Fighting Myself

Fighting Myself

Okay… I must begin this post by stating that my family’s women are VAIN. I dare say most Haitians are, but that’s a horrid, sweeping generalization. With that being said, I’m having a bout of bad self esteem this morning and my rational self think it’s completely unfounded. I was actually talking to my brother last night about how you don’t appreciate the body that you’re in until it’s gone. When I was 14, I managed to get my figure into one of those then popular En Vogue dresses size 8 back then – but muscular. I WAS THE BOMB! In hindsight, I can see I was PERFECT for the dress. But back then… I obsessed about the little half of a pouch that may have stuck out if I jutted my pelvis forward hard enough. How naive I was. I wish I could have relished it more. Instead I wore big bagginess all the time JUST IN CASE… to hide … ALL my features.

So here I am again today… 16 years later… Having soared up to a size 20… back down to a size 14 … I’m wearing a size 16 dress that I purchased years ago and wasn’t able to wear for a while… and I’m actually in it. (I should be jumping for joy). But… what am I obsessing about. Class? Anyone? RIIIIGHT… the SAME dumb kangaroo pouch that I think I’ve had since I was 2. Of course it’s much more prominent than it used to be at age 14… but a LOT less than it was at a size 20. I should be marching up and down the street, proud of my progress. But I’m sitting here contemplating another outfit. Even my mom said it was okay… but stared at me a little too long, which to me means… NO. And I’ve gone to the full length mirror about 10 times. And each time she asks me “Did you do something different to it? What’d you add?” (teasing me). So I’m blogging it out so I get the courage to walk out there and hope that the world doesn’t see a big blaring target on my stomach when I debut my newly slimming figure. I hope I’m not tugging and fussing at it to MAKE people stare at me. (kinda like I’m doing now just SITTING HERE). I’m a mess. My dad said “I don’t know why you think your stomach shows…. you barely eat anything…” AWWW! Thanks daddy. I think he’s the ONLY soul in the whole universe that NEVER said anything about my weight… all these years. Ignorance is bliss.

I’m walking out with this dress, people…. WISH ME LUCK. I might even be so bold as to take a picture in it. *crossing fingers* *tugging at dress*

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** addendum 9:23PM**
Okay… I made it through the day… basically hiding behind my desk for the most part. But when I did come out of my building, I got to the point of “fuck it”. But then cats were attempting the holleration!!!! AMAZING. I had my homie take a pick of me for me to share with you all who gave me strength. I STILL SEE the pouch… but moreso… and better — I see my mommy in her prime. And that means more to me. I stopped tugging at the dress.

Thanks folks for helping me get through the day!!!

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Inspiration

Inspiration…
My muse visited this afternoon….

Ready?
I spent my morning getting ready for you…
I woke up and peeled the sheets away from my body
the way you do when you take me up in your arms
I brushed my hair into a ponytail,
perfect for you to hold on to when passions rise
I passed the iron over my dress and
felt the heat of your touch run up the side of my thigh
I turned the shower on and stepped into the
stream of warmth and felt your embrace
wash all over my body.
I lotioned my skin and felt you massaging me
cajoling me
convincing me…
I clothed so you could strip me…

I’m ready.

200508291507
4tress

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WTF???

WTF???

Another strange dream courtesy of strange experiences and weird feelings before going to sleep. I couldn’t get to sleep right away last night. I just stayed up and stared at the patterns that were on the ceiling from my oil burner. I tried as hard as I could to just empty the images and thoughts from my head so I could get some sleep. When I finally did get to sleep, this was my dream… or what I remember of it.

I was travelling to somewhere to meet someone. Someone who I had to talk to about something important. (I don’t have details here, people). But it’s somewhere that I’ve been to before in my dreams. That I’ve traveled to before. But I couldn’t afford to travel the way I normally have, so I had to take a local route of travel which took HELLA long. And when I got off this train, there were a world of stair cases down from the platform. After a while of going down the stairs, I stopped passing regular rush hour traffic of people and started down stairs in a university somewhere. But this isn’t where I needed to be. I was still making my way somewhere. But classes were in full session and I was bumping into students and folks conducting their classes in the hall way. So the attendance of their class would spill out into the stairwells, where I was needing to pass through. I tried to do it as inconspicuously as possible the few times that I did. At one point, I passed a class that was looking through glass pane into what seemed like an operating room. I had to pass right in front of them and apologized profusely for temporarily blocking their view. The teacher grabbed my hand and said to me, “We’re examining the pregnancy room.” And she smiled brightly to me. I smiled back and nodded and said, “That’s very wonderful.” I gently released myself from her grip and finally walked through an iron exit door to the outside. It was snowing. And I was dressed (suddenly) in the darkest clothes. I needed somewhere to recess momentarily and catch my breath / get my bearings before moving on. Then I saw a Dunkin Donuts that I see everytime I travel to this place… this place that I’ve been to in my dreams before. I stagger over to it thinking to myself, “I’m NEVER taking this way into this location again if I can help it. The other way is so much easier and faster.”

I walked into the Dunkin Donuts and there was a sign there that said that their coffee machines were closed between 3 and 7. It was 4 o’clock according to my watch. So not even coffee to warm my bones. But I remembered in this DD, they start to fill up the store waiting for the coffee the closer it gets to 7. So I’d sit and wait. I sat down at a 2 person table and put my black wallet ( I don’t have a wallet) on the table. No sooner did I put it down, than did a man: white guy, short… kind of measley looking — decide to sit next to me. I looked him up and down and he asked permission with his eyes to sit there next to me. I nodded. After a little while he opened up my wallet with the intention of telling a story. “You know what’s odd about these?” he started… and put my credit cards on the table and started pointing to each one and citing instances of trivia about them. I was listening but his words were becoming muddled as I was noticing that he was stashing a card or two of mine up his sleeve. “HEY!” I yelled and pointed to his sleeve. His eyes widened and he panicked. He grabbed my wallet and got up to leave but I ran after him and tackled him at the door. Somehow I got him in a sleeper hold on the floor and screamed at him to give me my wallet back. He stayed quiet and I applied pressure. I was hoping to just knock him out so I could take my wallet back. But he stayed there. Not really resisting. But I knew if I let go of him, he’d be out of my grasp. I managed to get into his pocket and take my wallet back. He fled the Dunkin Donuts and I sat on the floor looking through my wallet. He’d gotten away with one card that I could tell. “I hate coming to this place,” I thought to myself. I need to call so-and-so so I can get out of here… and I whipped out my phone. Which was already ringing. The tone that it rings when I get a text mesage.

I opened my eyes and my phone was blinking red on the floor next to me and I just laid there. Weirded out.

Oh well… going to go get ready for the grind today.
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Future Fears

Future Fears

I was on the bus yesterday trekking uptown to meet up with a friend for lunch. The M20 seems to have quite a few disabled pick ups along the way. So it causes the bus to be at any given stop for 5 to 10 minutes at a time, loading them up and locking them in or unlocking and letting them out of the bus. When I got on this time, there was already an older lady in the handicapped seating locked in with her wheelchair. I thought nothing of it and sat down and let my iPod mentally whisk me away. About a stop or two before mine, it was her stop. The bus driver did his do and unlocked her wheelchair and lowered the platform and she came off the bus. She scooted her self to the nearest pole by walking in the wheelchair, grabbed on to the pole to hoist herself up and then repositioned the wheelchair to use as a brace for her as she walked forward. I looked inside the bus and noticed that all the young folks were not just looking or observing… they were STARING at her (myself included). And seemingly we all looked at her till it was no longer convenient for us to turn our necks to see what she was doing all the while wide eyed with downturned mouths. Some shaking their heads or leaning on each other looking for comfort. It was a universal thought…

And we used to think that was a good thing. “I wanna live to be 100 years old.” But most of the 100 year olds we’ve seen have not really had the spry energy / ability of a 25 year old. Their spirit may have been that young. I guess the unknown is so frightening, we’d rather just stay here. It takes long enough to try and get used to… no one wants to jump from here to the next new thing. Or to nothing. My brother confided in me the other day is that his greatest fear is that after all of this… it’s oblivion. Nothingness. I tried to alay his fear in saying – if it is indeed oblivion… there’s nothing to fear. He won’t feel it. Or know it’s happening. Or experience it. Can you imagine it? We all seem to be tied into some sort of “after life” where the spirit that occupies this shell shall continue to exist – somewhere. How ’bout if it doesn’t? Are we all so self centered that we can’t imagine no longer existing?

I am. *shrugs* I’ll stick to the philosophies that comfort me most now – I’ll always be young; I’ll always be healthy and self reliant… and… I’m going to live forever.

Yeah… that worked for about 2 minutes.

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When I Realized I Loved Him

When I Realized I Loved Him
He was my friend for years before we started dating. I cared deeply for him as a friend and he kept doing nice things for me… like bring me a dozen roses on a bad day at work or pick me up a souvenir coming back from a trip outside NY or something like that. He was always so sweet and caring and just a really stand up guy. What attracted me to him (outside of his Math text books on his bookshelf – that’s a different story – and YES I’m a nerd) was the fact that he is a man of his word. How rare is that these days, I thought to myself. Everyone says one thing and does another. I’m personally guilty for that as well. But not him. If he says he’s going to do something, better believe that it’s getting done. He is the single most reliable and trustworthy man on the face of the Earth that I’ve known.

It was a few days after Valentine’s day in 2001 that we actually said the words “I Love You” to each other. But even then, I dare say I wasn’t “in love” or didn’t realize it. I was very closed off to him because I was afraid to open up to yet another man who may just high tail it outta there. But sometimes you have to lose something before you can realize it’s worth.

It was November of 2001. My grandmother had passed away in August of 2001 and no need to recap what happened in September of 2001. Emotionally… I was completely raw and unravelled. My baby was in the process of looking into an apartment housing complex that was provided to him by his workplace. It would be his first time moving out. And I found that I had the desperate need for him to invite me with him. “Come move in with me” was all I wanted to hear. But he never said it. I didn’t understand then that he simply wanted to explore the world on his own and spread his own wings. I was looking for him to affirm this “love” that I wasn’t even willing to admit that I felt for him. While hanging out with a bunch of girlfriends one afternoon, I voiced my discontent with his moving out and me not being asked to come with him. And one girlfriend announced:

This INFURIATED me to no end and was probably fueled by that percieved lack of validation from him. One Saturday, we were on the phone and I was being stank. I mean. S-T-A-N-K to him. And he asked me what was wrong. And I let him have it… full on with expletives and rolling of the neck (as if he could see it over the phone) and yelling and whatever else I could put on that. He waited for my tirade to end and stated calmly into the phone “You know what? I don’t have to accept any of this. I’m out. This is over.” In my haughtiness I said, “You better be sure about what you’re doing. You don’t want to lose me.” He said “I’d rather be alone than be treated like this.” *click*

The next 16 hours were the most HELLISH I remember in all my life (aside from the hours waiting for my mom to come out of surgery). I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I paced about. I had cold sweats. I cried incessantly. I called all of his friends to find him (because he’d stopped answering his phone and emails). I EVEN EMAILED HIS MOTHER. To no avail. I finally called his best friend who was in Philadelphia visiting his girlfriend at 6 AM (remember — I didn’t sleep) and started out by saying “Do you know where Earl is? We had this fight about nothing really and it escalated…” I didn’t get to finish my statement before his best friend cut me off and screamed on me, ” WELL MAYBE THE PROBLEM IS THAT YOU THINK IT WAS ABOUT NOTHING!! IT WASN’T ABOUT NOTHING TO HIM. IT MEANT SOMETHING TO HIM. SO THINK ABOUT THAT!” I’d never heard that man raise his voice and it shocked me in to doing something drastic to get my baby back. I got on all 3 trains it took me to get to my baby’s house at 7 AM, hoping he was home. I just remember pacing back and forth with a magazine in my hand, prepared to camp out on his door step till he did come home. Walking up his block, all I could think to myself was this elaborate speech about how we should stay together and it makes sense (very analytical). When I saw his car parked on the block it gave me the slightest glimmer of hope. I walked up and rang the door bell. His mother answered. I was TERRIFIED of this woman.

Me: Hello Ms. F… How are you today?
Her: *staring me down*
Me: Um… I was stopping to see Earl………. Please?
Her: He’s not here. *crosses arms*
Me: With all due respect ma’am… I saw his car on the street. I know he’s here. He and I really need to talk. Please, ma’am (thinking to myself… WOW! I’ve NEVER been so brave!)
Her: *staring me down*
then she turned and went down stairs after mumbling what sounded like “wait here”.

She returned up the stair well and opened the door and invited me in. There was my baby in the shadows by the stairwell. My heart leapt at the sight of him. She sat us down in the living room and told us to work it out and shut the door. I proped myself up to give my speech about all the analytical everything I came up with as to why we should stay together… and I looked into his eyes and turned into a blubbering idiot. I collapsed against his chest and totally lost it blurting “I missed you so much’s” and “I love you’s” and “I need you’s” and when I was still for long enough, I felt his chest heaving and sobbing too… and echoing my sentiments all the while we’re clutching on to each other. I couldn’t live my life without him. I couldn’t be without him. I never felt that way or told anyone that I felt that about them… ever. And from that point forward, I would do whatever in my power to make sure that I didn’t have to live without him anymore. Because I was in love with him and now realized his worth to me in my life.

(Long story, I know, Clink… but i needed to document it anyways).

Gonna go call him…*sigh*

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