Well, last year definitely was one for the books.  So much goodness came out of that year.  So many realizations.  So much growing into my own skin.  Of course the highlight is the birth of my sweet baby daughter.  My first born.  The miracle I’d almost given up on.  She has come to life and transformed me.  This entire post … nay the entire blog can be about the ways she’s saved me.  And it will be.  But today’s blog will be about this new year right here.  There’s much to be accomplished and so little time (well… that’s not fair – we get a whole extra day this year LEAP!)

I want to focus on some keys here:

1)  LOSE AT LEAST 60 LBS – yeah.  60.  it’s gotten that bad.  They weighed me at the doctor and I was mortified.  I really let it all go after the baby.  I actually looked GREAT after I had her – for those first 2 months… i was moreso slender than I’d been prior to the pregnancy.  Then I went back to work… and it all went down hill.   Wendy, Ronald, Popeye, Papa John and the Colonel to name a few became regular household visitors… and the weight just piled and piled and piled.  That’s enough now.  With folks around me dying at 42… at 32…  at 27….   I have more reason than ever to try to extend this life for this little girl.  A 65 yr old endpoint isn’t an option AT. ALL.

2)  SET DOWN THE CAREER PATH – there’s some stuff taking place that lets me know that this is the last (or may be the 2nd to last) place I ever work “for”.  The path needs to be laid out that i will work for myself and benefit MY family.  I’ve been saying it for a while, but I’m moreso ready than ever.  I gotta make it happen for me.

3) WORK ON THE SON – while there are many smaller steps to this one, I need to get my mind and body ready to birth my 2nd child.  I am putting it into the universe to give me a son.  Because if I can have my boy and my girl, I will quietly go to Dr. Kofinas and tell him to pull the whole system OUT.   I’ll be done for real.

4) HOME – there will be somewhere I can call “HOME” … a house of our own… no one living above or below.   Us as owners and to follow our own thoughts and rules. PERIOD.  This is a ONE YEAR PLAN… and needs to be.

Those are the pivotals.  And I’ll figure out the sub to-dos in the coming weeks, while I’m pining away for some meat or fish LOL  But if I can make it through this 30 day fast…. I believe that this year will be all I can make it and more.  I just have to show myself that I have the will, courage and steadfast ability to get it done.

Day one of the fast … well… yeah.  This morning, I “cheated” – not really a cheat cause I hadn’t started the fast yet.  Wanted to end it with a good remembrance.  So we went to the diner and had one last hurrah.  That was holding me over pretty good.  So the thoughts of the fast didn’t phase me.  “I can do this.”  “All I have to do is have alternatives to the crap I’d eat ready to go and I won’t stray.”  This evening around 9PM with a fridge full of bananas, pears, apples, V8 and water i craved HARD for some buttered popcorn.  Doesn’t seem so bad.  But this fast calls for raw veggies and fruits for 14 days at least.  The thought of just one kernel of popcorn melting in my mouth overtook me.  I used all of my innate lawyer skills to lobby FOR the idea of making the bag of popcorn to my husband who stood firm against the crashing waves of my desire.  (Thank GOD for him)  I resigned myself to drinking the whey protein drink that goes with this fast and that held me over.  And then I had a pear and made it my bitch and ate the hell out of it.  Now I sit here assessing how I feel and wonder if I’ll ever stop being hungry.   I didn’t realize it was this bad.  But I can’t go back to the way I was eating before.   I literally FELT my system being gummed up.  As I was telling my Icy this morning – I feel stuffed like a doll.  That has to change… post haste.  So… I’ll have to get used to this hunger feeling.  And maybe as a result… also get used to the feeling of really LIKING what and who I see in the mirror.  My mother-in-law did everything short of raising her hands up in a hallelujah when I announced that my fasting started today.  Man.  *smh*

So Day 1… more like day .75 down.  29.25 days to go.

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Just nothing nothing nothing compares to being at home with my sweet shnooklie pie.  I miss watching her grow through out the day.  While the look of happiness and excitement on her face to see me come home is something brings me indescribable joy – I’d much rather revel in the varied expressions she’d share with me through out the day.  I find myself trying to cram a days worth of loving and caring for her into the 5 final hours of the day and the first 2 hours of the morning that I get with her.  Pretty much if I’m not breathing her … it seems pretty pointless.

I’m not to the point of melting down at my desk into tears.  It’s more… annoyance.  All things are hurdles that I need to fly over to get back to her and whatever she wants to do with me and for me.  Whether it’s to pitch a fit with me for cleaning her nose or if it’s actually turning towards me to nestle in close and go to sleep – which might seem like nothing but these little moments define me now.    I really LIVE for them.  Other things are just … in the way.

I’m sure I need a few more weeks to just even out.  But I LIKE being all about my baby.  She’s pretty effin fantastic to me and I am fiendish for the experience of her.

Mommy stuff.  3 more hours till I can go to her…

Blech.

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It was nice having someone to download to every day.

I find myself holding it all in even more because there’s that constant reminder that your baby can feel your mood.  So I try to always be as genuinely happy around my little one as I can – even if it’s her I’m worrying about.  And I do.  A lot.  As a mother should, I suppose.  But it’s more suppression.  And why not talk to the Mr, you say?  Well… he tries.  Honest.  But he’s a man like all men and sometimes the sound of something besides my voice is more attractive.  And I get it.  Plus lately – there’s been a gap in the comm.  I say something, he hears something else and acts on what he heard – not necessarily what I said.  It’s a little frightening.  I don’t want to get to the point where I have to say “Could you repeat back what I said please?” cause that feels a lot like holding his hand like a little kid.  But there are some things I’ll have to do that with because I can’t risk him executing his interpretation. So to that point if I was to unload, I’d want some constructive feed back.  Not just him nodding his head hearing what’s on TV or him hearing something altogether different.

I’ve been chatting to my co-worker about networking more – for work purposes – but maybe this could be two fold.  Network just to increase the base of people that I know and open up my life to new and different voices.  I think I’ll try to start doing that right away.  Wish I had something to go to tonight along those lines.  Hubs is taking the cherub to his e-board meeting.  No real need to rush home.  It’ll just be empty.

Empty and cluttered with the makings of this move.  UGH.  More to think about.  Going back in.

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Him: The baby is going to LOVE you.
Me: You think so??
Him: HECK Yeah!
Me:  *screwface*  I mean… what makes you say that?
Him: Well…  did you love YOUR mom?
Me:  Are you kidding?  LOVE her?  I worshipped her.  She was my idol.  There was no woman prettier, smarter, more amazing or kinder in the world.  She was everything.
Him: *”i told you” so look on his face* – well. There you have it.

The verbal conversation stopped there, but in my mind, I responded – but… all that my mom did… she fully deserved that love and admiration from me, my brother and anyone else who crossed her path.  The selflessness.  The sacrifices.  They were all apparant to me all my life.  What will I have done – outside of the surgeries and procedures to GET me pregnant (which might seem … well… self serving from a given angle) that will match that kind of angel-like behaviour that will merit admiration and love from this little one flipping about inside?

When I was an Amway Distributor, one of the philosophies they taught us was a concept called “Creating the Pull”.  They were grooming us all to be leaders, but what’s leading if you have no followers?  What’s worse – if you have proclaimed “followers” but no one wants to be where YOU, in particular, are.  So the concept of creating a pull – put enough distance between you and your “followers” in the achievement and attainment of dreams that makes it look like you are further ahead and wish they could hang with you but they’ve got x-amt of work to get done before they can achieve your success.  Accomplishing this by sending postcards from beautiful places that you’ve managed to be able to go as a result of your hard work and wishing they could be there… but they haven’t reached the success level required for them to earn that particular trip.  Or cars or clothes or free time… all the things they dangled before you as rewards for your work.  I’d gotten many a post card from tropical places “wishing I was there”.  And it made me want to work harder so that I could participate.  I wanted to belong to THAT group.

In a lot of ways and without any kind of effort on her part, my mom “created a pull”.  She didn’t tell me too much about herself.  She just carried herself with poise, grace, determination, pride and love.  She was all the things a grown woman should be in my mind and in my eyes and without dangling it in front of me… she made me want to be as much like her as I could possibly be.  There were some things about myself that I’d never be able to shrug off that were quintessentially ME – the social butterfly, the commensurate performer, the boy-crazy little girl…  Those were just parts of me that I had to know were uniquely mine and not like her at all.  But everything else?  I wanted to emulate her.  The wit.  The style.  The mystery.  The cool-under-pressure.  Personality wise, she was a female James Bond (to me).  And of course – while I learned more and more about her very human personality and flaws as the years passed, it took a very long time to get me to the point where she wasn’t just about able to walk on water in my opinion.

That same mystery brought certain distance between us though.  While  I was always aware that my mom was never supposed to be my “friend” or my “pal” – I felt she left the earth without me really KNOWING who she was.  There was a whole other woman that existed before the married mother I came to idolize.  There was the single, gorgeous,  adventurous youngster growing up in Haiti who had a penchant for wearing short things and was always thinking about her cousins and family and showed it by visiting and chatting with them often.    The woman who existed before my father married her.  I only get glimpses of her in stories from her counterparts and cousins who are still with us.  Making the myth of my mom even more elusive and glamorous.

I don’t know what this little one is going to think of me.  I might be so busy wanting her to love me as much as I loved my mom that I’d do all the wrong things… say all the wrong things.  She’d just end up being a Daddy’s Girl… and maybe not thinking much of me at all.  I know that I think she’s the bees knees already…  I guess… I just have to be myself and hope that she loves me just as much.

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It was wrong of me to just drop off the face of the earth like that.  But when you think about it – our relationship started out in much the same way so it’s poetic in a way.   But there’s a very important reason you haven’t heard from me and I’ve gotten up enough strength to tell you to your face…  well… in a letter.

This summer was a whirlwind.  When we met, I was feeling pretty low on myself.  Even though I would dress up pretty and make my hair do beautiful things it could have never accomplished with a perm, I wasn’t getting any feedback.  Feels like the only person that was telling me anything was me in my own mirror.  That had me feeling pretty down every day – so behind my smile there was all this sadness.  I was in a stressful position at work at the time… things were just rough all around.

But then you came out of nowhere… and told me that I was the best… the best you ever had – and I believed you, because I wanted to and I really needed to.  So I started to listen to what you had to say more carefully.  You were always talking about rolling with Young Money, being up all night and making the high life sound like where it was at!  Somehow you managed to take Sade’s musical melancholy and blend it with the party-downstairs feeling of muted base and blurred lights that I’d always lived for and spoke words I needed to hear over it all.   I took a good look at you and you were boyishly cute.  Never thought I’d fall for your type, but your swagger and demeanor had me sold.  At the end of the day, that’s all anyone has forever.  So we started to go steady.  You kicked game to me every day in my car telling me how fancy you thought I was and when I was getting ready for us to go out on the town, you instructed me to put those fucking heels on and work it girl – let that mirror show you what you’re doing.  I won’t mention what you told me to do when we got home… Straight fireworks.  I hadn’t felt so light and pretty and wanted and sexy in a long time.  You were MY favorite, even though you kept bringing up that Minaj girl.  I can’t hate – she’s beautiful, talented and IS from Queens, afterall… how can you resist?  But I knew that I was your number one when we spent my birthday night signing and rapping to each other.  It was a concert was just for me and the thousands watching were just observing to see what real passion looked like.  I was on cloud nine then… The city was ours.

But I have to come clean to you finally…  You haven’t seen me because I’m with child.  And it’s not yours.  And as much as you made me feel young and pretty and wanted — the life I’m preparing for now is the one I always wanted and need to get my mind right for.  You have years ahead of you full of fun, frivolity, fame and carefree living. But I want you to know that you saved me from me and saved my swagger this summer when I thought I’d lost it all.  I’ll always be grateful for that because now I can teach that to my little baby girl when she gets older and she’ll be all of those things without ever having to ask for validation or permission.

I promise to always give the world me – the real me.

Thanks, Drake.

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The dream kept me tossing and turning all night long as my heart who longs to see my mom again wrestled with my mind that knows it’s best not to unearth the dead… literally.  So I asked the question on Facebook to see what others think.  I’m sure some movie house will steal the idea for a movie down the line – they always pick at my brain for the best ideas *snickers*  But it was such an interesting situation… because I always say I’d give anything to see my mom again…  But would I?

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In the first trimester, it would go SOOOO SLOWLY – mostly because every  moment is riddled with anxiety and nervousness and fear about if you’ll make it through to the 2nd trimester.  2nd trimester goes by at a normal pace.   You’re worrying WAY less… you’ve managed to let off some steam by letting people know the good news (and bad because now you can be all sorts of sick and anxious w/o feeling self conscious).  But then the ramp up to the big show begins.  The 3rd trimester is just out of touch and I feel that I’ve been at this 25 / 26 week mark now for about 3 weeks. LOL  It’s in my nature to rush things along…  I guess ever since I was a little child, plaguing my mom with questions about what it’s like to be a grown up and what it would be like to have my period and what it would be like to get married and move out and have a job and not be in school anymore.  You would think by now that I’d have the time and patience to just wait for stuff.  Trop presse pas fait  jour l’ouvrie. I know mommy.  I’m learning to be more patient.

I had a SERIOUS bout of missing her last night.  My dear sweet godsend of a hubby decided it was time to “tackle the office” – he’s not a pack rat.  AT ALL.  But I am.  And he witnessed how bad it can get by having to help my parents through their packrat-ism.  Or at least my mom.  Dad wasn’t so bad with his… but he also wasn’t as willing as Earl to help mom dig out.  So every month or so, he dedicates a good amount of time to helping me dig out of my own paper grave.  The office has been stacked up with stuff for a while.  Originally, we were going to clear it out to make room for a nursery.  But we cannot, no matter what we do, control the temperature in that half of the apartment.  So the nights that it’s cold… our little baby would freeze.  And summer nights, she would bake to death.  So we’ll have her in our bedroom until we move out.  But he wanted the office to be clear because as my belly gets bigger – it’s MUCH harder for me to scrunch over and do the freelance work I need to do over my computer.  So he dug out the space around my old computer (did a FANTASTIC job) but in the process unearthed some more memories that I wasn’t quite ready to see yesterday.  A small white envelope that has seen it’s share of wear and tear.  On the outside in crude black marker it exclaimed “To My Mother: The Maker Of ME”  This was obviously one of my many exercises in learning to write… so I had to be about 5 or 6 years old.  In my brief homemade thank you card written on a 3 x 5 piece of index card in blue pen I thanked for all that she’d done for me: “making me, giving me life, buying my toys” and professed that she “made life so satisfying”  and that I loved her.  (silly me with my big words).  I broke down.  This is the reason I don’t give cards anymore.  It seems terrible of me.

When grandma died and we had to go through her apartment, there was a huge envelope – you know for those absurdly large greeting cards that they sell at Hallmark.  We’d given her one of those through the years.  But inside that envelope was ANY AND EVERY CARD my brother, my mom and I had ever given the woman.  And in all the years of writing these cards, I never thought for ONE MINUTE that I’d be taking them back.  It warmed my heart to know that they meant so much that she kept them all (i mean ALL of them).  But it hurt too profoundly to have to reclaim them.

So i cried for a good while yesterday, missing mommy with all my heart.  Wishing she was here.  I had way less lonely moments when she was around because she was always available to just chat about nothing.. or let me listen to her watch tv.  But this bottomless feeling is just without resolve.  At the end of the tears and the feeling sorry for myself and the wishing I could call her – there’s no resolution.  I’m still without her and always will be, no matter how many tears or breath taking sobs.  No amount of pain I’ll feel will revive her … or wake me out of this reality where she’s actually still here with me.  And every day, more of her shows up in me that I can’t control; good things… bad things.  All her.

2 more weeks until the 3rd trimester.  Maybe I’ll learn to slow down and document everything happening so that I can regale the little one with tales of her arrival and focus less on the pain and sadness.

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On Friday morning, I got a text from a few of my Haitian comrades stating that Rosenberg of the HOT97 morning show had made a statement to the tune of “I’m HIV Negative because I don’t mess with Haitian Girls.” I’ve worked in radio too long to believe these kinds of things at face value. I’d worked at HOT97 too long to believe everything that came across my blackberry or email. I asked my friend if SHE actually heard him say this. She responded, “No, but 3 of her friends heard it and wrote to her immediately.” After making a few calls and asking some well placed questions, the truth came out that something was indeed said – by Cipha Sounds, not Rosenberg. Here’s exactly what went down in that few seconds. K. Foxx was talking about a benefit she attended where they introduced Sir Richard Branson’s new condom, designed to bring awareness and stop the spread of AIDS in Haiti and that she brought them some of the condoms from this function. A quick chuckle and under his breath (but into the microphone) Cipha quips (this is the actual quote people…) “Well, I don’t mess with Haitian girls, so I’m fine”. Immediately his co-hosts reprimand him for being disrespectful, Rosenberg makes a joke about the condoms themselves and everyone moves on.

Now, having worked there for many years and having interacted with Cipha Sounds, I know that he was just doing what he thinks he does best – being the class clown. What he doesn’t realize is how very old and painful a wound he stuck his salty finger in and twisted in that moment. So in case you’re reading, Ciph – here’s why my people are seriously enraged at what seems to only have been “a one-liner”.

Flash back to the 1980s (I’ll do a truncated version because I know how the attention span can go pretty quickly). AIDS awareness is on the rise and is striking fear in many a good red blooded American’s heart. They’re trying to pin the blame for AIDS wherever they can find it. And it seems most logical to pin the source and nexus of the disease on the places that seem to be most heavily affected. Back then, various countries in Africa and my dear homeland, Haiti. It was widespread in the news and media that these were the places to place blame for this scourge ravaging our planet (oh, and Gays. right). Well – who doesn’t believe what’s in the media? Or at least – how much less was it questioned back then. In 1989, I attended St. Francis Preparatory HS (GO TERRIERS) and there was a massive blood drive. 13 years old and excited to do something to help my fellow man, I had my parents sign off on the permission slip and marched proudly into the auditorium where they had me fill out another form before sitting down to submit my donation. The form, in triplicate was about 8 1/2 x 14, mostly demographic information and 2/3rds of the way down the page there was a section that stated “Ethnicity”. First question in that section: “Are you of Haitian Decent?” Me, back then? I PROUDLY checked off “YES”. I was never NOT proud of my heritage. But I was also a little slow on the draw. When I finally got up to the nurses they shared every reason with me why I shouldn’t give blood. “Oh… it looks like you’re coming down with a cold.” “Your blood iron is a little low.” “You seem like you’re feeling under the weather, maybe you should sit this one out.” I almost thought nothing of it until my friend Jean came and told me they said the same thing to him… and a handful of other Nouveau Haitians (1st Gen American Born) stated they got the run around too. Then it made sense to me. We had been “profiled” by that little question on the form. It was so ingrained in the masses minds that we were to blame that it had made it on to a form that designates willful giving to help save lives. I was so hurt, I vowed NEVER to donate blood in this country ever again.

In another instance in my life that burns this sentiment deep in my heart, walking into my building one day, I saw a man talking to someone outside before entering the building. I caught a hint of a familiar accent, but I’d never seen this particular man before. The Haitians in my building were all “family” – everyone watched each others kids. As far as we were concerned, all the kids were “cousins” and the moms and dads were “aunts” and “uncles”. I figured he was coming up to see one of our families. We both got into the elevator alone and as the doors closed, I asked him shyly and with respect “Hello sir, are you Haitian?” His reaction will never leave me. He started to back into the corner…. as if I was going to do something to him. I had to quickly allay his fear, “No, no no…. I’m Haitian too…. I heard your accent…” Immediate relief washed over him and he said ‘Yes! yes I am! Oh, wonderful – where are your parents from, do you speak Kreyol…. ” all the regular parts of the conversations between countrymen.

We weren’t always on Eastern Parkway waving our blue and red on Labor Day (think about it – those of you who’ve been around long enough). For a VERY long time, Haitians on a whole were ASHAMED because what the media had pinned on us and we kept to ourselves. I hate to hear that Haitians only come out now because Wyclef made it cool to be Haitian. We come out now because America’s memory of the pain they inflict is a short term one. And we were finally allowed to just live and be proud of who we are and where we came from.

My post is not directed at Cipha, really. I don’t agree with what he said, but I also don’t believe that he understood the magnitude. My post is more so to those who have reacted with “It was just a joke, get over it.” My question to them is – then when is enough enough? At what point do a people rally against insult and injury? When they start to stone us in the streets? Burn our houses? Bomb our land? Then? Then is it alright to rally together to tell the world, “HEY – STOP IT. WE ARE A PROUD PEOPLE and will NOT stand for your slander.” No. I think this is enough for us to be angry. And now, those of you who read my blog know why. Especially after the year we’ve had. Truly in poor taste to kick a people while they’re down. But… some places have a history of that.

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What will it all mean?

I finally woke up from it but replete with all the heaviness and sadness of a real fight and real separation. The real Earl came to comfort me and reassure me that he’s not going anywhere and that it’s me and him for life. And while that was good enough for Real Vicky – I worry about my Dream self. And what she’ll do now… It ressurrected this sensation in me from a post years ago. A picture that I found postsecret.com in 2005 that resonated with me then…and seems to resonate with Dream Vicky now…

I think there are negative contrails out today… everyone is feeling… down.

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Good song. Great words. It’s nice that they kind of put the advice out there for folks sometimes. It’s all just a matter of listening.

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