Welcome to my blog. Thank you for reading.
I’m sure that many of you are asking the same questions that I have asked at times, ” Who are you and why should I read your blog???”
I’m just a woman trying to learn how to live the life of my dreams, and I’m aware that after reading my writings you might think I’m arrogant, or silly, or just downright stupid. For a long time, the thought of not being accepted has stopped me from doing the one thing that I love to do most: write.
You know what I realized, though? One day I’m going to die. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe ninety years from now. And nothing anyone thought about anything I did will matter. What will matter is whether I lived my life doing what I thought was best.
So I think it’s best that I write this blog…
Where This Comes From
In about January 2010, after yet another break-up with a man I thought I was going to marry, I had a major breakdown. Nothing in my life made sense any more. I didn’t know what to do or where to go for help. I was crying every day. Over something. Over nothing… I felt like I was just floating in the middle of a vast ocean.
I really don’t know how I made it through that time, but about a year later, in January 2011, I realized that I had made it through the hardest year of my life without dying and so I decided that it might be worth the effort to learn how not to cry every day, since I was gonna be here for a while.
I told a good friend of mine that I was going to do a self-experiment with becoming un-depressed, and he suggested that I write about it while I’m going through it, noting that most people forget what it was like over here when they get to the other side of happy. Sounded good to me, so for a while I did that. I wrote my friend a journal-esque entry every day about my adventures in not crying. That worked out at first, but then it didn’t. So I stopped. In the meantime I learned some things…
We write in our journals and hide them in the deepest, darkest places, closets, drawers, even under our beds, pretending all the while that we don’t want anyone to read them, when truly it is the only thing we really want. For someone to care. For someone to clean out the drawers and find out who we really are…
Why This Comes
My hope for this blog is that it will help. Both you and I. I think the world will be a better place when people can be honest about who they are and get over this notion that we have to be ashamed of the struggles we have been through. We’ve all had issues and oftentimes, our struggles are the greatest catalysts for our forward transformations.
It makes me happy to share my life with others and feel connected to people, and, since I mostly eat dinner by myself these days, I hope that I can come home and tell you how I’m doing. Your interest helps me to be accountable for continuing on an authentic path of integrity …
Structure
This blog started out with two categories, but has since evolved to many sections. It starts with “How Not to Cry Every Day Then”, which are the original writings I sent to my friend when I embarked on this adventure in January 2011, and “How Not to Cry Every Day and then Some”, which are written in real-time. It then continues on to “How to Live With Integrity” “How to Blossom” and on. The topics change as major shifts are made in my life and the current topic is “The Initiation”.
It is organized by days. Although the most current blog is on the top of the page, the story begins with Day 1, and I invite you to read whatever interests you. I started off writing an entry every day, but I have stopped crying every day a while ago, so now I just write when I am inspired, but they are still numbered by days. Every blog heading is titled with something I learned on that particular day, and they are in order from Day 1 until Day…
If you are interested in being updated on new posts, please subscribe.
……
There is a place in the in between. The space between a thought and an action. The space where you know that the thought you just thought will come to pass. Insha’ Allah this is going to be good…
What can I complete today? Sometimes I feel like a fraud. Others look at me and think I’m doing much, but I look within myself and still feel like there is still so much unfinished business.
I won’t write too long here. I suppose I could just go down the list of unfinished business and finish one thing out a day. I’ve been saying that for too long. I don’t know what’s the deal that I sabotage just as I come close to the last step that will break through everything for me.
I’m so close to so many breakthroughs. And I went to sleep yesterday. Froze on some momentum that I was having. On purpose. Because I was scared. When I had my big epiphany, I thought of making a small documentary, and then doing a training for my team where we learned how to harvest cacao and learned how to make chocolate, and I thought about packing up and leaving this hotel and heading off to this place where I had done a yoga retreat… But then I got scared. I got scared of being a woman and being out in this retreat space by myself in this country… Being by yourself here is different than being by yourself in the US…
I wanted my business partner/mom to be here to join me in the cacao harvest and chocolate training, but she won’t be able to travel due to prior commitments and also due to a recent travel ban where she is. And I don’t have any teammates to do the small documentary with. Sure, I could make new friends and teammates and learn to do things by myself here, but I don’t want to.
You know, we have this narrative. People of my race and gender. We have this “Do it all by yourself” narrative. We are proud of it. Proud that we can overcome all manner of obstacle and do things all by ourselves. But we are not happy with it. At least I’m not. I am not happy in the narrative of the singular warrior woman who does everything alone and defeats all odds. It’s no fun for me. Been there done that. What is fun for me is what is fun. Facing challenges with people you care about. Bonding. Overcoming. Celebrating one another and making it all fun as you go along. Seeing ideas become reality. Loving. I know my farm and creative projects are not just for me. They are for the people and the world I’m serving, but I am so over this idea of being a martyr…
I do indeed need to reevaluate everything. Kind of just put my whole used to be identity on the side of the road and ask God what it is now… The good news is, although I have negative feelings and thoughts, I don’t feel overtaken by them these days. This month has been a hell horse.
What I’d like to do now is get back to doing the work. The work I didn’t do before. Like, the stuff. The unfinished business that has been here all along. It looks ugly and hard and sometimes I just go to sleep instead of doing it. I don’t know why. For once, though, I’m going to give up making meaning of this resistance.
Start over. Start again. Celebrate the wins. There have been many wins. Reach out now. It’s time to reach out. I can do it. I know it seems scary. There’s not even much reaching that needs to be done. People are willing. Let me be willing, too. Let me be willing to receive and Trust. Even if I don’t know how stuff is going to happen…
What’s the next step? Make a commitment. Put a stake in the ground. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. You owe it to yourself. I know it has been hard. I know you feel like a fake. I know you think it’s not possible. I know you don’t always understand and it’s easier to just not face everything and go to sleep or play your life away or do the things that you know you can do, even if they don’t really do anything for your inner goodness. I know. Trust me, I know that all these things that happened to us hurt so bad… I know. I know how frustrating it is to want to be a way or want to do a thing and just not be able to do it, for whatever reason. I know what it is to feel betrayed and unloved and unaccepted and abused and unworthy and not able to be yourself without backlash and judged and etc, etc. All that sh*t. I know.
But what we gonna do about it? We just gonna be sad forever? And beat down and broken and stuck on our beds or stuck in these redundant dysfunctional relationships? We just gonna have all these cool ideas that we never implement on? We just gonna have this “life is hard and then you die” story forever? Baloney. Pure absolute baloney.
You’ve done well, OK? Don’t get down on yourself. You have done so well. You are doing a great job. I know in your culture they teach you that it’s not ok to celebrate. That it will make you weak if you do so. But we are laying all that down today. Your entire identity before this moment. What it means to be a woman and what it means to be your race and your age and to have your past and your ambitions. We are laying it down to the dust and thanking it all for bringing us here to this breakthrough point. And we are committing now. Today. I am committing to Being the Truth of who I am. Even if I don’t know what that means yet. I am committed to finding out. I accept my Strength at last. I accept my Power at last. I accept my Brilliance at last. I accept my Redemption at last.
So all those things? You know what they are. You have the list in your mind. It’s been running for quite some time. Let’s get them done. Just commit to it. Get them all done. So that’s it. One a day. Yep. I said it. I’m committing to it. One a day. One completion a day. Even if it’s a tiny, small task that’s been giving me anxiety for decades… That is my action commitment. So getting offline. Taking my life serious now. I know it’s all been so much bullshit. I know a lot of bad stuff happened. But I’m still here. I’d like a new experience now….
Ameen.
Day 546
Commitments and Completions
I’ve been struggling. Struggling is an understatement. I’ve been unable to write anything for about a month. My grandma died. Just about a month ago…
Everything changed. Just like that. A lot surrounded her death. Extended family issues. She was robbed six days before her death and the security cameras went out. My mom couldn’t come to see her immediately because she had some urgent commitment that she couldn’t get out of. No one knew she was going to die. I thought it might happen. When the security cameras went out. I thought anything might happen when the cameras went out.
I feel guilty. Like I should have done more than I did. Most of my family didn’t think it was urgent for anything to be done, because, why would they? My grandma had family around her and she had people staying with her. And there was another family funeral right on the day that my grandma got robbed. So no one was really pressed to file police reports or set-up a new security camera system. But I felt it. I felt danger and urgency in my Spirit. I did some things. Asked folks to go by the house. I didn’t ask everyone, though. I asked two people. I wanted to ask three, but family doesn’t like the third person I wanted to ask. He’s probably the only one who would have done something, though.
The other two people whom I had asked to check on grandma didn’t go. They didn’t know she was going to die, either. Nobody really thought that my grandma could die. She had just been alive for so long and seemed immovable.
But alas, she’s dead. Her cause of death is unknown. They put “cancer” on her death certificate – she never had cancer… They had their reasons and explanations. Said she died of natural causes.
My mom is heartbroken. Feeling guilty for things she shouldn’t feel guilty for. Our matriarch is gone. It’s all my mom has wanted to do these past two years of her life – take care of her mom.
My grandma and mom were the chords that kept us connected to this heal the world country. With her death, I wasn’t sure if I would continue my endeavors here. I wasn’t sure how she died or what she died of. I’m still not. Her two present children refused to get an autopsy done. I’m curious about her cause of death, but just the thought of investigating her death offends people, so I let those thoughts go… My family decided to at least file a police report against the cook who robbed her, and me and my cousin did that last week. Confessions popped up even before the report was filed.
Anxiety has been on ten. I hide out in a hotel room and eat breakfast with the staff. Men approach me daily, but most are not giving. They are looking to take, bargaining. Seeing massive opportunity. Love is not a thought. A sweet, young guy who is interested in giving comes to mind. I just messaged him. That would be a real trip. If I married a youngin’ almost half my age who has never been out of this heal the world country and has no clue about the western life… He’s nice and he likes books. Cut from a different cloth. Interested in integrity, but in this society, I’m a privileged girl…
It’s quite interesting, actually, to be privileged. You think differently. I’m not privileged in America. I’m the opposite. Pressed down upon. Just thinking of survival. But here, I’m rich. I stay in hotels where the president’s possee stay. I interface with ambassadors and honorable this’s and excellency that’s and celebrities. My grandma has a big ol’ house in the neighborhood where the governor lives. I drive a car, which is a big deal for anyone here, much less a woman. I spend two weeks’ worth of the average person’s salary on a single meal. It’s cheap by American standards. Actually, not so cheap, but average. About $15. But that’s about two weeks worth of pay for someone here. It’s quite interesting. It’s like those rich people in America who will spend about $500 on a meal. That’s the equivalent. Or maybe even more… I don’t actually have a bunch of money in my bank account, but when I conceive of a project or a mission here, I’ve been able to tell colleagues, family, acquaintances, investors about it, and they believe in the project’s potential, and they’ve been willing to sponsor me so that I can get things done and not have to suffer too much while doing it… I recognize that the people who live like this in America are the extremely privileged. They are able to sit down in their day and think about what they want to do with their lives… I could complain about so much all day long, and believe you me I’m about to do some complaining, but I also must acknowledge the massive good that is my life. I have sisters and brothers and other family members who love me daily.
I’ve lost my best friend and other friendships this year, and my “withs” have all together disappeared, and that saddens me so much, but I’ve also had friends and support from places I never imagined.
So there is much going on in my mind. I’ve felt afraid to face it all. Somehow I face it all when I write here. I had this big vision this morning about this fantastic new year I was going to have, but when I said the vision out loud, it disappeared and doubt and fear replaced it.
I don’t know what to do about my extended family. It’s all a big mess. There is no one to lead. My mom is heartbroken. So many are heartbroken and trust is nowhere to be found. My mom was the leader. I would be the one to take up what she left behind, if anyone was to take it up. But I don’t feel particularly fit or able or interested to be honest. There’s just so much trauma and drama and danger and hurt. I don’t even know where to begin with it all.
Then there’s my business and the creative things that I endeavor to do in the world. Not sure if any of it makes sense any more. A part of me thinks, “Who cares”. It has been the bane of my existence. This super deep thinking. Someone told me that I think too much.
I want to find my place in the world. Sometimes I feel like I know it, but when I say it out loud, it just sounds so ludicrous that I won’t say it.
I would be lying if I said that I cared about healing the world or even healing myself or being famous or having a bunch of money. I know I’m supposed to say I care about all those things, but at the moment, I really don’t. I wish I had some friends to bond with. I wish we could just hash it out, every single thing, and get over everything until there was really nothing but Love and goodwill between us. I wish there was nothing that they wanted from me that I wasn’t giving and there was nothing that I wanted from them that they weren’t giving. Friends. Family. A Lover. I wish I could forgive and feel good. I wish all my thinking so much would lead to something. I wish there were people who understood me for real. Like, for real for real. I wish I could hug somebody for days and days and days and they would hug me back for days and days and days and not go anywhere and just love me while they can.
I’m glad I finally got to a good place with my mom. We finally are good with each other for real. I feel the deep Love. And it’s getting there with other family members. Not so much with friends. Still not clean energy with everyone.
God told me to come back to the world today. I know it sounds weird to say God told me anything. It’s all make believe. This whole world. It’s just a bunch of stories and agreements that we have. We make it up. These systems. These cultures. The system that says God controls stuff. The system that says there is no God. We find ways to make sense of so much that we don’t understand. Some things can be proven. There are some one plus one science stuff that helps…
I digressed again, researching the science behind vitamins. I’m gonna finish this posting, because it’s been at least a month since I’ve finished writing anything… A part of me feels absolutely terrified to face the world. A part of me feels so, so alone and unable. A part of me believes that I need a person, a “with”, someone to come home to to make any movement. A part of me just wants to be held and let someone else do this life stuff for me. A. part of me doesn’t want to stop crying every day – ‘cus I ain’t stopped crying yet. A part of me is uncertain about everything and feels sorry for myself. With all this potential, how did I end up like this, with so much sadness in my mind? When does it get better? Will I ever just be ok inside? Like OK OK? All the way OK? Who is OK? Is anyone OK OK???? Or are we just masking things and coping?
A part of me misses the days when I was too naive to notice the shitty shit I was living through. I was OK then. I just had no idea about how bad off some things were and it was fine with me. I laughed and smiled from my heart and I didn’t hate anyone. And I wasn’t mad at anyone, except my brother, who had betrayed and abandoned me.
So how do we move through this, Allah? How do I get out of this room and into the world? How do I be safe in the world? What if no one ever comes to save me and hold me? How do I get over whatever else is in me that is so lonely and sad?
The answer that comes in, that has come in for so long, is that I’m going to have to do the work. Just do it. Oh, it hurts to even write that. Like, for real. My whole body swells up with anxiety. But it has to get done… I just started taking action – I booked a room in a new lodging tomorrow – and all mu visions turned to ash. My body froze up.
I’m wondering if I should finish writing this blog or book a ticket to my safe place (prison) in LA ASAP… God says I have to evolve. There’s no way out or around it. I have to evolve. Should I finish this blog or run somewhere? I have to evolve. My head literally hurts. Things stuck in my throat. Overload on the shoulders. Wonder if it’s demons. There’s no hot water where I’m going. Maybe it’s the wrong choice. No room for doubt. Lord, give me a clear answer.
DO THE WORK yells loudly in my soul. Don’t talk to sh*t f*ck else person till you do the work. This is not a punishment. It is training. It is discipline at last. Do the God d*mn work. It doesn’t always feel good. You’ve known the answer for quite some time. You know what to do and you will be ok when you do it. It won’t feel good at first because it’s different. Let. That. Shit. Go.
Stop procrastinating by writing. Do the work. Now. Offline you go. Toodles.
I Love you… Mwa.
Day 545
Do The Work
Y’all. I’m procrastinating. Well, not all the way procrastinating. Somewhat. Yeah, procrastinating. If I take one more step, this will all be over. It’s already over. I’ve been trying to hide from my destiny, but it keeps finding me. I asked for it, but I don’t know how to have it. Except that’s not true. That’s just what I’m used to saying.
I do know how to have it. I’m having it now. Nobody has liked my recent posts… Can I tell you what has happened? So much has happened. So much always happens. First, I’ll start with today. I have a profile on a dating app. This year has been the shits with dating. I have literally had three proposals this year, which isn’t bad. But two of them pulled out and left me high and dry. My year started off fighting one guy that I thought I was going to marry. We were fighting bc he was visiting Cali for the first time, visiting me, and he didn’t want to go to a New Year’s party with me. He didn’t want to do much with me at all. Just wanted to sit at home all day and talk to his friends on the phone. So, yeah, that was that. We were talking about getting married, even got a marriage license, but he pulled out after all our fights.
Then, I got whisked away by family. My little sister came into town with her son and shook up the limbo that me and my then roommate were in. Made me realize that the life I was living just wasn’t the answer. I ended up starting off the quarantine single-mother babysitting my nephew for a while, and my nephew is so lovely. I Loved taking care of him and teaching him stuff. I fell in Love with the idea of being a mother. Had never cared much about mothering before. Priorities shifted. Hung out with sis for a while babysitting and had some harsh realizations about our dynamic. Still processing it all, but left heartbroken.
Came back to LA. Didn’t feel welcome at brother’s place. He didn’t say I wasn’t welcome. I just didn’t feel welcome. He frowns and tightens up when I come around. I was in the sunken place and couldn’t handle anything much less than blatantly knowing I’m wanted and loved. I went to my apartment. Sunk more. Didn’t realize that I was actually taking some skin meds whose side effects were “potential suicide and depression”. The side effects were hitting me hard and I ate ice cream every day and cried on the bed for about two and half months straight.
Finally, when my brain just couldn’t get my feet to move off the bed, I thought that maybe I was going crazy and needed to see a doctor. I looked at the meds I was taking. Reread the side effects. Stopped taking them. My brain relaxed a bit. During that time, George Floyd was murdered. The world was in a state of unrest. We were ordered to stay at home. I had already broken up with most of the people I was living life with six months earlier, and I broke up with the last one that month. A friend who also frowns at me more than smiles. I was on my way to see him, wanted to support him at his business, but I didn’t know where he was located. I called him but he didn’t answer. I messaged him asking for the address but he didn’t respond. I was scared, out on these rioting streets. My brain wasn’t working quite right and I had to really breathe hard and concentrate to make sure I was driving ok. Finally, my friend reached out to me and gave me the address. He said he was busy and I should have gotten the address earlier or looked it up online. He saw my message but didn’t respond out of spite. I should have been more responsible, he said. There was no excuse.
It was just a bit too mean for me at the moment. Broke my heart, actually.
And so, broken-hearted I have been. Wounded. I lost interest in frowns. Frankly, I couldn’t bear them anymore. And so I locked myself up in these walls because I just couldn’t see anywhere in the world that was emotionally safe for me. Maybe it was all my fault, but I didn’t know how to fix anything and didn’t have the energy to fix it even if I knew. I just didn’t want anyone to hurt me anymore.
I met a guy. He was cute and sexy. But I was fat now, since I’d been eating ice cream and crying every day for about three months straight. And I was kind of raggedy. My clothes were raggedy. My legs weren’t shaved. My nails weren’t done. He liked me at first, but then he didn’t. He wouldn’t tell me why. I really think it’s because he saw some fat rolls on my back. I forgot that I had fat rolls, and also that there are people who don’t like fat rolls, and I went on a hike with him with my back out, some short pants that showed the bottom of my hairy legs and some raggedy shoes. I couldn’t hold my pee bc my nerves were shot at the moment and I was acting a fool so we could get to the bathroom. He ended the date early. Then I touched him on the back with Love and he froze up. Called the next day and said we should just be friends bc he overestimated our chemistry, but don’t touch him anymore because my hands were magic and he wanted us to be platonic friends. So basically, he didn’t want to date a fat, depressed girl and said we had not enough chemistry and too much chemistry. I was sad bc I was really attracted to him. It was really easy for me to just like the way he moved…
Blah blah blah. A bipolar guy liked me then acted bipolar when I didn’t immediately respond how he wanted. A guy that I met six years ago and lost touch with resurfaced and we met up down South. He was a perfect catch for me. Single, age appropriate, handsome, tall, no kids, owned a house, worked as a social worker, stable secure life… He wanted me to marry him. Move in first or marry first, whatever I wanted. It was the first time in my entire life that I felt like a man had actually chosen me. He had chosen me. I could feel it. There were no hangups. No secret lovers anywhere. No doubts in his mind. I could feel it.
By the time I had met him, though, I had been working with a life coach for about a month. I reached out to her because my life was not what I wanted it to be and I didn’t even know where to start anymore. I had tried doing stuff on my own, but it wasn’t working. My support systems had fallen apart and I wasn’t interested in rebuilding them as they were before. This life coach had suggested that I be selfish. I know some people already think I’m selfish enough, but she told me to be even more selfish. Consider myself. Consider what I like. Consider what’s good for me before I make decisions. So, this guy was great, but he wasn’t good for me. He didn’t frown at me, but he never seemed to really be listening whenever I’d talk. He’d cut me off. He’d belittle my efforts subtly, calling my amazing farm in Africa, the most challenging thing I’d ever done, some “little plants”. He was really concerned about me letting him lead, and I realized I didn’t really trust his leadership and didn’t want to follow him.
I mean, why would a woman want to follow a man who has shown no interest in understanding or respecting her needs and/or wants. He ain’t leading me anywhere I want to go, because he doesn’t even respect or know about where I want to go. So that was that. I declined his proposal and the next day I met another guy.
Within a week, new guy was at my place visiting him. I thought he could have been the one. His energy was electric. But then we fought. More leadership stuff. Wanted me to shut up and do what he said and also wanted to belittle any and of all of my views that weren’t aligned with his. It didn’t work. We disagreed. He left… I’m writing too long, but I’ve been wanting to write this blog for a while. There’s nothing like writing it for me, really. This is my super therapy.
Which brings me to today. My Electric man had really hurt my feelings by leaving. I wanted him to stay. I wanted us to talk and talk through our issues and get to the other side of a thing… But he left. A little over a month ago. My life coach told me to make a choice: Choose to be lit or unlit in life. Stop waffling. Either choose to do stuff that don’t light me up for whatever reason, or choose to gravitate towards and make choices that light me up… It was hard, because there was very little in my life that lit me up at the time. Nothing, to be quite honest. But I chose to be lit, and then I had to look at how dim my life really was. I cried a lot. I’m crying still…
I ran out of money and stopped seeing my life coach, but I had also had a success coach that helps me with business stuff. So I kept doing my business stuff. And, business stuff moved forward. My mom and sis came in town. I hadn’t seen either of them in almost a year. I faced our issues. Resolved many. I can’t even say I resolved them. God did. But I did put in some work in setting good intentions and being cognizant of my projections and doing my best to communicate with Love. I became aware of the issues with me and my brother, and finally this. This is what this blog is about. This is why I started off by saying that no one had liked my posts and why I’m just overflowed right now.
I realized that it could quite possibly be that my brother doesn’t like me. Stay with me. Maybe he does. But maybe he doesn’t. What if? Right? What if he doesn’t? What if there’s just no way that I could be the fullness of myself and my brother would like me? What if he just doesn’t like women who laugh loud? It’s against his religion? Or what if my smells and my sage and incense and whatever else just offend him? What if he always thinks I’m a potential hell monger because my ideology is not his and so he’s not allowed to listen to me, lest I lead him astray? I mean, what if this is just the way it is? What if I just don’t fit in all the way with the fam? What if mom will never accept my lifestyle or religion? What if bro always frowns at me? What if sisters always have an expectation that I can’t meet? What if friends just won’t allow for me not to be ok? Or won’t allow for me to be too ok?
Would I keep going on doing this and that, not doing this and that, showing this and that, not showing this and that, looking for approval? It wasn’t working anyway. Nobody was approving of me anyway. So – and this was just a few days ago, after my brother said I was bringing spider’s to his house because of my body lotion – I decided to stop living for other’s approval. Soften my hands. This is what came to me. Soften my hands. Be aware of the ways I show up. Start approving of myself. I didn’t get it all right. I got some things really wrong. Forgive myself already. I tried. I could stop beating myself up now. I tried. Even in the places I didn’t try, in the places that were intentionally mean, just forgive myself. See if I could look at all the dark places. Could I Love them? Even if nobody liked my blog, could I write it anyway? Tell the truth anyway.
Don’t worry about saving the world or lighting up the world, You say. I was born to be a light-bulb. A transformer. A transmuter and transmitter, like everyone else. Once the light is circulating within me, unimpeded, all of my relations will know. Life takes on a new flavor.
Yesterday, I made an online dating ad. I just told the truth about what I really wanted and what I had to offer. I didn’t even have my picture on the ad. Just had the picture of the back of my bald head. When I tell you that the finest, flyest men I done ever met have responded to that ad???? Ahimsa: absence of injury.
So today, a super-fly, fine man responded to my ad. He wrote: “The power of words… Reading your words… made me like you even though I have no idea what you look like”.
“The power of words” stuck with me. He didn’t know I am a writer. I never really thought of the idea that words could be powerful, especially mine. I hear the energy of my dead dad telling me to move on now. I feel Matsemala telling me that I can move on now. I passed the test. I learned to soften my hands and soften my mind… Use the power of my words now. Own it. Accept it. Make a definite and firm decision to be lit. Accept being lit. Be OK With Being OK. Accept goodness. Accept that you are good. Even with all the shit you’ve done and all that has happened. I forgive you. You didn’t know. You were just trying to get by. I forgive you. And I accept you. Accept you, now. And Thrive.
Ameen.
Day 544
Acceptance
They have a new thing going on with WordPress. Had to switch back to the classic editor cus I ain’t ready for all that.
I just wanted to touch bases with the world. This is my healing. My balancing. My centering. My dance. My gratitude. The roller coaster ride of my life is becoming a river, an easy stream. I am learning to relax into it instead of flailing around with fear. I am learning to surrender and be with ease.
I ate dinner with a friend last night. My People. A giant of a man. A kind, brilliant soul. He is my friend. He has never hurt me and serves as a reference point on how things can be with people. Easy. There can be trust. There can be a deep understanding of mutual goodwill and harmlessness.
I brought him some food. We prayed together and he spoke about the harvest and the harvest moon. Then we went outside in his backyard – there is a lemon tree there – and sat under the moon. We talked about life, just chatted it up. I was myself and safe and so easy. I was having such a good time with him. He hugged me. His hug is electric. Can’t hug too long or it will turn to sex and we have only ever been platonic friends. He is a magician of the best kind, transmuting through Love.
And this morning I am thinking about ease. I am thinking about being easy and loving and forgiving, as a way of life. I am thinking of joy as a way of life. I am grateful that I made it to this day, a day in my life where I can believe that it is possible for joy and Love and Ease to be foundations of my very being. I am grateful that fear is easing its grasp on me and I am becoming better. More kind. Some people can’t tell, but I know. I have a million gifts to give the world. I want to write poems. I want to hug someone and Love someone. I want to help people get out of these deep, deep, ugly feelings that usurp our lives and have us living like zombies for so long. Mostly, I want to laugh again and live with ease.
I’m excited. I have shirked my own power and responsibility for my life for so long. I’ve had my reasons… but I think you need to take all of you on these journeys, even the best of you. We are always focused on loving the worst of us and coddling our pains. But the best of us is important, too. The good things. My friend judges me all the time. Not the one I just wrote about. My Earth Guardian friend. He reads my blogs so he can judge me and call me self righteous. So I’m a bit self-conscious as I’m writing, so as not to sound self-righteous.
Life, thank you for this day. Thank you for this moment of interest in ease, joy, and good will. Oh, and especially Love and forgiveness. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Ameen.
Day 542
Ease
You are hurt. Feeling rejected. Back to eleven again. Everything happened at eleven. I have been reliving eleven over and over and over. And now here I sit, crouched in a corner, rejected again. Mad at my grown up self. Why didn’t I make life better for me? Eleven year-old me thought I would get her out of this. All this hurt and rejection over and over and over. All this not having what I really want over and over and over.
Lucy passed on the script. Said she only works on things that she “absolutely loves”. And I understand. And she gave me a gift in her words. I didn’t absolutely love my script before I sent it out. I kind of liked it. It was good enough. Now I will work on it till I absolutely love.
My Eleven, I’m sorry. All these years, I didn’t know I had grown up. I didn’t know I had the power to take you out of this curled up ball, always rejected, always hurt. I’m sorry I didn’t make life for you any better than then. Please forgive me. I have tried. I have really tried. I have been going in circles and bigger circles and bigger circles and most of us do. Most of us don’t break out of our traumas in one go round. I need to forgive me, please. I’m sorry I didn’t take such good care of you. I’m sorry I didn’t heal your wounds. I’m sorry I didn’t find you places and spaces where you could play and be safe and thrive and I set you up over and over again to just barely be good enough.
I’m sorry I didn’t work on that script till I absolutely Loved it… Grown ups don’t always know that we have grown up. I didn’t see how hurt you were. I was busy running for so long. I was trying to survive. I was just doing things to do them. My baby, I was not that smart like they thought I was. I was stupid. I hate to use that word, but I was. Yes, grown-ups can be stupid. Most of us are. But we are smart, too, sometimes. We keep you alive as long as we can. Forgive us. Please forgive me. Please forgive me for taking so long to see so much.
How can I ease this pain of rejection for us? How can I heal all of these wounds poking the same spots over and over? How can I make it up to you? How can I restore all these years that the locusts have eaten? There are stories in holy books of redemption. Is my time too late?
You rail and say NO! Can I tell you something about adults? There are those of us who don’t grow up. There are those of us who don’t even know we have wounds, much less knowing how to heal them. We try to build mountains on piles of maggots, so far detached from the deepest hurts that we don’t see why we can’t thrive. I know it is nothing to look forward to, but I want to tell you something. Today I learned something. We need your help. I need your help.
You know. You, my resilient young eleven, know how to love. I know you know. I have forgotten. I need you to remind me, please. I know you think you are too little and you can’t do anything, but, oh, your smile! It brings life. I will keep it safe. I will keep your innocence safe this time. Please forgive me. This rejection hit a wound. But it hit a wound because a wound was there with you, my eleven, crouched up in a ball always feeling rejected.
We can work together now at last. I will bring you band-aids and medicine and sing to you. I don’t care if the whole world talks about you and calls you names and only sees the curled up ball you have become. I will look for your smile and when you show it to me, I will keep it safe at last. I know how. I will find safe spaces and places for you, even if folks call me crazy. And if meanies come around, I will scare them off for you. And I will use my grown-up powers to tap into more than me to keep us both safe, so I don’t have to spend so much time fighting and running and we can play at last.
I will start to do things in ways that I absolutely Love. It might make me different or weird. I’ve always been afraid of being different or weird. I know, it’s not a grown-up way to be. That’s what eleven-year-olds do. But I’ve been afraid all these years and have kept you in spaces and places where we fit in with whatever we started with in this life. But my baby, I want to tell you something that might be scary. We were not born to fit in with this. No. We were born to be heroes. Did you know that? I’ve been keeping it a secret, even from myself, but it’s been hurting us so bad, trying to be things we aren’t, and trying to live in a way we’re not supposed to.
I know, you never thought you were a hero, but somewhere deep deep deep deep deep deep down, you knew… To Be Special, Different, Lucky, any of that was a bad thing and so we tried so hard to push away anything that would make us be that. But still people hated us. For being that. For not being that. So it didn’t work, you see?
What am I saying? I’m saying that I’m going to be a grown-up now. Yep. You stay around with your smile and your love and your innocence. Oh, and your friskiness. I Love your friskiness so much! I now know that I’m eleven, but no longer eleven, and I can get out into the world and find us medicine. I can nurture us and nourish us. I can create things and do things in a way that we absolutely Love! I can turn in projects that we absolutely Love! I can make them that good to a point that I absolutely Love them!
I can absolutely Love you and me, even now. Even as we’re feeling rejected and even though we didn’t do so many things and be so many things that we wanted to do and be by now. I hear you cheering for me and saying I can still do it. I hear you pushing me and smiling at me and saying that I have done so much, that I am worth something, even right now. I hear you thanking me for looking at you finally. You forgive me already? You believe in me. You are celebrating me… I am celebrating you. And do you know what I will do for you? I will be a grown-up. I will get up. I will use all my grown-up tools that I’ve learned all this time – I’m not perfect, but I have learned some things about healing and cooking and I know places we can go to play and, I’ve never done it before, but I have an idea of a house we could live in that smells good, and even if I don’t feel like cleaning, I know how to make money so that we can find someone to clean for us and pay them.
I’m not gonna be perfect, OK? People might still reject us. But I know how to make my writing better, and it’s actually fun to work on things and practice until you get them to a place where you absolutely love them. You know what I mean? And I guess as I’m thinking about a man and friends and work and even as I’m thinking about how to fix some of these old relationships I’ve been in with family and old friends and old Loves – I know that scares you and has you going back into a ball. “Do we have to fix those?” you ask me. Only the ones you want to fix. Only the people you miss, OK? I haven’t figured out what to do about those yet, but we’ll put our heads together, and call on our super powers, and get a big ol’ light bubble, – I can get that for us so we can be inside it and no one can hurt us – and we can tap into the biggest Light of the World to help us figure out what to do about all this ruin.
Are you with me? Cry about this rejection if you feel it. Feel it. I’ll be here with you as you feel it as long as you need to, giving you medicine, keeping you safe, singing to you, making a life for us as last. Responsible. Me and you together, Eleven.
Ameen.
Day 541
Dear Eleven (Absolutely Love) (Grown-up Stuff)
I kind of want to talk, like, use my voice. Today is a big day for me. A huge day. I made a decision. To take ownership of my life. A thought just occurred. I have a friend that has been a phone friend for a very long time. He’s a guy. Only ever been a platonic friend, although when I met him over fifteen years ago, he was trying to hit on me. I called him and told him I didn’t want to date him, and we’ve been friends ever since.
He gives me a lot of insight into the thinking of men…
But I don’t want to talk about him. I can’t write long. My life changed all of a sudden. For the better. I want to go hug a friend today and then I have an awesome meeting coming up. I’m vibrating at a speed that I’m not used to, and from what I know, when my energy is like this, miracles happen.
So, I’m expecting that when I walk out of this door, the highest possible outcome for my life will be forthcoming. I am looking for the choices that I can make 100 percent. So I have to get off this internet now, because the choice I can make 100% for now is to go see my friend immediately and hug him.
God Bless you. Bless you. Unconditionally. Bless you Unconditional.
Ameen.
Day 538
Unconditional
Here we go. So much pain and unprocessed/ unintegrated emotions still… Thinkin of my sister. Can I just write it out? This might be a bit incoherent. She hates my guts. I wish she didn’t. A few of them hate my guts. Why? They wanted me to be there for them in ways I was not. Am not. I guess I did try to punch one of them in the face. She kept coming for me. That’s what it felt like. It felt like she was just coming for me, trying to pull me in directions I didn’t want to go. Not respecting what I was telling her. Not giving me space when I asked for it. Messing up the good situation I was in by having conflict with my caregiver, which in turn distracted him from his caregiving and even made him feel like he was giving too much to me; when he was giving exactly what I needed for the first time in my adult life. It was the first time in my adult life where someone was actually respecting me, interested in what I needed, and offering care to me in safe ways. I was in Heaven. And then she came around just messing everything up, talking about I don’t need what I need. Not even knowing to this day what was wrong with me or what my diagnosis was. Her actions felt slightly malicious. They didn’t feel all the way accidental.
My other sib is mad at me because she’s going through a major life transition. I stayed with her for three months to help her through, and then left to come back to LA. She wanted me to stay longer, even though she was sitting over there talking about my help is just the same as anyone else’s and she don’t need me and I don’t love her. It’s hard to get anything done for myself when I’m with her. It feels like she wants me to pour all of my time and energy into her all the time, and she resents when I have “Me” time, or if I move forward and she’s not. But then she gets angry if I try and encourage her to do stuff to move herself forward, and accuses me of trying to control her, etc, etc. So I came back to LA. Because I need to move forward with my life. And everyone resents me for wanting to move forward.
It’s like the people in my world feel like I’m obliged to give my all to lifting them up. The give what they can when they feel like it. Sometimes when they don’t feel like it. But they’re not about to move out of their home or quit their job and delay their plans to meet me wherever I am and support me in whatever. They’re definitely not about to do that if they see I’m farting around. But they expect me to do that for them…
That’s not what I meant to write about today, but I’ve been cussing people out in my head. Cussing people out in my dreams. Having all these conversations in my mind with others. Trying hard not to say mean stuff to people, but I got so much mean stuff to say. They’re assholes. Can I say it here? Somehow I feel like it needs to be said. Somehow I feel like they don’t get it. That’s why their lives are all effed up. I wish someone would tell me the stuff that I don’t know. The mean stuff that they gossip about, but never say to my face. I would like to know.
My mean ass brother loves to tell me about myself, but he’s so daggone mean. And he usually has no clue about what’s really going on with a person. He did say something to me, though, as I was crying and tell him I feel like a wounded baby. He said I’m not a baby and I need to get my ass up and take responsibility for my life. I mean thing to say to a person in pain, as usual, but it resonated.
My nerves are tingling. I feel anxious about writing more on this blog. Feel like pushing delete, but I’m gonna finish it out. Closing my eyes… Self responsibility. I am going to have to choose, with every ounce of me, 100% to grow. Something deep in me knows I can. The question is, do I want to quit? Do I want to settle for a life that’s not what I dreamed of? The answer is no. I don’t. I want to live my dream. I know I’m getting old, but nothing else will do. But I don’t know how to live my dream, you see. I’ve never seen it done by someone like me who comes from where I come from.
People have tried. People are trying. They are doing their best. But their is no role model. Perhaps I am to become the model. Yes, that is the truth. That is why so many are upset with me. They expected me to be the role model and show them the way. I didn’t know the way, but they thought I did.
Integrate, process, own, live… It’s time. It’s time to stand up tall in myself. It’s time to get over feeling sorry for myself. I can have compassion and kindness, but it’s time to get up now and fight for my own happiness. It’s time to fight for my own redemption. Make an intention for myself. Make an intention for the world. I’m going to go ahead and finally do it.
I commit. I intend. I’m going for the gold. Yep. Even now. I’m going for the gold. Even when I’m over here all emotionally unbalanced. I’m going for it. I’m going for the gold. I’m gonna face them. I’m going to face my fears and have all of these conversations that have been pent up. Or write letters. Or something. I’m going to process and integrate stuff and I’m going to grow and do my very darned best to make this life something I like being a part of. I commit. I intend. I choose. I’m gonna fight for myself, and I know that when I fight for myself, I’m fighting for everyone else who my life touches.
So here we go. I’m getting offline now. Gonna take a shower and finish two things on my list today. Three things, actually. Finish reading a book. Maybe one thing. Maybe the book might take a while. We’ll see. We’ll plan to finish the book. And hug someone. I need to touch and be touched. Thanks for reading. Have a Blessed day.
Day 537
Integrate, Process, Choose
