be leaders, too, and stand up and participate in the creation of a positive home life. Now is the time. They won’t believe you’ve changed. Just stay consistent. Forgive yourself, Laydie. Over and over and over. Forgive others. Over and over and over. Don’t hold back Love. Just keep Loving. Even if people don’t appreciate it. Some things – very few – are family emergencies and obligations and responsibilities. Participate and accept those with Love and an open heart. Anything else? Go where the Love is. Go where you want to give the Love. You’re not a martyr, or even a hero. The most heroic thing you can do is be good to yourself and kind to yourself. Don’t worry about being good and kind to others. That’s a given with you. When you are good, everyone around you always wins. And your family? Like Claire says, “(You’re) entire family is blessed by… (your) ability to advance… (your) success and level of influence in the world. At the center of their being, they are deeply supportive of and grateful for… (your) success and fulfillment.”… I’m grateful for this blog. It is a place for me to sort things out. Nothing does it like this blog. Even my journals don’t give me clarity like writing in this blog. I’m grateful for all the gifts I’ve gotten in this world. My journey to this fantasy place called happy has been arduous, but it has been worth it. I’ve come a long, long, long way from where I started and I’m proud of myself. Can I just say some good things about myself for a minute, and then I’ll get offline. I’m proud of myself for this moment. These are life long dynamics that I’m dealing with. An empath with no boundaries is a recipe for death and finally I am learning and healing… You know, I have a friend who reads this blog just so he can judge me. Stop my reading my damn blog and find something better to do with your energy than judge everybody. Let me work through my issues with Grace. Please and thank you…. Please and thank you… Ameen Day 550 Ameen