Singe-Mindedness

I know I have been MIA recently. My apologies to my readers. November was an extremely stressful month.
But, I am back, and ready to continue doling out what I have learned from this love thing.

Which brings me to my next point.


I think Love has a very gradual learning curve. In the beginning of Love, (and I am talking about what occurs after the "infatuation" and "in-love" stages) the couple sets the stage for how to deal with problems, how to communicate, and how to deal with each other's needs. Although the TYPES of problems, or needs may change with time, the basis for how to best deal with them, can be learned in the beginning, if couples are paying adequate attention.

Unfortunately, two people entering a relationship, may not be paying that necessary attention, particularly those who have been single for a very long time....

Have I experienced this? You bet...


We'll call him Edward. Dont ask me why, it just works... And Edward is kind, funny, caring; so many things you would want from a guy. One day Edward and I made plans to go out of town together. We spent quite a bit of time planning this outing. Then, some weeks later, Edward says to me. "I want to go ____ on that day, so i think we should just do _____ together on a different day."


Well... excuse the hell out of me.


For those of you wondering what the problem is, let me tell you.
We made a decision to go, together. We planned it out, together. He changed our plans, on his own.
It would have been understandable if he simply could not go. But, in fact he wanted to do something else. Not only did he change the plan to be convenient for him, but he also made "replacement" plans for MY time. All this without consulting me.

Fantastic...
 Primarily Edward didnt understand why I was so miffed by the behavior. When he did finally understand, his response was simply. "Im so used to making the decisions."

What did I, little Ms. Love Maybe do?
I breathed deeply. And sighed. And told dear Edward that he suffered from Single-mindedness.

FROM THE DICTIONARY OF love maybe
Single-mindedness : Behaving in the manner of single person, without immediate regard for someone else's needs or concerns; primarily consulting with oneself on major decisions.

Is this the end of the world? Not at all. Single-mindedness is perfectly natural, and a common occurence. However, when a person is no longer single, such a mentality can be death to a relationshi if not discovered and remedied.

I explained to Edward that when it comes to any plans that affect both of us, the decision making should happen with both of us. He was my boyfriend, not my guardian. I felt as if he should make decisions with me, not for me.

And this is the Learning Curve. If I had not had enough maturity to articulate my feelings about the matter, it would have been extremely difficult to explain it to Edward, with productive results. As a result, he became much more sensitive to picking up on when he was being "single-minded." And although new issues may occur, he will know that not discussing conflicts with me is not the best way to handle the situation.

So, before you can try to understand your relationhip's  learning curve, you must ask yourself. "Am i Relationship-minded, or still Single-minded"?

It might save you alot of headache.


If you aren't sure which one you are, then be sure to catch next week's blog. I will go through the differences between the two mentalities, and how to become more Relationship-minded.


Ciao, Lovelies.

once upon a time i was a mermaid... and other disappointments in life.

I used to be a mermaid.


Really... dont laugh. I used to be obsessed with all things shiny, all things water. I was a lifeguard's worst nightmare. The kid who at at the bottom of the pool. This is back when I had an imagination. I could fly then too. And sometimes the sky was purple and gold and red.

I used to be an artist, of the best kind. Back when parents paid all your bills, and summers were meant for exploration and social communing.

And what am I now? I'm a "PROFESSIONAL." One of those sad, pitiable creatures who is more obsessed with making money, than how they make it, and whether or not they live in the "right" neighborhood. It's nobody's fault but my own. All my life, I have secretly been concerned with "running out." It may have something to do with where I grew up. Or all the scary statistics in the world. Mostly  I think it came from how I conceptualize difficult times. Outside of my imaginative, artistic self, was a very self-aware young lady who wasnt big on optimism, being horribly grounded in realism. I didnt have faith in things "yet to come." I only dealt in the "here and now."


It's crazy ironic to say that I was capable of imagining the most fantastic things, obsessed with the bizarre and mythical, yet, felt cemented to dealing only with present situations. Ironic, but plausible. My imagnation was my escape. It wasn't a "wish" or a "hope." Just a mental vacation.

And so, I continued to imagine. And create, from my imagining.
Somewhere along the way, someone convinced me that I could make a living with my imagination, "Creativity," they called it. I suppose imagination can be "creativity,"but only if it drives you to create. I wasnt sure that I was creative. But my whole life, people convinced that I was, put me into situations to create.

So, I sometimes created. And then they called it art.

So, I became an artist. And there I was. Stamped with a vocational label, and set off into the world. I remember when my mother wanted my label to read more practically. "Lawyer." "Doctor." "President."

I forgive you the last one mother, haha. I could never.......

An artist...
At the time, I didnt know what it really meant.
What does a professional artist do? I remember searching the internet, reading library books, magazines.. I needed to know what the instructions were for my new vocation. Surprise, surprise! Artistry doesnt really come with a manual.

Lucky me.....

So there I was, in my new vocation, pontificating on the insanity of it all, when the cosmos, evidently delayed in recieving my question, decided to answer me.
"They make art, silly. And then sell it."
Eureka! I could do that. Make art, and sell it.

Those of you that are laughing, i'll kindly ask you to stop... I just didn't know....

I began to make art. Jewelry. Paintings. Written works. Everything. I set about making anything my mind cooked up. And sold quite a bit of it. This artistry flourished most during my undergraduate years of college, when the buying population was plentiful, and location was easy. Afterwards, I was thrust, headfirst, into the world, where professional artistry is not a cakewalk, but rather a scary, earthquake of an adventure.

Death to the Artist... Enter the professional.
Money became my motivation. Money to go out. Then money to buy a car to go out in. Then money to move out (of my mother's home). Then money to stay out.
In school, when I sold my art,  I made money, of course. But it was different. Money was simply a by-product then, of sharing my imagination. I felt freedom with or without the money. Here in the real world, money was my key to everything. Sad, I know, but true.
Circumstances in my life were a bit rough financially. Consequently, money, of course, was the answer. And the end. I accepted projects for financial reasons.

Hey, you may say... atleast I was producing art.
But the motivation and the worry was about money. And then someone told me I had to learn to market myself. And that I had to pick ONE genre of art to market, and to put my energy into that, first.
I am sure this works in the business world. But to limit an artist is to kill her. So, i unknowingly shed my artist skin and became the PROFESSIONAL.

It wasn't long before what was left of the artist inside me felt malnutrition creeping in. Ive never been a one-hit-wonder artistically. Ive always had a bag of tricks, and sticking to one didn't feel successful. It felt suffocating. I didn't experiment anymore. I did what worked; the tried and true. This produce great works, sure, but there was, and still is, a part of me that craves "fresh" food. You see, I get bored very easily. I crave variety in all parts of my life, including my art. And so, I felt bored, and boring.


The artist in me was pissed! All that imagination just locked away in a box, because the Professional couldn't afford to make mistakes. And experiments led to mistakes. Mistakes cost money. The Professional didnt believe in wasting money.

Enter: The Breakdown.

Last month, I had a nice mental breakdown. Some therapists might call it a "quarter-life crisis." a new condition that affects twenty-somethings whose adolescence was held in suspension because of time spent in undergrad. "Postponed adults," they called us. We would experience certain freedoms and adult decisions much later in life than our non-collegiate counterparts.

Ok... sure.. whatever.

All I knew is that this boring, unmotivated, working-for-money, worrying-over-money creature I became was nothing like the woman I wanted to be when I was sixteen. I wanted to be fearless. I wanted to be fun, and adventurous. I wanted to be well-traveled, and exotic, organic and artistic. I wanted to be unpredictable. I was exactly NOT that. And it sucked. A lot. Life could not go on this way.

I decided to take December off. How, pray tell, does a working adult take an entire month off? Careful planning. But that's another blog post altogether. I decided to go from three jobs to two, to relax more, "do nothing" more, and figure out, not only how I became the Professional, but how to get back to the Artist. Its been a real ride so far. At first, I woke up every day worrying about what work I should be doing. I had to make myself relax and convince myself that I did indeed have time to do "nothing."

It's only December 11th. I still have quite a bit of month to get through. But it's all baby steps. So far, I think I have learned a valuable lesson about not over-scheduling myself. I had the LONGEST to-do lists imaginable. And if I didn't finish, I usually berated myself for not being more productive. Now? I still make to-do lists, but I try to go back and cut them in half, putting the other half somewhere else. If I don't finish? Hey.... screw the list. Life is short. Kudos to whatever I DID get done. My next goal is to figure out a sensible marriage of my two halves. I cant survive just being an artist. And im unhappy just being a professional. But if I could figure out how to truly be the Professional Artist, I think I would be happy. As long as I remember to sometimes JUST be an artist, no professional. Its the only way to stay inspired!

So... I'm back to being a mermaid. From Venus, in fact. Yes... I'm a Venusian mermaid. My spaceship looks  a lot like a giant soap bubble. Ha. And money? Well... a lot of different sources last month made me realize; I can always replace spent money. But I haven't figured out how to replace un-lived life.

XOXO
~Zuri

Pride and Predjudice.....

I wanted to write about how I justifiably deserve an apology from him. Then I realized that its deeper than that. So this posting is about anger....

He pissed me off. And if I told you what exactly he did, you might understand. The short of it is a text message I received from him, in response to something heartfelt that I sent first. His response was not the proper level of gratitude.
And in a flurry of text messages, I belabored the point that he was an insensitive douche-bag, so on and so forth. Im sure that the actual messages I sent were much less demeaning and cold than the immediate thoughts rushing through my mind.
Uh oh…

I’m mad at him.

It was a pivotal marker in our relationship. I wasn’t annoyed, or mildly irritated, or frustrated. I still love him. It wasn’t a relationship-breaker. It was strangely comforting to know that we had gotten close enough that his words could do that to me. Such an honor is mainly reserved for family. Still, I was mad. Absolutely mad, and awaiting the necessary apology, filled with indignation and self-righteousness.

I often wonder how many single women are full of indignation and self-righteousness… because I can see how the latter could cause the former.

Hours later (somewhere around 2am, to be exact), my texts unanswered, my anger rekindled itself. How dare he not have already sent me response texts, gushing with apology and adoration? Who does he think he is? It was THE MOMENT.

What is THE MOMENT? Well, it’s a showdown of pride and hurt and “who breaks first” that often ruins a great connection. It is that exact point when you realize that he isn’t going to call you, and you don’t want to call him, because you’ve already said your peace, and he (or she… because this happens with guys too) should realize his wrongdoing and WANT to apologize….

THE MOMENT is an ugly example of how human fragility causes us to put up the most intricate walls emotionally, all in an effort to protect ourselves.  If only we knew how much more damage the isolation does us!

SO, there I was, checking my phone every ten minutes, sure he would say SOMETHING at some point. After a few checks, I knew. He would either avoid me, call tomorrow like it never happened, or just refuse to be wrong…. The man is as stubborn as a bull... And so the challenge begins.

….this is stupid…..

Why is it stupid?
Because deep inside, I really do care for him, and the reason I wanted him to apologize was because the lack of understanding and sensitivity regarding my first text message felt like rejection of ME. The text message was a testament of my feelings. And no one likes to have their feelings rejected. If he apologized, it meant that he understood that it was wrong to reject me in such a manner.

However, there’s this little… creature… deep inside me that kept my true vulnerability from coming through loud and clear. Its name is anger.

Even in their edited form, my text messages were clearly full of anger and some profanity… I immediately became defensive of my behavior, and let him know EXACTLY why what he did was WRONG. There was no compassion, in my attempt to educate him on how he could have better handled the situation. There was no love, honestly. I was hurt, and acted out an angry, hurt place.

So now its 2am, and we aren’t talking to one another. Which isn’t what I wanted. Now, in case you all are wondering, he was definitely wrong in the way that he handled himself. My hurt is reasonably justified. But in allowing my anger to drive my behavior, I lost two things; an opportunity to expand his perspective, and an evening of potentially wonderful, loving conversation. What’s more, I met his negativity with more negativity and it got me none of the results that I wanted… An eye for an eye leaves the world blind…..

Men… People….. Do not like to be yelled at. Not even in text message. And all capital letters is a blatant form of text-yelling. And dominant, strong personality types even less so.  My unbridled, knee-jerk reaction of anger did nothing for the situation but irritate things more.

Now, some of you, especially my female readers… may be reading this and thinking… “Forget that. If he did wrong, I got a right to be mad, and a right to act upset.”

And I say…. Yes. You certainly have that right. But if you’re goal is to continue peacefully in the relationship, then you are going to have discard some of that self-righteous indignation I mentioned earlier, and learn how to be patient. Because relationships aren’t built on pride. They are built on love.
And everything I have ever read about love, (including the Christian bible) says that Love is patient.

Does it mean that you don’t address the problem? No… not at all. But it may mean, perhaps, that instead of fighting back, and tearing down at him (or her)  you seek to simply explain what you are feeling, and offer a sincere suggestion about how best to treat you. If you are too angry to do so…. Then wait until you are calmer.

I mean.. if you want to keep things going well.

As for me… I am currently still caught in THE MOMENT… he hasn’t called. Or sent a text, and my stupid pride still hasn’t allowed me to break the silence. Its very stupid…. But old habits die young. And now its 3am…. You don’t want to be here people. You really don’t. LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES! I miss him more than I am upset with him, and this is not the result I desired for myself.  Understand… I DO DESERVE AN APOLOGY… but… I SHOULDN’T ADDRESS THE ISSUE IN ANGER….

And now pride keeps us apart.

Hopefully this blows over…. It would be insanely ignorant for all the goodness of this relationship to crumble because of two prideful Virgos standing their ground, and being defensive.


Until next time……

p.s. Hey You, if you read this... I apologize for my anger, and what I should have done was tell you that your text message really hurt me.

Oh, she's screwing....

Greetings lovers.

Ladies, raise your hand if you fear the little pink pill.
Or in my case, twenty four little pink pills. One a day. Every day. Til Death do us part? Or menopause....

Birth control. I have a physical condition that requires birth control to regulate it.

Did I ever tell you all that I hate the idea of birth control? Hormones pumping into my body that I didn't make. Sounds sketchy. But they don't have anything else so, here I am... popping pink pills. And I've learned, that, unlike vitamins, the little aluminum package is not for public viewing. You tell people ur taking vitamins, they nod accordingly and keep it moving. Bring that aluminum package out and its some sort of knowing stereotype... "oh she's screwing..."

Couldn't be further from the truth.
One does not need birth control to screw ;-)
And one does not always jump in bed upon taking birth control.


What is it about this little package that suddenly brands a woman as sexually active? Doctors have been using birth control to regulate hormones for quite some time now. As a matter of fact, when I was a teen, with a very irregular cycle, the product rolled off of physician's tongues.

The idea gave my mother tremors I'm sure.

And maybe a woman IS sexually active and wants to use birth control. Why does she get that LOOK? I was sitting in a restaurant and took out my pack, discreetly, I thought. This old lady across from me happened to see it and started to frown. To FROWN.
I know what she was thinking... "oh, she's screwing..."

Its a chant almost... filling the air invisibly from disapproving onlookers. And its rediculous. Its 2011. And while my birth control is for my stupid condition, I'm not sure why its such a big deal if a woman IS 'screwing.' Isn't that her perogative? Does it mean she's a whore? What if she's in a long lasting, monogamous relationship and just doesn't want children?

Its too much stigma, too much assuming....

But everyone doesn't read my blog, and so they don't know that they shouldn't assume.

But you know....

And this goes for menfolk too. Don't assume anything if your girl is taking BC. If she wants things to change, she'll let you know. I know a girl whose boyfriend of TWO YEARS suddenly stopped buying condoms because she started taking birth control. She laughed and smartly told him EXACTLY where he could "stick it." And she sent him to the store for condoms.

Ladies... its your body. And you are free to do with it what you please... but just be wary... its a HATER world out there. Maybe you should just head to the bathroom to pop ur pink pills... just don't let ANYBODY (boyfriends included) box you into their perceptions when it comes to your body.
As for me?
Ha... I'm going to keep doing me. Of course.

Taa-taa Lovers.

WTF series... a year of romantic foolishness: Duke

What can I say about the Duke? He was a real entertainer. Knew how to play.... the game that is...

I met 'Duke' when I was happily minding my business, helping a senior citizen learn how to use the internet. No, no community service. I'm just that type of woman. ;-)

He was intrigued by what I was doing. And so, when I explained myself, somehow he pulled me into further conversation. The man was bold... I give you that. He flatly asked my number. I said why. He responded, "because I think Id like to get to know you." Simple. Bold. Effective. I gave it to him.

For three months, we whirled and wined in and out of happiness and confusion. He was absolutely pleasant when he was with me. Patient, funny, and kind. When he wasn't with me, it was sometimes difficult just to get him on the phone, regularly. He did this thing I call 'ghost.' It means that he just disappeared into thin air, like a ghost, at times. No calls. No dates. Or even worse, canceling dates.

Well, his birthday was the icing on the cake. I planned a very beautiful evening for this man. There was even cooking involved. By the end of the evening, it was determined that he wouldn't be able to make it... but he didn't tell me until the next day.

Oh boy did I let him have it.....

I let Duke know that I was fed up, and that I would no longer put up with his foolishness. And I didn't mention this earlier, but he had this sort of secretiveness to him. Always claiming there was something he wasn't comfortable telling me yet.

That day, when I was fed up, he finally told me.

Duke was a gigolo........

*pause*
For those of you laughing too hard to continue on, I understand. For those of you in confusion, a gigolo is a male prostitue. You know, Deuce Bigolow? Oh, that's not what you're confused about? Oh ok...
*play*

I sat staring at my phone (he, of course, texted all this to me, coward that he was), mouth open... confused, and laughing, and waiting for the punk'd cameras. My first thought? "Men still do that sh**?!!" The secret life of college students.....
My second thought? Well, that one was actually a medley of reasons why we could no longer be together. I can sum them all up with three letters: W. T. F....

And that was the end of me and Duke. Three months of being wooed by a prostitute. A whore. A courtesan. A- ok you get the picture. And what did I learn from this?

*TAKE TIME TO LEARN HIM. This is for fellas too. It takes longer than a week to know how someone will behave. He didn't immediately fall off the face of the earth. At first he was very doting and attentive.

*DON'T 'GIVE IT UP' QUICK. One of my first few thoughts was a sincere relief that we had never slept together, and an understanding as to how he could be so patient about it. Now I know.... Ladies... and I guess fellas too. People are nasty out there. Let someone SHOW you that they are willing to work for the privilege of your physical gifts. Wait a little while. It may save your life.

*KNOW YOUR LIMITATIONS. Now... I know some people may say three months wasn't a long time to be dating, but it was too long to be putting up with 'mess.' I realized that I'm not the kind of woman who is ok with not talking to/seeing/communicating with a guy for weeks at a time. Especially not someone who is seemingly adament about 'making something meaningful' with me. Its just not me. If that starts to happen, I now just start to move on. Won't even ask questions. Ill just play 'ghost' myself. And not on purpose. But I got too much life to live to be waiting on someone who is uninterested.

*EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED. Of course you can't really expect the unexpected... just like I never knew homeboy was a concubine. But you can be sure that life will throw you some curve balls. And when it does, keep your head up, and take it light.

That's it for now blokes.
Be happy and let love find you.
Peace.

The WTF series... a year of romantic foolishness: Virgo

Ten...Nine...Eight...Seven...Six...Five...Four...Three...Two...One

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

I had reached my twenty fourth birthday. I had completed twenty four years of living, and was memorializing it with a personal holiday. Midnight found me on the phone with my boyfriend chatting away about how much we missed each other ( a twinge of long-distance relationship irritation). Friends and family called, sent texts, and exausted my Facebook wall. My birthday had begun.

That morning, I watched the sunrise, and reflected on the past year of my life. the twenty-fourth year, where I am actually referred to as twenty-three the whole time. (weird, right?)

I realized something about that age.

Twenty three was the age of WTF. It was a blossoming tulip of a year for my career. But this isnt a career-blog.

My love life was a screwy mixtape of bad Lil Wayne songs, and dogs barking, for the whole year.

TWENTY THREE IN REVERSE...
Most recently, there was the Virgo. Im not picking on Virgos, he just happens to be the only one in this story, so its a good qualifier without telling you his name. This dude... I swear I could have lived without the romantic rendesvous. Our entire... whatever the heck it was, was something between being lead on, and being in limbo. Dont forget the emotional withdrawal. We actually met the year previous and became moderate friends. Our friendship matured with my collegiate graduation and relocation back to my hometown. I had been home for several months, and he had been home since October. I was miserable being at home. So was he. I think this may have been a spark for both of us. It was a rocky time in both of our lives, and we understood each other in that way. We hated our jobs, we lived at home, we were artists, not pursuing our art.... getting the picture?
*I think this is a fluff way of saying we listened to each other complain, lol!*
We carried on in this mildly flirtatious, but mostly platonic way until that winter, when he revealed to me that his feelings were slightly more than plutonic. And everything slowed down like one of those scenes in the original Matrix movie. If it werent for the fact that I was already dating someone that winter (we'll get to that) it might've been worth the conversation. But the conversation had to wait. We toyed with our emotions for several more months, pretending not to care, irritating each other, teasing each other, talking around the issue until April 1st. Yep... April fool's day...
The fool kissed me. In the mouth. And all of what had been a "serious" joke was now just serious.
Then everything fell into limbo somewhere between "friends with benefits" (minus a few key benefits) and "casual dating". It was confusing and mildly exciting, and exhausting. The man either didnt know how he felt about something, or he didnt care to share. After things got a teensy bit too physical, we just sort of fell off. Everything. Of course, I doubt he would ever admit it. But we did. And whatever feelings he had for me semed to dissipate into the thin air they came from. I think, looking back, they were born from curiosity more than anything. We became distant,as Virgos are known to do when they are through (yep, I'm a Virgo too). Romantically, we were quite through. Our friendship only hung on by a few more threads of chance, and until recently, was nearly braindead.


What was the lesson here?
Ha! Too many to count. But I will touch on a few matters.
*First of all.. MEN ARE STUPID... hahah. No, this isnt it really...  I mean to say OWN YOUR EMOTIONS.. I tell my girls this all the time. Alot of this stupid moment in my life ocurrd because I did not assume control of how I felt, or what I would put up with. I conceded alot of how things would go, to my Virgo friend... and that is absolutely a problem. I looked to him to tell me how he felt, and act accordingly, instead of owning how I felt, and risking his not reciprocating.

*IF A MAN WANTS YOU, HE WILL LET YOU KNOW.. Too many of us are guilty of living on "maybe's." STOP LIVING ON MAYBE!!! Men are not stupid, contrary to my previous statement. They are well adept at saying "I want you." They are less adept at saying "I dont want you," if they are concerned about hurting your feelings. I lived in this world with the Virgo where he never seemed too certain of his feelings for me. Truth is, he probably just didnt have the feelings he knew i would have wanted him to have, and so, he tiptoed around the truth. And so did I.

*BE CAREFUL OF WHO YOU ARE WHEN YOU MEET HIM (or her).. I had no way of knowing that my personal evolution was on its way. When I began to seriously spend time with the Virgo, I was in a place o uncertainty. But the Creator was well on the way wth blessings and enlightenment. Well, things started to go really well for me, but for the Virgo, life was moving at a different pace, and I dont think he was really resolved in his happiness. All of a sudden, his usually funny, dry remarks were just dry. Sarcasm was abound, and I found myself wondering "why do you always have to be such a Debbie Downer?" Well, ladies and gents. It wasnt him. It was me. I was a Debbie Downer too, when we started. But as I advanced in temperment, he did not. And suddenly, we were in different places. If you meet someone, when you are in the low places of your life, and they are just as low, you two must be able to rise together, or else you wont fit together. If he cannot, or does not rise when you do, you have to learn to continue to go upward, and painfully, let him sink. Yes, I said painfully. That's what it will be like when you realize that you risk your own newfound glee if you continue to sink to his level. Birds of a feather....

Thats enough for today.
Next time I will tell you about the Duke. He was a real trip.
Ciao.

starting over

Today is the beginning of a new day in the love life of...Me....and so... a new beginning in the progression of this blog. Im newly twenty four years old, and in this "spring chicken" era of my life, I realize that as much advice as I have given out to my girlfriends (and some of my guy friends) about their relationship problems, and as much as they tell me I need a show, or a blog, it might be time to out my thoughts to paper.

What should you expect from a blog like this?
Honesty.
Sincerity.
Maybe a dash of humor.
And the occassional rant.

Thats what God gave me, and thats what I have to work with.
I am not a Ph.D, or a professional therapist. I'm also not God, so my advice should never be taken as the LAW on relationships.
But I am pretty honest with myself, and with others, and can remain pretty objective about situations, and personal when it's required....

So... I bring to you, the reincarnation of Love... Maybe?

Frustrations of the ghetto.

I live in the hood. The bonafide ghe-tto. And I hate it. In every cell in my body, I hate it. The stunted mentalities shrouded in ignorance, the common, but no less lethal dangers of simply walking out of your door; this is a no man's land. A barren wasteland of hopelessness.

I wonder how I ended up here. I did all the things a person is supposed to do. I went to school. Got a degree. Stayed out of trouble. Even avoided the psychological trap of having children too soon. I did what everyone said you do in order to make it. And yet, in my twenties, I can see thirty on the horizon, with no hope of escaping this cultural prison graveyard.

And no real plan...

I have spent much of my life envying people with plans. I love plans. They make things easier. But when it comes to my life, I've never really been able to make one. Not out of any lack of imagination, mind you, but rather out of indecisiveness. And fear. I fear failure so very much.

Careful. I'm very careful.
And doubtful. So very doubtful.

Slowly but surely the feeling of emptiness that pervades my mind whenever I can't stick my finger on the next task, starts to sink in. I feel closed in by these ghetto limits, more suffocating than any four walls....

Trapped. A dreamer amongst the braindead, a visionary amongst the spiritually blind. A live soul in the throes of a zombie-town. It is torturous being one of the only people able to dream in a 5 mile radius. Being 'special'. They don't tell you how akin 'special' is to 'lonely.'

So what is she to do? The girl on the path never traveled... how to make the best of it? Stiff upper lip just won't do. She needs a plan.

We need a plan.
I need redemption.
I don't want to spend my years here in this place where broken beer bottles and used needles great me at my car door, apartment hallways smell like pissy diapers and marijuana, children are labeled bad because they have a natural instinct to play, but the only grass for a block says "keep off grass." I can't stew in the mess of brokenhearted people drinking and smoking on stoops trying to make their personal Hell press pause for a moment. I'm tired of fearing to leave anything in my car, because both the car and its contents may take a leave of absence by morning, eloping with the neighborhood thief.

I'm tired. I'm just tired. And crying, though satisfying, won't numb it forever.

I. Need. A. Change.
I need a plan to unfold before me, something for me to follow.
Dear God please, hear my cry.
Ameen.

posted from Bloggeroid