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…
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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…
Third time again… What I would like to do now is find my North Star, point my arrow, and walk. Hello world. Long time. Much has transpired as usual.
The details?
My married friend came back to the states, but this time he didn’t see me. Went to the East Coast to do business or whatever. To do what he wants to do. Let me know he was in town. We talked and tried to figure out what happened between us. He was unwilling to be honest. We could only go so far. I told him the truth about everything. Something in me wanted to be a part of his life so bad. He was the partner that I wish I had, except he wasn’t. In real life, he’s not anyone’s partner, and neither am I, and we are used to being all by ourselves. The space between who we are and who we want to be was long and far for the both of us…
I dated another guy. A liar who wanted to get in my pants and so he told me everything he thought I wanted to hear. I’m sure he’s been diagnosed with several psychological conditions, but he’s pretty good at conning folks. He got halfway into my pants and I regret it, because I like knowing what’s going on with my body and not having to think about sexual health when I think about my health. I am glad that he didn’t get all the way in and that I actually I’m finally learning how to spot the con artists and keep myself safe. I feel sad that the con artists exist, though, and that they prey on the most loving and vulnerable of us all. And I feel sad that I have spent so much time being conned by the cons…
My sister and her son moved in with me temporarily. She came in and changed the whole tone in my apartment. The floors are clean, there is light and life, and I cleaned out a closet that I had been wanting to clean out for years. We are like night and day, but I Love her so. She is so full of Love. Such a beautiful soul.
I finished a class I was taking at my spiritual center. It went by so fast. I Loved being in community with people who were deeply interested in spirituality and growth. I loved being able to pray and meditate with people. Praying and meditating might be my favorite things to do. I remember a friend of mine (a super religious fanatic) told me that I would never get ahead in life until I put God first. It was a long time ago that he said it, but it rang true back then. I do believe that I am finally putting God first in my life… You happy now, friend?
Men from my past have been reaching out. Strangely enough, I got a lot of calls on Valentine’s Day. I’m not interested. I don’t feel anything. Feel a bit dead and confused, and that concerns me. More than dead and confused, though, I think I feel sad. And more than that, I think I don’t care about how I feel. I want to break through to a different kind of life experience now, and that is where I find myself today.
In a library. Trying to get focused. Trying to see what is next. Knowing that it’s time to move on and get on with life. Knowing that this is enough now.
What if I don’t know what I want, Allah?
-You say I know what I want.
What if I’m afraid to change? I went on a date the other night and the guy was a fucker and I’ve been hurt so much, it’s scary out there.
-You say learn from my past and grow from it. Grow now. Do things differently. Be different. End this cycle. You have the power. Use it…
So, my battery is dying on my computer. I want to post this blog before I head out for the night. “Heart don’t fail me now. Courage, don’t desert me…”
I am going to focus on living life as if anything is possible. I am always lifted by so many miracles and blessings, that I don’t know why it has been so hard for me to believe that anything is possible even though I have seen and felt it in my experience. If I believed that all of life was organizing around my success… If I really and truly believed it, what would I do? I would pull back focus. I would put the magnifying glass on me again. I would listen and take action on so many things that I’ve been holding back on. I would sit until I could feel and see the big picture of my life… the steps needed to move forward… and then I would take action.
I would take action and not make it a thing. Not make it a fight. Not make it me pushing against something in the world. I would recognize that this is the natural order of the universe. I would put all of my resources on deck. Every single one. And I would commit to my happiness. I would commit to living a life I Love to look at and a life I Love to be a part of. I would be done with all these sad, sad things and I would just be this joyous, loving leader who has been fighting to come out of me all this time. I would come alive. Finally. I would light my own fire and blaze along with others who have chosen to light their own fires, too. It’s time to come alive.
And how? Listen. Listen. Listen… Just listen. Listen. Do the things that you’ve been wanting to do for so long. Listen… Focus. Focused intent can move mountains… Relax… Allow… I know it is scary. I know that coming alive is the scariest thing you can imagine, especially now, when you are hurting so much. Especially now, when there is so much grief and fear. But fear is a liar and you are a warrior. Do not bother with trying to convince a liar of the truth. Convince yourself of the truth by living it and see.
See what happens when you listen. Focus. Listen. Focus. Listen. Focus. Feel your feelings. Write about them. Do what you need to do to process. I’m not saying you ignore your feelings. But whether you are sad or happy, even if it gets hard, and it might get really, really hard, do your best to come back here to me. To the place where things make sense. It always there, even when things don’t seem to make sense. Come back to the place where things make sense. You know it when you feel it. You know it when you are in it.
And you will find Me here.
Guiding you
Assisting you
Having fun with you
Healing you
Loving you
Appreciating you
Forgiving you
Acknowledging you
Seeing you for you who are
Adoring You
Giving you joy
Lifting you up
Protecting you
I am here with You, My Love. You have suffered much. I am sorry. I am so, sorry, my sweet everything…
I think I’m going to start writing love letters and apology letters to myself. It’s time to heal. It’s time to break through this place. I Love you world. Thank you for being with me through this roller coaster. Don’t give up on yourself. Reach out. Forgive yourself. Let yourself feel and cry and heal. And then do your best. Don’t be so hard on yourself if you don’t get it right. Don’t be so hard on yourself if you make mistakes. Just try. Try a little bit to get it better the next time the same situation comes up. Forgive yourself. Ask for forgiveness. I don’t know it all. I don’t know anything… But I know that I Love you and I wish you well..
xx
Day 527
To Come Alive (The Place Where Things Make Sense)
Third time’s a charm. Been sitting here for about two hours. Wrote two entries and deleted. And now this third one.
Sorting, sifting, processing. Love, forgiveness, relationships, identity shifts, good and bad, presence, end of cycles, birth, children, marriage, true love, passion, life’s work, sex, pleasure, good and bad again, judgement, money, the purpose of life, love… Real Love. These are the themes running through my head currently. Regrets. How to make amends and build healthy relationships when the other party hates you or doesn’t see you as you are or won’t forgive… Who to reach out to. Who to cut off. How to move forward.
Fear. Mending, mending, mending. Healing. Always me, healing? Am I healer? Who am I? Writer? Healer? Matsemala said I was a saint. He was old. He said he only comes across a person like me once in a life time. He’s dead now. My People said I think like less than 10% of the world changers. But I am here. Alone. And I don’t know how to fix my own brain and my own life.
You say I am not broken and let us start there. But, oh, I feel so broken. I look so broken. I feel so alone. I feel so alone, and so afraid to come close to anybody now… I want to shake off this identity and put on a new cloak, but I don’t know how. You say I know how. But I am afraid. Because I don’t know what. What will happen. And I don’t want to let go. Of even the bad. I am used to it……
You say that it is time. Or not. The choice is mine. The choice is hard, Allah…
-Then choose it easy now.
Choose it easy now…. Choose it easy, now. I do not have to say out loud what I am, who I am, but they will know me by my works. I will know me by my works. Work, now…
Can I be brave enough to be myself? Can I be bold enough to not be bad and broken anymore? I know I can, but do I want to? If I was a saint, do I want to be a saint? You ask me if I want to be myself.
– Do you want to be yourself? Yes? No? Maybe so? Choose easy now… Choose easy now… Choose easy now… BeLoved Good Enough. My Sweet Good Enough. Choose easy now.
Can I break through now? This circle and cycle of misery? Can I have a life I’ve never seen for me? Can I be safe here? Can I be Loved here again? Can I be forgiven? Can I be happy now? Can I have good relations? Can I be free? I want to make it all happen, but I can’t do it on my own. The people that I love hate my guts and I can’t fix it. And even if I could, they would hurt me still and hate me still, and I would love them still, and it all hurts so bad… It all hurts so bad, Allah… Can I not be so alone? Can I do this life with someone who wants to do this life with me? Someone who won’t hurt me? Someone who will meet me where I am and see me as something good and be good to me?
My heart is so Lonely, Allah. I long to be understood. I long to be seen as I am. I long to live life with someone. I long to give love and have my love received without being taken advantage of or betrayed or hurt or treated like I’m not wanted. I do not know the way. I am tired of religions and doctrines and manuals, all contradicting each other. I have not done a good job on my own, but when I look deep, so few have done a good job of keeping their hearts pure and open… I want my heart back, pure and open without heaviness. I want someone to share it with. I am so afraid of being hurt anymore. I am so tired of being hurt… I want to be held… I miss my dad.
There you have it. Somebody just called me. Just in time to get my out of my pity party. A friend. I’ve got friends. I actually Love and adore the friends I have. Even the ones I don’t talk to. God willing, I will learn to forgive and grow a bit. I will learn about boundaries and I will learn how to navigate this world, a sensitive, raw, open heart of Love that must be safe too. I will find the balance between monster and saint. Human… I will learn to forgive myself.
My married friend brought it to the surface – my loneliness. My desire for a family. My desire to have someone to partner with and do life with together. My need to get it together now. “Open out a way for the imprisoned splendor within … to escape” as Robert Browning put it.
I am not sad anymore. Who am I kidding? I’m just used to being sad. But I’ve turned the page already. A deep reverence for all that has happened brews up inside of me. A deep gratitude that I’m still alive and I get to tell the story of it. A faith in the Goodness of God. I’m not all holy holy any more. I’m not all stuck in the mud, either.
Can I forgive myself even if they don’t? Can I see myself as good even if they don’t? Can I be good? Can my actions reflect integrity and kindness and compassion and Love? Even for myself?
– You tell me to get all the tears out. One day, they will end. They will finally end. Yes. I know the answer already. Yes, yes, yes and yes.
I can be the BeLoved Sweet Good Enough instead of being bad and broken. I can choose it. Am I brave enough? I can choose it now if I like. I can really choose it now if I like. This initiation is redundant. We have already broken through. It is time we stop pretending we do not know what we know. We are fooling no one. Not even ourselves. And we are suffering much… We have already crossed over.
How does it feel to be Beloved, Sweet and Good Enough? Walk in your essence, baby. Walk as you are.
You are the Beloved. I Love you, my Beloved. My Beloved Sweet Good Enough…
Ameen.
Day 526
BeLoved Good Enough (Bad and Broken)
I don’t feel anything. I always get a little concerned when I don’t feel anything, especially when stuff is happening that would make it appear that I’m supposed to be feeling a whole lot of stuff.
I’m processing… Somebody’s husband told me yesterday that I essentially tried to seduce him and then got mad because he didn’t want me and only wanted to have sex with me, and so I hiked up our business negotiation prices because I was mad. I’m talking about my married friend. Who wanted me to be his mistress. Who cancelled our business deal. Who now told me that he didn’t want me to be his mistress. He didn’t want anything with me, he said. Just business. When he hit on me and tried to screw me, it was only because I seduced him and he felt like he had to do it, he said.
I don’t even know if he believes himself or not. He just might.
A month or so ago, I got accused for being at cause for the disappearance of one of my family members. A sibling had gone MIA for over two years. She said that the family had been conspiring against her and saying things about her. I had no idea that she thought I had started the whole conspiracy. A month ago, I found out that all this time, she thought I was the one who had told the family bad things about her and made them start a whole conspiracy. It never happened. I never said a bad thing about her (at the time she accused me of such) and had only said good things about her.
My married friend hasn’t spent more than two weeks worth of time with me in his life, and so I know that his opinion of me has nothing to do with me and everything to do with whatever experiences he’s had before me, but geez…
I am wondering why I am having and why I have had such extreme experiences of people just thinking I am capable of doing such foul stuff and being so foul!…
I got distracted. A few things happened. First, I wrote married man a text, just telling him again that I couldn’t believe what he was accusing me of, and also letting him know that God don’t like ugly. I was going to curse his children and tell him that I hoped his beautiful daughters met someone just like him that does them just like he’s doing me when they grow up, but I didn’t. Instead, I just told him that God don’t like ugly, and God definitely doesn’t like it when you hurt someone who means nothing but Love and help for you. And God really don’t like it when you hurt one of his people, and so I feel sorry for him, because he has been very, very ugly to me, a person who meant him nothing but Love and help and a person who is really on purpose one of God’s people.
The whole situation is saddening, but it is the last. It is a punctuation on a pattern that is now over. Enough. The end. I did my part in the whole situation. I entertained it… I still do not feel as sad as I feel I should feel and I am wondering if I’ve finally becoming a gangster, or I’m disassociating or if I’ve grown a bit in the past 72 hours.
An interesting situation happened, too, since I started writing this blog today. I am sitting in a Coffee Shop that was recently started by a celebrity I love. I met here this morning with a friend from one of my writing groups so that we could spend time writing together. At some point, a man sat next to me. I saw him looking at me from a distance at first. He sat next to me. Said he likes my haircut (I’ve gotten three compliments on my haircut so far this morning!). Then he said he knows me. Then he asked what I do. I said I was a writer, and then he started telling me about a project he has and asking me if I wanted to write it. Then my friend who I came with, who had previously had his headphones on, took off his headphones and looked in our direction. My friend joined the conversation, and, to make a long story short, my friend told the guy that we don’t take time away from our own projects to work on strangers projects for free, except if we are really compelled by the magnitude of the project. My friend also cut the conversation short, saying that he has to get back to writing his project. Shortly thereafter, I gave the man my business card. He took it politely and left.
Although I didn’t quite like the harshness of the way my friend spoke to the stranger, I appreciated his protection. I actually Loved his protection. I am reminded that I am protected. I am reminded of what the energy of protection feels like, and harmlessness. I am grateful and appreciative that I am sitting here with a friend who respects me and doesn’t want to hurt me and thinks I’m awesome and good and talented, and would never think that I want to steal somebody’s married husband. He would never think I would try to do that because he thinks I’m too good for that, and doesn’t think I would have to do that. I can get a nice, single man easily enough.
I also read a bit of the book I’m reading, “Busting Loose From the Money Game.” I paid my rent the other day, got car insurance (so I can drive Uber or something worst case scenario), got some clarity about my next career and life steps, got a down blanket for my bed with my Kohl’s credit card, which I had gotten two years ago and never used and which I had been getting good credit scores because of, and I bought a new sweater and some new jeans. I don’t even remember the last time I’ve bought clothes for myself. It was kind of a weird feeling to be buying new stuff.
I still miss my best friend and some of my old friends. In a perfect world, I would find a way to be at peace with them, they would see my heart and forgive my execution on some things, and they would treat me with kindness and niceness, and I would do the same for them. In a perfect world, my married friend, and all my other guy friends who hate me because they like me and think I’m trying to manipulate them with my sexuality because they are floored by my unconscious feminine prowess, would own their part in the bullshit that has become our relationships. They would grow. I would grow. In a perfect world, I would recognize that I do have feminine prowess that floors men, and I would stop pretending that I don’t know that Love like mine just isn’t that common and that if I don’t plan on being with a man, I might not want to have him in my bed or hold him or act any kind of way that I wouldn’t act if I was already boo’d up.
I would own up to my power. I don’t have any real power, but I do. I am a nobody, but I’m a somebody, too. I have too easily accepted the nobody part, but not the somebody part. In a perfect world, I would be somebody now. Act like I’m somebody’s mamma and get it together already. Fight for my life. Fight for the joy in my heart that so wants to live. Fight for my peace of mind. Fight to have good relationships. Use my words to build up instead of break down. Oh, I so want to learn how to use my words to build up instead of break down. I had gotten pretty good at it when I went overseas, but then these people… Dees people be working my nerves and sometimes I just feel like enough is enough. Somebody has got to tell somebody, because obviously they don’t know if they’ve been walking around the Earth with this wickedness for so long. Sometimes I feel like people come to me because they want to hear the truth. Because they want to heal and grow… And I come to them, too, because I want to be the truth. Because I want to heal and grow.
Another fragmented blog entry. I think the topic I had in mind was, “The Offended”. I was pondering how to get out of this place. How to move from being “the offended” and “the victim” so much. I don’t think it’s a war. I don’t think that’s the answer, to go out and try and teach all those “bad people” out there a lesson about treating us right. I think the answer is to get on the other side of things. Instead of trying to ward off the darkness, let the darkness contend with you. You be on the offense, not the defense always. I think something in this is true. I have not been alive. I have not been shining. I have only been at the effect of the darkness, instead of letting the darkness be at the effect of my light.
And it is why they say that even the darkness is a friend. It has been egging me on and egging me on and egging me on, and teaching me and punishing me until finally, we have reached a point that I have to shine. Not in response to this taunting game, but out of love for my own beating heart. Out of care for my own precious life. I have been wasting so much time putting out fires. I could just do like my friend did today when drama approaches, and tell it, “I’m so sorry, but I’m busy doing what’s good for me, which will ultimately result in what is good for more than me. I will consult with you as long as I can accomplish goodness for myself in the process.”
The war is over now. It’s time to come home…
Day 525 – The Offended
I wrote a whole 2200 words and just deleted it. I was telling on myself. Talking about all the men who cheated on me in my past and how I interacted with a man recently who wanted me to be his mistress and I almost agreed. Lied to myself and put on blinders because I was so emotionally bereft and lonely, I just wanted someone to live life with, but ultimately, I couldn’t keep the blinders on for more than a week and I had to decline the opportunity to be a kept woman with a rich sponsor in exchange for my soul and morals… And now I’m broke again because I spent the last month or so not working in anticipation of said cheating man coming into town and doing a business deal with me. The business deal did not involve him cheating with me, at least that wasn’t verbalized. But I found out later that the business deal was not really a business deal. What was really going on is that this man wanted to escape his life and have a mistress (me), and doing business in America (he’s from overseas) was just the icing on the cake… It didn’t work out. God protected me. Or whatever. Something made us fight almost every day about nothing and stopped me from jumping on his penis and he decided he didn’t want to do business after all…
I also wrote about God and religion and about how I don’t know if I’m coming or going with religion and don’t even know where to start. I don’t care about much these days. It has been this way for some months. I miss my best friend and realize that he was super wise and smart. And super abusive, too. Nobody else actually lived life with me and knew me the way he did, though, and I feel terribly lonely without him. But I know that if I reconnect with him, he will take me through the emotional mud again, and I don’t want to go through that. He offered a deeper perspective on life that I don’t meet up with too much and he was always willing to go all the way with everything, or at least be honest with himself and me if he wasn’t willing to go all the way.
I’m broke. I don’t have a job. I don’t have any plans. I don’t have any friends for real. My family is ok, but they are away from me and I am not compelled to come close because mostly I don’t feel like I’m a good thing when I’m with them and I am emotionally depleted and tired of feeling like I’m not a good thing. There’s no man in my life. I have a car that Cheater helped me to get back in my name and an apartment whose rent is officially late today and no foreseeable way to pay my rent before getting evicted and people who owe me money who will never pay. I have unfinished creative projects and a farm overseas. I have men in my life who keep their distance when I’m not ok, and come around to play when I shine. A couple of them, the ones who have no clue how to love me, want to get partnered and boo’d up for real and resent me for not picking them even at my lowest.
My problems are too heavy for anyone else to carry, and mostly, even if people I know could carry them, they wouldn’t. They have their own problems. Many of them have problems worst than mine, and feel like I should help them.
I feel nothing, but will tap in now so I don’t fall into disassociating again. What are you feeling, Laydie? I am feeling lost, alone, and afraid. What do you need, Laydie? I can see that you need Love. Unconditional Love.
I am writing this blog to sort things out. To decide if I want to live or die. Death is not only for the dead. You can living a living death, just a zombie in this world. I want to live. A living life. I want to live. My will is weak, but there none the less. I want to live.
This is the hardest day of my life. This one right here. I know you’ve read a lot of busted blogs from me, but right here? This is the hardest day so far. Because I am not in fantasy land. I am totally aware of just how dire my situation is, probably not even all the way aware. And I feel totally alone. In the past, I have been a blind optimist, and me not seeing the potential bad things that could happen and the bad things are happening helped to shield me and keep my mind stable. I see the bad things now. I see the bad things that have happened in my life. So many. Not even blaming anyone. I will take all the blame. It still hurts. It still hurts to be here all alone not knowing what to do and not knowing where to go and not really having anyone who you think can and will help you for real without asking you to give things you don’t want to give.
This is the day that I’m doubting whether or not anything I believed in was true. This is the day I’m questioning the meaning of life and trying to find something to keep me interested in being here. I am not interested. I am not interested in saving the day and getting the money to pay rent and working some job with people I’m not connected to just to come home and pay rent again. I don’t know how to fix anything. I don’t know how to fix anything in my life. Let’s just be honest. If we knew how to do it, then we would do it. Or maybe we know, but we don’t follow what we know.
This is not a motivational post. It’s just me musing and processing. And deciding. Can I find a part of me that’s willing to stay here? Not so much. But I’m not tryna off myself, either. What can I find? What can I do? I am still here, in limbo. I can’t just wake up one day and say abra cadabra and all my life is changed. I don’t know what religion to start with or what my purpose of life is supposed to be. If I’m being honest, I just don’t know. I’d like to say all this and that, but I really don’t know. I think everyone is just holding on to whatever they can hold on to. Whatever can make sense to them. But there are holes in so many philosophies. But we just want something to hold on to… something to make sense.
So, I have agreed that I don’t want to die. I want to live, but I am so broken that I can’t honestly say that I believe in this good life any more. I don’t know if it’s possible for me. I don’t know if I’ll be able to figure it out. I don’t know if God loves me so much that he will give me something that I’ve barely ever seen in people who come from where I come – peace of mind, happiness, integrity, good relations.
I know that the choice I make today will determine so many other things in my life. I just got played and got my heart broken. Again. This time, I saw it coming and stepped right into it. Is it possible that I could do anything or be anything good, God? I am losing faith. I need to see You and hear You and feel You boldly.
I know this post is fragmented, but I’m going to post it anyway. If you are a friend or family of mine, don’t worry about me. I will be fine. Or I won’t be. I don’t know. What I need more than anything is just to be Loved. Just to be seen as a good thing. Please don’t ask me for anything. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to listen. I just want to be seen as a good thing. Just see the goodness in me. Just see the possibility for a good life for me. I can’t see it right now. I can’t see the goodness in life right now, but I know that just because I can’t see it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist, and so, God, I’m going to stay here, willing. I’m not going to pretend. I’m not going to lie to myself anymore. I’m not going to say I feel what I don’t feel or that I don’t feel what I feel.
But I am going to stay in it. Ok. That’s what I can do. I can stay in it. And I can keep taking steps as I’m directed, the best that I know how, religion or not. I’m gonna go do what you said now and apply for some money and read a book. Bless You, Everyone. I hope we make it through…
Sincerely,
Laydie
Day 524
Stay In It
I’ve been crying for a long time. Been crying so long, I started getting dark circles under my eyes and my used-to-be-white eyes started looking reddish and brownish… Vanity wins again. I looked at my brownish eyes the other day and said, “something must be done.”
Yesterday was the first time in a long time that I didn’t cry. It was lovely. My eyes got almost white on that same day. I felt a freedom. Ninety-eight percent of my brain was cloudless. There was a lot of tomfoolery going on with different things, but I didn’t feel sad about it. I was OK. I spent Christmas eve alone in my dirty room, and I was OK with it. I was even proud of myself. I had gotten invited to go a couple places. Men – the bane of my existence – had invited me out. Men who wanted me in ways I didn’t want them. I was proud of myself because I didn’t go. Even though I was alone and would have preferred company to being alone, I would have preferred being alone than having encounters that would ultimately be more detrimental than good for all parties involved…
I woke up on time this morning. Got up before my alarm. Ate my two oranges and drank water before going into yoga class. I made it to yoga class. I added my physical therapy stretches into the yoga routine and sat in the warrior pose as long as they told me to, even though it was painful… I was supposed to be meeting with a friend this morning and was thinking about asking him for us to get breakfast burritos when we meet up. They have awesome breakfast burritos on his side of town.
A voice in my head said he was gonna cancel and I should go buy ingredients to make an egg sandwich instead, the kind my brother made for me when he nursed me back to health. I had to go to the store anyway, because I had to buy some items to groom my feet and hair. At the Walgreens that I went to, they didn’t have the food that I wanted to buy, so I bought the stuff for my feet and hair. Then I sat outside in my car to meditate for a bit. I was feeling really grateful. I looked up at the sky. The sun was just barely rising and in the foreground was a building that had a “Bank of Hope” sign on it. Bank of Hope resonated with me. I took it as a sign. Took a picture of the sky. Maybe I will use it as my Facebook cover, I thought. And Bank of Hope, too. Maybe I am entering into a huge bank of hope, I thought.
Then I got a text message. I already knew what it was. My friend was canceling our meetup. He did. In classic, stank, cold fashion, like he always does when he cancels stuff. He said he had a dream that told him not to meet up with me now. I was heartbroken. I know. I’m not supposed to be. But whatever. That’s what happened. This particular friend is actually my ex-boyfriend. The first “official in-person” boyfriend that I ever had. We got together when I was 19 and he was 18 years old and stayed together for a year. I ended up dumping him because I wanted to see some old raggedy man whom I (thought) I was in a long-distance relationship with and had been in love with before said boyfriend, but who disappeared from my life without exit for more than a year. Old Raggedy had reappeared on the scene. Called my mamma’s house and left a message for me. I had to see him, but couldn’t see him with a boyfriend in tow. So I broke up with the best man I’ve ever been with. Crushed his heart. Of course it didn’t work out with Old Raggedy. And after seeing Old Raggedy, I couldn’t get back with Best Man. I liked him very much and didn’t tire of spending time with him, loved him even, but I wasn’t passionate about our relationship and I wasn’t pulled towards him the way I was pulled towards Old Raggedy. Being with him was more peace than I’d ever known, but there was a part of me that just wasn’t sure that I’d be with him forever…I couldn’t crush Best Man’s heart like I did ever again, and I wouldn’t get back with him unless I knew that I was never going to leave him again…
But I couldn’t commit to that. I thought he was too young. I thought he didn’t know who he was. Nothing bad had ever happened to him. He lived with wonderful parents – a pretty homemaker mom and a handsome psychologist dad – in a house with his own bedroom, and his two siblings were nice to him and he had a lot of good friends and his dad gave him his car when he started college and he was just awesome. But he had never been hurt by anything, and because of that, I didn’t trust that his idealistic view of life and positive attitude would last. I couldn’t commit to being with someone who had never been hurt. He would change, I thought, by life’s first blow, and I didn’t know what he would change into. At the time, it didn’t even occur to me that maybe I could protect him from all the painful stuff in life, and maybe he could protect me.
So we broke up, and I wouldn’t get back with him, and I became his life’s first blow, followed by women who treated him worse than I did and so many disappointments and heartbreaks.
When I moved to California, he came shortly after me. After asking for us to get a place together and then flaking on the day we were supposed to pay the money and move in, we lived down the street from each other for a year or so. He’s an artist of all sorts. He was supposed to draw pictures for a children’s book I wrote, but couldn’t. Didn’t. I edited his first published work. Or at least I edited the first draft. I didn’t like working with him. He wasn’t taking my notes and was chopping up and taking out all of the best material from his work. And he was mean. He was in this phase where he felt like he had to be mean and strong and dominating in order to get things done. I was in the beginning phases of recognizing my deep need for kindness and flow…
When he was broke and down and out, I would help him with money, food, my heater. I ask him for help with stuff sometimes. Sometimes he comes through… We have lived between five to fifteen minutes away from each other for most of the time I have been in LA. For the past four or five years, we talk on average about six times a year at the most and see each other maybe once or twice a year. Sometimes we pass along jokes or ideas via text…
He had been depressed for a long, long time, and started identifying with the dark things in the world. In the past year or so, he started seeing a counselor or psych person and got diagnosed as autistic. He is public on his social media about his diagnosis and also about the fact that he has been starting to feel happy and optimistic about things. He joined a fraternity and started hanging out with a new group of people.
Yesterday, I had such an urge to hug him. I wanted to see him. I wanted to hug him. I had this hug in me, and it wasn’t for just anybody. It wasn’t for whatever men were calling and trying to meet up with me. It was for Best Man. I called him and we talked. I told him I Loved him so much and I wanted to hug him. He said it was the nicest thing he had heard in a long time. He said he had been around such cold people and had forgotten how warm people can be. I was so looking forward to seeing him and hugging him…
After writing out our story, I understand why he flaked today. It was too much. How dare I open up his heart if I’m not gonna stay? I’m not mad at him. I know, you’re probably mad at me for breaking an innocent’s heart. I’m mad at me, too. I wish I could take his heartbreak away, and every other thing that happened as a result of it. What would his life had been like if he never met me? I don’t know if he would have finished college. I used to tutor him during his freshman year. He couldn’t pass the math test to take college class and would complain about how the test was unfair and how it was too hard. In my classic bully way, I told him that if he couldn’t do college math, he was too dumb to be in college. He took it as a challenge, and through our tutoring, was able to pass the test and prove to himself that he wasn’t too dumb to be in college, or too dumb to do anything if he put his mind to it. I never thought he was too dumb to be in college, by the way. I knew he could pass that test if he got over the idea of thinking that it was too hard. So maybe I did something good for him. I made him believe that he can do stuff, even if it’s hard and even if it takes a long time. Who knew that he was autistic and he would need to believe this in order to get along in life. According to him, 80 percent of people diagnosed with his condition at his level can not function on their own in life.
I’m sorry that I hurt him. I’m so sorry that I left him. And I’m so sorry for the bullshit experiences of friendship and love that he has had for so long. I still can’t marry him. Maybe I could, but he is stubborn and he is deeply entrenched in the survival game of life. You know, in America, we learn all these theories that don’t hold water in other places. Here, we learn to only be with someone if you want to be with them exactly as they are and don’t think about changing them. In other places, like my mom’s country, they are taught that people will change and grow, so, if a person has a characteristic that you don’t like and you want to be with them, just be with them. And try to change them. LOL. It’s ok to try to change people in other places. And sometimes people change. Sometimes they don’t, though. I don’t know which theory is better… For Best Man, though, for today, he did what he did to protect his heart. I know the feeling of being in love with someone and they leave you only to come back in your life and tease you with their love and leave again.
I’m not mad at him. I wasn’t trying to come back and tease him. I just wanted to hug him because he so needs a hug and I so need to share all this love in my heart with people who I actually love who won’t hurt me.
God, what am I supposed to do with his hug? You say to give it to myself… And let the energy radiate out from me to anyone safe who will receive it. And so I will.
The good news is, I am finally willing to forgive myself for hurting my angel of a Best Man, and I am thinking about being willing to forgive the people who Loved me and hurt me tragically. Maybe they didn’t mean it. I’m sure some did, but others didn’t. And I’m sure if I look hard enough and imagine how my life would be had I never met them, I would find that they have given me some key tools that will carry me the full distance for this part of my life… Have a beautiful day. Merry Christmas.
Day 523
Merry Christmas
I talked to mom earlier. She’s super sad. Me, too. I’m feeling super sad. A different kind of super sad. There is always so much to write about, but I’m in the Writer’s Guild library and they close in 25 minutes, and I want to post something before I leave, so I’ll edit as I’m writing and hopefully something good will come out.
It’s been one of those days. One of those weeks. One of those years. One of those decades. I decide to sit up straight instead of slump over in a powerless posture like I’m currently inclined to do. I think the problem is Love. Not enough given. Not enough received. Wondering how we got here. Eyes opening. Seeing the darkness in the world. Feeling the pain that we’ve been staving off for so long.
Not knowing how to fix it. Not knowing how and where we fit in all of this.
My greatest fear coming to fruition. Can I tell you a secret? I think I might have told you this already. When I was younger, eight years old to be exact, my school put me in a gifted and talented program called S.P.I.R.A.L. Once a week, a bus would come and pick me and a few other kids up, and we would go to this fancy bigger school for a day, and play with puzzles and games and do all this brain stuff. It was weird to me and I had no idea why I was there. All I knew is that it was different. And we were supposed to be smart. Or special. Or weird. When we came back to our regular school, the other kids looked at us like we were weird. I didn’t like it.
I stayed in the gifted and talented, or GT program throughout elementary school, and then when I got to middle school, I was in the gifted and talented program again. I didn’t really take classes with the cool kids or the normal kids. And, on top of being in the weird GT program, people would tease me because of my skin color and my hair and my height and my pimples… I wanted to bad to be normal and fit in somewhere. My friends were the odd balls who didn’t have friends…
When high school came around, I had figured out what to do about my hair and my acne had calmed down a bit and I started dressing cool and I grew a butt and some boobs that made up for my height. All of a sudden, I was attractive and the popular boys and cool girls wanted to be my friend. I was supposed to be in gifted and talented classes again, but I told my mom I didn’t want to be in them. And so she let me be in normal classes. We both didn’t understand the implications then…
I’m telling you this story because since I was small, I never wanted to not be normal, even if not being normal meant being smarter than normal. I wanted to fit in. I didn’t want to get too smart. I didn’t want to do too much.
The funny part is, all my life, I haven’t been fooling anyone but myself, thinking I fit in all this while, while other people are looking at me and wondering why I’m hanging out with the normies…
So now, here we are. My greatest fear. Through pure necessity for survival, I have been forced to tap into the depths of the core of my being, because I want to live in spite of everything, and guess what I found out? I’m not normal. I don’t belong. My greatest fear… Of course it’s not true. Perhaps the not being normal part is true, but not the I don’t belong part…
My mom has been through a lot this past year. I don’t know why I feel so sad for her. She and I have been through a lot. I know that she wants exactly what everyone wants. Someone to love her. For real. Not look at her with a scowl. Give her a safe place. Forgive her even if she is nuts and just see the love in her heart. Hold her. Listen to her. Respect her. Enjoy her company. I want the same, but haven’t figured out how to create. Dumped all my friends.
I miss them… What can I say? I miss them. We’ve spent our lives together. My best friend and I have talked almost every day for almost the past twenty years… It’s not his fault that I woke up one day and needed someone to look at me without a frown on their face. He’s been frowning at me regularly for the past twenty years and I’ve been ok with it. But I’m not ok with it now, and he can’t change, even if he tried… What to do?
I don’t have the answer. Find new friends? It feels like such a betrayal. But staying in situations where people are just causing you so much pain doesn’t feel right either. Maybe I’ll go talk to a counselor about this. Yep. I will.
What I want to say, even though I feel sad and I wrote a sad blog, is a realization that came to me earlier. We’ve been here for a long, long time. In this loop. On this sad of happy. We cross over every now and then, but never fully. Something profound has happened to me recently. This open window in my brain. I can see things for what they are. And what I want to say is, let’s make a decision. Don’t be captured by the sadness. Sure, it’s here. Sure, there’s a lot of processing to do. But the most powerful thing we can do for ourselves and our lives is to make a decision and a commitment. Let’s make a decision to break through. Now. We’ve been here long enough. This story is sad enough. We’ve paid all of our dues. We understand now. We’ve learned our lessons. We’ve been humbled to the ground.
We. Have. Found. Ourselves.
Yes, we have. We’ve been here all along. Let’s make a decision now. God didn’t leave us along just to suffer. I don’t understand most of any of it, but I know that there is power in a true 100% decision. Let’s choose to break through. Now. We’ve been here long enough. It’s time. Come with me, please. I am going to the other side. All the way. I want you to come with me. Please. Don’t let all my words go in vain. Come with me. We can do this. We deserve this. Let’s go to the other side. Now…
Day 522
The Other Side (Come With Me)
My brain is working now. Almost. 97 percent. But this is the clearest my mind has been in months. The heavy depression, or craziness, or adjustment disorder with mixed disturbance of emotion and behavior, is not taking me over, and I can see clearly now on this rainy day in LA.
I have been here for years, in this energy loop, haven’t I? I spoke with someone who’s known me since I was young today. She said she doesn’t see me living this life, scrapping by, sad, hair not growing (she didn’t say that part), not having enough money for stuff. She said she imagined I would be super rich and thriving and happy. That she looks up to me. I saw it finally. I saw that I have been here for years. Years. And this is not what I had in mind for my life.
A space cleared up in my brain. Like a window. An opening. I have been here, closed up in this foggy, confused, dark place for so long. I don’t even remember the days when I was so happy and thriving and carefree. And rich. And beautiful. But the people who knew me before remember. And the people who meet me brand new expect. I guess these years of my life have been the worst of me. I didn’t know there was a worst of me, but now I know. I guess that’s how compassion is built.
In the midst of the worst of you, can you remember? Overcome by darkness inside and out, can you hold on to the glimmer of light in you? I’m not telling you that I could. I couldn’t. I forgot it was there. I became consumed by a dark and heavy cloud for so long. But the light… The light has always been there. It never went away. I just couldn’t see it in so long. My life has been so sad for so long. My inner world has been such a storm for so long…
Do you know what I have learned in all this time? My head is hurting as I’m writing, I kid you not. What I have learned – what is taking root in me – is that God Loves me. I know you weren’t expecting that one, but that is the most important thing that I’ve learned. God Loves us. You say it is not true and there is no God and I say it doesn’t matter what you think is true. If you can not believe that you are loved, then how can you face the world?
Today I thought about my baby nephews. They don’t have to pray. They don’t have to adopt a religion and say affirmations in order to be taken care of and nurtured. They don’t need to know how to forgive or apologize for smacking someone in the head before they are given food and a safe place to lay their head. They, and so many of us, come into the world and we are fed. We are bathed. We are given places to eat. And then we are programmed and taught by whatever family we end up in, and the rest is history.
We make so much meaning out of all of it. We make it mean that we are good. Or we are bad. Or we are lucky. Or unlucky. Or God is good. Or there is no God. Or heaven is better. Or life is only here. We decided what people like us are capable of having and then we go about living it. And most of the time, we don’t even realize that we have any control over any of the awful things that happen to us. And some of the time, we don’t. And it all gets so confusing. We shut down, get sick, close off, involve ourselves in the most painful of experiences, stay afraid, don’t even dream our dreams, much less live them.
This has been me. I came into this blog that way. I couldn’t see myself. A scared, traumatized bird just flapping and flapping in a cage, not knowing how to fly anymore. Not remembering that I could fly. Just hoping that I will be safe somewhere. Just hoping that whoever did it to me won’t do it anymore and not even knowing what he/she did.
I lost my mind. I really did. In this time since my last entry, I freaking lost my mind. So much happened with family and friends. I lost most of my friends. Me and my best friend for over twenty years, the person I talk to almost every day, had a falling out. I don’t know if we’ll get back together again. All kinds of craziness happened with family. Car got towed. If I write out all that has happened in a mere month a half, the clouds will come back in my brain, and I want to hold on to this opening, this oxygen that this open window provides so all I will say is,
“My barn having burned down, I can now see the moon.” — Mizuta Masahide
and I learned that I don’t know much, but I know much.
And that I have no power at all, but I am super powerful.
And that plants grow. The don’t have to read a book or go see a counselor or practice anything to grow. They grow if you plant them in the right soil and they have water, sunlight, and protection.
I am my own kind of plant. We are our own kind of specie, but we grow.
My thoughts were consuming me and so I decided to stop giving them credence. My brain broke and I stopped making it mean anything. Heck, I couldn’t make it mean anything if I wanted to. I was busy trying to get my body to stop trembling so that I could send out a text and ask for help. And I asked. And I decided that I want to live. I want to thrive. I do. The open window in my brain is not big enough yet for me to yell these things with passion, but it is here, and in the clarity of oxygen in my brain, I know that it does not make sense to make too much meaning out of things. I don’t know.
I could beat myself up for being in this energy loop for so long. For taking over ten years to finish a project that would honestly take ten months of part-time attention at most. For being so poor for so long even though I’ve had money in big sums and so many opportunities to make money. For having so many dysfunctional, unsatisfactory relationships with so many people – men, friends, colleagues, family… For being the perpetrator and victim of so much pain. I could make this almost ten year dark night mean that I’m a bad person. That I’m cursed or something. That somewhere in my childhood, I did something really bad. That I picked the wrong religion. That I’m crazy, stupid, dumb, weak… Or I could say that I’ve been going through an initiation. I’ve been learning all of the deep things about myself and humanity that I will need in order to be a great humanitarian and artist. I could make all of this mean that I’m brilliant, strong, powerful… I could say I’ve been being blessed out of the wazoo with such depth of experience, and I could find evidence for all of the meaning I’m trying to make.
But the window in my brain gets smaller when I try to make meaning, and I need to breathe. And so I go in the direction where the oxygen pours in. When I just give thanks that I have found a window where I can breathe, my mind is soothed. When I just allow for the possibility that there are Universal forces focused right at me, helping me, no matter what has happened or hasn’t happened in my life, and when I allow myself to accept help, my brain is nourished and my body relaxes a bit,
I wanted to reach out and give something today. I have been hoarding my self. I thought I was only good enough if I had something good to give. IT’S A LIE.
“Give now. Just give. It will land where it is needed,” You say.
So here. I offer you a window. A reminder that you are more than this dark cloud. There is light in you yet. Even if you don’t know what all of this means and why it all happened… Even if you never know and it takes you a long, long time to get it right, I still Love you. I forgive you. I still Love you… Be Blessed.
Sincerely,
Laydie
Day 521
A Gift (On Making Meaning)
