Training Pandora

"Good Love is on the Way" by John Mayer

...good love is on the way / I heard them say...

It's been a lousy day, mostly due to the gray skies outside and the black thunderstorm inside.  I've been minimally productive, crying, and irritable my whole day.

But I feels better.  Music Therapy.  I turned my Pandora on and set it to my Edwin McCain station...my good White music I picked up when I was younger and finessed in my tenure at an all White college preparatory school...the good old days.

Then I exceeded my skips and switched to my John Mayer station.  And he came out kicking with "good love is on the way."  I just have to remember that good love is on the way.

I'm frustrated with the continued struggle in creating a healthy and functional relationship with my mother.  I can get passed being rejected.  I can get passed being left alone or abandoned, even if I never understand why, the love I have for her will let me get passed it.

But she puts up this wall.  She treats me like a sleezy business partner or a disgruntled ex.  She is not my mother and I am not her daughter.  I want a way to breakthrough to her.  I want a breakthrough.  Get her to stop putting on that stupid face of dominance and stoicism... and show me she has feelings.

Alas, I am being impatient.  I have spent the last six years constructing a wall similar to the one she has had up my whole life.  I keep running into my own wall and blame her.  I keep her and my father at a distance, arms length, feed them with a long-handled spoon.  I did/do it in order to protect myself from being rejected.

I am not afraid of rejection anymore so I don't really need that wall.  I think it's time to be vulnerable...just lay here and be vulnerable and hope that she lays with me...ready to be vulnerable too.

Waiting for My Spaceship to Come

"Tell Him" by Lauryn Hill

...now I may have faith to make mountains fall / but if I lack love then I am nothin' at all / i can give away everything I possess / but left without love then I have no happiness / i know I'm imperfect [I know I'm imperfect] / & not without sin [& not without sin] / but now that I'm older all childish things end...

I find forgiving people to be too difficult.  Even though I am aware that I make mistakes and I too look for forgiveness from people in my life, it is the hardest thing in the world for me to dispense from my spirit.

I believe in Forgiveness.  It is a good thing, a merciful thing, a freeing opportunity.

But I find it so hard.  My Mommy apologized for all that she has contributed to what we have endured in the last 3 years and I would like to say I forgive her, but I am not sure.  I still think about some of the things I had to go through because of how stubborn and unforgiving she was and I am angered, I cry, and I am frustrated as if I am still going through it.

I don't say anything to her about it and I don't sulk or become sullen around her at all, nor do I feel like sulking or being sullen around her.  But there are times, when I am away from her, when I am frustrated by a particular item in my life and I will say to myself "I wouldn't even have to deal with this if she hadn't...blah blah blah."

Then the despondency begins in my viscera and travels to my face and leaks out of my eyes.  And then if she or my Daddy calls, I don't want to answer.  I don't want to talk.  I may avoid them for a day or two, depending on how big a pain I feel about the item I am frustrated about, how optimistic I am about it, etc.

Then I think to myself, "Have I accepted her apology?"  Yes I have.  "Have I forgiven her?"  I don't know.

Honestly, I am not sure I even have a clear working definition of forgiveness.  I feel as though if I have forgiven you, I have forgotten your mistake because if I remember it, I am forever pained by it and in turn, can't forgive you, can't trust you, can't believe you can/have made a change.

But people impart to me that to forgive and forget is not wise.  You must forgive and release the mental anguish of holding someone accountable in your soul all the time.  But you must not forget so as not to suffer the same thing again.  I always wonder "What kind of life is that?  How can I live, having forgiven you but always waiting on you to do it again?"

Uggghh!

And apologies.  Apologies are great.  Apologies are hard to do.  Apologies are a great start on the road to forgiveness.  But an apology in and of itself is not the remedy, even if he/she to whom you are apologizing believes it's genuine, accepts it, and doesn't make you feel guilty about your mistake.

I heard the apology and I accept it but my feelings are still hurt.  I still feel humiliated and ashamed about myself.  I still feel less than.  I don't want to.  I don't like it.  I am not trying to hold onto it but I must wonder if that isn't the way you truly feel about me.

Part of what makes it so hard for me to forgive people is linked to the way I feel about myself.  I think of myself quite lowly.  I think of myself as damaged, confounded, and more improper than others.  For this reason, I find sustenance in the wonderful ways my family and close friends (who are family to me) think of me.  I haven't yet built and nourished my self-esteem with internal structures.  However, I believe the words and actions of my family and I stand tall atop their positive opinions of me until I am strong enough to build those same sentiments inside myself.  I need a good opinion of myself so that when I encounter those who don't like me so much, it doesn't hurt so bad.

The family members, whose opinions and love and respect and kindness I stand upon, have sometimes let me down.  Having nothing inside myself to compensate for external disappointments, I find it hard to forgive them.  I find it unnecessary to forgive them.  I already don't like myself, you said you loved me, and proceeded to chop me down as if I was disposable.  I can never believe in your love again.

This is a struggle I am having with a few very important people in my life.  My Daddy, who is extremely forgiving was encouraging me to use forgiveness to free myself of the anger I have for 2 aunts that I have always been so good to and that I thought loved me.  I am trying to forgive some best friends, some lovers, some strangers, some frenemies.

I hate to say it but I'm trying to forgive God too.  I felt abandoned and felt that God was weak because if She wasn't, after all I was able to sacrifice (that I KNOW other people could not have done), why did my breakthrough take so long?  I changed so much.  I gave up so much.  

I lost the sense of materialism.  I lost the sense of selfishness.  I lost all the connection to material things and things of no spiritual value and asked for very little when excess was consistently waved in my face.  I feel like I learned more than people ever realize in their whole lives.  The last leg of my suffering just seemed unnecessary and I'm still having this conversation with God everyday.

There is nothing inside myself.  With all my big, loud talk, I am the most sensitive, fearful girl in the world sometimes.  I have things I am passionate about and any timidity or fear or sensitivity is unavailable in the moments I am fighting for those things I am passionate about.  However, those things I am passionate about are not about me and not necessarily for me.  My sustenance, for now, is found in how I can fight for other people, make life fair for other people.  I haven't started really working on Haja yet.  I am working on Haja by proxy, by screaming, rebelling, writing, working for the populations I feel I am represented by.

And lastly I haven't forgiven myself yet so forgive me for my lethargy in forgiving you.  I trusted you.


**have only one heart
    one heart with no spares
    must save it for lovin'
    somebody who cares
           - Billie Holiday

Redemption Song

"Dream [Really] Big" by Jazmine Sullivan

.... i gotta dream big / cuz when it happens / it's gon' happen real quick / i gotta move fast / cuz when it happens / i can't let it go past / only get one chance...

Happy New Year again boo boos!  I am at work.  That is right, I am at work, typing this blog.  I say that only because the reality of this situation has not fully registered so I am just reminding myself I am employed.  This feels like a movie sometimes.

Don't worry.  The kids will be here soon and I'll be heading to my classroom, putting my laptop to sleep, ignoring twitter, all my text messages, and phone calls.  I don't take anything with me in that classroom.  Those children need my undivided attention.

And I give it to them.  They are so adorable.  Bad as hell, of course, but children still.  Some of them just want attention, coming from homes and larger environments that is not equipped to recognize them as individuals.  They misbehave, as they have learned it is a guaranteed way to get attention.

This is definitely a breakthrough.  God is funny.  They say if you want to make God laugh, tell Her your plans.  That is the truest thing they ever wrote.  The jobs for which I have been applying have not come through at all.  The job I actually obtained is the very job I didn't apply for because I thought I wasn't qualified.  I can't do it.  That is what I said.  All those jobs in the education department, I doubted and skipped over and I am definitely working at an educational facility.

Money is not everything.  In my small universe, money is not anything...but a lie.  To participate in this culture, you have to have money - to live, to be clothed, to eat, to move, to be stationary, to gain weight, to lose weight, etc.  And that is okay.  But for some reason, money in this culture is just a means to amassing lots of extravagant, big, spiritually valueless things.

I sound like a "hippie" which I resent actually.  Living 'naturally', being self sufficient, making my own things, not using (disavowing really) chemicals is not being a hippie.  It's being Afrakan.  The Afrakans lived and continue to live this way.  The hippies were just some bored White kids who caught on (although I would have liked to be a hippie).

This year I have vowed to learn to do a lot of things on my own.  I am becoming more and more and more Afrakan everyday and part of our culture in Salone (because industry is limited) is being self-sufficient.  Not everyone is self-sufficient by any means, hence the condition of a significant portion of Afraka.  However, if there is a particular item or service you just must have, you better be able to do it yourself for there aren't stores and malls and organizations available to provide such things for you.

Therefore, in 2010, I will be learning to do and make many things on my own that I have been taking for granted and buy wherever is most convenient.  And not because I am used to a particular standard of living that I want to take back to Afraka with me but because I am used to a particular standard of expression and consumption now.  I know better so I must do better.

And! My friend Nicole and I have decided to make a business out of our natural product making endeavors.  We will produce natural hair products, lotions, soaps, and whatever else we can learn to make boo.  By the end of the month, I need to have a business and a draft of a grant.  If you  know anything about business, or anyone who does, just let us know!

This week:
1. buy a tennis racket and balls
2. begin constructing business plan
3. lesson plans for the whole week for my kids (because if they sit still too long they look at me as if they may consume me)
4. finish notes from last week and don't volunteer my ass for any more notes.
5. create an altar
6. look into finding a new apartment
7. buy a new make up bag and all new make up (did I tell you that I lost all my make-up? do you know how mad I was? I can't believe what not having making did to me. I felt shallow and unpretty.  It shall be discussed in a blog entry, coming soon).

Peace, <3