Say No to "Chilling"

There have been many conversations exchanged between me and my friends when it comes to finding a good quality mate. And I find the number one problem most women of our generation seem to have is finding a man that is willing to go through the process of getting to know the woman. So the question is what happened to actually dating someone? These days we have things completely backwards. What use to be a “dinner and a move with a possible god night kiss at the end of the date” has turned into a “let's chill at my crib which leads to sex followed by breakfast in the morning.” What made it okay for we a women to give up the most valuable part of ourselves so fast? More importantly, when did “chilling” become an acceptable first date anyhow? Listen I'm a simple woman who likes simple things. A guy doesn't have to take me to a 5 star restaurant. I know times are hard. All I'm saying is if a man is going to ask you out on a date, don't you think you are worth the effort? A walk in the park is free, having a picnic is free, going to a museum is free....there are so many things that don't require money that he can do with you. Say no to “chilling”....at least for the first couple of dates. That will give you the opportunity to get to know who you are dealing with.

But....

“If I don't give him what he wants he might leave”

Andddd....if you give him what he wants, he might leave anyway.

But....

“What I won't do another woman will”

Okay well by all means let her do it. How does what she will do for him effect you? If he is that impatient that he will go and get another women to fulfill his immediate needs, that should show you what he really wanted you for in the first place.

But....

“I want him to like me”

Sex doesn't mean he likes you, it means you a giving him the temporary satisfaction he is looking for right now.

But...

“I don't feel like I can do any better”

Well if you feel that why you shouldn't be dating in the first place.

Whatever the excuse is....they are just that excuses. We shouldn't have to compromise our standards in order to keep a man. Stop giving your power away to a man you just met. If he can't except the fact that you don't want to sleep with him so be it. You are still awesome. There are plenty of guys out here that are awaiting to meet someone as great as yourself. Sex doesn't not determine your value. Your were already valuable stepping in. Don't be afraid to tell him no, the worst thing that can happen is that he never calls again. If he likes you, let him prove it. Speak your mind, own your words and speak the truth. You are responsible for your life....own it. Lastly don't be afraid of getting it wrong. We aren't always going to be right about the guy we are dating. That doesn't mean you should give up. Someone will appreciate how wonderful you are and what you have to offer.

Freedom: My Natural Hair Story

The day I condemned myself to hair slavery was the day I picked up my first pack of remy hair. On that day I was transformed into a new person. Admittedly I liked that person that started back at me. That person with long flowing locks down her back, curls blowing freely in the wind. The way the men looked at me anywhere I went. Weave made me feel powerful.  It didn't take long for weave to become an obsession, I could even call it a habit. A very expensive habit. $300 for weave $150 for the install, for the price of looking good It was worth every penny.  All the while I neglected my own hair underneath. In fact, aside from my stylist and a few close friends, no one saw my real hair for years.  I was completely brainwashed into what I thought was beauty. If I didn't a weave installed, I was either hiding in my room, on my way to the salon, or on my way to the beauty supply store. If I didn't have enough money for a weave, I wore a wig. Anything not to show what I that was ugly underneath

It wasn't until I lost my job that I was forced to take a long good hard look at my hair. Being that I didn't have the luxury of getting my hair done anymore, I had to do my own. I was completely horrified at what I saw.  My hair was dry, brittle and almost matted. My edges were on their way to being non existent. My ends were split and my scalp had small sores. The only bright side to all of this was I accidentally became a natural again. Years of not perming my hair and installing weaves had returned my hair back to its natural state.

My first instinct was to slap a perm in it and call it a day. But I decided against it mainly because of the fragile state my hair was already in. So for the first time in years I was forced to deal with my natural hair. I can honestly say I hated every waking moment of it. I cried, I felt ugly and grew increasingly insecure. I very seldom left the house in fear of being laughed at and mocked. Again I was made prisoner...again I was a slave to my hair....this time because I didn't have the weave to hide my true self.

I can't say what one moment turned it around for me. I just knew that I was tired of living in the shadow missing out on life because of my hair. So I began to educate my self on natural hair and finally began to embrace what I was born with in the first place.   Under that matted mess I created grew some amazingly beautiful hair.  I was finally free....more importantly, I began to see me for who I truly was.   I finally broke the invisible chains of what I thought was beautiful and realized I am beautiful already.  And that is my personal freedom.

Then Vs Now

“I don’t want to be with you anymore.”

Those words echo off into the distance as if it were some type of dream. Instantly your mind wonders back to the time they you first met him. Everything seems so vivid, so real. You remember everything about that day….that perfect day. The feeling you felt….that forever feeling…that this is “the one” feeling….that feeling that you thought would never go away. …

“Did you hear me….I said I want a divorce.”

You think about the first signs that something just wasn’t right. You notice he’s wearing his clothes a little differently. He’s breaking lunch dates; he’s coming home later than normal. You brush it off; chop it up to female insecurities. That is until you get that phone call that confirms the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach all along…

“You’ve changed. And I think it’s time for us to move on.”

He has shown you his full blown true colors. After catching him yet again, you take him back, enabling his behavior unknowingly. He knows you won’t leave….so do you. You have become dependent on him. So much so that you have gotten use to the dysfunction.

“I love someone else.”

He’s not even trying to hide it anymore, he has done everything but openly admit he is cheating on you. He has done everything possible thing a man can do to a woman. He has violated you. Put his hands on you, left you home alone for days at a time. No phone calls, no nothing. He comes home as if nothing has happened. You let him because you are just tired of fighting about the same things. You have grown to accept the situation for what it is.

*Door Slams*

He’s gone….and you realize that you allowed him to treat you as second best to everything else that comes in his life. He was your husband when he felt like playing the role. Today was the day that he decided he was done playing with you. He sucked the very life out of you leaving nothing but the shattered pieces of a broken heart just laying there….useless….

*Then there was silence*

Conditions of the Heart....

I hate pain. I don’t know too many people who like it. We will protect our knees with knee pads, our heads with helmets, put on bullet proof vests and what not….So with all that why is it we don’t take that same care and consideration with our hearts?  We treat them as if they are disposable. Like if it gets damage we can break the emergency glass and replace it with a brand new one.  Despite what you see on television, love does not hurt. Yet we allow ourselves to get stomped, crushed and prodded in that same area over and over again. And as time goes on the condition of the heart weakens. The resilience it once had starts to decline. To protect what little life it has, the walls start to build up, the chain is wrapped around it, and the padlock is set in place. We throw the key away, leaving it up to someone else to find a way to unlock it, break the chain, and tear the walls down on that sucker. The side effects of a broken heart may include, anger, sadness, bitterness and most dangerously….indifference.

One would think the condition of the heart would be one’s number one concern, after all, the heart shows people who you really are. Stop treating the most precious thing in your body as if it were waste. Exercise what you process in carefully. Minister to your heart daily. Throw away the unneeded baggage that keeps it heavy. And most importantly, stop letting other people play with it.

No band-aids needed.

The Misunderstood Single Mother

No one wants to be a single mother. No one. Yet it seems to be the norm in the world we live in today. Most of us probably felt like we knew the guy we were sleeping with. That he would never “do that to me”.  We couldn't fathom a guy that we chose to birth a child with could just walk away like that. Yet it happens.  Now not only are we faced with the financial burden of raising the child alone, we are also labeled by society. All of a sudden people are looking at you like it’s your fault that you find yourself in the position you’re in.  Now all of a sudden our very character and integrity is being attacked, we are labeled as whores, welfare junkies, angry and bitter. People tend to generalize and put us single moms in this one little box and we are a fit some certain criteria. When the fact is such generalizations are just quite frankly stupid.  Our circumstances and life situations differ. Not one story is exactly identical to the next. 

Quick personal observation….and rant….:

I've noticed that people feel like because you are raising a child on your own that is an open invitation to ask you all sorts of questions. Listen don’t ask me where my “babydaddy” is because quite frankly that is none of your business. If I don’t share the information with you, that pretty much means I don’t want to talk about it. And please don’t say to me “I don’t know how you do it because I just couldn't imagine being a single mom…..” that is not a compliment, not in the least bit. First of if you aren't in the position I’m in I don’t expect you to understand, so stop trying. Secondly, don’t be so quick to say what you can’t imagine yourself doing.  I’m pretty sure you have had many “ I would never” moments that turned into “well maybe just this once” experience and in an instant that one decision turned your life upside down.

But I digress.

I will say this for those who wonder how we can do what we do and not self destruct…..HELLO BECAUSE WE HAVE TO! Seriously who is gonna do it for us? For us who do this daily, the decision is a very easy one. Make a way or someone will do it for you. Which almost always means having your child snatched up and placed in some foster home where the people are in it just for the money. That may be an extreme example but we single moms tend to think about the worse of circumstances and try very hard to avoid them. Its hard for TWO parents these days to provide the daily necessities that their children need, can you imagine it is for one mother of one or multiple children? We sacrifice, go without, cry in our beds at night, and work crazy hours all for those little eyes that look at us with love, those little hearts that beat a beautiful sound of life, those little hands that grip our fingers ever so tightly, and those faces that can make everything so perfect in that moment. So before you judge us and our situation, how about you take a long look at what we do, what we sacrifice and what we fight for all in the sake of our children. I can bet whatever happened in that past that placed us in this situation will seem so minor to the things we are doing now….

….for the sake of our children.

Isolation....

Isolation....



Population me....

With all the things that have gone on in my life I have found that I often retreat into my own recesses of my mind and will cut off the outside world. The thing is I know I have people who genuinely love me and care about my well being. Yet when I find myself going through issues I often retreat....and that often means that I shut out the outside world....family...friends....everyone...

My mind tells me I don't want to be a burden upon those who love me. My heart tells me that I would be a dummy to trust anyone with my deepest thoughts. But my spirit tells me that I have people placed in my life so I don't have to go through my trials alone.  Yet I sit here in this room burdened with the troubles of my small world and will not reach out to anyone.

What will they say?
How will they react?

I truly want to break free of this bad habit. I want to be able to share my story with those close to me. And  I want to be able to share my story with the masses. But in order for me to do so I have to really take a step back and look at myself. What caused me to feel this way? What has happened during the course of my life that I have become so scared to share my inner thoughts?

When I figure that out then I can truly be what I am called to be in this world. I have to start somewhere and today is that day that I finally start seeking the answers I've been looking for. No matter how painful or uncomfortable those answers make me feel, the truth is the truth.

I don't want to live my life in isolation....

All Pain is Created Equal?

“Pain is Pain”

That was a status I saw about a week ago on Facebook. Upon looking at the comments under his status he finally explained what he meant when he said that. He basically feels like all pain is equal. It feels the same, it looks the same, and even though it comes for various aspects of our lives, when it’s all said and done pain is felt and it is the same all across the board.

Now on some small level, I can understand why he feels that way. Social media has exposed us to so many things; it’s hard to even feel some level of sympathy for our fellow man.  We see Facebook statuses of people pouring their hearts out and we automatically think they are “seeking attention”. We can see a woman frantically looking for her child in the mall and what do we do, we look and judge. “Well she should’ve been paying attention to her child” (true story by the way, saw this happen about a year ago). People in general can see someone else’s pain and not feel a thing.  We aren't required to think about what that particular person may actually be going through. And oh, God forbid they try to commit suicide. That is the ultimate act of desperation and attention seeking. And if they are successful in their attempt?  “Well that’s what they get”.  Then in the same breath we can watch TV shows where more sympathy is given to the mistress then the wife. We can cry for a celebrity’s death, but we won’t even say hi to our next door neighbor. We are to have sympathy for ALL people, not just the ones that we think matter.

Let me tell you something about pain….

Pain causes people to stop believing in love, people, and themselves. Pain can rip a family apart. Pain can break marriages. Pain can ruin friendships. Pain will make you angry. Pain will make you feel lonely. Pain will isolate you. Pain will keep you in complete darkness. Pain will assassinate your very being. Pain creates drug addicts, alcohol abusers, obesity, anorexia, suicide….. Listen, if pain were that superficial then we should just be able to put a little ointment on it, slap a band-aid around and “kiss” it all better.  We can overcome pain but I can tell you it’s much easier to overcome that pain with a good support system around you. God didn't intend for us to go through things alone. And for some people, the social media may be all they have to reach out to others. So instead of writing them off as attention seekers, take some time to find out what the underlying issues is. Send them a kind word, write them an encouraging message, offer to exchange phone numbers, invite them to church. The worse thing they can say to you is no.  The bottom line is that we have to start showing my compassion for our fellow man.  Put yourself in the shoes of the one that is grieving. More importantly, think about the last thing you had to go through something by yourself. Think about how much easier it would've been if you had a support system to help you through it. And most importantly, think about the pain you felt.

Didn't feel too good did it?