Mic Check

Hello, It's been a while since I wrote anything. Writing used to be the way I got through my feelings... There was something therapeutic about structuring my thoughts that seemed to work for my personality. Then I got married and had a baby and forgot what it was like to write.

I don't know if you're out there, or if this has been silent for too long, but I'm still here. Hopefully this will come back like an old friend you haven't spoken to in a long time, but still have a connection with. We'll see.

I've been coming across some old notes from friends long whose friendships have long-since been buried under regret and time. Sometimes I wonder if the friendship is worth rekindling. Is anything there? Does it more harm than good? Is it worth it? Is who we are now compatible? Were we even compatible then or were we victims of a larger circumstance? Is there anything new to bring to the table, or would it be friendship for the sake of nostalgia?

I've enjoyed my solitude. I'm surprisingly good at it, for a person who spent years being afraid of being romantically alone, I'm really good at cutting myself off from friends. But people die, and honestly, if I did today, would anyone come to my funeral?

I don't say that in a way that suggests I'm considering harming myself, only to suggest that death is real, and I read somewhere "live your eulogy." It got me thinking. If I want to be remembered as a person who touched many lives, I have to go meet the people whose lives I'm going to end up touching. That doesn't always happen from the safety of the 4 walls of my home.

Sorry if this took a morbid turn, it's just that I'm really good at sheltering in place, and not that good at maintaining friendships with people. I've tried reconnecting and honestly, it just feels like we're speaking for the sake of how things were, instead of looking at how things are now in the sense that maybe we're just not friends in 2016, and that's okay. We don''t have to be friends now because we were friends then.

Anyway, like I said, I'm still here. Anyone who wants to reconnect, I'm game. Let's see how deep the vein really goes.

b

Has it Been Three Years?

Wow. Where does the time go? For me, the time was spent in a causality loop, and I'm still in recovery. In Recovery. Two words that carry a lot of weight. I'll need to sort with my thoughts and get back to this one. b

The end of an Era

Nobody is perfect. Not you, not me, not anyone. As we go about trying to find our life partners, we look for people who...

Some look for people who are imperfect in the same way, so that they can comiserate together, or understand the struggle

Some look for people who are imperfect in a different way, so that they can play on each other's strengths.

Some people look for happiness. These people are dangerous. I've come to slowly believe that Happiness is a trick people tell themselves to get out of committment. If I have made a vow to you, it's for thick and thin, period. Better or worse. People who search for happiness forget the "or worse" because they're searching for the "better" all the time. Sometimes, you have to get through the "worse" to get to the "better."

If you're looking for better, and you find yourself in good, and good goes bad, and you stay, because you believe that once you've gone through worse, you'll see better, how wrong is it to leave once better comes around?

Now you decide you don't trust it?

Thing about happiness is, it goes both ways. My problem is that I spend so much of my time trying to make the other person happy that I forget how miserable that can make me, or how much of myself I give up in the process. Every. Time.

This time, especially. It snuck up on me, how much I'd given up. How because the other person wasn't happy, I'd changed. The idea isn't to change FOR the other person, it's to change WITH the other person. To grow together.

I haven't learned yet. I don't accept full responsibility for the fall of this relationship, because not everything was my fault. I can only accept responsibility for my actions. The irony is, he's got the power in the relationship at the moment. He's deciding wether or not he wants to stay, and he'll tell me or we'll come together on the 21st to discuss his findings.

I'm not waiting. I've gone through my journey, and got here. I went through my trials of fire, and came out charred, but okay because I am THAT strong. If he needs time to sort out his life, there's nothing I can do about that other than live my life. If his thoughts sort themselves to me, then that's gravy. If not, he becomes a serious lesson in what rules to break and which ones never to. All I can do is move on with my life, and do the best I can. I owe myself that much.

It sounds really selfish, and it's odd to feel this self-protectant. I'm sure it won't last. That's just the kind of person I am with relationships, I'm a giver.

I just don't understand happiness chasers. Relationships aren't happy all the time. There's growth periods, which hurt like no other, but there's love and commitment that carries you through it all. I guess that's where I'm a romantic, where I believe, I truly do, that if you're commited to something, then you stick it through, no matter what.

Don't give anyone anything that you can't get back, don't believe anyone 100%.

Commitment requires proof, and pledging daily, or weekly, or monthly, or annually to stick it through. Commitment isn't watching someone go through something scary, and freaking out when they come out of it and finally see everything you've been trying to get them to.

After all that, I'm still here. I'm commited to this and I've invested a lot in both the relationship and myself in order to make it work. I hope that the strides I've made are respected enough to see this thing through. If not, like I said, it's just one (huge) life lesson.

Either way, I'll be okay.

b

Cultural entrapments of the tired insomiac

I am an American. Worse, I'm bi-racial. Even worse, still, I'm bi-ethnic. The absolute worst thing? I'm bi-cultural.

And I don't want to be.

I've toted the line, growing up Persian in a Black environment, fitting in where I can, picking and choosing the roles, rules, mores and fores as each situation presents itself, and thorougly driving myself slowly insane.

You see, I have been taken advantage of, in the name of culture. For 30 years, I have given everything I have in the name of obedience, and being a "good girl." I gave up on my dreams, convinced myself I couldnt have my own life, and didn't know what it was like to think for myself, and I was such a "good girl."

Now, it's 2:15 pm on a Monday morning, and I can't sleep because of all the things going on inside my head. I let other people rule me for so long, that now, when I speak up for myself, the ex-rulers can't even give me credit for my thoughts; they assume someone else put them there.

How offensive is that?

I don't have a family. I have selfish people who only care what the outside world thinks of them. As long as their public persona is perfect, they can be rude, mean and nasty to me and the people I care about behind closed doors.

This is ridiculous. I'm not playing by anyone's rules but my own at this point, and it's just a matter of learning how to continue from here. I'm sure I'll make some mistakes, even some serious ones, but hopefully I'll learn from them, bounce back, and KEEP IT MOVING.

b

He's everywhere! or, Why I was having a really bad, no good terrible awful day the other day.

I laugh at the Universe, because the Universe laughs at me.

My future husband mentors in a program designed for underpriviledged youth to build skills in business and other areas they will need or could potentially need in life. That's a really watered down description of the work that the mentors do and the program does, and I certainly don't want to downplay or belittle their efforts, hard work, and process, but that's not the point.

The point is, the mentoring program had a closing session, and afterwards, the mentors, including my future husband, decided to go out together for a post-mentorship celebration. At the happy hour, my future husband tells the director that he doesn't think he'll be returning, because he's moving (to my city) when he gets married, and he's not sure about the commute.

This, pricks the ear of one of his fellow mentors, who mentions that they grew up in my city. So the conversation follows some close pattern:

My Future Husband: I might not be back next year. I'm moving out to Blah, and I'm not sure about the commute.
Co-Mentor: Really? I grew up there.
MFH: Really, yeah, my future wife did too, she went to This High School.
CM: Really? I graduated from there! What year did she graduate?
MFH: (This) Year
CM: That's the year I graduated...
MFH: Really? Do you know her? Her name is ____.
CM: Wow.

So my future husband, happy to meet a mutual friend of mine, takes a picture and forwards it to me.

It's my ex boyfriend. The musician.

This would not have been an issue, except for the day I had prior to that, not 2 hours before.

::Two hours before::

My father called me to tell me something was troubling him from a conversation he'd had with my mother. I invited him over, where he listed information that he'd been presented with by her. These bits of information were half-truths, mis-directions, and outright lies. I listened to my father, sorted through the muck of mud that was slung on my relationship and impending marriage, distinguished where she'd half-truthed and added the missing pieces, put somethings in their proper context, and shone the light on all the rest of the things said in the dark.

This is my Mother. The woman who gave birth to me and raised me.

Then, my Father makes peace with all the abandonment he put me through when I was a child. We made peace. I told him, you know, I own my own home, I'm getting married, I made it to 30 without premarital sex, babies, STDs, or a drug addiction, I think I made it out okay. We're stronger now.

Then, he dropped a bomb on me. He told me that there was a custody battle for me when my parents were divorcing. As such, a psych evaluation was done, and my mother came back borderline unstable. That blew me away. You mean, you KNEW, that the person who raised me was borderline unstable and you LEFT ME?

I'm over it, now, but I was a wreck at the time, and seeing the picture of my ex just added another level of emotions I wasn't prepared to handle, and I didn't do too well.

I'm definetly okay now, thanks to prayer and good company.

And a heck of a man I can't wait to marry.

b

I am a rock. I am an island.

I am not completely emotionally okay.

blah blah blah

It's January 1.
The start of the year according to the Gregorian Calendar.

Not mine.

Make your own resolutions, you're just going to break them. Why not make yourself this single promise instead: To live life. Your life, and not anyone else's.

Don't promise yourself you'll join a gym you won't go to, don't promise yourself you'll save money you haven't got.

Promise to live your life. That way, when you reflect on what life you want to have, you'll reconsider the extra-fudge brownie, for two reasons: you'll have saved twice over. Once for the $2.75 that could have gone to gas money or groceries, and twice for the 275 calories you didn't eat.

I've been trying to make an active lifestyle change. Not for the new year, not even for my upcoming wedding, but for me. For the fact that I want to live properly. I want to be healthy, and that's not coming from a gym membership. That's coming from the little choices I make that will inevitably make differences in the long term in my life.

bw