Tes and Gratitude

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


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


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


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


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


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


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

Honesty is Pandora's Box

I have a fast mind. It's a maze, and it's complex, but I figure things out relatively quickly. So from a very young age, I loved to lie as lying was just figuring out what people expected you to say, and saying it convincingly, most times before they even said anything. It wasn't getting away with things that made it such an unshakable bad habit, rather it was the thought that my words could change realities, my words could change perceptions, and it didn't have to be what was right or what was true. I was power tripping as a kid, and thus became known as a liar. 


Over time, my lies became manipulation. I would toy with my peer's lives and minds, the puppeteer feeling going to my head. I convinced a girl to break up with her boyfriend as they "weren't compatible". I convinced a guy that his best friend was "scheming behind his back". I even got a girl to completely drop my potential love interest, in hopes of getting with this guy I'd purposefully befriended for that very reason. By peppering the truth with a couple stretches, a few white lies, the world could be what I made it. And then I got played and lied to. Learned that lesson painfully. 


I learned that those traits were nothing to be proud of; liars are a dime a dozen and not all of them are any good. Girls who told the truth, girls who were honest despite any trepidation and fear, courageous girls, were valuable, or at least should be. I learned that being lied to hurt everything in a person. If they knew about it, it would change not only their perception of you, but of anyone following you. If they didn't know, it would jade the relationships and interactions of their future in ways you couldn't begin to grasp. And that made me stop being a liar, almost cold turkey.


The issue with that is, honesty is Pandora's box. People are constantly asking me to be honest with them. I'm a closed person who likes to think things through before I say them, mull over the ramifications and the benefits and then make a wise decision. The truth, just like biker shorts, ain't for everybody. 


My mother always said never ask for more than you can handle, and never ask questions you don't want the answers to. And she's been right on that just don't tell her I said it as people often ask for my brand of honesty and are shocked by what they hear. I'm muted in life...okay not muted but composed. I don't get riled up easily, and it takes a lot to shock me. I'm really observant and draw connections like there were dots between them leading the way. That right there is a recipe for disaster as some people's dots aren't really meant to be connected by outside forces but by themselves.


Me and W are yo-yoing continuously because of my formerly lackadaisical view of honesty as it pertains to my feelings. To make her feel more at ease, more secure with my friendship, I'd developed this veneer of not having deep feelings. Surface wise, it always seems like jealousy, bitterness or competition between us on my end, but under my still waters lies insecurity, uncertainty and a fear of not having anyone in my corner. Now that I'm evolving, that veneer is being painfully peeled back, exposing raw nerves to cold air.


 She's not really used to me telling her when she's hurt my feelings; she knew formerly as I would be really curt and sniping in my responses to her. Now I can recognize what's going on with me, and I'm not afraid of asking to take time out to figure it out. Now, I tell her sincerely what I feel with very little filter. She's kind of in a tough place in her life, trying to figure hers out just like I'm trying to figure mine, but she wants me to depend on her as I've always done not realizing that the actions she's taking now make it real difficult. I need something stable. I need something consistent. She can't give that right now. Telling her I don't feel safe , secure, or as trusting of her as I used to hurts her. It hurts me too. But it was something that needed to be said. 


And therein lies the rub with this honesty thing. It hurts both ways and nobody seems to recognize that. The person being honest feels, in most cases, sorely aware they are hurting someone they care about and exposing themselves to possible retribution, ridicule or rejection. The person receiving the honesty can misconstrue it as a critique, an insult and sometimes a purposeful aim to hurt them. 


Pandora didn't realize the ills she let into the world, and by the time she closed the lid, it was too late. You can't un-say things, or lie to cover up your honesty on some "JK" type thing. But...the great thing about that box is that it frees us of all those things we held inside, freeing us to be more ourselves and less our short-comings, hang-ups and pent up emotions. It frees us to live more sincerely, more nobly, and in a world full of liars, half-truthers, and people walking around with the baggage of being lied to, that is a hopeful thing. With every honest step we take forward, we're walking into a more hopeful and genuine future. 

My Keys...

I am that friend. You have one similar, or you might be that friend. The one with the intune advice, the one who doesn't look like they're listening but shock you by repeating what you've said, verbatim, and giving a solution in no time. That's me. And it weirds me out considering I always get asked about love and managing relationships.

I am single, as I'm sure you might've picked up on, but I get tasked with sorting through relationship drama and skirmishes like I'm paid to do so. My idealistic view of love, but my realistic view point of life puts me in this weird place where I don't know what I'm talking about, but I feel what I'm talking about. I don't like to say I know something when I don't (because then if I'm put on the spot and am wrong I get embarrassed) so I'm not going to say to my friends "Who's got two thumbs and is excellent at relationships? This girl!" But that never stops them from asking me how to show someone love, or rather, sort through that love.

I would guess that because they know my methodical approach to life, as well as my genuine want to be a good person, a demonstrative person, they'll ask my advice for things. For instance, I was on the phone with my homeboy about his girlfriend for nearly two hours the other day; they're having miscommunications and misunderstandings left and right - their slight age difference is making him feel shaky. I responded that they should have an open dialouge, a sit-down where no judgement is passed and they just say what they need to say to one another. I also let him know no woman, no person, can make or break him unless he lets them; if they were to break up, his heart will go on.

W puts me in the same place, sometimes admitting to channeling my mannerisms and ways while in her relationships which...weird, right? I feel like my copyrighted self has been infringed upon by that, especially when she gets to reap the benefits of being "me" while being her. I digress. For the most part I don't mind, but there's this fretful little seed in me that's sprouting with my position.

Let me be honest here; I don't really like being the logical one, the one with all the patience and all the time but none of the experience. I feel like it's not my place to give advice as I have no credentials to fall back on. If I had a laundry list of successful relationships and a ring on my finger, sure, ask away. The fact remains, it's just me though; just this small girl with a big heart and without a pair of hands to put it in.

I feel good for helping them, legitly, but at the same time I keep thinking "I would totally have this handled/This wouldn't be an issue with me." It's egotistical, but it makes that small, fretting seed in me feel better until I realize it's not the right kind of "better." I shouldn't say "if it were me" because...well, I don't really know what I'd be like. I can muse and posture on it all day, but the fact remains that I've never had to really do those sorts of things, compromise, talk it out, etc. with another person before.

The romantic in me is listless and waiting for a chance to prove itself. The nurturer in me is still content with just helping others. The me under it all is just tired of being the good angel on people's shoulders. The me under it all is over being everyone's super woman, and still walking away with empty hands and a wrinkled cape.

I asked myself a few days ago why I bother, asked myself 'What are you looking for Tes?' What is keeping this candle lit dispite a very short wick? I got my answer in a dream. In it, I was myself, not my dream self of model proportions, and I was in a place that was beautiful and peaceful. And there was a guy who was digging me for just being me, and we were comfortably together. Violins, cellos, the works ensued, and I felt beautiful with every cell in my little dream body. And I woke up feeling beautiful, and I went to work and had customers yell at me still feeling beautiful, and I still, after waking and walking for hours, feel as beautiful as I did in that dream.

And there is the answer, the thing I didn't know I was looking for but kept frantically searching for in the arms of other people, in the approval of other people. I want to feel beautiful, all the time. I want to be comfortable in my own skin with people, and trust them. I want to find love at my own pace and not feel so put upon to do so by my own zany perceptions of what people my age are doing. I was once told when you stop looking for your keys, you find all the other things you need to find first, and then, your keys.

So yes, I am that friend. The single, pretty one. The one who everyone thinks has all the answers. I'm also the friend who's lost her keys and has finally stopped looking for them. And it's feeling better and better every day.

<3