Tes and Gratitude

Sometimes my emotions sneak up on me. I go through my days pretty much thinking and doing, and in the spare moments feeling. For awhile I haven't been really getting in my feelings, just scraping the surface.


So this morning I wake up singing Brian McKnight's "Never Felt This Way." Just woke up humming, then all out singing. And I stopped and sat for a second and really felt what it was my soul was telling me with it's song choice. My heart suddenly felt so full and big, as if was waiting on me to notice it's swelling before growing even bigger. Sitting in silence I felt entirely and with all my soul grateful.


I didn't realize my heart wasn't broken anymore. Isn't that strange? For so long I'd been walking in this life like a broken woman, like anything good coming to me had to have a catch or an underlying method to hurt me. For so long I'd been masking the brokenness behind superficial friendships and meaningless chases with dudes I really wasn't into, trying to bide my time until I could tap my little heart and not feel that throbbing pain of a bruise. I didn't take the time, I suppose, since starting this journey through and to myself to check on the heart of me to find that those stitches have since dissolved; I spent so much time on my mind and it's labyrinth on the way to understanding that the heart of me just got an occasional tap to be sure it was still there, still beating. My heart's healthy and happy, and so full of love for life...it's a strange feeling


And in feeling that I felt gripped with joy and gratitude to a higher power. Because I couldn't have done all this by myself. I'm not religious, but I woke up thanking God. Not only for what I've acquired by myself through what he's given me, but for the people he's put in my life, for the opportunities he's given me and for, above all, the ability to see the gift that each one of those things are. My parents, my friends, Tarzan, and this moment in my life where I feel like I can finally look my happiness in the face and not look behind my shoulder to see if something bad is sneaking up on me are all really big gifts. 


Gratitude is a big thing, and a thing I don't think a lot of us actually feel. I think we feel thankful for a couple things but get so bogged down in the bad things, in the things we wish we could change but can't, the things that still hurt that we forget to be humbled by the really awesome things we do and have. I know I'm guilty of it, and so when gratitude snuck up on me in addition to all these other happy emotions no lie, I cried (Remember when I had said that too many emotions, good or bad and I bawl? Oooh chile, I ain't lie).  


But unlike so many of the tears I've shed in the past couple years, these didn't hurt. These didn't sting and weren't bitter. I felt happy and humbled and just...joyous. I smiled through each and every tear and just felt grateful for every thing that I've got, even for the things I don't have. Family, friends, falling in love...God really snuck up on me with it all today. And even for that I'm grateful. Feel a little like a punk for admitting I cried, but definitely grateful for the feelings that brought it about. 


Be grateful you guys. Every thing you have that enriches you is a gift. Every thing you don't have that weighs others down, is a gift. Everything you are and everything you are not is a gift. 

(21) The Song I'll Hear in Heaven

30 Day Song Challenge! Remember...I was doing that? No... *ahem* moving ahead then...

There's a song in my playlist there (----->) that makes me happy, complexly happy, but happy nonetheless. Wanna guess?

So Far To Go.

Dilla's production was sweet and warm. If when I enter heaven it doesn't sound better than or equal to that? Does heaven's DJ take requests? Better yet, can I meet up with Dilla, Common and D'angelo and have them do it acoustic? Yeah, that's how much I love that song.

It's layers that I find so beautiful and appealing with the song. On one level you've got Common, commending his woman for being open, not just sexually but emotionally, to his love and appreciation of her body, mind and spirit. His word play is witty, playful but still delves deep (pause?) into that part of me that questions; do men notice those small things? Do they know as much as I like to think they do? Also as a woman who has trouble with trust, not only in others but in herself, the idea that a man could tap into that feeling and write a response directly to it? Perfect.

D'Angelo's piece is more of personal reminder; no matter how far I've come, there's always so much further to go. On one hand that idea terrifies me: is life just a never-ending game of leap-frog where we just leap forward off the backs of our previous accomplishments, never content with where we are? Is there ever happiness in stillness? Then on the other hand, how hopeful that thought; no matter where you are, you can still move forward, you can still go. You may be great now, but if you believe it, you can be so much greater. Wow.

Dilla's production is beautiful. Originally it's a song called "Bye" from his Donuts album. The legend around it is, knowing the end was near "Bye" was the last thing he composed. In context, hearing it by itself always makes me tear up. It interlopes Ron Isley singing a few phrases ("Don't ever say," "Goodbye," and a splicing of "I Believe"), which just touches your heart. It takes a sample of The Isley Brothers "Don't Say Goodnight" and loops it, adding heavy, heavenly bass to it. Literally, it makes me cry on it's own. But coupled with Common and D'Angelo, it makes me feel listless and hopeful, jaded but still beautiful.

I have a feeling, when I'm nearing seventy and have to wear a hearing aid, I'll still be listening to this song. I'll still be feeling complexly happy, albeit because I'm nearer to the time where it'll be time for someone else, bigger than myself to assess how far I've come. And please believe, when that beat drops in heaven, I'll know I've made it.

Musing 3...4? Probably 3...Right?

You feel how you allow yourself to feel...

It's a concept I hadn't really got a grasp on until recently, but now that I have, all the extra just doesn't matter as much. Come, walk with me for a second...

I'd been so messed up over this guy from a long time ago that it was keeping me from seeing the ones right in front of me. Why? Because I felt slighted. Because I felt cheated. Because I felt like that dude took most of what I loved about myself and used it to his advantage to make me feel stupid. That whole situation was almost a year ago, and it was still haunting every move I made.

Until one day I woke up and asked myself why did I feel that way now though? Why, if that one guy made a mistake, would I punish others who come after him, but moreover why punish myself anymore by buying into the notion that I was stupid, that I got cheated, or I got taken advantage of? If it were true (which, for clarity's sake, it isn't), it was true awhile ago and had no bearing on what I did now, not unless I let it.

I've learned to let go of a lot of things. Some people are just stuck in their ways, not knowing or caring how they treat you. Some people are just mean, others are just stupid, but their surliness and stupidity can't make you think less of yourself, or think that you aren't worth what you and God know you are.

Let them call you what they want to. Let them think of you what they will. But know this: it only matters if you make it matter. That's not to say you can't get up in your feelings about things but recognize how much about you it is, and how much about that other person's perception of you it is. If it's all you, then by all means, get emo. But if it's about them...let it be about them. Apologize for how they feel if you want to, but don't let them be a hindrance to you.

I used to think because of this one guy, I wasn't pretty. I wasn't as smart as I thought I was. Nobody wants a stupid, ugly chick right? I used to think, as a child, that I was bad for asking questions that nobody could answer. As a teen, I used to think it was wrong to have emotions. And now...I question everything, I feel everything, and I flaunt my curves. And I don't apologize for any of it. And what, son?

Let it go! Be happy! Be triumphant! Be loose? adventurous? you :)

My Faith and Lack of Religion

My father thinks I'm an atheist. My aunt thinks I'm a head wrap away from Islam. My friends think I'll marry a Jewish man. Personally, I want a necklace with a cross, The Star of David, and the Star and Cresent of Islam; not because I want to "co-exist" but because I don't think we're all as different as everyone tells us we are. Whenever I'm asked my religion, I ask instead "What religion is God?" Do these opinions say something about my beliefs or the narrow way people define faith? Do my personal convictions paint me as a hypocrite in "genre" faiths or in the minds of theological purists??

God is my religion. I look at the world, trees, water, insects and all and wonder, "If not Him, how?" The world is a beautiful, but tough place and I can't imagine it being here on it's own accord. Someone would've had to taken time to think these things out. I believe God put down a cell on this planet of His and took His time to watch it become what we've become now. I don't think however that God is a genie we can ask for things, nor do I think if we pray hard enough He will change the landscapes of our lives. This is His plan; He's made it as such for His own specific reason (or by complete accident and He's just a-rolling with it). In any case, you can't reach into the middle of an experiment and change things, as it would change the outcome of every experiment, every specimen and every answer afterwards. And that's just selfish.

The people who hear me talk to God think I'm disrespectful; I don't come shouting His praises or touting His horn. Lord of Lords, King of Kings....He knows who He is; superlatives aside, what can I really say to Him in the way of awesome adjectives that He hasn't heard or know is true for Himself? Instead, I speak to Him like I would a mentor, not censoring myself on the basis that He's God and He'll smite me at any minute for saying a curse word in my frustration with the world or my own spirit. He knows who I am; He created me this way for a reason, and as such, how I speak to Him is nobody's business but mine and His. He knows I'm like that and sh*t.

I don't ask for things for myself. I think that's the reason people trump up so many adjectives for God because they want to make Him feel good before they lay into their Christmas list of things they want, need, or wish for. When I ask God for things, I don't ask him for things. I ask for understanding, I ask for patience, and I ask for strength. I ask for grace when I feel like He's put in me in a place where I have no idea what I'm doing, and I ask for love so that I feel confident in myself to do what He's placed me here for and on very rare occasions I ask for a good man (which He doesn't apparently take seriously) :). And I always say thank you, as that's just polite whether He "came through" or not for even bothering to listen to me.

I believe the God all religions worship is the same by different name. In the Eskimo language there are hundreds of words for snow. Does that mean the snow is different? Does it mean it comes in different forms? Nope, and in my opinion, neither does God.

I get upset with most "orthodox" Christians and the extremists. They quote the holy text and sing all the gospels but still don't understand the simple principle that God is love; out of love, in order to be more like God, we should treat everyone with love and respect. When I see Christians picketing funerals, outside of abortion clinics, and outside of strip clubs I just wonder what God they think they're serving by yelling cruel things to people. I wonder if they know that God is weeping for the person they're mistreating just as He would weep for them.

It would be easy to hate these people, as they give the "unorthodox/in-betweens" ones like me a bad rap, but the truth is, I can't feel anything but sadness for them. I was watching an episode of Grey's Anatomy awhile ago and Dr. Bailey said that people hadn't caught up to God yet in the way they treat other people. The "Christian" fans got all in a tizzy about it, not realizing they were proving her point by the way they band-wagon'd onto the words and not the meaning. I'm sad that they don't know that God isn't who and what they think He is. He doesn't want us to hate and tear down one another, but to lift each other up and make each other better.

We haven't caught up to God. If our faith is so easily swayed and narrowly defined by what we read and what we are told by our pastors instead of what we see, know and feel in our hearts, perhaps we never will. But the day we as a people fail to try, is most certainly the day when I lose my religion whatever that might be.

Spreading love
Dropping knowledge
Speaking from the heart <3