Alive

When I was younger, still in my single digits, I had a dream. There was a woman with a shotgun in her lap. She was in a rocking chair cleaning the gun. Her face was lined with time and her eyes were bright. Her voice was strong and she told me a few things. One of the things she said was, "The year you turn twenty-seven is gonna be the hardest year of your life. You've gotta survive it."

As it turns out, that dream lady was my father's grandmother who died before I knew who she was. I'd never seen any pictures, I'd only heard her name sporadically up to that point, but when I described her years later to my dad who was drunkenly telling me about her, he froze. He said "That's her." Freaky, right?

And she wasn't wrong.

Since midnight December 31st of 2016, everything seemed to get astronomically harder. It was like the weight I was already carrying had extra gravity put on it. I typically manage everything well enough to not present to the world how much everything hurts me, or how much pressure I'm under to do right, not by anybody else's standards but by my own which are damn near impossibly high. 

So February I attempted to jump off a parking structure and was stopped by a co-worker. I was put in the hospital on the mental ward floor and doped to high heaven. I met so many people in there, all struggling, all smart and beautiful and damaged to themselves beyond repair. I was formally diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder II, put on a medication plan and sent away after four days with no way to buy the medication they'd had me on.

6 days later, I walked into traffic. I was stopped before something terrible happened by my best friend A, who drove me, literally kicking and screaming, back to the hospital. I stayed another 4 days and determined I never wanted to go back there again.  

They made me feel, by virtue of their treatment and the things I would hear them say when they thought I was sleeping, that I didn't belong there. Hell, they said I didn't belong there. But I did, maybe not at their facility, but one that tried to understand more about me and the pressure I was under to be so much more than I was, one that would actually help me. 

Sometimes though, I miss it. There's a comfort in there, a quiet that seems endless. There's always someone there to check on your vitals, to keep you alive. There's always snacks. There's always a therapy group to go to. There's always a bed to lay on. More than any of that, there's all this time to separate yourself from the trouble outside of it. There's time for you to nurture yourself that you don't get when you're outside.

So by the end of March, by nature of the fact I hadn't been for most of the month, I'd lost my job and couldn't get on unemployment. I was terrified. I'd never been fired before and I felt helpless. But my best friends A&W kept me afloat, my parents did what they could to help, and I was only unemployed for 2 or 3 weeks because I'm the kinda bad bitch that won't be kept down by silly shit like "joblessness" when I have things to do. 

And here I am, half way through the hardest year of my life, still struggling and feeling like I'm drowning. Every day it's a different kind of drowning, and not always a bad kind. Some days, I drown in myself; I look at all my accomplishments and my goals, I look at my pretty face and fine-ass figure, I color or I write and immerse myself in the parts of my spirit that are placid and warm. Some days I drown in the sadness that's like a dark, deep ocean; out there it feels like nobody sees you struggle, nobody can help you, and you've just got to let it take you deeper into the cold, and some days I do. 

More often than not, I'm fighting to stay afloat. I get out of bed when I'd rather not. I don't drink alcohol when I'd rather wake up to that more than Folger's in my cup. I go to work, I hang out with my friend, I listen to music. I live even when it's fucking painful to do so. 

I'm alive.

And it's the hardest thing I've done, and continue to do.

Wu-Tang Forever II

Remember a few weeks ago when I said Wu-Tang Forever could go one of two ways, and chose to go right? Welp, today we gonna go left.

For two years, I lived in this really tiny apartment with a really pretty view of the city lights at night from my balcony. The only furniture in it were bookshelves, an unassembled chair and my bed. The TV was only plugged in to play the occasional video game and stream stuff. It was minimal, but peaceable; anyone I allowed in would settle either in my reading nook (which was just a large, unmatched comforter and throw pillows next to a large bay window) or on my bed...before falling asleep within 12 minutes.

I was working on finding my peace, and I found simplifying my life made it easier to navigate. And then Danny needed a favor.

My mom has a habit of picking up what I call stray people. People who don't belong to nobody, or don't want to, she offers solace - food, a place to stay, a place to build yourself up before you leave the nest. She usually doesn't ask for much in return, so it happens that a friend of hers had a son who needed some place to stay for awhile. His wife was divorcing him and leaving him with a lot of debt, his mother was out of the country, his sister was too busy having a baby and my mom being my mom, offered some help.

Usually with offering help, I somehow get offered in there too...not the way that it ended up, mind you but...I'm getting ahead of myself.

It happens that Danny was doing a class and needed help. Mom offered my services, but advised I come with a price. Being the zen maiden I was, I offered to do his work for him if he brought me either wine or french fries for every paper I did. And thus, the deal was struck; once a week, he'd knock on my door, sit in my nook, and let me write. Somehow though, he started to talk, and all his monsters flew out of his mouth. He was looking for absolution. He was looking for love. He was looking for pity.

Being that he was a racist, sexist ass, I could give him none of the above. Although he was half black, he hated that side of himself and spewed the worst vitriol I'd ever heard from someone so obviously enamored and afraid of said blackness. He loved the female form, but treated it like a transaction to be had, a tit for tat exchange where in a pound of flesh was traded for another pound. Women were pieces of things, not fully fleshed out, realized people...except his mother which...chile...

Instead, between paragraphs and bites, I hit him with the real. He was an asshole, he was looking for his mother in all the women he was supposedly in love with, and until he decided to change, the same sad-sack shit was going to keep happening to him. He was shocked; nobody had ever talked to him like that before, he'd said, with such even amounts of candor and disdain.

I guess it was my honesty, or the fact that I was clearly not wanting a relationship at the time, but one day, my clothes just fell off and it happened. Suddenly, it was something new, something to kind of look forward to; we'd have a little real talk, I'd have a little snack, and then some lack-luster sex and he'd be on his way.

I'm not the kind of girl who sleeps around. It's not for lack of trying, or for some inflated sense of self, it's just that I tend to want to be with someone to be with someone. I want intimacy and a meeting of minds. I want passion and fun. I want the whole thing, not just the sex. At that time I was fighting with that part of myself. My ex had moved on and was trying to get out there and get it in and though I was happy for him, I looked at my lacking love life as some sort of stamp of WORTHLESS on my forehead.

Essentially, I was using sex as a weapon against myself. Sex with him, though physically "meh" was emotionally beating the shit out of me. Every encounter left me wondering if that was all there is, if I would forever be the girl you fuck, but not the girl you love. No matter how much I tried to change my thinking about it, to convince myself that I could keep going, my real self was looking me in the face and shaking her head. Can't run from yourself forever, and you can't keep putting yourself in bullshit situations and thinking that it's not going to change or effect you.

Even though I was "happy", I was not truly content or still in my spirit. I still felt that I needed a man, any man, to come in and make me whole. One day, though, before he came over, I sat in my own nook, relishing the quiet and my mind just said "Okay girl. That's enough." And so it was. That same day, I ended it all the same way I began it: with charity and candor, I told him it wasn't going to work out. Not on a sex level, not on a friendship level.

I have this thing where I believe my relationships have to add to me, not take away, and I found the longer I kept up the charade of possibility for him, the worse I felt about me. Iron sharpens iron, and being with him was like an ax meeting wood; he'd done nothing to deserve or warrant my friendship, but where I was, using energy I could've turned inwards trying to make his stubborn trunk into something workable. I would've been a great friend to him. Maybe I could've helped him be a better person. Maybe we could've grown into a friendship.

But I doubt it. Shit was never on 10.

I guess the moral is here, just like you can use somebody to help you, you can use somebody to hurt you. You can try to change your nature, or you can embrace it; eventually all rocks are worn away by water - your true self is the water, that false shit you put up? Rocks.

I learned my lesson. I still look back on it sometimes and wonder what I was thinking...

Am I alone in this, or is this a phase everyone kind of goes through? Help me understand me >.<

Xo,

Tess

Luchini

There's a popular theory going around about love languages. You can feel loved by physical touch, gifts, words of affirmation, acts of devotion or quality time, or, as for most people, a combination of all five. But me? Of course, I have a weirdly specific and cumbersome love language all my own.

In any picture of me as a kid, you'll see me either looking disdainfully down the camera into your soul, or with headphones on, earbuds in, and a smile in my eyes. It's not so much about drowning out the world around me, but more about cultivating taste and living my life with my own soundtrack shadowing my steps. I would carry around two books of CDs (what are those? o.O) and batteries for my Walkman. I would search for days and days, only knowing a few choice lyrics or chord progressions in thrift and CD stores with my parents, asking the cashier with no shame to play me a few tracks from an album that I thought had what I was looking for, and then beg my parents to buy it regardless. I was a collector of sound.

I'm not sure how or why music grabbed me the way it did. With my parents, there was a good chance I would love reading, writing, cooking, video games, or cars with equal ferocious intensity as I do music, but as it stands, music was my first love. My first memory ever, is of Toddler Tess sitting in front of a subwoofer swaying and clapping her hands while the grown ups played grown up games in the background.

As I grew, so did the technology and the hunger for more. I went from a Walkman to an iPod, from the knowledge of the cashier, to the knowledge of the world wide web. And even still, my sound collecting grows. My appreciation for all types of music has grown. My understanding of layering and complexity within these things I love has grown.

It stands to reason then, that music is my love language.

I fell in love with Tarzan over a thousand miles away; his personality and character were major pluses, but if I'm honest, his music knowledge was the first thing that made my heart flutter. It's enticing, exciting, after walking around for decades speaking a language and finally finding someone who speaks the same. Plus, he makes music, creating new things that never existed before he put them together. If that's not a panty dropper I don't know what is....Just to reinterate, because I feel like  I'm going in weird ex-girlfriend territory here, he and I ain't together anymore - this is just a crazy tangent...uh...

I digress.

Camp Lo's "Luchini" is my zenith. From the first time I heard it as a kid, I felt this incredible feeling like I could do anything, I could be anything. It's not about the lyrics (which took me years to even sort of understand) but the feel. "Luchini" is the feeling of falling in love and speeding down a highway towards a sunset with wind in your hair. "Luchini" is the feeling of finding a perfect pair of jeans for that perfect shirt you found a few weeks ago. "Luchini" is a raise at work, or better yet, getting to leave early. It's golden and pristine, it's giddy and chill. It is what it is.

I haven't been feeling real Luchini lately. That's not to say I've been super depressed or anxious, but I just feel like I'm existing and not really living. I've been feeling like who I am isn't enough for my damn self and that something was inherently wrong with my overall hopeful outlook on the world. I've been feeling like my history, as noted in the previous blog, made me some sort of damaged goods. And then I went on iTunes and found Teedra Moses put out a new album (listen to it) with a song that samples what?

You guessed it.

Hearing "Luchini" with a new twist makes me happy. It reminds me that, just as music can grow and become new, so can I. Just as my music knowledge expands, so does my musical love language and understanding of myself. What it takes to make me happy now, is the same thing it took to make me happy then, and instead of being so hard on myself for that perceived inability to mature, I can instead be happy with my simplicity. I'm still the girl with the headphones. I'm still the girl with the open heart. As hard as it is to remain, I am still me.

Proof, I suppose, that some things, no matter how much time passes, remain cool. :)

-Tess

Wu-Tang Forever

This one could go a couple of ways.

On the one hand, I can talk about how I was fucking a divorcing man for a few months, mostly out of loneliness and spite. And how, over time, I convinced myself that me not wanting more was some sort of flaw within myself, even though in all honesty, he wasn't a good enough friend to consider upgrading him to something more...

On the other I can talk about these nostalgic and rueful feelings I've been having lately that make me wonder about the whole "it's yours" thing...As always, let's go with the more complex, yeah?

I have a longing to belong with someone, or rather to somebody that I can't explain. I noticed it after Tarzan and I broke up, that I felt this sort of empty, aching thing that seemed to follow behind me like a Charlie Brown cloud. Nobody else noticed it. I was fine; still funny, still smiling, still functioning. And I suppose I was, but, as I'm sure I've said a few times now, I was just edging the inevitable break down.

As of late, I feel the chokehold of that empty, aching thing, coming in waves; some days I breathe fine and enjoy every moment, and others I feel lost, like I'm missing something or something is missing me. The empty, aching thing is also a nagging, persistent thing, as sometimes, even when it's the furthest thing from my mind, it sneaks me and tries to tackle me down. And all the time, I manage to pull myself away from it, get some perspective and keep it moving.

The last few weeks though have been a bit harder to climb out of. You see, I found a box of old journals and poems written by yours truly. I was always charming and crass, and sweet and funny. I read my life as if it were someone else's story, someone's else's life playing out and it made me painfully aware of one consistent pattern.

I was always in love.

Or at the very least, trying my damndest to be.

At first it was only an itch, something that rubbed me a little awkwardly that I could brush off. But as my scratchy, large print looped into elegant mature cursive, as my vocabulary started containing less OMGs and more Bismillahs, that one thing never changed. There was always some boy. Always some girl. And the insane thing is, I don't remember them, but I remember always wanting them.

At the time, this person was the love of my life! I couldn't breathe without them! This was my true love, for real for real this time! And yet, when one ended, another began just as quickly, just as shallowly. So many names, and misadventures lost to time and memory. So many people I neglected to think of as complex and whole people, just as ideas or items to possess...

But the thing is, I'm still that same girl in a way. I'm still searching for someone to love who'll love me back. Most days I'm ambivalent about that basic truth of myself, but others I feel so beaten by it.
I feel like, if it's my nature to love and to be loved and I'm without that basic (or at least in my mind, basic) need, then...what now? Moreover, isn't it sort of pathetic that that's all I really want out of life, to be able to look at someone sincerely and tell them "It's yours?"

I had that once. Of the scores of times, I only meant it once. And though it was a painful thing when it ended, it was a period where my growth as a person seemed to skyrocket. I was blooming. I was animated. I had plans and dedication to them. I had purpose in a way that I hadn't had before. And that makes me feel sad; why does someone else coming into my life give it purpose? Why can't I do that for myself, or why even when I do it for myself does it seem so hollow?

Do I still want the things I want? With my whole heart, I do. But at the same time, a pattern is a pattern because we don't change it. Is it a pattern I change, or a pattern that changes me? I don't want to be hardened and sad, or callous and jaded, I always want to be the crass, charming, funny and sweet girl I've always been, but as time goes on, and I keep getting beat about the face with this one major (in my eyes, anyway) flaw in my character, I can feel myself sort of slipping away.

I don't know what to do you guys.

So I'll just leave it where it is for now.

I'm So Dope

I've had a shitty couple of weeks. Job stress is messing with my self-perception; if I'm in the top 1%, why the fuck they still sweating me? My best friend recently got engaged, and her and I being so close, like siblings, of course I feel like the sexless, spinster sister while simultaneously feeling so much joy and excitement for her I could burst; its complicated. My tutoring duties had people clamoring for more attention, more red squiggles, and discussions and study guides for me to create...

Today I put on a black, A-line swing dress, flats, big silver hoops and a red Atlantic City hoodie to go to the movies. My hair in a huge, soft cloud of curls, coils, kinks and varying "straight" pieces, made an eccentric looking afro. My glasses fogged up as soon as I stepped into the cool theater and flashed my ticket. 

As an aside, movie theaters have lost their damn minds with these concession stand prices. Why is it $10 for a ticket, and $15 for a small popcorn and a bottled water? Like...why?

Didn't matter. The theater was half filled with teenagers and the other half old-heads. Even though I wasn't alone, I sure felt like it. And then the movie started.

The thing I love most about movies in theaters is that, no matter what, when the movie starts, you're on this ride with everybody else. You are not just "you" any more; you're part of the conglomerate, the "audience." You laugh when something's funny, and so do like 35 other people. You suck your teeth at the same time 19 other people do. You fit in.

Dope is like "The Breakfast Club," or "Sixteen Candles," for my generation of kids, who grew up on Mortal Kombat, vinyls and Walkmans, and gold chains and can't let the golden age go. Admittedly, I was a literal kid through most of it, but all my greatest memories growing up were in the 90s. Once about...2003 hit? It was like getting break checked. I digress. The movie was the best one I've seen in at at least 5 years. If you can see it, see it. If you can't see it...see it.

But as I was leaving the theater, my old, worn bag slung over my shoulder, dress swishing around my hips, I felt like something was missing. Like someone was missing. And that's the thing with me, someone is always missing. There's this ghost of possibility walking next to me out into the humid Texas night; I could've seen the movie with W, Tarzan or best friend Andre and had a blast, or with a potential homie/lover/friend and walked out holding hands and ordering pizza. But I wasn't; as always, I was walking out alone. 

I related to Dope's protagonists, because like them, I didn't and sort of don't fit in anywhere. They were remarkable in an anomalous sort of way and thus, didn't really make names for themselves; they were just those "weird" kids. I was, and always feel like one of those "weird" kids. But unlike them, I don't have a tribe to call up and do "weird" shit with. I don't have my ride-or-dies nearby. I'm just one weird girl, walking to the beat of her own weird drum.

And that's... dope. Scary and lonely as shit, but it's amazing. I can do the things I love by myself and, for the most part, not feel alienated. I go to the comic store, I pick up mice for my pet snake, I get lost down town and find a taco stand to eat at, and I do all of it alone. And I feel fine. But sometimes...I just want to share what I love with people I like. Sometimes I want a hand in mine, or a shoulder to lean on. Sometimes, I'm not enough for my damn self.

I feel like this has gone in so many directions...Takeaways are as follows: 1) See Dope. I loved it. B) Confidence in one's self is awesome and allows one to feel complete even when they're alone. III) Some times that's not enough, and weirdly enough, that's okay.

Later days, Tribe.

Use Somebody

As I was driving down the highway at a brisk 85 around 10 o'clock I was composing this blog post in my head...And yet, I've no idea how to start it.

Well, here it goes anyway.

I am not extroverted at all. In spite of my two extremely extroverted parents, I've somehow always managed to squirrel most of me away from interested eyes, merely mimicking the characteristics of an extrovert. Mysterious. Elitist. Enigmatic. I've been called many things, and in spite of how often I tell the truth nobody seems to believe me. The truth is, I'm just afraid, or rather, I've spent most of my life being afraid. But being afraid is ennui; nothing good happens when you live by fear, but nothing bad happens either. At a certain point, you get so tired of staying still you feel you're going to scream; you're waiting for anything, anything to happen.

But sometimes you gotta make it happen for yourself. And that's sort of where I am now.

It's no surprise to y'all I'm lonesome; I tell you all the time. And even when I don't, it's like two locked hands in my throat, keeping me from saying my truth, even if I don't speak it, doesn't make it less real. Speaking it into existence, to me, has always been a show of weakness and self-centered thinking; nobody owes me their company, nobody owes me their time. But what if I could give someone a little of mine? What if I could give a little of the fear, a little of the mess of me to someone else in exchange for some of theirs?

That's where friends come in. I don't have very many. In fact, my parents round out my top five. I know it's not about quantity, but quality, and I've hit the jackpot when it comes to the people I surround myself with. They're loyal, and kind. They let me be myself, whether I'm mournful or jovial, whether I lash out or pull everything in. Lastly, they're a reflection of myself, or rather, the kind of friend I've been to them, which is dope to think about.

So it happens that I work in a place full of people (le gasp!), and hadn't talked to too many people at all about myself. In fact, very few people their even know who I am; I'm a wraith, a passing figure who holds open doors or elevators, who makes a quick joke and disappears. Or I was. Lately, tentatively, I've been reaching out, revealing little tidbits of me here and there.

And see, there's a guy that works with me. And before you go there, I know; for me there seems to always be a guy and isn't that the kind of thing I'm trying to get out of and yada yada. Shut up. Hear me out.

The guy has been there this whole time I've been at this job. Not pushy, or super duper Stepford friendly, but not stand-offish or cold. We traded a few jokes and interests back and forth, offered music and food suggestions and kept it moving. Until recently. The side effect of my new confidence, I think, is giving my shy self a push. Coaxing my damned self to take a risk here or there, to do something different, to try to be somebody different.

I made up my mind to be his friend, or at least to try. He's sort of really cool; he does things that I wish I was doing, like going to concerts and making his mind up on a dime to go out of his comfort zone. He's got kind eyes and a laugh that draws you in. He's got the kind of voice that makes me feel like I could tell him anything and nothing and whatever I say would be cool, that it'd all be safe. And most important, my mind that's usually super quick to "ship" shit and spin every little thing into a "maybe..."is just not doing it; dude is super cute, kind of bordering on hot I'd say, but it's never at the fore of my mind. Thankfully, I am not stressin or obsessin. The short of it is, he's somebody good, the kind of good you can just tell, and the fact I'm not actively trying to sleep with him is great. Is that what maturity is supposed to be?

It's not like he's getting the short end of the deal either. Once you get to know me, I do my damndest to make sure I'm one of the best people you ever met. Secrets stay secrets with me (because who do I have to tell for one, and for two...who tells secrets? Are unspoken promises not even like, "things" anymore?), and I'm there for my people even if it kills me. Plus, atop the myriad of great things about me, I'm funny as shit.

Filling a void, using somebody, isn't the worst thing a person can do. I've learned the worst thing somebody can do is not try to spread the good in themselves around (and no, that's not a euphemism). The worst thing somebody can do is deprive themselves of something they need because of how it makes them look or seem. The worst somebody can do is not attempt.

Is the guy my next best friend? I dunno. That's gonna be the fun of it. And if he is, I'll be grateful. If not, it's not the end of the world; it's like that old adage about seasons and leaves on trees or something - some folks ain't meant to stay. You can hope, you can try to keep em, but if they're not meant for you, they just aren't.

Doesn't mean I won't enjoy wherever the ride goes, though.

Wish me luck.

Amy

On a mild day, four or five years ago, I was hanging out with a friend in another friend's truck bed. We were talking music, as he and I often had, and watching clouds drift across one of the bluest skies I remember seeing. Somehow in the conversation, he'd made the assertion that I was like Adele, and best friend W was like Amy Winehouse; we both came from the same place, both had a certain strength, and were pretty much foreign to the folks where we were at the time.

When bringing it up to W, it's more than obvious to her and I both; she's Adele, I'm Amy.

There's a sweet mournfulness about Amy that resonates deeply with me. She's the tragic romantic, the honest and raw antithesis to what a "lady" should be, while encompassing all of a lady's vulnerability, softness and elegance. She's no role model, but admittedly as far as role models go you could do worse. She's broken and whole, she's happy and sad, she's full and empty; she's me.

Even in my happiness, even in my joy, there is still the sadness. I don't know how to explain it to friends without feeling like a whiner, or like I'll be lectured on "living my best life" and being "a strong, independent woman who don't need no man" and other such bullshit. Because yes, it's true. I AM a strong, independent yada yada, and yes I AM attempting to live my best life today and shit, but at the same time, I'm a lover without someone to love, or without someone who'll love her back the same. Nothing anybody can say can fix that.

And so, I drink down the stress and the loneliness. I line the wine bottles up next to my bedroom door, labels front facing, as a reminder of sorts of my problem, but not as an indicator of when or if I should stop. I write poems and journal entries, I sing her songs and think about my life and where I am, about how fucking happy I am. About how fucking beautiful I feel. And about how God damn lonely I am most days.

If nobody else gets me, Amy gets me. Her songs, be they jazzy and uptempo, or cheeky and sampling hip-hop, are a mirror into what or who I am. Please, no "Rehab" jokes.

I think the quintessence of the parallels I draw come to a head with "Wake Up Alone." Sorrowful and stripped down, she sings about trying to focus on being happy, on being above her drinking, her obsessive thinking, her loneliness. She sings about waiting for her him to come and he does (or they do) and yet she still wakes up alone every day, wishing he (or they) would love her as she wants to love them. Like, shit...if that's not me I couldn't write a better song for myself.

But, and here's the most beautiful, and in my opinion the worst part of it all; above all, she is hopeful. Just because she's waking up alone now, doesn't mean she always will. Just because she doesn't feel loved and completely whole now, doesn't mean she never will. Sure, she may not say so, but the warmth with which she sings, the smile you can hear in her voice, let's you know it's not all over for her, not by a long shot.

Or maybe that's just me.

Xo