What?

What do I need? What do I like? What do I want? What makes me happy? We must ask ourselves; if you don't know, no one can know for you

So much change, such little time

I've had a couple things to write, but either haven't been presented with time or able to just plain old convey my thoughts. I think I'm moved into the territory of the weight of my thoughts truly being my own.

Everything you want, everything you think of is controlled by you. My in depth re-connection with Jesus has re-established my feelings on all these things. In the last two months I've realized how much of a negative person I've become in the last three years and how I let the feelings, behaviors and thoughts of others overrule my own thoughts, feelings and behaviors. I also realize the depth in which I exhibited no self control. Especially in the mental department. My thoughts and feelings have been..erratic. I used to be so tailored in the art of planning, and thinking things through and having order and after a few life events, I just let everything including myself be..chaotic. I developed severe stress patterns resulting in high level panic attacks all because I haven't in three years practiced controlling my thoughts. MY thoughts.
In the last two months..baby gone, losing the All-Star, still job hunting etc I've actually used all my spare time and even non-spare time to slow my thought process down. Entirely.
When I feel anxious, I stop. Review what is going on, what is the source of my anxiety, and make a plan as to how to attack it IF it can be attacked. If not, move forward and seek in prayer for a positive resolve. I've been doing this same problem solving, thought-controlling process when I'm anxious, saddened, angered, feeling worthless..any feeling or state of emotion that isn't a positive one. I've also truly elevated into a state of gratitude that I never looked at that in the loss of child I could've lost my own life in the process, but I didn't because God is with me. At all times. I truly, have nothing to complain about. People make mistakes, and shit happens but I've spent so much time..three whole years trying to make things happen WITH other people instead of focusing on making things happen for myself.

I realized how silly and misguided I've been for such a long time.

My greatest fear has been to be ALONE, so I stayed in a truly detrimental relationship with the Ex-Significant for all that time. I wound up finding and experiencing true love with the All-Star but just for the timing to not be right. To wind up ALONE, to truly, truly realize that I'm not alone and never have been. God has been and is with me.


I don't feel the anxiety in severe droves that I used to and experience 1-3 panic attacks per day. I'm down to 1 per week...if that, and short lasting. There's a comfort and freedom in realizing that you're not alone, never have been and never will be. It's the poison of the mind that roots deep to convince you of otherwise. So though in the physical sense that I'm "alone" I don't feel alone for a minute.
There's a freedom in realizing that all my decisions are truly that of my own and that as a standing adult I have to answer to no one but myself. The All-Star and I aren't on negative terms, and if I see it fit that I want to go out to dinner with him then it's my prerogative. No one's feelings and opinions are relevant. I'm going to do as I see fit anyway, because only I and God know what's best for me. If I'm working in a retail position because that's whats available to me at this time, doesn't make me any lesser of a person because I may not be able to afford the luxuries that I used to, or go out as much or even at all.

I've been spending a better amount of time with my parents..especially my mom, who for years her and I have always had a terrible relationship. Things have been going so much smoother. Give and take. In losing something so great, as a child, I always said my heart is never going to beat the same again..and it doesn't. I think about it often, but my heart beats differently when I see my mother. I understand her better. I understand ME on a whole new playing field. I know how to decipher what I want versus what I don't want. If I can't make these decisions for me, then how would I be able to make them when my mother becomes elderly and needs me and going forward for a baby that will need me to make executive decisions 24/7? My heart beats with passion for what I want and what I want solely. What I want for my family, what I want to see myself with...not just in the physical, but in the mental. How I want to evolve as a woman of class and grace. I want to take cooking classes, and learn to cook not just the cuisine of my nationality but all foods, I want to practice Ashtanga yoga for physical strength but also its mental principles, and pole dancing for the hell and fun of it. I want to root myself in self-sufficiency and worldliness. I want to learn more about African-American history..and Jamaican history. I want to become saavy with a wrench and screwdriver, so I don't have to incessantly call upon a man-whether it be my father, brother, uncle or some significant other to install my own shit. I want to be able to put something together and stand back and tall and say "I did that". No one the fuck else, "I did that". I want to learn about wines and pottery. Finance and home fixtures. I want, I want, I want.
And finally, I will have. I will create.

I repeatedly said 2010 has taken the cake for being the sole worst year of my life..a continuation of drama, pain and problems from 2007 and 2009 especially. The majority of year has been negative only because of my outlook. I never realized that when you workout through pain, you gain muscle. I've made it to my breakthrough point. Not breakdown, but breakthrough. All this has been preparation from God. Now I want and hunger for ME. And all this muscle I've gained, I finally see the definition I've sought after and I can finally put it to good use starting in 2011, and for the rest of my life.

Figuring Out the Self

I've spent a lot of time since my last post meditating, praying and figuring things out for my life. I've started to put an insane level of focus on myself.

Almost hourly, prayer has become a routine, whether I've been suffering from anxiety or not. What's been the best part of the meditation and high level of prayer, is that I'm truly realizing more and more about myself on a daily basis. If not even at some points an hourly basis. I've realized how severe my anxiety is and how much I hate it. I've realized that it's truly stemming from fear of the unknown-what people might say to me in a confrontation, people's reactions etc. The physical symptoms of my anxiety actually create MORE feelings of anxiety manifesting it further.

I've realized that cleaning and organizing calms me down in a great way. Some people when they're stressed or anxious feel this relief in exercise, I truly feel it in cleaning and organizing. I've realized that I am a true stress eater..when I'm depressed and sad as I have been I possess no appetite whatsoever, but when I'm anxious specifically I feel a hunger that isn't satisfied when it should be. Prayer and listening to church sermons immediately lifts my anxiety. It lifts it so quickly that it's almost comparable to taking an emergency injection that just breaks the skin and rushes through the blood stream. So let's re-phrase that, Jesus lifts my anxiety.

I'm taking slow comfort in being by myself and learning what I like, what I dislike, changing things that I want to change in myself, etc. I'm taking more care of my physical body..actually paying attention to it. Things that I was always "too rushed" to do, I'm doing for myself while asking God to shower me in His peace, love, poise, grace and glory. I thought that this was the worst thing I could ever be doing..being alone, taking the time to focus on myself...Hell, I've had wild tantrums over how much I don't want to be alone and focus on myself. This actually is a good thing..it's a necessary thing.

I feel as if I have it figured all out but I know I still need to take things slowly..take things one day at a time as I have been, continue to be routed in prayer and making small positive changes. I think about the baby regularly......
But somehow, have been okay enough to not cry so much when I think of her, and what she would've been. I'm not sure if you can miss something that you didn't fully have..but I miss her. I miss looking forward to knowing what she would've looked like, and I miss her moving inside me..

But...one day at a time..
Looking at this entry, I know my thoughts are choppy.. it feels like my mind is all over the place while I'm trying to write and not putting things in a flowing form but as chaotic as it may seem, one thing I'm sure of is that I have peace. Or I'm on my way to fully receiving peace. I'm slowly feeling more love and abundance than I've ever felt. I'm coming into realizing the truth behind when people tell you they love you, what forms that love versus care come in, what I deserve as a woman and what I don't deserve as just a human being.

The thing I deserve the most, is the manifestation of peace.

Finding The Heart

Lately, I've truly been weighing the worth of having a heart.

The levels of pain I've been feeling, I've almost begged God for the ability to no longer feel.

It's complicated though. The inability to feel doesn't determine one's inner strength, but makes you appear to the public to be strong. The more robotic one appears to be, is the more the public perceives that person to be "strong". So then, what is strength? Also, what is love? What's it like to feel strong..is it being able to lift a car like Superman? Or the ability to be a stable support system to the one who needs you in a time of crisis? Or maybe it's being able to swallow a double shot of whiskey without making a face, as if you just drank water. Or is it just the ability to keep moving in your darkest hour with some supernatural faith that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

I've been angry with myself for as long as I can remember for feeling as if I've been cursed with too big of a heart. The way I'll bend over backwards, the incessant displays of loyalty and unconditional love that I feel are never returned in full. Whenever those people hurt me, I blame myself for having too large of a heart in the first place. But is it my heart that's really the problem? What if I don't know my heart to begin with? If I just know that I'll do anything for love.

Anything.

I'll do anything to make people feel good, smile, laugh or promote love and being in love. That's where this heart of mine has always been, in love. My heart feels a mess when love is missing and to lose so much love in such a short period of time I haven't been sure what to do with myself. I haven't been sure why I even exist. Maybe this is part of it. Maybe it's to be a 5'5 cupid sans the wings, but with eight times the heart. Or maybe I don't exist for any particular reason at all..
But this feels like the last attempt in my soul to figure it out..to wonder why God has given me such beautiful ideas, such beautiful people and I have nothing to show with it. I've done nothing with them, because I don't know what to do.
Maybe...
I'm just not paying attention...

But...

If He put this last idea into my head, The Finding the Heart Project, then let's see if this is why I exist. To find my heart, and to help others find theirs. Even while questioning the worth of having a heart to begin with. Sometimes, the idea of being a steel robot doesn't seem so bad...until one day, like me, you're laying on your back and looking at a moving ultrasound.

And you know what...
You hear a heartbeat that isn't yours, but is worth to you more than all the gold in the world.
In that moment, a having heart is heaven on earth.

Saran Wrap

Its when you inhale and you feel the hollow spaces in your chest, almost like multiple big holes in a piece of Saran Wrap...that's how my heart has been.

I haven't written.....
Mainly because I've literally felt in too much grief to write. I've tried. Believe me, I've tried. Maybe I haven't written, because..there isn't much to say. People always advise that you talk your feelings out and talking them out..hasn't altered my reality. Sometimes, it just reinforces a reality I don't want to believe.
I feel virtually future-less. If "future-less" could actually be rendered a term.

To be pregnant.
To lose a baby.
To separate from the love of my life.
All in such a short period of time..is a bit more than much to handle.

I have no appetite. I don't see a reason to be outside my actual bedroom, let alone not laying in the bed. I force myself to go outside. I force myself to answer phone calls. I put away the ultrasound photo..of a girl, due on 2/14/2011 what I feel would've been the best Valentine's Day of my entire life.
Him and I still love each other..and its something between us that I can't explain. Nothing has changed. We're just separating. Just to go into two separate corners and figure things out for awhile on our own. People always say "if you love something, you let it go and if it comes back then it's yours". That's what we're doing. Making our own plans as individuals and if we come back to one another, then we do belong together. We both went through such an ordeal and he has been the person I've been able to turn to the most. The only person that truly understands the source of my thoughts and feelings and has served as a source of wisdom and thorough comfort, always knowing the right and best things to say.

Every time that I'm with him and analyze the relationship in full...I realize that I always thought I knew what love was in my previous relationship. I didn't have a clue. I know now. I know what it's like to truly have, true love. As much as that's not the only thing that makes a relationship work, I know what it's like to fully experience true and unconditional love.

And it's beautiful.
I am his blood, and he is mine..and regardless of what ever may happen especially for a baby shared, we will always be family. Always.

It's hard to move forward, in the terms of everything. I feel like I have no future to move towards. I have no career. I have love in my heart, but not in the physical tangible sense as both my love and baby are gone. My resume on life has been graduating college, destroying my physical body with a thyroid condition and drinking liquor like life elixir as if my liver is cool to follow for mass shutdown. Add a couple of missing main events of family and friends lives being upstate in college for the four years, a lot of financial debt trying to fix my heart and impress people who weren't important. Missing my little brother's entire high school career. I don't have much to show for anything.

I hear my baby's heartbeat in my ears and remember to vividly what it's like to drink an entire slurpee from 7/11 and how quickly she would move. My body is almost fully back to normal, and I look at it with a loathing that I didn't know I could experience. That my stomach is flat again, and my belly button has retracted back. Or when I lay awake and cry all hours of the night because there's no movement inside of me, or that my breasts are leaking with a milk that now serves no purpose. I've contemplated suicide more than I think my brain can handle. I truly feel as if I have no reason for existence and if it be that I do, that maybe I've done all I need to do already. I've been a part of a couple people's lives outside my family and we have some beautiful memories that I'm sure will last them.

Other than that.....there's no plan. No goals. No dreams.
Once you poke holes in a piece of saran wrap, you need an entirely new piece.
And I have no idea where to get a new one..a new heart.

Gloria

My grandfathers both passed the Christmas of 1985, the year before I was born the April 1986. Therefore, of course, I never knew either of them..or what it was like to have a “grandpa”. The grandmother I did know passed away in 2004, week and a half before my sophomore year of college. Since then, I’ve always said without her wisdom and guidance I’ve been free-falling through my life. Trying insane stunts, getting arrested, racking up debt and practicing a lot of self loathing based on full absorption of others’ opinion of me.

I’ve felt like for awhile it just may always be that way. My parents are young..text messaging, Blackberry users, who DVR their favorite shows and wear the latest designs. Responsible? Absolutely and without question. Young? Indeed. I don’t find them lacking in knowledge, my fathers passion for accounting, Greek and Roman mythology and economics probably makes him the most intelligent person I know. My mother is more domestic and earthy, an artist skilled at every form from pottery to painting to pencil. She’s never been the type to speak to me much about…anything, especially life advice. I’ve had to either figure it out on my own or wait to hear some skewed version from a peer who was trying to make sense of their parents understanding themselves.

Enter my grandmother.

Always the voice of instruction and reason. Patient with my childhood hyper-activity and adolescent misunderstandings. My youthful frustration with boys, education and acne. Forthright with the importance of Jesus, and never ever temperamental. And since her death, to now the age of 24 I’ve just been walking through life without a plan just seeing where men, money and friends take me or how all three could betray me.

And yesterday, I met someone. Someone named Gloria. During and after speaking to Gloria I realized that I’ve had this outer experience only twice before in my life. The moment that I was told my grandmother died and when my name was called to accept my Bachelors degree. It’s a feeling that I’m not sure if my heart has stopped beating..but I’m aware that I’m having difficulty breathing. Despite the lack of air, I’m not panicked. It’s not the fear that one experiences when the brain registers that the person is undergoing suffocation, but an almost high so powerful that its the euphoria described that one feels when they’re near dead from drowning. She would touch my hand and my spine went numb, yet a tingle of electricity would go down the back of my legs making me almost certain that they would give out beneath me. She said things to me that God has been trying to get through to me but with the absence of a grandparent, she was the right vessel. I think of all that was said, and my heartbeat slows. I’m aware of it now. It calms me. The wild, erratic, angry behavior I’ve displayed from years of feeling displaced, I finally realize I’m not displaced anymore.

Maybe I really am right where I should be in life.

There is no concept of time..or of age. Neither matter because its already planned out according to a clock I can’t control. He’s working on it, if He hasn’t worked it out already. I’m so immersed in the pains of comparison of where I should be and what I should be doing and what I should have compared to others that of course I’m resentful. There is no concept of time..nor of age. There isn’t a proper age to graduate college, or buy a house or own your first car or have your first baby. These time restraints are developed not by God, but by that of society. Wrinkle creams and the market towards the prevention of aging hasn’t been praised that with age comes wisdom, but that with age comes ugly. In which, is entirely untrue. For all the wisdom that’s been bestowed upon me by those who only possess wrinkles, its just shown me that with age comes power. With age comes certainty and a beauty that none of us can draw on. She said more than once, “the more you look in the mirror the ugliest you become..we’re already blessed.” She’s right. I don’t possess my own house, or car and my checking account doesn’t have a comma, but it doesn’t take away from the beauty of who I am as a person. And I’ve worried, incessantly, over sunscreen and wrinkle cream serums and turning 25 in the Spring…and for what you ask? Because I don’t have “the” car, house, husband, baby, dog, walk-in closet, you-name-it. The bitterness is what’s made me ugly, and sitting in the mirror constantly agonizing over it all and how to create it from thin air. I’m 24, and I needed someone who’s lived to 74 to tell me that wrinkles aren’t the problem, getting ugly..not physically, but making your heart ugly is all that matters. That’s what you prevent. When people are mean, you don’t return the same “sentiment”, and you don’t hold a scoring board and measure your life up to others..AT ALL.

At the end of the day, you don’t do these things because He’s working on it, if not has worked out the plan for you already. Therefore there is no concept of time. Time and age don’t matter.

September 2010. Aries Horoscope-Revisions and Reflections

Recent big plans or major moves that happened without careful analysis may be due for revision this month. Far-seeing Jupiter backs out of impulsive Aries on September 9 and will revisit imaginative Pisces until January 22 next year. It's a time to review new concepts and see if the ideas are matched by feelings. The wisdom of Jupiter in Pisces is intuitive, spiritual and imaginative, which is best received with reflection.

On September 8, the New Moon in Virgo spawns a fresh 28-day lunar cycle that's excellent for increasing efficiency and developing useful skills. Cerebral Mercury, Virgo's ruling planet, provides a boost as it turns direct on September 12, ending its three-week retrograde period when information flowed less freely. Contacts and conversations put on hold may finally begin again.

Reassessing relationships and financial matters shows up when evaluative Venus enters scrutinizing Scorpio on September 9. It's tempting to be cynical about love then since the romantic bloom tends to fade in this emotionally intense and discerning sign. Still, this is an opportunity to peer below the tranquil surface of partnerships to gauge the return on investment we get for sharing bodies, hearts and bank accounts with others.

Passions grow and desires deepen when Mars also enters intense Scorpio on September 14. The action planet's return to its watery home sign encourages persistent efforts that are not easily dissuaded. This is excellent for pushing through obstacles, but encourages some folks to continue pursuing activities that have outlived their usefulness. Still, fresh visions and original concepts blossom with a brilliant conjunction of philosophical Jupiter and innovative Uranus on September 18. The Sun's opposition to this ingenious pair kicks the need for freedom and freshness into a higher gear.

Here's the thing about ATTITUDE

Here's the thing about attitude. Your attitude belongs to you. Nobody can make you have a bad one, and nobody can make you have a good one.

Joyce Meyer, A Thankful Life 9/5/2010 telecast

Firebomb

"the lovers need to clear the road, because this thing is ready to blow..."-RIHANNA

Ive had a breakthrough, not the most positive one..but one that's self sustaining and with the person I'm dating now, the ALL STAR is all about reinforcing self sustenance. For starters I've realized what a true breakthrough is one that regardless of how it may hurt in the process..that you come out of it 150% ok. In the last week, I've truly come to grips with how much I'm affected by others opinions and actions and after this past week for the first time I've finally pushed past it. The all star and I had a dinner, outside, candlelit, gorgeous and in such a romantic setting we had such amazing conversation. The weight I put on peoples opinions, how much I believe it defines me, how I curb my feelings or desires in accordance with the opinion or action of another and most importantly how much my opinion doesn't hold any weight in my world. The combination of the 3 hour talk, reading ENERGY ADDICT 101, and missing my best friends 25th birthday party and the backlash that came as a complimentary gift....I've come to breakthrough a set of chains that's been set to my wrists since childhood.

My opinion is the only opinion of circumstance...

Point blank period. In practice of it this entire week there's been a freedom associated with it that I wish I wouldve not just come, but truly felt these conclusions earlier in my life. I've been a bomb that's exploded numerous times taking on the weight and opinions of others and everytime it gets to be too much I have to explode to remind people I'm not the one to be pestered.
It's ok though, that's what I've realized above all. It's sad to no longer consider so many people my "friend" but there's always a quote regarding that those who are true friends don't just pass through your life like a revolving door..they stick around for a lifetime. When things get rough for you they don't disappear out of your life because they don't want to be "too invested". When they aren't aware of the full story behind something or they're curious about a rumor they heard, they don't just sit there and absorb one side of the story; they come to you, their source to ask WHY something may be so.
It's been saddening, but eye opening and I can only thank GOD as much as it may hurt for bringing me to the light of reality probably before I got really hurt by these same people. People I invited into my home, etc. And what's nice is, I'm already moving forward. That's been apart of my "opinion epiphany". That something or some people aren't who you thought they were so accept it, drop it and move on. That's what I've done with both people and situations in the last week.

That's the significance of a bomb. That's the significance of an explosion, because all that stood in the way has been obliterated and cleared out. As damaging and horrific as it may seem at first, the aftermath is clean and clear. There's nothing laying around in the way left for the bomb to blow up and clear away...and you can rebuild and start anew. And that's what I'm looking forward to...

The clean path in front of me where more of the wrong people are removed from my life and the situations, though some hurtful and grave are always lessons learned nowadays. And seeing all of this, I don't think there are any bombs left to go off, just thank yous. Thanks to all of you who have shown your true colors finally so that I can be a stronger person and finally realize that neither your opinions or existence is anymore of concern to me...

You cannot doubt yourself. Doubt is a killer. You just have to know who you are and what you stand for.

Jennifer Lopez, September 2010 Glamour Magazine US

Abracadabra.

Abracadabra. The Aramaic phrase abraq ad habra means "I will create as I speak." It applies not only to what you say out loud, but also what you tell yourself.

-From SELF magazine, August 2010