Emote

"Diamond in the Back" by Curtis Mayfield

...you may not have a car at all / but remember, brothers and sisters, you can still stand tall / just be thankful for what you got...

I love psychology because it is a branch of education that acknowledges our humanity in the truest sense.

Psychology is the mark of the "non-beast". Our emotions, behaviors, higher thinking processes, etc. are what removed humans from the viscious scene of surviving in the wild. We tamed the wild. We made civilizations and that is what separates us from all the other animals, although it doesn't make us better.

I love to study it. Psychology recognizes that we all are actually simple in all our complexity. We want people to love us, appreciate us, support us, and feel purposeful in our existence, essentially.

As I study it, my life makes more sense. I understand better what I went through in the last 2 years and why I may have gone through it.

Additionally, it makes me resent some people in my life all the more, as I understand the condition I was in.

Mostly, it makes me resent my parents. My parents are geniuses. They are two of the smartest people to have ever existed and I really don't say that just because they are my parents. They are brilliant. My mother is a highly educated healthcare professional, but even she withdrew from me.

It makes no sense. As learned as they are, coming from a strong, communal culture that boisterously explains that you should never abandon a child, they seemed to have deserted this way of thinking. I felt abandoned. I still feel abandoned. We talk now, very often, peculiar enough, now that I am better, now that my life is almost as it should be.

But I feel like they should have been there before. I feel like they gave up too easily. They feel like they did all they could. These are the discrepancies that pollute our lives.

This is important because a major part of truly getting out of the cycle of depression is forgiving them. I must let it go. They are, after all, human.

But to me, they did less than good humans should have done. The more I learn in class, the clearer their mistakes (and mine) become and I have a hard time letting such intelligent people (and generally good parents) off the hook.

I will say, however, that this too can be overcome. I overcame feeling purposeless, useless, helpless, like a failure, like I didn't deserve a life and I forgave myself for a lot of my poor decisions. Therefore, I should be able to overcome a little thing like resentment, right?

This is just life.

Merchandise

"Year of the Lover" by Lloyd

...this one fa the radio / this one fa the radio-o-oh...

Yes, I messed around and fell in Love over spring break. I touched down on March 12, 2009. I met my heart of March 14, 2009 and I am not sure how much space I would need to explain...

I am betrothed to a man that I am sure I can Love. I am sure I could bear his children and make my Sierra Leonean family happy and comfortable with a man who speaks ka Themne...

But for now, I can make this man happy and comfortable in this year of the Lover.

Last time I did this and it fell apart the way it did, I said "That'll do." And I thought I meant it. But by Thursday, March 21, 2009, I was attached to the man who should be "it" and I even met the woman, who before me, had called him "it".

He was to be her forever and instead, she walked in on me serving him hand and foot like the king he is. She was hurt, dramatic, tactless, redeeming, pathetic, and recovered all at the same time.

Love, love...love...Love, love...love...Love, love...love...lo-ooh--ove...

And that is what I want to yell at him over and over again, but the timing isn't appropriate. I am so in love I can live with it in silence until my heart gives me the opportunity and signal to let him know. I can wait with my love, alone, unreciprocated until I am shameless enough to admit my vulnerability.

To be honest, that time isn't too far away.

Is this not the sappiest mess you have ever read? My God. what happened to me? To say such things, mean it, notice it, and not be ashamed of it still?

This is truly the year of the lover.

Dr. Stand By

"She Needs My Love" by The Dream

I just had to mention this song one more time, to be honest.

First, I have two updates. (Where the Good Goes): Firstly, I got a 96 on that Abnormal Psychology test. I couldn't figure out which questions I got wrong so I don't know if they were questions that I really didn't know or bubbles I did not carefully fill in. Whatever. I got an A.

(Straight Like That): Secondly, the Chinese restaurant closest to my apartment has mei fun noodles on their menu. Good old urban, cultured cuisine.

Music: I never really mention the music I like. I list them as prefaces to each blog entry but these two albums resurfaced in my life and deserve some praise. The Dream's Love.Hate. My God. The song "She Needs My Love" has been in heavy rotation since I landed in Miami. Thank you shuffle. I do want to Love a man like that. I know I say I hate men, they are selfish, inherently flawed at an irredeemable level, etc. But I want one to love and name children with. Straight up.

And Lloyd's Lessons in Love. My language fails me right now. The song "Year of the Lover" is some of the straight up drop ya draws genre. It makes a girl feel type sexy.

Lastly, Keri Hilson. She is Christina's idol. And dammit, mine too. "Make Love" is a serious banger. I can't stop playing it ( I can't stop playing any of them. I play it several times until I switch to another song and play it several times too. Mmmm...music). I don't make love, but when I do, Keri will sing the rhythm to the movement girl.

Something Only We Have

"Is It Any Wonder" by Keane

...sometimes, it's hard to know where I stand / It's hard to know where I am...

Spring break has commenced (Thank you God). I am possibly going to Miami or New York. I am not sure yet but for the time being, I am in my apartment, incredibly bored.

My room was a mess so I made a big production and process out of cleaning it up (with which I am not through as I decided to do laundry too and it's been a minute).

I put up iTunes and put it on Shuffle, as usual. I think that is the best option ever for playing one's music.

An old song that I was crazy about some years ago when her album, Full Moon, came out, started to fill the room. At about minute 2:04 of "Love Wouldn't Count Me Out", something happened. I don't know what because I didn't see it but I know it happened.

My first Mr. Jones, when I was 18, fresh meat on campus, living the high life in the newest dorm, introduced me to the role of Mrs. Jones. And I played the part like I wrote it my damn self.

I was all up under him, adored him, listened to him, trusted him, cooked for him, cleaned up for him, prayed for him, and almost loved him. Almost.

He had a situation early in my freshman year that would have separated us for a long time (like Paid In Full trouble). I cried and I cried and I prayed for him and for us and for his mom and for him. I laid up in my roommate's bed everyday for a week because I couldn't sleep alone. I went to church homecoming crying the whole time like I wasn't saved and I had strayed and some more stuff, even though I was good friends with God.

A week or two went by. I called him randomly walking back to my dorm from somewhere just to hear his voicemail. Do you know this man answered the phone?

I was so happy and so overcome with relief that I didn't think it strange or mean that he had been home for 2 days and didn't think to call me. I just felt better, like I had relocated my space in the world.

I should have known it was all about to be a mess after that but I couldn't. I was trying to love him.

For a very little while, it was all good. And then literally, one day (we spoke everyday), he stopped calling, didn't answer or return my calls and I was devastated. At first I thought something had happened again.

Then he answered the phone once after we hadn't spoken in 2 weeks. All he said was he was busy and he would call me back later and I believed him. He didn't call me back and then I just knew he had left.

I spent 3 years trying to figure out what happened, what I did wrong, what was wrong with me, why he didn't want me, etc., blah, blah, x, y, and z.

Almost four years later, I am not totally sure why he up and left but it is not as important as the other things I have realized.

He was 10 years older than me (yes I know, but I have always been attracted to older men, which is why I waited for college before actually dating), but he acted very immature. I noticed it, but wrote it off as playful, like an idiot. He was not too good at communicating but I wrote it off as a fear of confrontation (because I am very confrontational). Maybe I was in love.

But now, my biggest fear is the end. I can't get into a relationship with anyone because I have this nasty fear of how it will end, what will happen, etc. So I just don't enter so as not to have to deal with an exit. If the dude Mommy betrothed me to doesn't work, I will be a chronic bachelorette.

I can't remember why I was so into him anymore and have turned around and run across town when I meet a gentleman who displays anything he did when I met him. But I am still a little mad, I discovered today. There are some words I'd like to share with him and some things I would like to tell him about himself. I don't really have anymore questions. He probably wouldn't know the answers anyway.

Keane said that "love is just a lyric in a children's rhyme". What if that's true?