2011 was the year of the bad decision. Remember the time she text the man she wasn’t supposed to text, only to get no response….which then made her feel bad so she text the other man she wasn’t supposed to text…only to get a response and decide to come over? Bad decision. Or the time you cried when the man you were seeing told you he couldn’t see you anymore, and thought the best way to get over him was to get under that OTHER guy you weren’t supposed to be texting… Only to end up crying during face-down-ass-up sex? Bad decision. Let’s not forget the time he should have gone home to his girlfriend, but instead entertained the thirsty ho on his lap in front of his girlfriend’s best friend. Bad decision. How about when she decided to sleep with him anyway, even after she found out he slept with her, her, her, and her too? Bad decision. And instead of hooking up with that nice young man there, you hooked up (again) with “He who shall not be named.” aka The Worst Decision of 2011. Ever. Yeah I know. I’ve been there too. I was there when she called him, when he didn’t call her. I heard all about it when you woke up in his bed, and I told you every detail the morning he woke up in mine. I shook the shit outta you, you shook your head at me, we scolded him and told her we understood. We stood by each other when we were all falling apart, and rotated shoulders when one had too many tears on them. Sometimes, my ears bled from listening to the same story over and over again. Sometimes, you knew what I was going to say before I said it. Other times, we didn’t see it coming. Every time, we got through it. Got over it (pfft). And moved on. This year? We all know better. This year, we won’t make the same mistakes and this year will be even better than the last. So here’s to 2012. Here’s to a better you, a better me, and better bad decisions. Matter fact, heres to flat out good decisions. Cest la vie.
Lots of things might happen. That’s the thing about writers. They’re unpredictable. They might bring you eggs in bed for breakfast, or they might all but ignore you for days. They might bring you eggs in bed at three in the morning. Or they might wake you up for sex at three in the morning. Or make love at four in the afternoon. They might not sleep at all. Or they might sleep right through the alarm and forget to get you up for work. Or call you home from work to kill a spider. Or refuse to speak to you after finding out you’ve never seen To Kill A Mockingbird. Or spend the last of the rent money on five kinds of soap. Or sell your textbooks for cash halfway through the semester. Or leave you love notes in your pockets. Or wash you pants with Post-It notes in the pockets so your laundry comes out covered in bits of wet paper. They might cry if the Post-It notes are unread all over your pants. It’s an unpredictable life.
But what happens if a writer falls in love with you?
This is a little more predictable. You will find your hemp necklace with the glass mushroom pendant around the neck of someone at a bus stop in a short story. Your favorite shoes will mysteriously disappear, and show up in a poem. The watch you always wear, the watch you own but never wear, the fact that you’ve never worn a watch: they suddenly belong to characters you’ve never known. And yet they’re you. They’re not you; they’re someone else entirely, but they toss their hair like you. They use the same colloquialisms as you. They scratch their nose when they lie like you. Sometimes they will be narrators; sometimes protagonists, sometimes villains. Sometimes they will be nobodies, an unimportant, static prop. This might amuse you at first. Or confuse you. You might be bewildered when books turn into mirrors. You might try to see yourself how your beloved writer sees you when you read a poem about someone who has your middle name or prose about someone who has never seen To Kill A Mockingbird. These poems and novels and short stories, they will scatter into the wind. You will wonder if you’re wandering through the pages of some story you’ve never even read. There’s no way to know. And no way to erase it. Even if you leave, a part of you will always be left behind.
If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die.
Originally written 11.11.09. Interesting how things are still very relevant to certain situations ain’t it? P.S. if you think I reposted this for you, I probably did. ;) Love y’all. Would you rather… be with someone you don’t love forever After playing with the “Would You Rather” app on the iPhone, my cousin and I came across this question and the both of us kinda just sat there.. let out a big sigh.. and made this sad face. cuz either way, you’re stuck. and either way, you’re screwed. being with someone you don’t love is hard. but a lot of people i know do it.. wether it be out of fear, out of comfort, or just plain laziness. some people equate self sacrifice to love, and as long as they keep trying, and keep on keepin’ on… that’s love right? no. its selling urself short. and its building a relationship full of resentment. its constantly asking urself, “What am I doing?” and not having an answer. its waking up every day knowing it could be easier, better off, or just plain happy. its going thru the motions, but never going thru the emotions. but for some people, thats ok. its enough to just have companionship, or know that someone is gonna be there for them when they come home. its enough that there’s someone who is willing to provide for them, or will love them unconditionally, even if the feelings are not reciprocated fully. its enough. and to each his own, i guess but there’s nothing like that feeling of being head over heels, can’t believe he’s with me, can’t wait to get home, shout at the mountain tops, wanna tattoo ur name on my forehead love. and once you’ve had it, its kind of pointless to settle for anything less. but what if you HAVE had it, and then lost it? then what? one of my very good friends was with the love of his life for as long as i can remember. and then they grew up and grew apart, broke up and went their separate ways. that was ummm… 5 years ago? and he hasn’t dated anyone since. they were back together for a brief period and i can honestly say that i’ve never seen him so happy. but that was short-lived and so were his smiles, and his genuine playfulness. its like, without her, he wasn’t complete. which i can completely, fully understand. sometimes you find a love so amazing that you wonder how you ever survived without it. but sometimes, it just doesn’t work out. and you go thru the motions, you become the depressed girl, the girl in denial, the miss-independent, but you also become the girl who closes her heart and gives up hope. you become the girl who is so blind to her pain, that you cannot see anything else. you become a shell of your former self, and you truly believe that only HE can make u whole again. but what if he can’t. more importantly, what if he doesn’t want to. dont you owe it to yourself to try? don’t you owe it to yourself to find happiness? don’t you owe it to yourself to take the next step? sometimes you need to stop holding on so you can start moving on. because moving on and letting go isn’t about giving up, its about growing up. and as much as we want to be 13 again, we cant be. we have to be 26 because no matter how hard we try, we are nothing more than who we are right now. and wishing for a better furture or wanting to go back to a better past wont do us any good if we dont know how to to turn then into now. we have to allow ourselves to grow past people, and places, and things, and us. we have to allow ourselves to change and to have the courage to let go of what we know and embrace what we don’t. would you rather:
or
never have that one person you can’t get over?
be in a life imagining how much better it could be
or
have the courage to pursue your own happiness?
I perused the aisles of Whole Foods yesterday and within 5 minutes was having a full on conversation with the produce guy. 15 minutes later, another patron tried to talk to me because he “liked my eyes.” Before checking out, one of the other workers told me I was beautiful and while on my way to the car, someone had the balls to stop me to ask if I could take down his number. If you’re counting, that’s 4 attempts during one trip to Whole Foods, in sweats, no makeup and with a massive pimple on my chin at that. Jeyel would call these #RaaachemProblems. Not that they’re problems to begin with, I mean, I’m flattered. It’s just that, attention from strangers isn’t really my thing. It’s great and it’s flattering, but the thing is I’m not really looking for attention. What I’m looking for, is respect. What I’m looking for, is a mutual understanding. Granted, those things don’t usually come upon first glance, nor do they come neatly packaged on aisle 14A at Whole Foods either. Talk to anyone with a little common sense and they’d tell me to just “Play on, Playette.” Add to the roster, Collect then Select. I tried that. You know where it got me? Not where I wanted to be. In reality, my roster looks like this: I’m seeing a man who doesn’t want a relationship, I had feelings for a man who doesn’t want to date a mother, and I’m missing a man who is no kind of good for me. That right there? Those are #RaaachemProblems. So I’m tired of entertaining for the sake of entertaining. I’m tired of the kind of attention that I don’t need. I’m tired of the guys who approach me who simply wish to add me to their roster. Although I am tired of being lonely, I refuse to settle for just attention. And like I was telling Abi on NYE, I’m kind of sick and tired of having 10 guys I don’t care about tell me I’m beautiful and bad and alla that, when the one person I wish was telling me all these things is nowhere to be found. #RaaachemProblems. Probably, but they’re real to me.
Throwin’ it back on a Thursday! Originally written 06.17.10. The Devil’s in the details. ‘CHUCH. It’s the smallest things that make the biggest difference. The hug from your son after a long day at work. The cupcake from your best friend “just because.” The compliment a stranger gives you on your new hair. The funny face he made at you that turns out to be the best part of your Monday. You see, as women, we notice. We notice when you call us “Sweetheart” or smile coyly at us in the mirror. We notice when you cut your hair, get a new tee, or have a new scent. We notice the way you walk into a room and how your eyes shoot straight to us upon doing so. We notice the way your voice changes when you say our name. (And we definitely notice the way our knees buckle when you do. ) We also notice when you stop saying, “I love you, too” when u get off the phone. We notice when you forget date night or fail to say anything about our new haircut. We notice when your dirty socks haven’t left the same spot on the floor for three days. THREE DAYS SEVENTEEN HOURS AND 32 MINUTES TO BE EXACT. And we notice that the only reason they made it to the hamper is because we put ‘em there. It may seem silly or unimportant, but please believe we notice when you stop paying attention. And after ignoring all the little things that could be noticed, the only thing you actually do notice is our unwillingness to “Hook you up” last night??? N****A, PLEASE. The Devil’s in the details. ‘CHUCH.
I recently had a conversation with somebody that I had been meaning to have. You know, the talk. THE talk. The talk to figure out what it is that you’re doing. The talk that induces cold sweats and stuttering from seemingly normal people. Yeah, that one. Usually I’m the one talking. This is what I want to do and this is how I want to do it. This time was a little bit different, as I was listening, absorbing, and processing, all while trying to come up with a response that didn’t leave me sounding like a dumbfounded 5 year old. It didn’t work as well as I had thought. The preceding silence didn’t quite mean that the check for understanding I had just done was successful. I suppose with the silence came the noise of my thoughts. Over-analyzing every word that was said and dissecting every bit of information laid out on the table. To say I slept restlessly is an understatement. My mind wouldn’t turn off, as I was trying to sort through the thoughts of the afore mentioned conversation. Usually, the daylight brought clarity, but that morning, I couldn’t find any through the blinds. Something wasn’t sitting well with me and it was going to take more than what I was doing to figure it out. So what was it? What is the fact that he verbalized what I had already deduced? Was it that this might have been the first honest communication I’ve had with a man in years? Or was it that he did not spare my ego for shit, as I had been used to? No, it wasn’t any of those. Perhaps it was that he insulted my intelligence with assuming that I didn’t already know what he was going to say. Abi said here that WE GET IT. And we do. We hella get it. It’s just that, you already got us. And while we’re getting everything you’re saying, we’re also getting everything you aren’t. What we don’t get, is how you can be so blasé about…well…everything. But *sigh* I get that too. I’ve come to the conclusion that, with age comes wisdom and understanding. I understand better now, regardless if I like it or not. But seriously, all this nonsense is gonna need to stop making so much sense to me. Honesty begets clarity? The only thing clear to me is that honestly, I was happier being an ignorant motherfucker.
Oh My. I would maybe sort of kind of give a reflection on the last year but I just don’t feel like it. The other day I wrote a FB status that kind of got some people up in arms about it. I said “If…
