Think the thoughts, feel the feels...write it down

Today marks two weeks (and one day) of being 30. Going into it I was hesitant (as if I could slow down time) because the past few months have been tough and I was scared the shitty trend would continue. BUT so far thirty has been great! I feel the healthiest I've felt in a over a year, probably closer to two years. I feel loved and vibrant. I feel fulfilled and whole. I feel attractive and optimistic. I feel like I'm important in my own life . I am terribly good at enveloping my existence in someone else's; in devoting my life to someone else's happiness, needs, wants. But I've been working to untangle myself from that disposition. Self care is most efficient when consistent. I believe in setting intentions and manifesting. I believe that we speak, project the trajectory of our lives. So I was nervous about how to speak life into my life, partially because I had forgotten how. I had had this internal conflict of speaking/writing about my life because I didn...

Years back I read a then popular book, The Paris Wife . The book affected me because I just felt so heart broken and such a connection with the main character, Hadley Hemingway. Hadley was Ernest Hemingways' first wife. The wife he met at home and moved to Paris with and became famous with. When my ex and I ended, this book immediately popped in my head. I began drawing parallels between Hadley Hemingway's relationship with her (ex-)husband and my relationship with my (ex-)wife. Then I scolded myself for 'being so dramatic;' I mean my ex didn't fuck their mistress while I was in the bed with them, but they were secretly "talking/texting" another woman while we were still together. But my ex didn't get infuriated when I became pregnant, but they did scroll through their phone sitting just feet away while I put my puppy down. But my ex didn't say they couldn't trust me anymore, but they did call me fat and lazy to my and others' face...

Today I visited one of our love landmarks. I went there with a friend because it’s beautiful and I wanted to share the beauty with her. I was fine at first even though every plant I touched sent a tiny shock of melancholy through my being. Then I wasn’t fine. I became exhausted from outrunning these memories. So I sat on a bench, surrounded by plants and memories, and cried. It was annoyingly picturesque. This black femme, surrounded by nature’s beauty, crying about a lost love. I couldn’t outrun the memories. Every leaf, every flower, every rock, every bench had been covered by our proclamation of love. How many rains does it take to wash all that away? I find myself encountering sweet memories as I go about my day, minding my own business.  The love landmark where you first called me “my love”… The love landmark where you first announced that you loved me… The love landmarks where we’d revel in cheap tacos or good sushi… The love landmarks where my heart burste...

I don't know what it is. If it can be helped. If it's my fault. If I can prevent it. I just don't know. This feels cyclical. I don't feel wrong. But I do feel crazy. I feel like I can't talk to anyone about IT, like the very person I want and need to talk to about it doesn't wanna hear it. But I always hear their shit. I always actively listen and dish advice when prompted and coddle and coo and try to understand and sympathize. So why can't it be reciprocated? It can. It should. Now I'm sitting at home being pathetic while they're out going to the very party I wanted to go to. I am baffled and confused and hurt and broken and frustrated and scared. Is this it? Are we broken for good? My heart feels irreparable. I feel like I fell into this trap. I feel awful. My stomach is in knots; my eyes are exhausted from crying; I feel like the tiniest person. The tiniest, most pathetic person who's outer shell looks deceptively strong. Years ago, when I w...

A few weeks back I was in conversation with a handful of women about sex. All but me were straight, some married, some single, some in a relationship. The youngest one of this grouping chirped up and said she's 'saving herself for marriage.' No one really batted an eye because we all respect each other and the different lives we choose to lead, but I had to resist the urge to correct her. The language agitated me because it sent me back to a time when I said the same thing: saving myself for marriage. Let me be clear in saying that I take no issue with a person choosing when they desire to become sexually active. If a 16 year old decides they are ready and knows how to do so safely with a safe partner, then so be it. If a 30 year old who is not yet married wants to wait to have sex with their future spouse, then so be it. If a person decides/feels that they only want to masturbate for the rest of their life and have no sexual contact with another person, then so be it....

internally panicking every time an unfamiliar number appears on my screen because this could be the call that iterates the news of a family or friend who was murdered by police literally being scared of walking my dog in my neighborhood of two years holding my breath and clinching my jaw every time police pulls up behind or next to me while driving having to choke back the tears and anger every time I have to go to work after another Black hashtag has been created panicking every time a police drives by me in my predominately white neighborhood never getting rest because I never stop being Black.

You ever have those shower thoughts in which you revisit a memory out of nowhere and re-frame and rephrase? So now the memory is awkwardly mixed with what actually happened and what you wish you had said and realized at the time...I had that moment today, in the shower. Out of seemingly nowhere I revisited a memory from 2ish years ago when I was living in Concord with four other women and was in a really bad head space and heart space and literal space. I had been doing a lot of soul-searching and self-realization and was acting on it; my roommates didn't like it. I was transforming from the always smiling, (secretly) self-depricating, self-scapgoating, and exorbitantly self-sacrificing person that was so easy for everyone to doormat and 'love' to a woke, self-realized, self-loving, strong woman. I started speaking up for myself and asking for what I needed and addressing issues when they arose to the people who were part of the issues. In short, I stopped letting myself ...