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

Shameful Confession: One Direction

Shameful confession time - I am a rabid Zayn Malik fan which by proxy makes me a rabid One Direction fan. It happened accidentally; after finding out he left the band and seeing all the hysteria surrounding it I wondered what all the fuss was about. All I knew of the band at that point was that they made infectious pop that teen girls everywhere adored and that they were a few dudes led by a dude named Harry.

Needless to say, I get what the fuss was about now. Not only was Zayn, in my humble opinion, the most handsome (like, Oh my God) but he has a great voice suited more for R&B I think that the dizzying pop the group is known for. Hopefully, he continues on solo because a voice like his is interesting enough to want to take heed to; plus, since Craig David, when have we had an ethnic UK crooner hit the US charts? Just sayin...

Fan-girling aside, their music taps into the part of me that is, above all things, optimistic and happy. After a long day, I may drive home from work, windows down playing "Clouds" and dreaming of the day I keep driving past all my troubles, past all my doubts, into a new city, a new life, a new me. I may play "What Makes You Beautiful" while getting ready for a date or when I'm having a quick elevator dance party (what? I'm not the only one who does those, right?).

I don't remember a time in my life where I've felt as confident and as happy as I do now. And it's not anything really specific that's caused it. I'm (finally) off the mood stabilizing meds, which for a time was a hard adjustment to make. I'm at a relatively new job that I do exceedingly well at. But I think what's happened is I decided to be happy.

How odd is that? That you can decide how you'll feel about something? For so long I thought I needed something, an unattainable X factor to make me feel happy. I felt like I needed something outside of myself to motivate and generate warm feelings. Truth is, I have it in me all the time to be jovial and just never tapped into it, thinking that the deeper or sadder feelings were the ones that needed my attention, the ones that needed to be "solved" in a way. But, you feel how you feel for a reason, and sometimes for no reason at all; in the instances where there's no reason at all, why not try to feel differently, think differently? What can you gain, really, by being unhappy all the time?

That's not to say I don't have bad days, sad days, and I-just-wanna-be-mad days. I still do. But I think about why I feel the way I do, and if it's something I can change. If it is, change on. If not, why worry?

Now I know you're wondering "The hell does this have to do with One Direction?" Here's the thing; I hear them, and my inner 16 year-old self jumps up and down and squeals. Their music makes me happy. Raisinettes make me happy. Driving on the highway makes me happy. Trying new things makes me happy. Why deny myself those things? Or why put those things off?

My discovery of their music has just spurned me on, in a way, providing a soundtrack for me to chase down what makes me happy and just immersing myself in it...

Don't judge me, yo.

Xo

Be Selfish

Yesterday I did the dumbest, bravest, most painful and wisest thing I've had to do: I said no to something I really wanted, but couldn't keep...and then proceeded to get drunk off my ass. Seriously; there was Epsom salt on my spice rack when I woke up this morning. But, the drunken blog is next - I digress.

So the story goes, a big-hearted girl with stars in her eyes finds comfort in a sweet, kind friend after admittedly the hardest year of her life. And he stays around for it all; her stress and worry, her doubts and fears, as well as her triumphs and joys and little victories. He makes her laugh when she wants to cry, he encourages her to do the best she can. He tells her she's beautiful so much, she actually starts to believe it.

Attraction builds, and is mutual, but homie doesn't want a relationship - just a little friendly fuckin. Our sweet, naive heroine believes she can do non-committed sex even though she knows (and he knows, and everybody nose) that that isn't what she needs or deserves.

Y'all know how the story ends. Hell, some of you are or have been the heroine in the same story; she succumbs to the moment and ends up hurting more than she thought possible, with nobody to blame but herself. She settles, because deep down she doesn't think she deserves more. She thinks that she asks for too much; surely if she were worth it, if she were everything the men of her past said she was, they would stay - they would want all of her, not just pieces. If she were worth anything, they'd be with her, they'd love her the way she needs them to.

Besides, she's done it before, quite a few times. She gives all of herself, everything, to people who wouldn't and couldn't give her what she needed with the same intensity. She's naturally selfless, this heroine, and always pays the price for it, bruising and cutting up her heart with her feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing. But this guy cares about her; maybe he'd change his mind and want more. Maybe if she went through with it she would change and become the type of strong, confident brassy broad who can have sex with no expectations happily.

But she...I am not that kind of girl. I may not always feel worth it, and I may still cry my heart out some days wondering why nobody wants me. But I can't do that to myself again. I can't set myself up for that kind of fuck over. I have to look out for me, and know and respect myself enough to say what I want, and when enough is enough. I'm a chick who needs commitment. Opened and closed case.

So as shitty as I feel for backing out, and not getting what I want, I told my friend, whom I adore, that sex couldn't happen without commitment. He knows me, better than most people in fact, so he knows why, but I know he's disappointed, and I understand that. What I hope he understands is that it was hard as hell to stand up for myself in this way. I hope he knows that he's still one of my best friends on Earth. More than anything, I hope he knows that this change, this tentative assertion of my worth and confidence, wouldn't have been possible without him. And if he ever changes his mind...

Being selfish and changing the narrative is hard, but needed. If you won't and don't care for yourself enough to not willingly go into something that'll hurt you, how can you expect anyone else to care enough not to hurt you?

Am I disappointed? Have you ever returned a box of unused, pristine, damn-near-no-finger-prints-on-the-box condoms? That kinda frustration is enough to make a woman cry. But..I'm still proud. A little bruised up about it, but not as much as I would've been had I laid down some A+ Circle Swirl for so little in return. I'm not only proud, I'm glad I was able to change my story.

My Inner Child Is A Little Disappointed

And I don't blame her.

Today at work, between the many ticky-typing finger strokes and mildly concerned "Mmhms" murmured into my headset I had time to consider the following:

My eight year old self is looking up at my 24 year old self and she asks me the two questions that mean the most to her at that age: are you happy? Why or why not?

How funny is it, that in the sixteen years that have lapsed between then and now how little has changed. How intriguing that those are still the same questions I ask myself at least weekly. Does that just mean I'm more in touch with that child-like part of me, or that I've never grown up? Do any of us really ever "grow up" in the sense that we have all our shit together and are fulfilled? Ah, I digress.

If posed that question by my 8 year old self, pushing her glasses up on her nose and watching my face intently, waiting for an answer....what can I tell her?

Yes and no. I don't know. Are those answers good enough for her? Are they good enough for me?

I had a very long day, ticky-typing and "Mmhmm"ing. I had a very long day of researching for primary mental care physicians, and looking into college registration and course work. I had a tiring day of looking at all I've yet to accomplish and trying to convince myself I could do it all. And that's where 8 year old me gets disappointed.

Not at the ticky-typing job. Not at the "mmhms" or the studying and copious amount of information collecting, because even back then, that was pretty much her personality too. No, she's disappointed that I don't believe in me anymore. When did that happen? I used to be able to say, confidently and with a bright, crooked smile, "I can do anything I want." Why can't I say that anymore without tears of frustration and and fear building up behind my composed front?

When posing these questions to myself, for myself, the answers I come up with are so flimsy. Well, y'know, there was working, and depression and bipolar, and more work and bills and...what the hell does any of that mean anyway? Moreover, why do I let that extraneous stuff effect my inner self so much? None of those things, the bills, the work, the stress, none of that defines who I am. Those are all things that I have to handle.

So, today, after work and family time and a little gym time, I decided to make my younger self proud. I decided that "I can do anything" is the way children think (and incredibly hard to live up to), but that "I can do this," is the way a woman thinks and can be as easy as "I can get up and go to work today," or "I can go to school for a degree" or "I can give up McDonalds...but not the fries though (because "fries" was literally my 4th word so...hell no.)."

Today, I looked inside at my younger self and answered with an honest, "Sometimes, but I am trying to make it more like 'most of the time'." And after that I danced around in my boxers to my new favorite song, petted my pet snake George, and resolved that me and younger me, no matter what, were always going to have this symbiosis. Making her happy makes me happy. So if that means dance parties after work, if that means an occasional dinner of ice cream and french fries, if that means taking better care of me and listening to myself more than I do the stresses and the extra stuff...doesn't seem like such a bad compromise.

*inserts disco ball emoji*

Depression Hurts - Revisited and Revamped

I think the year I acknowledged something was wrong was the year I turned 18. I was working at my local chicken shack (happy as can be, mind you, because every night at ten we could take the chicken home with us), going to school, participating in chorus. I was fine, better than fine, I was happy. Until  one day I just wasn't anymore. Suddenly, I was going to school, going to work, coming home, and laying motionless in bed for hours. My participation in extra curricular activities dropped drastically. I stopped bringing home excess chicken. And I stayed in that state for maybe 8 months. (Until, like a light switch being turned on, I was "back," faster, brighter and more engaging than ever.)

My parents blamed puberty, or teen angst and rebellion for my sudden disinterest and brazen disregard for rules and during a tough time, my mom sent me to live with my dad in North Carolina. The depression resumed, but in a new setting. My room was always dark, shades drawn and lights out. My only companions were some guy on the internet who was weird but always there and a pug-nosed dog with oily smelling gas I named Nuu-Nuu (even though her name was Peachez...Yes, with a "Z."). I spent months in that dark room, putting forth lack-luster effort to learn guitar, learn chess, exercise...putting forth minimal effort to be "normal."

Then I started school. Met my best friend W. Had the best year of my life, even with all the ups and downs of new friendships, new responsibilities and doing much of the household upkeep on my own as my dad and his wife were military and not home much at all. Again, I was "back" it seemed. I was having fun. I felt alive. I felt real. And then my parents moved me again.

And the cycle started over.

And it took years from that point for me to enter therapy (after a particularly ugly nervous breakdown) and get a diagnosis.

Hey. My name's Testorshia. And I have Bipolar II disorder.

For awhile, I denied it. For all my studying of random points of interest, I had very little idea what bipolar disorder was. I had heard it used as a punchline, an excuse for a sudden change of mind or outburst, but never would have equated the symptoms to myself. Not only that, I found that my anxieties, which I thought were abnormal but expected, signaled an anxiety disorder that coincided with the bipolar. Something was wrong with me. Something was wrong with me. That's all I could think for so long; I had to be fixed. There had to be something I could do. I wanted desperately to fit in, to be "normal" and not feel like some sort of sideshow of emotions and nerves, some sort of carnival of depression and mania.

I fought it. I didn't take the medications. I didn't write the journals. I didn't do the homework my therapist gave me. I was normal, damnit. I was gonna keep on being normal. This thing wouldn't change me. I wouldn't let it.

And then, tired of fighting, I accepted it. Therapy, after I stopped being so stubborn, was a break-through. All the things I'd been telling myself for years were neither right nor wrong. I was normal. I was fine. I was also ill. And so not fine. There's a grayness in life, I learned, where you can be both and neither, some, few and all, all at the same time. Life's ambiguity, life's malleability had eluded me for so long. I had always had such strict ideas about what I should be doing, who I should be impressing, who I should love, failing to realize that those points can and most times do change except in this way: I should do what I want to do, I should impress me, I should love me.

There are some days I hate my diagnosis. Days where I feel the medication clouds my creativity, blocks off the parts of myself that are so vibrant and full of wonder, I am almost mad at myself for being ill in this way. Yet other days, I am proud of how far I've come: from that girl laying in bed thinking of lying down on a busy highway at night, to the girl sitting on her balcony in a blanket blowing bubbles at the moon. My diagnosis, my illness, for all the hell it's given me, has also given me peace and clarity. It's given me a voice, a perspective, I couldn't have dreamed would be my own, but here I am, living in it, or at least trying to, with some semblance of grace and self-sufficiency.

Here I am. All broken, and whole, all sadness and joy. Here I am, all of me.

I'm Mad at the Internet

It came to me in the tub actually. I was soaking and mellowing out to a "Night" playlist, candles lit and lights out with my favorite bubble bath crackling around me. I do my best thinking in water, and without my glasses, so all the shapes and colors and shadows blend and my mind can focus inward.

I'm mad at the internet. That's why I don't write. It's why I don't tweet as often (except Thursdays because Shonda Rhimes, obviously). It's why it's like I've disappeared from the communities that I used to draw inspiration and strength from. It's not that I have nothing to say, it's just the opposite. I've got so much to say, but I don't feel like this space is my own anymore. I feel like I'm shouting into a void of darkness with no echo, no sound returning.

It'd be easy enough to blame Tarzan. I sort of relinquished Twitter to him; we follow a lot of the same people and talk about some of the same things and it was easier for me to forget the loneliness left in his wake when I'm not constantly seeing him on my time line. The real real is that I'm mad at me.

I am still so open. I am still so tender. And I'm still so hurt. I tell myself all the time, it was just a break up, shouldn't you be done with this by now? The tender side of me responds that it was the first, it meant the most, to be told I was great, but not great enough to keep. The tender side of me knows what the logical side doesn't; it's all internalized. Mostly, I miss being in love, and sort of blame myself that I'm not anymore.

I don't miss being in love with the guy. Looking back it was...something that I'm glad happened but we're not simpatico. Even back then, I don't think we really were. I miss the clarity that being in love gave me, the fullness of heart and the cure to the loneliness that was running rampant in my spirit at the time. I miss being able to be open sexually and sensually with someone who wanted me. I miss sex (like, OH my God...) and meaningful touch... But because of the internet, I don't trust my judgement much anymore; I mean, I put it out there, got an answer and...here I am, alone again.

But back to being mad at the internet. I rationalize not writing because no one is listening, but I know that's not necessarily true. People are listening; maybe that's what I'm afraid of. The internet gave me something I felt I was missing for a long time, and then...well, I don't have that thing anymore. I am myself, in everything I do, in everything I write. I'm afraid it'll happen again; I'll be the girl in love, the girl saying all the things, and working her ass off just to end up alone.

It's irrational. I know it is. And yet...I don't allow myself the freedom of expressing myself outside of the journals I keep for myself. I don't talk about myself much at all anymore. I don't create worlds anymore. I don't shout my dreams into the void and wait for an answer. Because sometimes, you get an answer back. And sometimes the answer just leads to more confusion and more questions.

So, because of the internet, I'm back to being the girl sheltering her heart. Back to being the girl afraid to be heard. But I miss it. I miss the feeling of keys under my fingers. I miss writing it all out and looking at it; it's like an acknowledgement of myself, because this blog is attached to my name - this blog is me. Facing your truth is one of the tenets of enlightenment, isn't it? If not, it sorta should be.

XoXo

New Phases

Where have I been? What have I been doing? Do I even write anymore?

Physically, here, mentally, everywhere. Everything, and nothing. And yes, just not like I used to in style or frequency which upsets me. But, here I am.

I'm writing today because, after spending time alone in the quiet before a beautiful Texas thunderstorm I asked myself two questions I'd never asked myself before. Are you happy? Do you like who you've become this past year?

Happiness, for me at least, is so complicated. Anyone who meets me for extended periods of time always tell me that there's an underlying sadness in me. Even when I smile, even when I laugh, even if I'm just staring off into space, sadness is there, like an aura or an unidentified ingredient in the mystery that is me. I've come to accept that. I've realized that about myself for a long time, and instead of attempting to change it, I've grown to embrace it. I don't embrace it in that hipster "we're all sad and damaged here" kind of way, but more in the "this is who you've always been, don't fight who you are" sort of way. It makes things beautiful, y'know? (If not, I'll explain later...in another blog because...whooo)

So, how do I answer that question? As someone who's default setting is just a shade past "okay" into the "melancholy" palate, can I ever be happy? The truth is, I don't know. Do I feel better? Hell yes. Between my vast hiatuses with writing this blog, posting on Twitter or doing anything really, I'd been going to therapy to try and heal the fissures in my spirit. I was broken, and what was worse, I was pretending that I wasn't, trying my damnest to keep all the pieces from falling apart by taping and gluing what pieces of me I could scramble together back to the core of me. It didn't work. I fell apart.

For a long time I was ashamed. I'm 23! What the hell do I have to be so sad about? What gives me the right to fall apart? People need me! I've got bills! I've got shit to do! After months with a really great therapist, I've been able to put everything in perspective, manage my stress, and accept the sadness. Accept not only the sadness, but that I can never be perfect. I can never be all together. I can never be everything to everybody. And that's okay; I can be there for me, make sure that I'm good and then help others. I can be happy with me, and content with my life.

So, if happiness is contentment, if happiness is peace of spirit and a connected soul, then yeah, I'm happy.

Liking myself is so weird. Not because I've never done it before (which, I'll admit, is kind of true) but because it seems like a no-brainer now. I'm likable as hell. I've been saying the words, and reading off the personality traits for so long -sweet, kind, smart, funny- that they don't mean anything anymore; they are still true, but they don't resonate. I'm restless and hopeless and full of fear, and I'm still and hopeful and brave. I'm a contradiction; I didn't believe that I could be a grey thing - it could only be black or white. But I, just like everything else, am all grey. And grey can be beautiful and fun and lovable. And so, I've found, am I.

I plan to write more. It's hard for me, because I feel like, with meds (I'll explain later) and job applications (I'll explain that too) and trying to make new friends that I'm just not the same writer. Do I sound the same? In any case...

Signing off.
-Tes

A Letter: Dear Tarzan

Well, shit... This is gonna be a little awkward.

But let me start off by saying that I still love you. It's different, though. No longer am I at that "in love with you" love you part of love with you. And I really shouldn't be, we've been broken up...about five months now. It's more of a "Namaste" type of love; a love that says, I recognize the good in you and the good in you recognizes the good in me. But sometimes I do still catch myself, listening to music we used to love, driving by places we used to visit, reading old blog posts and diary entries and thinking "what if?" What if you were different? What if I were different? What if time worked in reverse and what we knew now we knew then? What ifs do me no good, and I don't indulge them often, but when I do, my brain always circles back to you. Why?

Because you were the first. You were the guy to get through the ice of me and melt my heart. You showed me so many things about myself I couldn't have fathomed were real, and were plausible. For instance, I worked like a dog trying to get to you. Literally, fainted on the job one day, because I was there all the time, working 12 and 14 hour shifts, 6 days a week, saving money to be where you were. I never knew I could be that determined, especially that day, because usually, if I get a little nauseated, I say "Fuck this job," but that day? I got up, took a 15 minute break and got right back to it. That's crazy, isn't it?

Loving you, or trying to get you to love me, drove me a little crazy. Looking back, I can totally tell that now. I was very, very insecure and you were very, very patient. I never told you how much I appreciated that, but I did. I could hear that desperate "love me, love me" vibe sink into my words and tone, and you'd just shrug or sigh, reaffirm me, and keep it moving. Thanks for that. Not a lot of guys have patience to deal with a another person's insecurities on top of their own, but you did.

Now, we're not finished, you and I. We're partaking on the truly scary, winding path of friendship after a relationship. If we're being honest, in the beginning, I was doing it to prove to myself I could, that I was a good enough person to, in the face of a personal disaster, look the other way and smile. I was still broken up about everything and I wanted so much to believe that I could be strong enough to face you, strong enough to face the rubble of the dreams we built together and say "I'm fine." And...well, I wasn't fine. But I am now.

Seeing you grow, and do better and build your ideals about life make me so proud of you. Just think, before we met, were just these two aimless kids, not knowing how to relate to people and now...well, we're still these two aimless kids, not knowing how to relate to people. But, we have lived a little. We've traveled. We've fought. We've loved. We've had so much stuff I was waiting for happen, happen that it seems like, even now, this was the trajectory of our relationship. This is where we were meant to be.

We were always meant to be friends. I think we may have skipped that part, due to loneliness and lust and wanting to feel close to another person. But this, this new thing, this scary thing of friendship seems more right to me. There's no pressure to be perfect. There's no expectations of sexiness. I can be my full, true self with you now, and when we were together, that seemed impossible. That's been the only thing to really change, I think. Well, that and the whole "no sex between friends" thing. We still speak musically. We still bug each other occasionally. It's kind of really great, right?

So here's to us. Not the "us" that we were, but the "us" that we are now. Here's to a friendship, hopefully one for a lifetime. And here's to letting go, and starting fresh.

About Me: "Somersault"

There's this song by this group Zero 7 called Somersault. It starts "You're the prince to my ballerina," and from that very line, a smile just can't help but carve into my usually stoic features. The song is about a love who's benevolence and strength allow the lover to become who they have always been, and who they've always wanted to be. I first heard it, as a snippet in that movie, "Guess Who" with Ashton Kutcher and Zoe Saldana and was never able to forget it.

Fast forward a few years and I'd finally found the song again, and, the first time I play it, I'm in a friend's truck bed, being driven around a twilight drenched, quiet road in Fayetteville, North Carolina. I'd never felt so struck by a feeling of peace, watching the beautiful darkness wipe clean the smeared pastels of the day. I felt all of the pieces of me had come together in that one moment, and that I finally understood who and what it was I was.

The middle of this past December, I had lost all of me. I didn't know who I was. I couldn't breathe in my own skin anymore. I couldn't think clearly. I was crying and couldn't stop. I wasn't sleeping. I felt like my life was in jeopardy, and that I was the one putting it there. I had frequent thoughts of letting go of the wheel, as I sped down busy highways. Wondered what would happen, if I died young. I scared myself so much that I begged my mother to put me under a 72 hour hold, because I couldn't see myself anymore.

What I mean is, I'd look in the mirror and it was like looking into a wall instead. There was nobody there. Nothing to relate to, nothing to remind me of the person that I was, or wanted to be. It was empty. I was empty. I'd always prided myself on being so in touch with who I was and here it was, some random fucking Tuesday, and I had the most tenuous of grasps on my sanity after weeks, months of saying "You're okay." I was not okay.

I started therapy the following week, pretty much going to the first place that popped up to look for answers and found someone to help me through it. It's been almost a month, and I'm proud to say that, I'm so much better.

Now, I bet you're wondering, "Tes, what does that song have to do with you and your depression?"

Following my break down, just like with the mirror in which I couldn't see myself, I cut myself off from immersing myself in the things I love, and instead tried to bury myself in them. I read so many books, just to not think about myself. Listened to kick ass, independent women songs and pumped my fist, but I was never in the music. I didn't feel it anymore. I was afraid to feel anything and tried to stay at a 5 on the emotional scale as to not cry at the drop of a hat for being too happy or too sad.

"Somersault" was the first song after starting therapy that I actually immersed myself in. Sitting on my balcony, as twilight turned to night, I blew bubbles at a full moon. I was back to being that little girl who believed in princes and true love. I was back to being that kid who believed in being nice just for niceness' sake. I was that teenager, in the back of a pick up truck, marveling at the everyday miracles of the world and at the breathlessness of freedom, of flying.

It brought all those fragmented and tarnished pieces of my inner mirror back together. And through the cracks and the smudges, I could see myself again. And whether I was sad, happy, angry or any emotion in between I was me. I was beautiful. I was whole. I was everything I was meant to be in that moment. And even now, I'm wiping away tears of just...relief at that recognition.

With pieces of yourself being chipped away everyday, be it by outside forces, or the more insidious internal ones, never forget the whole picture. Be relieved and grateful that you are who you are. It was a hard learned lesson, but one I know I'll never forget.

Let Me Stop Lurking

I've been taking care of me for a while now. Stopped writing for the longest, because the honesty and fear of said honesty was looking me in the face every time I picked up a pen or stared at a blinking cursor. It's true, that my fingers betray who I am all the time; they tell what I'm thinking, by either fidgeting, writing or giving the finger. :)

I'm back.

How have you been? Been good? You look good.

Me? Oh, I've been going to therapy after having an emotional breakdown and feeling like life just wasn't worth going through anymore. Stopped listening to music. Stopped singing. Stopped writing. Stopped...everything at that time. I was afraid. I was spiraling and turning into this person I couldn't recognize or reason with and this person I was turning into was scary. Dark, and just...not who I am. So, I got help. Meds (which I'm now easing off of) and an amazing therapist have brought me back around to who I am.

I've missed this. Even though I'm not sure if any of you are there, if any of you are reading me and learning who I am. Even though I'm not sure if what I write hits deaf ears (or, in this case, blind eyes), I missed speaking my truth into the void. Letting some of it go is the sweetest freedom for me.

So...

Hi.

Give me a chance to reintroduce myself. I feel like I've changed, and maybe, if you've been seeing me around, or if you just go back after this very post and read everything I've ever written, and note the difference from this point forward, you'll see it too.

XoXo

On Longing

As a child, I was never really sure what people meant by "being jealous." I had no siblings to contend with, truthfully, I was usually the only child around and my parents and their friends made sure I never wanted for anything. I didn't become acquainted with jealousy until I was about 13 years old and the boy I liked was dating someone else.

Jealousy is like that for me. I never crave things. I've lived in my apartment about four months and still have no drapes, no rugs, and no couch. Instead, I do my reading and writing in a little nook, complete with a faux fur-ish type blanket, lavender and tawny decorative pillows and one kneeling cushion that I sit on. Or, in bed, which, let me tell you, is the most comfortable bed I've ever laid in in my entire life. But no, I don't want your man, or her man, or his man. I just want, for just one moment, what people in functioning relationships have.

Even in my own relationship, which I tried so hard to make work, I was always striving for what I call fullness. Fullness is the feeling you get when you're around those you love, things you love, doing something you love, that makes you feel that at any moment, you could burst from said happiness. I've felt that way maybe twice in my life thus far, and ever since, I've been chasing it's elusive high. My mother says it's a curse I've inherited from her, this need to be loved and loving with everything I've got with very few slivers of reward.

But the thing is...I realize, often, that what I'm in want of is not necessarily a person. I'm in want of the feeling of fullness, of belonging to someone who belongs to me in the same way. So now it happens that I can look at a couple and feel genuinely happy that they've found each other...while at the same time wondering when I can find that for myself. I don't ever wish for another's relationship anymore, which is such a big step from my formative years, instead I wish them well, and wait, somewhat impatiently, for my own.

Longing, as I am coming to realize, is not a dirty word. We all long for something, whether it's to be a great parent, a world-renowned doctor, we all aspire for things that are typically just out of our grasp. I long for love, or rather, the right kind of love for me, which will take, I think the right kind of person.

So, moral of the story, I need to chill on the love shit for awhile. It'll happen when it's meant to happen, and in the meantime, maybe I can try loving myself again? Easier said than done, but it's a definite start, and a step I'm more than willing, more than ready, to take.

On Being Open and Facebook

I am an open person, but still am deemed by folks as mysterious and closed off. Oxymoron, or just the truth of my character, I can't really say. In any case, my openness is sort of a defense mechanism, a way to put out who I am in the world so that it can never be misconstrued what my intentions are, so that it's never hard to say what Tes is about and what Tes is striving for.

So, it happens that on Facebook, a person I knew years ago, a person who was my best friend at the time, comes out of the woodwork to tell me that I've changed; I'm a mean person, a closed off person, and unforgiving to boot. He told me that and then asked for my phone number to call me to talk. ...excuse...what?

Sidebar: What is it about Facebook that makes people think they know all there is to know about you? You post a few pictures, list a few favorite movies, and now people have insights into your inner workings based on arbitrary likes and dislikes. What's that about?

This person literally disappeared from my life. I'm talking, one day we're on the phone and hang up as usual, then four years later I get a Facebook friend request. And now he comes out his face to call me mean, say I'm changed for the worse and haven't forgiven him for pulling a Houdini at a time when I needed all the friends I could get. 

Anyone who knows me truly, or is on their way to knowing me truly can attest that I am a kind person, almost to a fault. I'm the kind of person who actually thinks about living her life in a way that doesn't harm other people; how many other people my age can actually say that? 

There is a difference, though, between kindness and foolishness, forgiveness and being somebody's Patsy. Dude straight up called me to the carpet, disparaged my character and demanded my phone number like I owed him something. And let's not even get into his indignation when I told him "no."

The long and short of it is I had to tell him about himself, let him know I had forgiven him a long time ago and no longer even thought of him. Explained that people change, and grow and not everything under the umbrella of "being nice" is actually nice or entirely black and white. And then, when he demanded a better response, I told him to fuck off.

When he knew me, I was 18 or so. No responsibilities. No school at the time. No real goals. Since then, I've gotten an apartment, am on my second car, two years at my job, been in a committed relationship, none of which I had accomplished at that time when he knew me. I've experienced things, and thus I've changed. And I no longer need or want him in my life. It's part of growing up, figuring out who the leaves and who the roots are in your life...

What he fails to realize, I think, is that I don't need more people in my life. I need more good people. More like-minded people. People who respect my choices and know that I'm on a journey in life to find the zenith of myself and are not gonna impede that process. He was never that person, never one of those people. 

Open or not, some people just don't deserve me, which is oddly something I learned after my break up. I've started to realize that I am better and thus deserve better, so if that means losing points in somebody who I don't know's eyes, then that's just what it's going to have to be.

Sometimes I forget that the folks who were your friends, were your friends. 

My Birthday

I think it's weird that I never have anything to say on my birthday. I truly just spend the day being thankful for being where I am and thanking people for their birthday wishes, but this year seems so different.

For starters, I was excited. Although it snuck up on me like it always does, when I realized it was coming, instead of the "Oh, shit," feeling I typically get, I got a real happy, giddy feeling. I don't have anything special planned, just dinner with my Mom, and I don't plan on getting a whole lot of gifts, but I just finally feel different.

I feel like all of my birthdays I was waiting to feel my age, or waiting to feel some way about it one way or another really. That's not to say I feel my age now (I always feel older) but I feel like I'm finally a person. For a lot of my growing  years I felt like an idea, something that was supposed to be happening, maybe, but just...wasn't. I feel now that I'm actualized. I'm living, and breathing and functioning to the best of my ability and I'm proud of that. I understand that a lot of people don't get to feel that way about themselves, or don't feel that way because they feel like they can't be proud of the little things.

I am proud of the little things. I've maintained a job for two years. I've lived on my own for about four months and haven't ruined or wrecked anything. I'm paying off all my small debts. I'm healthy. And most important, more often than not, I'm just happy to be.

I won't deny it was a hard year for me, what with my break up and the stresses of moving, but I feel like with those hardships I got to find out who I really was, and what I was really made of. Getting through those two things was like breaking a glass ceiling that I didn't know was so thick until I got to the other side. Sure, I'm a little cut up, but no worse for wear. In fact, I may even be better than when I started.

So, for this birthday, more than the others, I may not do a whole lot of moving and shaking, but I will revel in the pride I feel and the joy. Bask in the well wishes, and look towards the ever-brighter future.

Breaking Up Is Truly Not The End of The World (But It Hurts Like a Bitch)

So, if you know me or follow me anywhere else, you know that Tarzan and I are no longer a couple. Can't lie, it really really sucks. Is it childish I wanted us to last forever, that I expanded and changed all of my dreams to fit in another person?

A few years ago I would've said hell yeah, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Why would you change and do this or that for some other person who's not even guaranteed to stay with you? The truth is though, that's what faith is. I've always had a shaky relationship with faith and expectations and the like because whenever you put faith in anything you run the risk of being disappointed, and in my life, up to a certain point, I'd become so heartbreakingly used to being disappointed by the people I trusted and the ideas I put faith in that I sort of stopped believing in the good things. Sure, I'd think about the good things, write about a few good things, but the sky was always falling and I was the one chicken just sighing and waiting for it to take me out.

I always had this idea that being in love with someone would heal all wounds and make everything wonderful and perfect. In that aspect, yes, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. With experience comes a really big picture in 20/20 of all the teenager-y things you thought and the silliness of them, because I'm still not perfect. I'm a person who did the best she could and loved the hardest she could and for that I'm proud, but surely not perfect. Love doesn't solve everything for you, but it does make you realize what your real problems are and for me, it was holding back.

I was so scared of trusting people and letting people into my life. They could trust me with anything; strangers would tell me deep dark secrets and horror stories and I'd simply pat them on the shoulder, tell them everything would be okay, and then go on about my life, but didn't trust the people in my life enough to tell them something simple as how I was feeling, preferring instead to deflect and talk about them. Trusting people, is an easy way to get hurt, but it's also a beautiful way to form attachments, which I've learned life is all about.

Breaking up hurts, especially when it's from such a great person, someone you learn from and become a better person through knowing. But I was lucky; my former steady is a gentleman, a sweetheart and a scholar; he hasn't dogged me in the street, hasn't leaked any nudes, and I've avoided a lot of those horrible break up stories you hear about or read. You'll never hear me say an unkind word about that man. I'm trying to maintain a friendship with him, because over the year and change we were together he became my best friend, sometimes understanding what I was feeling before I knew what it was I was feeling, and because you never give up on the people you love.

So what's next for this girl?

I can tell you honestly, dating is far off. It's not that I don't want that connection with someone again or that I'm immune to the loneliness that creeps in after a breakup, but rather, I know that getting over an old man by getting under a new one rarely works. Plus, the guys that I like are really really hard to find :) . Next up for me is biting the bullet and finally going back to school for my Associates of English. I know it may not be a lot to people, but it's the world to me, a first step towards a new horizon.

After I get that degree, I'm thinking on a move to Philadelphia or Seattle, some place I've never lived but that suits the type of person I am and hope to grow into. The Hip-Hop scene in Seattle (or lack thereof) is not a draw exactly, but Seattle is like my Los Angeles - that dream place where you meet people you've always wanted to meet and do things you've always wanted to do. But I'm thinking Philly suits me a lot better; the few times I went for a visit (though hopelessly lost on one of those visits) it was beautiful and the people were really nice.

A lot of times, folks use breaking up as an excuse to give up on their dreams, on love and on life in general. But it's like Brandy said, life's not over (and you can start again). It hurts, like a bitch, it hurts, but it's not the end of me. It's not the end of all the love I have to give or the lessons I hope to learn in life and it's not the end of my dreaming.