Tag Archives: Relationships

Please Don’t Leave Me: An Accountability Post Part II

Posted on by under The Crazy

I want to open Part II of this blog post by saying: it gets better! My recent attempts to clean up the mess that is my life and hold myself accountable for how I’ve been complicit in my own dysfunction is only hindered by my need to stop and feel sorry for myself.

I have always felt I was operating to the fullness of my abilities, so to learn that I have been falling so miserably short for so long is discouraging. I am going through a dark phase of healing and growth right now, reshaping who I am as a woman; learning to eradicate my anxious-attachment behaviors while simultaneously realizing that fixing my negative traits will forever change how I navigate intimate relationships. I hate change. The world around me feels like chaos, but through learning to parent my inner-child I am able to soothe myself into peace using copious amounts of self-compassion. Let’s talk about it!

Mama Knows! Self-Compassion and the Inner Child

I started a new podcast with a business partner where we specialize in tough topics between the sexes within the black community and how it relates to mental health and white supremacy. It is an interesting endeavor that keeps me on my toes but has left me with a ton of open-ended questions I have had to direct at myself. One topic brought up was the frustration black men feel toward black women for not loving themselves. I sit on my couch at night ruminating on this interaction because I can’t imagine what life would look like had I known how to love myself early on. I flash back in my mind to all the times I didn’t know to assert myself— I was taken advantage of sexually from the age of 6 so I’m not sure where I was supposed to develop those skills. I honestly thought that earning the love of others and constantly proving my worth was how to live adult life. I thought I was helping, I thought I was loving—and I suppose I was helping—everyone but myself.

I struggle with feelings of shame for the shitty treatment I accepted from my friendships and romantic relationships in the past. I am even harder on myself for how shitty I have shown up in my interpersonal relationships: martyring myself into fatigue, not emotionally connecting and disappearing when overwhelmed by my depression and/or irrational feelings of abandonment (in the case of romantic relationships; being extra needy and on high-alert when going through anxious episodes). The process of learning to forgive myself and allowing myself to grow and fail has forced me to learn how to self-soothe  as I grow mentally stronger. Touching my heart and creasing my brow in empathy when I think about my past sufferings feels much better to me than crying for hours while berating myself for not being smart enough to know better.

I have only now gotten into the habit of using self-compassion to re-parent my inner child— I resent having to do it—but I am starting to see positive results! I still crave co-dependent amounts of acceptance and external emotional support which leads to feeling as if I am always battling with my struggles with emptiness, inadequacy and depression. The love and nurturing that I crave in those moments of despair have to come from me—which seems absurd because I am always running on empty; exhausted from hiding the severity of my mental struggles from the world—but here we are.

Baby Steps

I couldn’t find my keys yesterday. My default reaction is usually racing heart, near-panic attack as I pace my apartment in a brain fog, disappointed with myself for being so scatterbrained, imperfect and stupid yet again! This time, when I realized I lost my keys my brain immediately thought. “Ok, calm down you will find them. It’s normal to lose track of your things, just be more diligent about putting them where they belong in the future.”  I understand to most people this seems like a logical way to speak to yourself, but when you really think about it, how many of us lose our keys and it looks something like this:

*Stomps around the room overturning furniture in a panicked energy* “Where are my keys?! I always do this! I am ALWAYS late! I was going to be on time for once in my life, I’m so annoyed I keep messing up. Kids! GET UP AND HELP ME LOOK FOR MY KEYS YOU KNOW WE HAVE TO LEAVE!!!”

And just like that I have ruined my day and the kids’ day because I wasn’t able to handle a regular ass situation like a rational adult. My inner child is impatient, she doesn’t like to feel stupid and inadequate so when I mess up, I have to be sure to calm that part of me first and say, “It’s ok. You are not going to be perfect. Let’s fix the issue at hand while finding a way to remain calm.”

Finding ways to soothe and counsel yourself through stressful times is difficult when most of us have spent a lifetime defaulting to unhealthy self-protective mechanisms to get us by. One of my main motivators is realizing the impact of how my negativity towards myself is felt by my children. If I don’t want my children to struggle with loving themselves then I have to do the work to love myself. Re-parenting your inner child is basically as close as possible that any of us get to going back in time and righting wrongs. My learning self-compassion and practicing self-care is simply loving on the inner parts of myself that never received the proper love and care for whatever reason.

Now that we’ve gone over the tools to help us get through the nasty parts of healing, let’s dive right back in!

Why Your Relationships Suck

Your relationships probably suck because you do. Sorry, this is part 2 and I don’t feel like finding a more diplomatic way to say that, so I will say the way it came to me in an epiphany: I suck! I have endured some pretty heinous things at the hands of men who were barely even deserving of my presence! However, instead of leaving those toxic relationships I leaned into unhealthy coping mechanisms to keep the relationship afloat because sometimes unhappy feels better than alone. As I work through my abandonment issues, I am slowly able to come to terms with my contributions to the messes that were all of my previous relationships.

See below for some gems!

Desperation

Confession: I just recently grew out of casual sex; not because I wanted to, I just couldn’t deal with the emptiness of it anymore. I used to prefer to have lovers over relationships because it was a way for me to feel as if I had some control over how much I let those men damage me. If I convinced myself that it was casual then I didn’t have to deal with my feelings of abandonment when the situation eventually ended. I didn’t like to be in committed relationships because I was never allowed to love as freely as I wanted to and I got tired of feeling like I had to hold back my love just to make a man comfortable.

I have since had to come to terms with the fact that I do love hard, but I also have learned to love out of desperation all these years. The grandmother of one of my exes once told me that sometimes men expire of loving you and there’s nothing you can do about it. It stuck with me because that’s exactly what happened with her grandson, so now I don’t know how to deal when a man needs space and pulls away from me. In spite of being an introvert and needing plenty of time alone to recharge myself, I am uncomfortable with the idea of my man needing space because that can quickly taper off into disinterest. On some level society accepts that at any given moment a man can just leave, ghost or abandon you and/or your child and you won’t even see it coming. All around me I see more examples of how to desperately keep a man by attempting to be more visually appealing, accommodating, or quiet—and not enough examples of men being content in their relationships. Men can be trash, yes but also men can be used as pawns to fulfill the needs of women who are just seeking any connection to fill their empty void or prove they can catch and keep a man. Are you actively engaged and fighting for your relationship because you want to be with that man specifically, or because you don’t want to be alone? Do you want to add to his happiness, or do you not want him to leave you? There is a difference!

Desperation is not a good seed from which anything healthy can grow.

Bitterness

Although I haven’t dealt with the worst of my self-esteem issues since high school, I still struggle with insecurities and have found a tiny nugget of bitterness that bleeds itself into my relationships if I don’t stay on top of it. I do hold a grudge towards men for how they view women and value us based on our looks and sexual relevance. I always hated that the men I dated “don’t know what it was about me” or feeling as if I was being used as a quirky black girl fetishist vacation, so I started playing the game. I chose to play a character while interacting with men because I felt it easier to keep them on the hook by fulfilling their empty sexual fantasies and not becoming too attached.

My resentment toward men and belief that most of them were shallow assholes not worthy of getting to know the real me was just bitterness and hurt from that rejected, misunderstood teenaged girl. That resentment was definitely all mine to own and work on— and that only covers the bitterness I have examined and am willing to share on this blog! Holding onto bitterness tied to deep-sated insecurities can be a stain on interpersonal relationships. Sometimes it’s tough to even know where to begin, but paying attention to your triggers is a good ass start (plus, you know? MENTAL HEALTH THERAPY!)

Out of touch with yourself

The only way to get in touch with yourself is to really spend some time alone with YOU. The problem is: a lot of us are sitting in the pain of our anxiety and abandonment issues; afraid to be alone. If you read the previous blog post and can identify with any of my nasty relationship habits, then it is highly probable that you are not in touch with yourself or your own emotions. [I won’t expound on this much because I plan to go into further details on my Patreon account sharing my shadow work journey and how I’ve drifted through life completely in tune to the lives of others and not my own. I’m excited about this exclusive vlog series for the opportunity to connect with others on their healing journeys in a private and safe space. Click here for more details!]

The good news is: the journey to becoming more in touch with your emotions can take place naturally as you learn to practice self-care and self-compassion. Both practices help us to be more aware of emotions as we experience them in the present and help us examine what the soothing countermeasure should be. For example: I’m feeling anxious means I should take a long hot shower and meditate to work through my feelings; while I am working out my feelings I extend myself compassion in my thoughts even if I uncover something negative about myself).

My very first relationship was a co-dependent one, as I was left to hold together a situation constantly being torn apart by his cheating and my inability to figure out how WE were supposed to handle the issue. (Do you see what’s wrong with that sentence?!) Looking back, I had even forgotten about  negative comments he used to say about my not being pretty enough and how he used to put me down whenever I made any decisions or steps toward personal growth. I learned to put my needs aside to feed his ego and through learning to constantly please someone else, I learned to emotionally abandon myself. This pattern has repeated in most of my relationships… until now! As I am working on establishing my own limits and boundaries, I find myself attracting relationships in my life with people who also have a healthy set of boundaries and no expectation that I break my back to meet all of their needs. As I have learned to be more in touch with myself, I am able to connect with more like-minded people who are an emotional support and a direct reflection of characteristics I am working on or aspire to have.

I like it here, it’s peaceful!

Calm the Fuck Down, Lighten the Fuck Up

I have always thought this in my most rational of minds, but, honestly it’s easier said than done. When it comes to peace of mind in any relationship we have to realize that it’s not only for our partners, it’s for us! It’s not about being fun for a man, it’s about remembering to take time to have fun in the ways you like to do so. Here are some tips and ideas for lightening tf up!

Check your obsession

My brother used to say that if you watch a person long enough you are bound to catch them picking their nose. I have since learned to apply the same logic to men: if I am constantly watching, thinking, controlling, obsessing about a nigga then I’m bound to find whatever imperfection or conflict for which I am subconsciously always searching. I will not downplay the joy it is to be in a relationship with someone you adore, but adoration goes too far when we expect our partners to be constantly accessible to us. Release the expectation of instant response texts, play-by play-itineraries and password sharing to consider what it is to allow a nigga the freedom to be himself without being constantly scrutinized. (This one takes awhile, I’m still a work in progress not gonna lie!)

Update your playlist

My tendency to ruminate in pain leads me to the same sad playlists time and time again. When dating someone new or if you find yourself on a negative streak in your relationship, simple changes can be made to help you get over the hump. For me, updating my playlists to positive, calming or vibey songs to help me sort through my thoughts and/or express my lovey dovey feelings has made a tremendous difference in helping me to stabilize my relationship anxiety.

Find accountability partners

This might be a judgmental thought but now that I am 36 I feel that all of my close friendships need to be accountability partners. It is not easy to build up and retain interpersonal relationships when managing anxious attachment tendencies, but a trusted, emotionally available friend goes a long way toward helping to talk through anxieties and irrational reactions to what usually turns out to be regular ass relationship stuff.

Be authentic

I view relationships as a safe space where I get to be as much as myself as possible and allow my partner to be the same. In the past, efforts to hold onto my flailing relationships looked like trying to adapt to my partners every whim while minimizing my own wants and needs. I now see those actions as a betrayal to my authenticity. It is 100% important to me that I practice the art of compromise in relationships without losing my own identity or trying to be something I am not just to people please.

Adult play

Tease and flirt, wrestle, joke, play games, reveal the joyous parts of your inner child!

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk!

Revisited: The Obligation to Love Your Oppressor

Posted on by under The Crazy

 

Blog Post RP

Author’s Note: 

I wrote this post a few years ago at the peak of the #MeToo movement. Before writing the companion piece to this I wanted to repost for a few reasons. Let’s number them! 

  1. There were some formatting issues on the original post that has always bothered me to no end. At the time it was very important for me to release this blog post into the interwebs and out of my spirit—so I did what I had to do. Secretly, I have always wondered if the poor formatting of the post somehow took away from the overall message I was attempting to convey. 
  2. I am working on a sister piece to this that holds women accountable in dating relationships and before I write that piece I want to be sure that others have a chance to read and understand the inspiration behind the original post. 
  3. I have been working on what it means to “show up woman” at this stage in my life which include attempting to be more intentional about how I handle heartbreak and disappointment by adapting a more pragmatic (less emotional) approach to situations. I still have a paralyzing fear of heartbreak but the realization that being alone is not the end of the world keeps me grounded. I wanted to revisit this post to remind myself that healing is not linear, and although I have trained myself to handle situations better, there are times when I still feel every single word of this post. I now have more control and accountability over how I handle my own pain…but it is still felt. 
  4. Vulnerability and transparency in my writing comes naturally, however as I embark on the journey of practicing this in my personal relationships, I’ve realized that I’ve struggled having the capacity for both. When asked how I am able to be so open about my personal life, I can’t stress enough that baring my soul to internet strangers or people in a live audience feels more anonymous to me than one on one eye contact with a family member or significant other. I suppose I am easing myself back into the writing process by revisiting this post. 
  5. I have recovered from this pain and am now ready to address how myself and some women who deal with similar bitterness allow it to manifest as tumors in our relationships. 

 

The Obligation to Love Your Oppressor 

  

“You know, you really wooed me. You are really something else,” he said softly. It sounded so kind— almost even like a victory but I knew better. It was a sentencing. Deep down I knew it was my punishment. 

He then went on about his business, bedding women and taking names later. I went about mine, traveling down a slippery slope of depression that led to too many losses to count. I deserved to be punished, perhaps. We were not in a committed relationship and everyone knows that those situations are best worked out when the woman remains loyal to a man allowed to do whatever he wants. I could never be that loyal, it never seemed fair to me. So, after I begged him through the ugliest of tears to allow me the label of being his girlfriend, he rejected me. I wandered into the arms of an unavailable man and broke his shit up as badly as I had been broken. 

The cycle of pain was a vortex that had me sucked all the way in. I always assumed I deserved all the heartache and pain coming to me because it was my karma. 

  

Bubbling Over the Surface 

I have been stuffing down pain and trauma experienced at the hands of males my whole life. Because it’s not trauma– how dramatic of me, it’s just the way things are. I have sat in several counseling sessions never mentioning molestation by another abused little boy because what little girl hasn’t been molested? I couldn’t play the child molestation card in life, I had to get over it. When it was time to give up my virginity there was no discussion session for me to explain that I was really scared and not ready. Sex is what you do to be accepted. Sex is something you do to gain love from a man. I had spent my high school years so lonely and unwanted I just wanted to finally feel accepted. 

We would make out and pet each other on my parent’s couch. When he left, I would burst into tears and I never knew why. Looking back on it, I wonder why he never asked me why I cried. We were young–19 and 20– but isn’t that old enough to care about the woman you are with? Did this intimacy we created with our bodies mean nothing to his heart? He never cared about my tears well into our marriage. Some nights I slept in the bathtub or on the bathroom floor devastated that we were falling apart and I couldn’t save us. I was the only one fighting for us and it was taking its toll, wearing me thin. I still don’t know why I absorbed the weight of the entire marriage on my shoulders–maybe because women are the keepers of love. We fight for it and we are expected to make it work, regardless. 

Nevertheless, I learned early that showing weakness is a drop of blood in shark-infested waters. To this day I hold back pain and tears because I know it causes a visceral reaction in men. “What the fuck are you crying for, that doesn’t solve anything,” they would say. I could never express the gravity of my abandonment issues, I could never level with a man about my depression or anxieties in any relationship because my traumas would always be diminished to dramatics and acting overly emotional. I was even called an emotional manipulator and I owned that title for quite some time. Clearly something was wrong with me. It was my issues causing these men to cheat or emotionally abandon me. I wasn’t good enough. 

I swallowed my tears and toughened up accordingly. I came to the table with facts, a clear head and a basic desire to be treated with love and respect. I found myself being set on fire, gaslit into oblivion and treated as if I wanted too much. No man ever said to me “I was wrong, and I’m sorry,” in response to standing up for myself. I always found out about infidelities far too late in the game because I am the woman and I am supposed to trust first… right? If he tells me he’s not cheating I need to respect it and stop bothering him like a crazy black woman. We are all crazy! If I make him mad enough with accusations, then he would be justified in being unfaithful. If I notice inconsistencies, I have no choice but to let it go. That is how you support a man– you pretend to believe his lies until you’re numb. 

The past year of my life I have felt a shift. I can produce a detailed timeline of when and how he fell out of love with me over the course of a 3-year relationship. I watched it happen in silence. Sometimes I spoke up about it to him, but those conversations only speed up the unraveling process. A man will take you from queen to peasant so gradually that you don’t even notice until you’re home alone on New Year’s Eve or performing on stage and returning to your chair alone as always. There is no one to cheer for you, to hold your hand or drive you home. You find yourself alone in your own relationship. 

I stopped making excuses for these men. I just buried the pain away because I’m a mom and I have a career and so much going for me. I stuffed it down because I don’t have the mental capacity to deal with my issues of self-worth. I casually dated a young guy a few years ago. He said to me, “I’ve taken other women out on real dates I just never have with you.” There was a flash in my mind of those wild days, men coming to my door with a bottle of whiskey and a smile. No dates. Just my empty search for affection and their desire to get their dicks wet. A few were fascinated by my quirkiness, but it was never enough to keep them. It never made me worthy of anything substantial. 

I stuffed it all down. He told me what I needed to know: there are women who are worth it and those who are not. I was not. 

screenshot_2016-01-23-13-42-42-1.png

Throwback post and a throwback poem from the archives!

  

Trigger 

These recent cases of women coming forward to accuse their oppressors is triggering me. I didn’t expect this amount of pain to come to the surface and rear its ugly head. I’m just so confused. We ride for men, we don’t snitch on them, right? 

In exchange for them filling the voids of our emotionally absent fathers and boyfriends we allow them certain tendencies. What kind of weak bitch does that make me if I admit just how uncomfortable dick pics are? That’s no fun. It’s greedy to expect a man to care about who you are and what you’re about AND pay attention to all that ass! He’s going to choose that ass every time. His homeboys are there for shooting the shit about dreams and building camaraderie. It’s our job as women to take care of them in all the other ways. 

I was taught through many examples to stand by my man regardless of my own happiness and fulfillment. Black culture teaches that turning on a black man is the worst thing a black woman can do. I once called the cops on my obnoxious neighbor and my mother reamed me out for possibly endangering his life. (He continued to intimidate and threaten me over the incident until I moved out. I remained silent about it because I knew my husband was not the type to defend me or involve himself in the situation. I simply had to pray that it never escalated beyond verbal bullying). 

Black men are an endangered species and through the years have proven most dangerous to my psychological wellbeing. I don’t know how to reconcile those two facts. 

Now that educated and independent women are on the rise we’ve been elevated to gods and expected to do even more. We should be honored to be side chicks! We need to protect our men and submit and cook and clean and ride for them. If he hits you, you can’t call the police. If he cheats on you, you have to become a detective and figure out what you did wrong. It’s your fault for not keeping him happy. Life and society have torn the black man down, we must be a source of peace! My heart is in turmoil, I have been let down and lied to and made to feel so small and worthless and not good enough by the very group of people I am supposed to protect. While black women are protecting our men, who is protecting us? 

 

 Trauma Does Not Equal Drama 

I resign, black man. I used to write passionate poems for you to remind me why I loved you. Maybe I really wrote those things to drown out the voices in my head crying out in pain. 

I can’t allow another man to inflict damage upon me without taking responsibility for it. I can’t allow another man to introduce trauma into my life then accuse me of being dramatic when it’s time to work through our issues. I cannot play these games that men and women silently play but no one ever really talks about. It’s not a stabbing or a shanking it’s tiny little cuts that lead to small infections until it begins to spread. It’s all over my skin and I have never been able to properly heal. 

If a nigga would show up just one time with a pack of band aids and some antiseptic maybe I would have it in me to try. But you keep throwing salt on the wounds created by you and the men who came before you and I can no longer expose myself to that kind of abuse. Gaslighting is abuse (I could write a book). Name calling is abuse. Abandonment, both physical and emotional is abuse. 

I don’t have the energy or the desire to woo or impress a man anymore. Every time I have fought to assert my worth It has meant nothing. I have no desire to save or fight for a man any more after being hung out to dry and left completely alone and unprotected too many times to count. 

I no longer feel the obligation to love you. I’m done. 

*Leave your thoughts in the comments and stay tuned for the sister post to this blog: Please Don’t Leave Me: An Accountability Post coming soon!

screenshot_2015-08-31-11-16-47-1.png

  

  

 

 

Coffee with Whiskey Recap: Tips for Processing Rejection

Posted on by under The Crazy

There are a ton of bad bitches on the internet who give great advice about processing romantic rejection and focusing on being THAT BITCH. I find wisdom in their mindsets and it helps me to cope whenever I find that rejection feels so deeply personal to me. I enjoy the humor in it and their callous disregard and disinterest in men provides the kind of “tough love” example that I need to snap me out of my emotional intensity.

However, even after absorbing myself in their blogs, YouTube videos, books and other content, I usually come to the same conclusion in the end: I’m not going to dial back my intensity; I’m just going to become more selective about access. As I learn more about myself I am also examining the things I like about me that I don’t want to change–my sensitivity is one of those things. I don’t want to become tougher and change my mindset on how I love and open up to others but instead I wish to become more protective of my own emotions. For me, a major part of this journey is to learn healthy ways to process rejection in a way that doesn’t make me believe that there is something wrong with ME.

If you are like me, perhaps hyper sensitive, introspective and reluctant to trust others with your emotions in the first place, I have written this for you. It can be difficult to deal with negative feelings or the realization that just because you have taken a giant romantic leap with your heart it does not mean the situation will turn out the way you wanted it to. In this day and age there is pressure to be so bad a bitch that these things don’t effect you but I wanted to write this for sensitive women to let them know that it’s ok to be disappointed and hurt and let down. Its ok to feel your emotions and it doesn’t mean you are giving the rejector any power over you, it just means you are willing to give yourself the power to FEEL your feelings (which personally, makes me more excited/prepared to date and/or face unexpected rejection in the future).

I should also mention that as a performer it is in my best interests to learn how to experience and heal from rejection because it is not always guaranteed that when I perform or audition for shows that I will be well received. This is a toughness I need to build within for so many reasons!

Below are a few tips that help me:

Dealing with Romantic Rejection

1. Severing ties with the person who has rejected me. In this day and age we like our ambiguous relationships and to stay on each other’s radar via social media. If it’s a trigger for you and leaves you jealous and pining or stalking: don’t do it. It doesn’t matter how it looks to the other person if you need to unfollow UNFOLLOW.

2. Processing the pain and shame of the situation as soon as possible. I try to take time to name the reasons why I feel so rejected and to also pinpoint other intense feelings that may have been triggered from the situation. I allow myself a timeline of how long I can dwell, commiserate with friends, journal then wrap it up and start to move on. My timeline is typically based on what I feel is reasonable depending on how meaningful the person was to me and I am ok to extend my “mourning period” if necessary because as I always say: self-compassion is a thing. (I just also have to be mindful of when I am dwelling in hurt feelings for too long!)

3. Acknowledgement that closure is a personal journey and that adult relationships are complicated. Sometimes we don’t get straight answers especially when we incorporate God and timing/seasons,etc. It’s not up to the other person to explain much to me or to provide closure. It’s up to me to accept the new reality and to nurse my ego back to health.

4. Remembering Madonna’s quote: “Power is being told you are not loved and not being destroyed by it.”

I was very moved by this quote years ago and never knew why but the older I get the more it resonates with me. In spite of having two children and a robust network of creative acquaintances I lead a pretty solitary life and I’m very picky about those I let into my world. Once I let someone in I’ve done so because I believe they can handle what it is to get to know the real me–if I am then rejected by someone who has seen who I truly am it sometimes hurts a million times more to me. It helps me to remember that not everyone who sees me will love or understand me, and my power is to not allow other’s acceptance or rejection of me to hold so much weight over my life.

I adore bad bitches on the internet with their “fuck that nigga!” advice, but I take it all with a grain of salt because the softness is missing for me. In my mind it is perfectly ok to allow myself to feel and mourn the end of a connection. It’s ok for me to be human and process negative feelings without villainizing men (or whoever has hurt or rejected me).

Healing lies in the willingness to be open and upfront with myself about my emotions even if it makes me appear weak.

Journaling tip: think of ways you can apply these tools to help you handle all types of rejection. Do you have your own tips and tricks to help you to process disappointment and rejection?

Summer Losers: Part 1

Posted on by under The Crazy

summer losers COVER

Summertime! A collective warmth has spread over us all as the desire to shed layers of clothing and inhibitions run rampant. The cuffing season buddy from the colder months is left on read and we hit the streets with alcohol pumping through our veins and Lizzo on our playlists. As black women embrace sisterhood, self-love and shea butter I must say it’s shaping out to be an amazing summer for the ladies. Another summer prediction of mine—the men will lose.

Summer Dating Fail
Each summer my kids go off to Virginia Beach to live their best lives with family members and I find myself with extra free time on my hands. The thought of dating always starts out as a cute idea until three weeks later when I am looking at my message inbox like “How the hell did this happen?” Yes, casual sex can be fun but I suppose I don’t remember when it became the only available option. No one seems to want to meet up, be cute and flirty and go with the flow anymore. I am not speaking of the ambiguous “go with the flow” men toss out as an option when it really means they are trying to trap you into a situationship. I am speaking of going with the natural flow of fun hang outs with sexual tension in the air minus the useless “wyd” texts and dick pics. I understand how males feel about sex, like WE ALL GET IT! I just didn’t realize that sex became the only thing males think women are capable of offering. (And it’s a shame that things have shifted in this way during a time when I think women are at our most interesting and self-actualized!)

Planning a date with a male is like pulling teeth because he’s likely not going to plan

YALL NOT DOING THIS

anything. Personally, the story I always hear is that he prefers to hang out a few times before deciding whether a woman is worth it enough to take on a date. This is because we are known to use men for free food. HAHAHAHAHAHAA—first of all, food is #BAE and I’m not about to sit in your whack ass company at the local TGI Fridays just because it’s free. I have a job I can pay for my own meals so finessing one out of a nigga is not really my ultimate goal in life. Second of all, what usually follows the “I don’t pay for dates” conversation is the “I’d like to come over watch some movies and chill” proposition. Personally, I have no problem with this because I used to be a hardcore Come Over and Chill girl but you really have to peep when a woman is in that particular mindset. I would like to get into these Black Mirror episodes minus all the heavy petting and small talk because being alone is dope. I am more weary about inviting men into my vibe because usually they don’t have anything to bring to the table but a hard dick and maybe some alcohol.

A come over and chill date can perhaps start off well with some insightful conversation and a roll in the hay but too often has ended with a stream of empty “wyd”, “how was your day” texts and aggressive efforts to arrange to come over again. What you don’t know is that this time when he comes over he has zero conversation, zero personality, zero game and zero bottles of vodka—he has shown up with the bare minimum plan to get his rocks off and get the hell out of there. All of that is fine and good, but males miss out on the best pussy by not showing respect or interest in the woman attached to it. Casual sex is no strings, but we are not prostitutes or flesh lights! It would be nice to share a joke or two or establish basic comradery/familiarity before you attempt to keep filling our bodies with your mediocre penis. (And that’s me being a little mean because there is surprisingly a lot of great dick out there, however you lose points when it’s attached to your shitty personality).

Furthermore, males (and some women) still surprisingly stick to these antiquated viewpoints and lose respect for you if they feel you have allowed them sex too easily. I think this is bizarre and hypocritical for obvious reasons but on top of that I don’t understand why women have to do so much auditioning to prove to males that our self-worth is intact. With all due respect, fuck niggas opinions! I am writing this blog and the males who read it are likely to take immediate defense without attempting to understand the POV in its entirety. Also, some will likely start searching through my social media to prepare their “this bitch is ugly and bitter” defense. I probably would be bitter if masturbation and tv didn’t exist but I’m okay. Also, lack of “beauty” is a card that males tend to play without realizing that they are perpetuating the idea that if you are not attractive your opinion doesn’t matter and that would take a separate blog post to unpack how deeply problematic that is. And anyway, I write this blog post more as an empathetic person whose main desire in this world is to make meaningful connections with people. I share my personal opinions and experiences as a woman, writer, poet, mental health advocate, etc. and I receive plenty of DMs, comments, emails and conversations from women all over who feel similar. If you follow any meme account that is geared toward women, you will plainly see that women’s connection/intimacy with males is slipping into oblivion because there doesn’t seem to be any real effort on their end. The whole thing is silly to me because the effort it takes for males to be so boring in their whack ass game and lazy texts, they could actually just be themselves and probably drown in endless pussy because they are finally presenting something authentic.

We’d Rather Be Alone Without Your Bullshit
These millennial artists write lyrics chock full of dysfunction, but we’re smart enough to enjoy the melodies without adopting the mentalities. If you come with bullshit we don’t want no parts! This is because, black women are doing the work. We woke up! We don’t want to be depressed anymore, we don’t want any more toxic baby daddies and bottom bitch relationship positions. We have our careers and independence and now we are seeking the stable mental health to go along with it.

Black women are putting in the work—what does that mean? Great question! It means…

  • We are seeking mental health counseling
  • We are practicing self-love in word and in deed
  • We are breaking cycles of pain and learning to recognize and escape all forms of abuse
  • We are redefining “strength” by no longer associating it with the amount of pain we are able to endure
  • We are calling out toxic behavior

The main result of this movement is that women are learning not to attach our self-worth to the opinions and standards of males. The end result is less confusion and turmoil in a woman’s life because the standards of males are all over the place so it would be impossible for us to attempt to live up to them anyway. How can you strive to sleep around and collect bodies of women you can’t hold a conversation with then expect to settle down with a virginal, good woman that has the body of an Instagram model and attends church like a deaconess? (She also cooks, cleans, throws it back like a porn star and raises your perfect babies– what exactly are you doing in this scenario and how does this seem like anything but a punishment to any independent women?) Furthermore, respect from males seems to be tied to whether they deem a woman is a hoe or not and has nothing to do with personality, accomplishments, how a woman runs her own household, shows independence or flexes her entrepreneurial skills. We can no longer keep up with this invisible “dope chick” scale of standards males are using to determine who is wifey and who is only good for sex– so we’ve adapted by not caring the male opinion at all.

Another wonderful result of women putting in the work is that “pick me” bitches are starting to be outnumbered. We are moving into a sisterhood of support and standing up against toxic male behavior because we realize there is more to life than having a man and settling down. Some of us don’t even want to settle down, we want to travel and pursue our individualistic passions. Fuck your “come over and chill” there is an entire world out there! Hot Girl Summer has less to do with waiting for a nigga to think we are worth the trip to Ruth Chris (which there are nicer restaurants than this, do a fucking OpenTable search ONCE—find a restaurant you personally like instead of doing the same shit everyone else is doing!) and more to do with the liberation of not having to care about a male’s opinion one way or the other. You can own your own hotness minus the thirsty DMs and heart eyed emojis from niggas with empty intentions!

I am so sorry but you all did this to yourselves. As our respect and love for ourselves grew, we attempted to shout it to the rooftops—beefing up our selfie game on social media and believing in the mantras and affirmations to boost our own self-esteem. For every 5 positive posts of a woman loving herself there’s at least two toxic comments from some nigga trying to bring her down. Then we get called hoes for quoting City Girls without realizing that the lyric we quote the loudest is declaring that we no longer care about you. “Real ass bitch give a fuck about a nigga” is our shit because we feel it so hard– most of us can take or leave the rest. We are not for real off some City Girl stuff we got babies and jobs, just like you don’t cook drugs and are not a billionaire. Males are butthurt and defensive because they think we’re up to silly hoe shit trying to finesse money and meals when really, we’ve just wanted the bare minimum of effort and respect.

hey beautiful ain't working

We stopped explaining this because males don’t listen and because the response is never to simply try a little harder. The response is usually to degrade women even more and at the very worst try to attack our self-esteem by making vicious comments about our looks. In my opinion, males are the grinches who have attempted to snatch the fun and freedom out of summer by….

  • inserting the opinions of their male gaze about women’s bodies (hair, makeup, etc)
  • by refusing to develop the basic social skills to flirt and show baseline interest in women
  • and by using technology as a database to collect empty interactions instead of finding a few women you can actually be yourself with and enjoy their company thus enhancing the casual sex appearance for everyone involved and not unnecessarily wasting anyone’s time.

I personally choose to assume that males have become so uninteresting because they have overloaded their rosters and don’t have enough personality to spread around. I have to believe this because it is truly depressing to think that you all might actually be this boring.

*an actual text conversation I’ve had*
Me: What do you want from me?Him: To get to know you better
Me: Oh, cool so what do you want to know?
Him: Everything in due time *proceeds to send 4 consecutive “good morning, beautiful” texts with his picture attached for the next week

Me:

What

Summer dating is a bust, my ladies. Let’s pack up the rental and have a beach photoshoot by our damned selves because none of these niggas are about that life. Let them walk around pale asf this summer waiting on the right woman whose ass is big enough, skin light or dark enough, toes perfect enough—or whatever the standard is these days. I can tell you what the standard is not: being a multi-layered individual that has more to offer than a warm pussy, cool apartment and Netflix account.

But Wait, Is There More?
Men lose this summer because self-love wins. Fuckery gets blocked or ignored and we are no longer accepting “that’s wild” as an adequate response to what we have to say. We are people, not just pussies and if you want access to the precious it’s really not going to kill you to be an active listener over some ice cream, or walk in the park or *insert date activity that involves some kind of bare minimum planning on your part*.

I have much more to say on the topic, including a breakdown of the different types of male summer losers and even some cheap ass, free ass date ideas for the males who want to attempt at winning this summer. And seriously, I am super annoyed that I even have to write this because to be completely honest, most women don’t care about the money you have or your looks or status—we just want to be treated with respect and the baseline level of interest that most human beings are able to express to one another. If you are not interested in a woman enough to show her any real personality or true effort to get to know her as a fellow human being, then why are you so anxious to put your penis inside of her? When is it time for you to know YOUR worth, King?

But more on that later…part 2 coming soon!

Bitches single comment

triple response to yall bitches

I Know Why the Caged Mom Drinks: Dark Season

Posted on by under The Crazy

Supermom

August has barely even ended and I am already wrapped up and completely done with summer. My final pedicure was 2 weeks ago (no gel) and my final stage performance on August 25th ended with me browsing online for comfy fall sweaters. The kids have their school clothes, and—after one last trip for additional school supplies this weekend—I am battening down the hatches and lying in wait.

It is Dark Season, my friends. As a parent who compartmentalizes A LOT I find this time of year stressful af and I have never identified with the commercials showing parents dancing gleefully down the aisles of office supply stores celebrating back to school season. There are so many moving pieces to my life that my head starts pre-spinning in mid-August, fretting about the stress of my commute, time management, shorter days with less sun and juggling parenting and school obligations vs. work and Whiskey Girl obligations. I am a walking, talking ball of stress and emotions at least until spring—and that’s a long time to be absolutely out of your mind while pretending to be a functioning adult.

This year, it’s looking as if Dark Season is being combined with my worst nightmare: actual success. Together, the two are a recipe for a mental health disaster! I have had more invitations to speak on mental health, to perform and to host and produce events than I have ever dreamed would come to fruition. I am over the moon excited that my little brand has gained some traction but I am also riddled with anxiety that I may not be able to juggle this lifestyle. I can’t sacrifice sleep because without sleep I am a murderer. I can’t sacrifice any more time with my daughters because I want to be a real cook dinner, help with homework, embarrass-you-while-bra-shopping kind of mom. Lastly, I absolutely cannot sacrifice my full-time job for obvious reasons like health insurance and not starving to death. [Side note: I have eliminated dating but that’s not really adding any time back into my schedule since dating nowadays is mainly “wyd” texts from dudes sent well after 10pm].

Last night, after the kids went to bed, I found that I couldn’t open a jar of salsa so I sat on my couch and cried for half an hour. Today, I used a knife to pry the jar open and performed an epic victory dance that probably lasted about 30 seconds longer than it should have. Clearly, I need to brace myself for the peaks and the valleys, because the fear is that if this is the first week of school I may end up in a mental institution by December. My challenge to myself this year is to do a better job of leveling my emotions so that I can experience more balance instead of the constant rise and fall of a terrifying roller coaster.

Although I am a single parent I still recognize that I am a privileged parent. I have hella family support, I have hella flexibility with my 9-5 job and I am starting to gain support for my creative endeavors. I am a person motivated by the good deeds of others and the concept of paying it forward, so in this case NOT having a nervous breakdown is definitely a way to show that I am worth the investment! I feel as if I owe it to my parents, my job and mental health sufferers/fellow advocates alike to keep my shit together for as long as I feel led to spread myself across these various projects. Most importantly, I feel that if I successfully juggle this lifestyle I will be able to show my daughters a realistic example of what it looks like when you follow your dreams.

At the end of the day, I want my daughters to know that on the road to finding and fulfilling your life’s purpose, some days you may cry over unopened salsa.

The “Size Matters” Gauntlet

Posted on by under The Crazy

IMG_4734

I’m tired of talking about my body. It seems a very strange thing to declare because I am often perceived as transparent, but I just reached a point where I became tired of talking about my body. I think about my body often and I perform spoken word pieces about it. It is all done in an effort to relate to other women and make men aware of the depth of our insecurities but honestly, I DO NOT WANT TO TALK ABOUT MY BODY!

When a woman larger than a size six—maybe even a size ten in communities of color—talks about her body she is forced to make excuses. Women of a certain size have to jump on the defensive and spend a lifetime explaining their bodies and convincing others to find it acceptable. Women of a certain size have specific hashtags as a disclaimer to pictures of themselves indulging in regular ass every day activities. Selfie = #CuteintheFace, full body pic = #FluffyGirlsNeedLoveToo, bathing suit pic = #ThickThighsSaveLives. Well, here’s a personal message from myself and my thighs: we are not here to save you! I am not fluffy, I am not a ball of fat that should have to refer to myself as such, I am a person.

Several years ago I wrote I Hereby Submit My Resignation As Advocate for Plus_Sized Women and I meant every word of it. Since then I put it out of my mind and made a decision to care the least amount possible because in the grand scheme of things I don’t want to be the poster child for body positivity. Cheers to the amazing women fighting that fight, but it is not mine. I am not strong enough to be a contender in that fight. My weight is a result of all the big picture shit I would rather speak about. My weight is ovarian cysts, stress eating and depression, two babies, hardly any time to exercise and/or too much time sitting on my couch staring into space willing myself to LIVE. My weight is naked, staring into the floor length mirror forcing myself to look, it’s catching my breath when instructed by deep voice to take off all of my clothes. My weight is my body, it is me and it is personal. At a certain point on this very personal journey, I decided not to care and to stop oversharing about it all the damned time. I decided not to nitpick, talk down or degrade myself any more than society and wack ass shallow people already do.

Love Yourself

I watch social media, I know the popularity of Instagram models and memes shitting on women who fall outside of the “acceptably pretty spectrum”. I have been the recipient of comments about my body – it is bullshit perpetuated by weak ass men and most of the time I refuse to show that I am bothered. But please know, I.AM.BOTHERED! I am angry because I know the truth. There are men out there who have physical preferences in their mates and want nothing to do with a plus-sized woman, but eighty percent of you niggas do not care. Eighty percent of you punks care too much about the opinions of others and you like to make women feel bad because you know you bring nothing to our table. You are egotistical, cowardly and just one of the reasons I feel so unprotected and betrayed by you. The faces of these light-skinned women with “perfect” bodies and curly hair are not the faces of the women who have raised you and held it down for you. Miss me with the “black queen” nonsense if you are only praising a certain type of black woman because there’s something in your corny ass nature that makes you think you need to condescend to us to make yourself feel better.

What I am never going to do is allow myself to be treated as less than a person over size. I am not the middle school girlfriend sworn to secrecy because she’s not popular or pretty enough. As far as I’m concerned I am the trophy—I am too busy to text you, I am working, I am raising children and making moves while you’re touching yourself on mom’s couch and posting memes about plus-sized women you cowardly pieces of shit!

Miss me with the black don’t crack beauty standard. Miss me with the expectation that my booty must be big and my tummy small, I have shit to do and worrying about your sexual attraction to my body is not IT! If size is becoming an issue of public humiliation on social media then by all means let’s throw down the gauntlet. Please post the grey sweat pants picture so I can insert laugh emoji and comment about your small dick print. If size matters and we want to make a thing of it then all women should post every single dick pic they’ve ever received and let the chips fall where they may. Even still, why are we wasting our time with short, beardless men with no hairlines?

If size matters, miss me with the oh so creative “wyd” and “you up?” texts if your dick is the size of my daughter’s number 2 pencils she uses for school. If it matters, where is your gym membership or better yet, where are your balls? Where are they and why won’t you use them to stand up for your women instead of shitting on us because we go against the grain of what sheep wish to worship. Are we all truly this weak and shallow?

I’m tired. I’m exhausted from the knowledge that I may never reach my full potential because I don’t look like what people want me to look like. When I go the gym I am angry and rebellious because I don’t want to be there for them. I have to go because I am seeking healthier ways to deal with my mental anguish but I don’t want to give in to the ridiculousness that is the constant shaming of my body. I reject it, I hate it and it is a struggle every day not to hate myself. Let that be mine—let that be personal. Let me hate ME, I don’t need it to come from anywhere else. In my darkest moments I hate me the most—and it’s true for a lot of us. So…just leave us alone.

It is a very unique experience to live in a world where men are constantly in your face, your DMs and your phone telling you you’re beautiful, wanting every piece of you, touching you and tasting you then denouncing you in public for the very things they claim to love. It is very damaging to face abandon from men in relationships, to endure lies and deceit while wrestling with hating everything about myself. Rising from the ashes to be strong is not an easy feat when the fire is still a scalding simmer. The pressure on black women to be strong, to be knocked down and to rebulid, to avoid shitty men and their careless intentions, to wear our hair the right way to work or to dare feel sexy while avoiding being sexualized and degraded and talked down to or even, worshipped—it is all E X H A U S T I N G. Please, if you can’t build us up, just let us be.

And as for my FUPA—my “fat upper pussy area”—I don’t call it that. I call it Naomi. It is me, it is mine and I hate it in my darkest moments but I rise above hating pieces of myself. I have to love all of it no matter how difficult it is for me. If you have a problem with that you are a piece of shit and I will go out of my way to call you out as such. If my size matters, so does yours and you are a very small, limp-dicked and sorry individual for going out of your way to make yet another woman– who carries the weight of the world on her shoulders for you, and life in her womb—feel less than worthy because her body doesn’t match the measurements of your favorite porn star. Women are real. Women exist to be more than your objects of sexual desire and if this realization bothers you, the solution is to literally go fuck yourself.

DoItForYou

The Loneliness Chronicles: Part 1

Posted on by under The Crazy

13 MIR Poetry Gallery

Break ups are rough. I really tried to avoid ever having to go through one again so I fought like hell for my last relationship before calling it quits. Since its ending I’ve struggled with how I should catalog, observe and overthink about all of my emotions  aimlessly floating around. I am very much a writer that needs to bleed and share as part of my healing process but I want to be sure I am as respectful as possible addressing break-up-related topics because 1. I eventually want someone to have sex with me again and 2. At one point I REALLY loved that man and have respect for all he’s taught me and the greatness of our time together. I loved him. There are parts of me that still miss him and often, I feel lonely without him.

My inner circle of friends–who are surprisingly rational and pragmatic in spite of the fact that they’re my friends–have prepared me to brace myself for the inevitable loneliness that comes after a break-up and can last well into single life. I am not bothered by the concept of loneliness because it’s a natural ass human emotion and I’ve seen people navigate/have had to navigate through these feelings before. I know beautiful, smart, successful women who still experience that dull ache that sneaks up on them in hidden moments. The problem is that loneliness is sometimes associated with emptiness when I don’t think the two are as closely related as we tend to think. I like being alone, I understand that I am a complete and whole ass  person so when I feel lonely I don’t think it has anything to do with being incomplete or empty—I think we just freakin’ need people sometimes! We crave connection.

So…Just Love Yourself, Right?

Self-love is a wonderful thing. It is a long overdue concept, beautiful in its simplicity and practicality yet so easy to neglect. I am glad that it’s the latest buzzword on everyone’s lips and that we are all taking a moment to reflect and think about what it means to truly love ourselves. As with any good thing, it comes with a sprinkle of bad—which is, we can forget the purpose of self-love in the first place. Loving yourself and becoming firm in who you are—protecting your vibe and your spirit—is a practice that helps us to love others better, it’s not just for us. None of us are an island. I mean, good for you if you are the “cut a bitch off in a heartbeat” type of person but you are probably also lonely and acting too tough to admit it. A certain part of me wants to be driven by my anger and heartbreak but I realized from my last two nervous breakdowns break ups that I have to do shit differently if I plan to survive the after effects of emotional devastation and relationship separation. The remedy to surviving is OF COURSE self-love because that means you don’t need anyone else to define who you are. You are a free standing, infinite and self-sustaining resource for your own happiness. However, being whole and complete does not mean you won’t experience loneliness, so try not to beat yourself up about it.

The key to self-actualization is not avoiding experiencing or having to sit in negative emotions. For my personal journey I find that I am at my best when I accept reality and avoid dwelling on negativity. But sometimes shit sucks and I have to acknowledge unhappiness or unpleasantness and I have to feel it through until it’s over. I notice that I have prolonged my depression in the past by running from it or pretending it wasn’t real. It’s like a few weeks ago when I was cleaning the house and sliced my finger open on a piece of broken glass. I didn’t want to go to the hospital, I had shit to do! I didn’t feel like it and I could have probably survived just fine without the drive to drop the kids off at my parent’s house and the additional drive to the hospital. However, I had to grow up and make the trip to get stitches and a stupid tetanus shot even though I wanted to avoid it. The laziness in me didn’t feel like diagnosing a basic ass problem and going to get the shit fixed.

Navigating Loneliness in a Fake Ass World

The stigma of loneliness is the kicker! I held onto my last relationship for about 6 months passed the expiration date because I was afraid of who I was supposed to be when I became single again. I like to be raunchy and ridiculous, crack sex jokes and just be loose and carefree. I worried that I would have to change those things and be more careful about how I present myself because I didn’t want to come off desperate or lonely. I worried that people would be able to sense a lonely vibe from me and judge me because of it. These are all anxieties on top of fretting about how I was going to battle loneliness after severing ties with someone whose title and presence in my life validated me. I was not really pressed to be anyone’s girlfriend until I became one and it was like a sigh of relief. “I belong to someone. Someone, besides me, thinks I’m dope!”

20180321_203005

Yeah, none of that shit matters. 1. I was unhappy in my relationship because we were super incompatible so I was battling with loneliness anyway 2. I realize now that loneliness is not really a battle or anything to fight against. It’s one of those shameful emotions associated with weakness so no one wants to admit that they experience it. I always find it ridiculous when we try to shame normal emotions as if they are bad character traits. There is nothing wrong with me, I just want some TLC sometimes!

TLC doesn’t have to come in the form of a large penis and deep voice [at least I chant this to myself daily!] but it can be a quick chat with a friend, a smile exchange with a stranger, or even hugging a pet! Loneliness comes in waves—there are some big ones that can knock you the fuck out. You gotta sit in those, journal about it, think on those feelings while keeping your mind’s eye on the light at the end of the tunnel. That takes hella practice and it is still an excruciating process that may not even pan out in the end. The relief is that sometimes the waves are small. Sometimes, it’s just a splash of water, not enough to drown you but you will need to take a second to regroup and dry off after.

Loneliness is real. While you don’t have to be as TMI as I am being about it, no one should feel they have to deny the emotion or beat themselves up about feeling that way. Reading hateful comments on random social media posts make me feel lonely, watching the chaos and destruction of the world unfold on the news makes me feel lonely. I associate the emotion with disconnection and I’m now fixated on dedicated to exploring what activities and/or thoughts bring me back to earth and reconnect me with humanity and myself. I am navigating this bullshit, I am not thrilled about it but all aspects of life are not thrilling. I just need to embrace my reality and learn to validate my own emotions while releasing myself of the stigma society attaches to them.

And that’s real…

11 MIR Poetry Gallery

*For more micro-poetry follow me on Instagram @whiskey_grrl*

Come Back Whole

Posted on by under The Crazy

Tell me - MIRI’m sitting here trying to ignore the sound of notifications dinging on my phone. It is nonstop. It.is. maddening! I am home from work for my third day in a row attempting to fully recover from the flu before diving back into the several days worth of work piling up in my email inbox. The stress of thinking about work is hindering my recovery just a little. I’m annoyed and exhausted thinking about it and to be honest I’m just not quite ready to engage. “Worry about your health, first,” they say. But what they really mean is “Restore yourself enough to be what I need you to be…”

The expectations of others always seem to be pounding away at my door. It is the reason I contemplated getting dressed this morning and heading into work. I was almost willing to do anything to silence those stupid email notifications on my phone. Technically, I feel ok. I mean, I’m just milking this, right? I should be over this flu by now. But who is anyone to dictate what my body or my mind needs to go through in order to properly heal? Lying on my couch dying of the flu really caused me to question: when was the last time I allowed myself to properly heal from something?

The end of a friendship, relationships, minor disappointments and disillusionments take their toll on us every day. Sometimes I truly wonder if we are actual savages, cutting off friendships and posting about it on our social medias with little care or remorse. Or, have we just hardened ourselves to rejection and disappointment playing this stupid game of pretend where we act as if the “weaker” emotions within us don’t exist? I don’t know about everyone else but my mental health is too fragile to avoid fully processing through my emotions. My soul craves connections with other like-minded human beings! Each time I trust enough to let someone into my world and they trash the place with their bad energy and ill intentions it breaks my heart a little.

This year, I want to be more careful with my heart and soul. I want to journal more to stay in touch with my true emotions and not what others project onto me. I want to lean less on the advice of others and try to view my sensitivities as positive attributes and not weaknesses. It’s ok to be wounded, and it’s ok elevate the wound, saturate it in healing oils, pray over it, rehabilitate slowly and thoroughly until it is whole again. There is beauty, love, laughter and many wonderful things in this world but there is also something to be said for acknowledging the darkness. Not everyone cares about your wellbeing—many of us are inherently selfish and we just need you to be ok for us. WE want to laugh with you again, monopolize your time and rely on you to make us feel good about ourselves. WE need you to entertain us and to provide us with that good feeling and on some level we don’t care about the internal process it takes for you to get there. I recommend that you ignore US, and do whatever you need to do to come back whole.

Practicing What I Preach

I don’t consider this advice, I consider this a few tips for myself that I would like to put into practice.

  • Ignore Work Emails  I’ve designated today—a Sunday–as a writing day. I’m here on my couch writing away and receiving emails about work assignments for tomorrow. I will read the email TOMORROW. I work 5 days a week from 9am – 5pm which means I only get two days a week to keep and cherish for myself. It’s completely unfair of any co-worker to infringe upon that time, so it’s up to me to set the boundaries. I monitor emails for emergencies but not for to-do lists that don’t go into effect until the very next day. IMG_20180211_163242

My work is ok, it’s enjoyable enough but it’s not what I want to occupy my thoughts and time while I’m not in the office or on the clock. The immediacy of technology puts pressure on us to be more available than we are. Even Instagram changed their settings to show when other people are online—a feature I quickly disabled. I don’t need to watch my unanswered direct messages and feel bothered that Such-and-Such has not responded to me but just posted a meme and has been active on Instagram for the last half hour. Such-and-Such is a person that deserves to use their time as they very damn well please. I myself have learned to become more forgiving and realistic about response times because I enjoy the same courtesy in return. I will respond to messages when I am in the right mindset to do so.

  • Go Where the Love Is       …be it the arms of a lover, the presence of a good friend or a favorite coffee shop. I am teaching myself the art of chasing after good vibes. I take notice of who I am around and what I am doing that provides me with a good feeling and I recreate the environment when I am hurting or my soul is in search of some healing. We absorb soft rejections and experience psychological triggers more often than we are likely aware. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with seeking comfort and restoration in familiar places and with familiar people. Furthermore, healing is a personal journey and it’s totally up to me to…

 

  • Communicate Within My Comfort Zone My friends don’t have to know why I am seeking their comfort and quality time. No one has to know of my personal struggles—I’ve had to heal from dropping an entire jug of milk onto the kitchen floor before! Sometimes, there are small events that can trigger chaos within my psyche. Confiding and confessing to friends is always an option but it’s not a requirement. Healing is for me alone and cultivating healthy relationships is restorative by default. Being near someone who has a calming effect or being in the right environment can be enough in some situations. You don’t have to create a spectacle or engage in “bitching about that thing that happened” — you can just BE!

 

  • Trust My Personal Process Everyone heals differently! Maybe that woman broke up with her man 3 weeks ago and is already back in the dating pool but what is for her is not for me. After being with me for 33 years, I have learned that sex is not something I take lightly and it does take quite awhile for me to move on from being sexually bound to someone. After putting in time to learn a person so intimately, the thought of reaching that level with someone else is daunting. Rushing to sleep with someone new after a break up will NEVER be my go-to move because I know that it would slow up and even damage my healing process. When pain and tragedy hits, it can be an opportune time to evaluate what it means to “get over” something, what it means to “restore” and to set realistic expectations on whether you even expect or wish to return to being the same person or a different version of yourself.

For me, keeping busy is a coping mechanism that deters me from properly handling my emotions. It has taken me years of trial and error to differentiate between unhealthy things I do just to appear over something versus what I really need to do to activate healing. Healing doesn’t always look like the easy way—sometimes it looks like reliving painful memories, journaling them down and reading over again until control and sanity is regained. Healing is a reality that we live in that includes the acknowledgment that there is a hurting or unpleasantness to heal from. Much like self-love, it’s not just about bubble baths and treating yourself to nice dinners.

  • Come Back Whole The expectations of others often cause me to act out of the desire to avoid disappointing people. Disappointment is inevitable and sometimes cutting myself some slack is necessary when it comes to prioritizing my own health and wellbeing. I absolutely hate taking breaks from the performance arts scene. I love to be booked and busy, I love performing and using my words to connect with an audience but I don’t love to be immersed in a scene that involves hidden politics and constant self-promotion. The pressure I feel to keep an audience engaged and to constantly present myself as an interesting person whose writing you just HAVE to read takes its toll and sometimes makes me hate being a creative.

IMG_0742

This year, I am on a quest for freedom. I want the freedom to write and express however I wish to and the freedom to focus on who I actually am outside of my art and my perceived persona. I have decided to cut down on my performance schedule this year because I want to spend more time with my children and adulting in my life outside of the creative arts. I’ve spent a ton of time and money investing into my art and working so hard, I now just want to make sure that I am doing what I truly enjoy. I don’t feel the need to take every gig offered to me or to continue to appear at places where I don’t feel particularly welcome or happy to be. I am taking the time to focus on what makes my life fulfilling and to do those things almost exclusively.

There are incidents that have happened years ago in my life that I have finally admitted to myself that I have never fully recovered from. Lately I’ve found myself being constantly triggered because I never allowed myself to go through the full experience. After a hurtful event occurs, there is an entire process that I’ve been skipping because I don’t want to feel the pain of it and I don’t want to put in the work it takes to restore myself back to good. The time for quick fixes are now over…

I don’t want to return to a version of myself that is tolerable and acceptable to others. I want to return to the truest version of myself, I want to be the most of myself. I no longer want life experiences to chip away at my being until there are parts of me missing that I will never be able to restore. I want to do the work—and when I decide to come back–within my own time– I want to come back whole.

rip

*If you enjoy my writing, please visit www.whiskeyandpoetry.com for more*

The Obligation to Love Your Oppressor

Posted on by under The Crazy
12 MIR Poetry Gallery
“You know, you really wooed me. You are really something else,” he said softly. It sounded so kind, almost even like a victory but I knew better. It was a sentencing, deep down I knew it was my punishment.
He then went on about his business, bedding women and taking names later. I went about mine, traveling down a slippery slope of depression that led to too many losses to count. I deserved to be punished, perhaps. We were not in a committed relationship and everyone knows that those situations are best worked out when the woman remains loyal to a man allowed to do whatever he wants. I could never be that loyal, it never seemed fair to me, So after I begged him through the ugliest of tears to allow me the label of being his girlfriend, he rejected me. I wandered into the arms of a married man and broke his shit up as badly as I had been broken.
The cycle of pain was a vortex that had me sucked all the way in. I always assumed I deserved all the heartache and pain coming to me because of karma.
Bubbling Over the Surface
I have been stuffing down pain and trauma experienced at the hands of males my whole life. Because it’s not trauma– how dramatic of me, it’s just the way things are. I have sat in several counseling sessions never mentioning molestation by another abused little boy because what little girl hasn’t been molested? I couldn’t play the child molestation card in life, I had to get over it. When it was time to give up my virginity there was no discussion session for me to explain that I was really scared and not ready. Sex is what you do to be accepted. Sex is something you do to gain love from a man. I had spent my high school years so lonely and unwanted I really just wanted to finally feel accepted.
We would make out and pet each other on my parent’s couch and when he left I burst into tears and I never knew why. Looking back on it, I wonder why he never asked me why I cried. We were young–19 and 20– but isn’t that old enough to care about the woman you are with? Did this intimacy we created with our bodies mean nothing to his heart? He never cared about my tears well into our marriage. Some nights I slept in the bath tub or on the bathroom floor devastated that we were falling apart and I couldn’t save us. I was the only one fighting for us and it was taking its toll and wearing me so thin. I still don’t know why I absorbed the weight of the entire marriage on my shoulders–maybe because women are the keepers of love. We fight for it and we are expected to make it work, regardless.
Nevertheless, I learned early that showing weakness is a drop of blood in shark-infested waters. To this day I hold back pain and tears because I know it causes a visceral reaction in men. “What the fuck are you crying for, that doesn’t solve anything,” they would say. I could never express the gravity of my abandonment issues, I could never level with a man about my depression or anxieties in any relationship because my traumas would always be diminished to dramatics and acting overly emotional. I was even called an emotional manipulator and I owned that title for quite some time. Clearly something was wrong with me. It was my issues causing these men to cheat or emotionally abandon me. I wasn’t good enough.
I swallowed my tears and toughened up accordingly. I came to the table with facts and a clear head and a basic desire to be treated with love and respect. I found myself being set on fire, gaslit into oblivion. No man ever said to me “I was wrong, and I’m sorry,” as the end result. I always found out about infidelities far too late in the game because I’m the woman and I am supposed to trust first, right? If he tells me he’s not cheating I need to respect it and stop bothering him like a crazy black woman. We are all crazy! If I make him mad enough with accusations then he would be justified in being unfaithful. If I notice inconsistencies I have no choice but to let it go. That is how you support a man– you pretend to believe his lies until you’re numb.
The past year of my life I have felt a shift. I can produce a detailed timeline of when and how he fell out of love with me over the course of a 3-year relationship. I watched it happen in silence. Sometimes I spoke up about it but those conversations only speed up the unraveling process. A man will take you from queen to peasant so gradually that you don’t even notice until you’re home alone on New Year’s Eve or performing on stage and returning to your chair alone as always. There is no one to cheer for you, to hold your hand or drive you home. You find yourself alone in your own relationship.
I stopped making excuses for these men. I just buried the pain away because I’m a mom and I have a career and so much going for me. I stuffed it down because I don’t have the mental capacity to deal with my issues of self worth. I casually dated a young guy a few years ago. He said to me, “I’ve taken other women out on real dates I just never have with you.” There was a flash in my mind of those wild days, men coming to my door with a bottle of whiskey and a smile. No dates. Just my empty search for affection and their desire to get their dicks wet. A few were fascinated by my quirkiness but it was never enough to keep them. It never made me worthy.
I stuffed it all down. He told me what I needed to know: there are women who are worth it and those who are not. I was not.
Trigger
These recent cases of women coming forward to accuse their oppressors is triggering me. I didn’t expect the amount of pain to come to the surface and rear its ugly head. I’m just so confused. We ride for men, we don’t snitch on them, right?
In exchange for them filling the voids of our emotionally absent fathers and boyfriends we allow them certain tendencies. What kind of weak bitch does that make me if I admit just how uncomfortable dick pics are? That’s no fun. It’s greedy to expect a man to care about who you are and what you’re about AND pay attention to all that ass. He’s going to choose that ass every time. His homeboys are there for shooting the shit about dreams and building camaraderie. It’s our job as women to take care of them in all the other ways.
I was taught through many examples to stand by my man regardless of my own happiness and fulfillment. Black culture teaches that turning on a black man is the worst thing a black woman can do. I once called the cops on my obnoxious neighbor and my mother reamed me out for possibly endangering his life. (He continued to intimidate and threaten me over the incident until I moved out. I remained silent about it because I knew my husband was not the type to defend me or involve himself in the situation. I simply had to pray that it never escalated beyond verbal bullying.
Black men are an endangered species and through the years have proven most dangerous to my psychological wellbeing. I don’t know how to reconcile those two facts.
Now that educated and independent women are on the rise we’ve been elevated to gods and expected to do even more. We should be honored to be side chicks. We need to protect our men and submit and cook and clean and ride for them. If he hits you, you can’t call the police. If he cheats on you, you have to become a detective and figure out what you did wrong. It’s your fault for not keeping him happy. Life and society has torn the black man down, we have to be a source of peace. My heart is in turmoil, I have been let down and lied to and made to feel so small and worthless and not good enough by the very group of people I am supposed to protect. While black women are protecting our men, who is protecting us?
Trauma Does Not Equal Drama
I resign, black man. I used to write passionate poems for you in an effort to remind me why I loved you. Maybe I really wrote those things in an effort to drown out the voices in my head crying out in pain.
I can’t allow another man to inflict damage upon me without taking responsibility for it. I can’t allow another man to introduce trauma into my life then accuse me of being dramatic when it’s time to work through our issues. I cannot play these games that men and women silently play but no one ever really talks about. It’s not a stabbing or a shanking it’s tiny little cuts that lead to small infections until it begins to spread. It’s all over my skin and I have never been able to properly heal.
If a nigga would show up just one time with a pack of band aids and some antiseptic maybe I would have it in me to try. But you keep throwing salt on the wounds created by you and the men who came before you and I can no longer expose myself to that kind of abuse. Gaslighting is abuse (I could write a book). Name calling is abuse. Abandonment, both physical and emotional is abuse.
I don’t have the energy or the desire to woo or impress a man anymore. Every time I have fought to assert my worth It has meant nothing. I have no desire to save or fight for a man any more after being hung out to dry and left completely alone and unprotected too many times to count.

I no longer feel the obligation to love you. I’m done.

No Room at the Table

Posted on by under The Crazy

Table Meme

If you had showed 23 year old me a glimpse into the day in the life of Whiskey Girl I would be in a state of disbelief. Although, I suppose ten years is plenty of time to have morphed into a totally different person. Ok…well, I won’t be as dramatic as all that but I will say that I never expected to be living out this version of myself. The early teenaged me would be quite proud—and slightly puzzled that I have two children when I vowed to never have kids and to focus solely on my career (as an advertising executive because I was obsessed with the movie Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead). Anywho, the early 20’s me would be horrified. That version of me made the mistake of falling head over heels with a man and fantasized about a life of wifery on a daily basis. Who cares about education and life goals when you can cook, clean and cater to a man who barely even deserves it, right…?

We all know my story ends in divorce so let’s just hop right to it. That divorce was one of the most painful things I’ve ever had to go through. I remember feeling so empty, depressed, lonely and unfulfilled throughout the whole mourning and separation process. Alas, I was a wife missing a husband to complete me and fulfill my purpose (barf!) Surely I needed a man in my life, in my household, in my presence just to be happy! Fast forward to the present annnnnnd—what I need a nigga for again?

 

Material World, Traditional Girl

I am aware that feminists don’t all the way like me because by today’s definition of the word I probably don’t really qualify as one. I like the part where I can sleep around and not be considered a hoe and attend marches but for the most part I’m a boring bitch who believes in the traditional gender roles. No one is angrier than I am when I have to carry groceries by my damned self, take out the trash or get an oil change. If I have a dude in my life why am I doing these things? I want to give great bjs and get my nails done while someone else worries about paying all the bills—but the way my single motherhood is set up; it ain’t happenin’! I am not hot enough (or motivated enough to hit the gym) for random men to be paying my bills so I’ve had to choose the life of a “for real” single mom. Like, work 9 to 5, pay all the bills and file my own damned taxes—there is no knight in shining Jordans for me.

Even when I lost my mind over some good dick and literally had a mental breakdown that culminated in job loss, I didn’t have time to dwell on unemployment and try to find a Sugar Daddy to help supplement the household bills. I ended up pulling money out of my 401k and taking a quick woosah before re-entering the workforce and finding a job to sustain myself and the kids.

Fast forward 5 years and I’m making $30K more than I made when I was fired and I haven’t asked my parents to borrow money in about two years now. (I HAVE asked my brother A LOT, but that’s neither here nor there). This is a story of triumph, my friends! I am holding it down, dropping kids off to school, helping with homework, doing hair, killing it at work, trying to kill it in the writing/poetry field—my life is FULL. My table is dope and I built the shit all by myself and provided all the food—I’m not sure what anyone else can bring to that table…

Dog passed out meme

Gotta offer more than just good sex these days! There are options out there, my dude

 

There’s the Rub…

So, here is where we have a dilemma: if I am already responsible for and happy with “holding it down” for myself and the kids then why would I be interested in adding a grown ass man to the mix who expects me to hold it down for him, as well? There was a time when I couldn’t wait to take care of a man and devote my life to his happiness. I wanted the bottom bitch fairytale where I helped a man come into his own greatness and as a reward he would never cheat on me and someday make me his wife. How lame is that? Especially since these days, men my age only seem to be offering pretty package relationships that look great on social media but lack any real substance outside of that. Can a bitch cuddle in your lap and shoot the shit about future dreams and past heartaches or nah? How are you going to support me? While I am doing this whole “submissive and supportive to my man” bit, are my emotions being taken care of/managed/supplemented? Are you emotionally supporting me, or just murmuring “For real, that’s crazy” every time I try to talk to you about what’s going on in my life?

I am not a doting housewife. I can’t absorb a partner’s emotional stress without being poured into and loved on in the way that feeds me, as well. If you aren’t giving me attention and affection then I could give a fuck about broiling your salmon or doing your laundry. Love is not enough of a motivator to have me catering to a man who is essentially bringing the same shit to the table that I am. When he walks in the door after a long day of work, I am walking in at the same time having worked the same amount of hours on top of a laundry list of household and Whiskey Girl things to handle before the day is over. My lifestyle is already overwhelming for my temperament and mental health, so the thought of adding another person to that list of responsibilities sounds downright stressful.

EVOLVE, MY NIGGAS

The success of black women is a topic of conversation these days, but men don’t seem to want to address what our evolution and our success means for them. Well, my niggas… I will tell you.

Emotional support is the new breadwinner. Gone are the days when you choose a woman and take care of all the bills while she stays home and runs the household like the CEO of your life. These days, women have full-time careers and are working just as hard as men—if not harder because of the multi-tasking and juggling that goes into childrearing (don’t get me started on entrepreneurialism!)— while bringing substantial money into the household to sustain it. To be the main person responsible for maintaining the household while making significant financial contributions is a bit much to ask. You don’t have the right to expect more of this woman, you don’t get to stress this woman or treat this woman as if she is not a real or enough or lazy because she doesn’t make a four-course meal for you every night like your Mama used to do for your Daddy. She is not that woman. She is a new breed of woman, and she doesn’t really need you in the same way that generations of men before you were needed.

I feel the hate and the weight of the world on a daily basis. I have to be a straight up thug almost every single day, so at the end of it I’m not really looking to cater to a man’s needs while forsaking my own desire for love and affection. I want us to come home and breathe life into each other. I want to take turns cooking meals and helping kids with homework and cleaning. I have no desire to be a super woman juggling it all and accepting a quick plowing at night as the only physical intimacy from my significant other. The days of phenomenal dick and half-assed conversation being enough are over—it’s time to step up the game, fellas!

F with yourself

I think black women have been more than generous with the excuses for why it makes sense for us to be the glue that holds the relationship together. The long term effects of the cruelty of slavery, history of family separation, generational curses, yes, yes, to all that—but also, no. For generations we are the ones who have been cheated on, abandoned, emotionally and physically abused by men who no doubt suffered from some very deep-sated mental health issues. We are known for our perseverance and strength in spite of these factors—if you are a man who desires to lead a black woman of such character it’s high time you started coming correct. Don’t nobody care about your degree or your air of self-importance because you’ve never gone to jail or gotten caught cheating. Accomplishing personal goals and being good to your significant other is shit you are supposed to do. In my opinion, the traditional role of the provider has been missing the emotional aspect for far too long. Nowadays, you’re bringing home the bacon to a table that already has a feast laid out on it—what else do you have to offer, my dude?

And to be honest, some of you aren’t even all that interesting. You treat us like we are a game to be played, or like a whiny inferior person whose “spoiled ass” you have to give in to just to shut her up. You show up to meet the friends and you pose for the selfie but you’re not really taking the time to know who we are as people. You express a mild interest in our daily activities but intimacy and connection never seem to be the ultimate goal. In my experience, many men don’t seem to bother making the effort to really connect on deeper levels beyond slow missionary sex and fun conversations about nothing. If you want a place at the table I would suggest you explore deeper. Barging into an independent woman’s life just to prove that you can get in is lame. If you fight your way in make sure you have a purpose there and please GOD don’t waste her time!

She built the table herself, yes, but there’s so much more to carpentry than furniture. Cater to her emotional needs; build the foundation that will sustain the table and any other beautiful thing this woman decides to create in all her strength and independence. I promise you, there is room for you—your presence, your admiration, your genuine love and your time. Those are all things I would welcome with no hesitation or questions asked.

Sext

This guy gets it!

But…Not All Men!

Of course it’s not ALL men—shut up! This is a blog post to offer you something to think about. If it doesn’t apply to you, that’s ok. And if you are a good dude that knows how to complement, respect and keep a woman happy, perhaps you should spread the knowledge to your friends instead of always commenting on how you’re a good dude to an audience who doesn’t benefit from the declaration.

Comments are welcome below. (Don’t be a dick, please)