Waiting and anticipating, and curbing my feelings...everything I experienced was beyond my thinking. In a moment like this, I am scared and excilerated at the same time. I have been around friends and acquaintances who claim to want certain things, and I have seen how we all can talk ourselves out of our goals because we are more afraid of losing what we are yet to work for. I deliberately write this tonight so that I have the strength of my conviction. I fought this man. I felt so much and I was so afraid and I am still filled with fear because I have no idea what can happen. But equally, I am much more buoyed by the fact that walking away again would leave me forever tormented. I would even say that what is happening to me isn't even really about him at all, because I am not making any claims or having any expectations. I don't think that I have ever gone into a relationship with less baggage than I have now. When I state less baggage, what I mean is the assurances that I always felt necessary to have, which is a great deal of time getting to know the person and using that as a gauge to move forward. I am devoid of that, and it doesn't interest me to size him up in that way. In fact, I now find that meeting him with all of that artifice is so extraneous! I can see clearly how doing that can impact liking someone. We both arrive with our guards up, our experiences in a duffle bag as if we are heading to a boxing ring and not towards the love we seek. What I am looking at now is the next steps that I feel...not the ones I'd usually plan. I have work to make, things to do, then we shall connect again in April. Or perhaps sooner. But, again, I am just in a haze of sensations. I don't feel the usual things...the ok, lets text and hold hands. That isn't it. The organic nature of the thing is what interests me. I desire to let it flow.

We shall be seeing each other tomorrow. Gosh. I can't wait.

Living my life like its G O L D E N

When I started this blog all those years ago, who would have thought that it would last this long? When a new year begins, it is inevitable that there is a feeling of optimism that it brings. I feel that way.I can rattle off my plans, and I am apple cheeked about the outcomes. It is actually adorable the way I feel, when I observe it. I realize that all feelings are an amalgam of being 'alive.' It is in fact a privilege to feel them all. It is a feat of humanity to go forth in the world with ones thoughts anchoring their outcomes. When I think about it, nothing is certain. Nothing, and within that, lie the possibilities. The way we live today can be turned on its ear so easily. For example, my daughter is fascinated by tape recorders. She wants to know what they are and how they sound. That's almost hilarious. I remember when that was the only way to get music of my own to listen to. Now the technology is passe. Its so long ago that its like she's asking me about the Gramophone. Time just flips over. Everything changes, and one has no control over anything. Not really. Yet, here we all are. I have gone from terrifying fear of nuclear holocaust to terrifying fear of global warming in one lifetime. Amidst all of that, you have to get up every day. Put one foot in front of the other. Stave off debts and insecurity, and failure and desire and fallibility. Waw! We are all so delicate. Such tiny, insignificant creatures. Yet, we still have so much to conquer. We may be exploring but a fraction of our potential as human beings for example. I have spent all of my adult life reading everything I can about spirituality and self improvement. I have believed and then believed nothing. What I know for certain is that the more I acquire, the less I know, and I am good with that. I am good with dissonance. Lol. This year, I have the opportunity to see what I can do with my mind. Where I can take it, what I can put it through, and how I can propel myself to where I choose to go, and that's golden.

Ok then. So on Christmas day I decided to send out greetings to everyone online. I was surprised when one of the respondents, the one person I wanted to hear from, replied right away. After that, it was ON. Now, I would be lying if I say that I am not feeling much better. Just better for having moved past the soundtrack that I have been playing for months.I also admit that I am now at another apex of the unknown. I am wiser though. The feelings are all still there, as though they were hibernating, which is very true. What am I saying? What is this saying? I see this as me going for something that I want without apology. It is bigger than my desire to protect my good manners. I'm fed up of compromising and feeling frustrated. I am out here on a limb because this is raw and visceral and it is all about how I feel and not about the way that I think.

Netflix did a documentary with Chris Brown. I had no plans to look at it. I am one of those people who remembers only too vividly what happened the night he and Rihanna had a fight that nearly ended her life. However, I have always said that although I am no fan, I admire his talent. He is the only person who can dance in the vein of Michael jackson and not look as though he's copying the man, and that is saying something. Anyway, I was watching his documentary and he got very candid about the whole violent encounter and he said something that stuck with me. He said that he realized that people would view him as a monster, and that that was the furthest thing from his intentions at the time. But in understanding that he was being portrayed that way, even by himself, he decided one day that if people were going to hate him, he wanted them to be mad because he planned to endure. I can respect that. One can learn from the unlikeliest of places. I am glad that I watched the show, I have a better understanding of the man. It still does not sit well with me that they got into an argument that led to such an awful outcome for both of them. But, I would be lying if I wrote that I could not relate to passionate arguments. My ex-husband and I used to have real zingers. We never hit each other, but boy did we shout at the top of our voices and slam doors and phones down. This year, I find that I spent a great deal of time trying to make sense of feelings that left me so exposed. I still feel a sense of it. I have come to respect that I was given them to experience. I have never had quite 'this' way of encountering myself, splintered off like a piece of crystal. I am shining on one side and at certain points, dull the next moment. I have confronted that I 'feel', yet, it has not provided relief, as it has set itself up in observation to be fascinating. i go back and forth. One moment I am absolutely certain about a course of action. The next, I feel one hundred and eighty degrees different. What that tells me is that both are right. If I act, I am creating an action. If I don't act, I am creating an action within my inaction. Sometimes there is no right, there just is a way. I discovered so much. Chris Brown did say all those years ago that he saw his mother go through Domestic Violence and swore that he would prefer to see his father dead than see her hurt again. What he did to Rihanna must truly screw with his mind. I cannot imagine the tumult. It is as though something inside him mocks him for thinking he could be above what he witnessed as a child. In fact, just yesterday, i was giving some thought to the word 'victimhood.' I shall expound on it in a later post. It is actually 1:31am, and if I write that, it shall take some time to do so. I'll just state here that right now I find that the humanity has a lot to answer for where the victim is concerned. When I think about Indigenous Peoples, Slavery, the Holocaust...people go through trauma and are re-victimized. When does it stop? Is that really about survival of the fittest? This entry is becoming something else from where I set out. So I shall end here. But again, I must say that it is clear that we are all given something to work out. We can either use it to fuel ourselves or to be consumed by it.

Thinking too much

and then some...the end of the year is always about reflection. It seems hard to believe that so much time has gone by, and that so much has happened. Overall, I would say that 2017 has been a year of personal contemplation for me. Financially, it was not as bad as last year. I would say that my sea legs did not wobble as badly and I was able to negotiate things from a better position. Next year I expect to do even better. I am however mindful that my parents are getting on in age, and I must prepare for anything happening with them. My child shall be transitioning from primary to high school, and her father does not include me in any aspect of her school life. This means that I have no opportunity to affect that decision. I do however, have the chance to affect her teenage years and her plans for school once she graduates from high school. There are one or two things that I can do to secure that, and I have already begun to work toward that. I started back to do freelance work, and in the new year, I have the opportunity to continue to do such work in a way that will benefit me. I see some opportunities with that on the horizon. I have to just keep going. I have felt so defeated, so often, but I also am very aware of how fortunate I am.

THEN, yuh done know

That is a well known slang in my country. It makes people laugh, and its very apt. Everything is so correct when you slow things down and decide to really take a look at what experience teaches you. I also suppose that the elementary nature of knowing is necessary to get the child mind as it ages, to the place where, like walking, you can eventually do icon your own steam. But first you have to be willing to explode the box. I asked one of my friends recently how is she certain that her gut is always right? I'm not as confident about that as she is, thus the question. But now, I am going to be more mindful of what my gut says to me. Lol.Clearly I use it. But I am just not as conscious, I suppose. I asked because I really wondered about my instincts at one point this year. Had I sprained or blunted mine? When I checked with other things, I am on point, so... I really liked my last entry. It spoke volumes about where I actually want to go. Opening up my horizons, not limiting myself has felt so very good, and continue to feel good. Thank god for small mercies. I got here by tapping into what L O V E brought out of me. SO how can I be mad? I know that it opened up so much that I long to keep...and it is all inside of me and I am constantly glimpsing and being buoyed by it. But somehow it didn't seem that way. I mistook it for being outside of me. I give everything. I make the effort to feel joy, enthusiasm...whatever it takes, because I acknowledge that every day is to be appreciated.