Same Ole Stuff...Just A Different Day

Today I am grateful because I am moving out of my fog and though it pains me to accepts the things that I have to come to terms with, I know that HE loves me.

I feel like I'm Here  should be on repeat because I am truly moving into my season of living despite all the blows that I have taken on my chin, to the side of my head and in my gut.

I have been spending my days cyber-lurking these last couple of days trying to piece together how he died was killed and one thing is for sure, he was doing the SAME thing now at 41 that he was doing when I was 17: running game, lying, and spreading his seed.  Nothing like a family reunion of BMs on the Book to make you count your blessings.  Like I could have been one of them engaging in the following convo:

Me: Hey yall

BM2: Who you?

Me:  I'm Luv Lil Raeraeandthem Mama

BM3:  How old is yo child?

BM4:  Yes how old is yo child?

Me:   24

BM2-4:  Mine too.

And it is definitely true that when you know better that you do better and that with age should come wisdom and maturity not to do the things you did as a child...it's just sooooo sad when those that you love and used to kick it with and ride with and fo', don't get the memo.  When you get a glimpse of someone's life and they still doing the same thing with no progression.  Just sad.

Oh trust, I know all about being trapped in a moment in time and I thank Jah for releasing me from the grips of depression and allowing me to find a reason to push through the pain and for the drive to always want better for myself so I could do better by those coming behind me.

Hearing folks talk about Teddy and the grief he is giving the Marys reminds me of how I longed for him to love me.  To want me.  To validate me.  To light something inside of me that would give me the courage to stand when he was with his crew instead of cower under cars and sliding into lockers.  How I thought he was the greatest thing next to a Mr. Goodbar and and...

How this fool can't even keep it in his pants while being married to a well known gospel singer, so glad that isn't my reality playing out on the tube. 

I saw my HIM the other day.  Y'all remember good ole let me move your car so you won't have that far to walk when you get off late.  Mr. let me write poems and songs for and about you all the while I spread evil lies bout you, HIM.   Well he looks like life hasn't been too kind to him.  And being the aspiring rapper that he is, I am sure he has heard the line about Karma.

And every time I think about my lil Michael Jackson and his 15 or is it 17 kids, I just nearly faint.  Even though I hope that I am still the Golden Child, I can't fathom why I had a knack for picking the guys who like to procreate. 

Some of these dudes, made me bitter.  Made me hate all men.  Made me doubt myself.   Caused me a lot of pain.

But honey, when I take inventory of how much worse it could had been had God not stepped in and said No ~ Not right now and not ever, I can't help but say thank you Jah for not allowing me to take that bullet head on.  Thanks for allowing it to only pierce my armor slightly before having it deflect off.

That could have been my life!!!  So glad that it's not.

There is a blessing and a lesson in the word and sentence "No."

Gotta Luv Moi, Cuz I Surely Do ~ Smooches



It's Coming in as Fast as It's Going Out....

Drained.

Emotionally, Mentally and Physically.

I am like stuck in a time warp.   Trapped. I am at my highest and yet my lowest at the same dang time.  The more I try to push and purge, the more things are poured onto me.  

Granted some of it I have volunteered for... but that's just some of it. 

The rest is just mine....just mine to sort through, swim through, sit in and hopefully finally get rid of.  My house is back to looking like a hoarder's retreat.  I was making so much progress.  Yes, all of those deaths in January, February, March and motherfreakin April got to me.   Some of those deaths shook me because well they were part of my support system, part of my core, part of my think tank, part of the team that gently pushed me to walk in my purpose, walk in my greatness.... they were my safety net.

This post like my life will be all over the place...I can feel it.  My life is in turmoil and in conflict even though from the outside looking it, everything looks just fine.

I was chatting with one of my soul sisters, Bernie's Daddy....yes as in the MacMan, Mr. Kings of Comedy, you should check her out, she's so transparent and real...any who I was telling her how my emotions were all over the place, how when I saw Life this weekend and her daddy showed up that I just bust out crying. He represented a reminder that even as a child I had to FIGHT just to be left alone...that nothing came easy for me...nothing outside of excelling in school.  Bernie used to try out his jokes on me when I was a lil girl, and when I say TRY OUT, I mean I was the BUTT of his jokes.  And though his jokes weren't malicious, they were hard to take when you are a little kid who just trying to enjoy a meal in silence that you don't have to share with your brothers WHO NEVER had to share with you because one they inhaled it as soon as they touched it or because THEY WERE BOYS and needed their energy.

What foolishness.

Anyway, seeing Bernie reminded me how things have changed but the core of things are still the same.  I am still that "little sensitive girl"  looking for my place in life.  Not purpose....but place. 

Where do I belong?  Where is my happy place?  Outside of the Chi... Oh how I love thee.  But that ratchet killing, be it by the police or the lost, wayward kids without hope, has me side-eyeing the Chi.  Honestly, I am side-eyeing the world right now.

Folks mad about a gorilla?!  I mean is you mad or is you real mad?!   A gorilla?  And I have yet to watch the video, but the moment they started calling the parents LAZY, I knew.  I knew that old deep rooted polluted deep veins of racism that no longer existed in post racial America was about to take center stage, AGAIN.  To be frank, I am not surprised by the white folks.  White folks gonna be who white folks gonna be.  I mean white folks showed us who they were with Mike Vick.  They showed us who they were with Katrina.  They showed us who they were when they put that wild animal in their car talking about it looked cold. 

I am surprised by the colored folks ~ the Latinos, the Indians, the Dominicans, the Jamaicans, the African Americans, the Blacks, the Mulattos, the Indonesians, the Pacific Americans, the whomever has a caste system or have to deal with colorism in their country, island, in their place that they call home.  I am surprised and deeply saddened by the hate we have for one another simply based on something as superficial as skin.  I am surprised that in 2016 that most of us are still asleep.  Still subconsciously spreading the self-hatred. Some of these memes and things that we share... whoa #selfhatred

 Funny thing everybody making money off being black, but the blacks.  From lips, hips, hair styles to our innate flare.

Today they are laying to rest the guy that TOOK my virginity.  It is so bittersweet.  It is so hard to remember that OUR MONSTERS are people too.  That they have folks that love and cherish them too.  I didn't HATE CKB.  I felt sorry for him.  I was enraged and wanted to kill him in the moment, but I guess somewhere along the line I forgave him....maybe because it wasn't too violent...maybe it was because I shouldn't have been there...maybe it was because I knew he was grieving....maybe it was because I was already grieving, I loved his mama and his little sister and brother.  They were so full of hope even though life was a struggle for them.  They didn't know how ugly the world was even though they woke up in that ugliness everyday.  Their mama was the first person that I literally watched die.  Even as smart as I was, I didn't comprehend what was going on....it wasn't until recently that I realized she probably had cervical cancer.  All I know is she kept showing me her stuff.  And I didn't want to see her stuff.  And she kept telling me she had a hole in her stuff.  And I was like, I think we are supposed to have a hole.  And she was always in pain.   And self-medicating.  She lived a life of "disgrace."  She made money by doing womanly things.  I still don't know if the house she lived in and the guy she lived with was her pimp.  I just know that I loved her and she loved me.  She called me her daughter.  She called me once a week when I went away to school until she got too sick and then she died.  I came home for the funeral.  I had to be there.  That was my boo and I needed to see my kiddos to make sure they were okay.  To lose your mama at 4 is a hard break.  I came and her mama said that I couldn't come to the funeral.  Said that I was too black.  Like are you kidding me?  Like I wasn't too black to be sitting with your daughter in the hospital.  I wasn't too black to be watching and feeding her youngest kids.  I wasn't too black to be sending her money, BUT I'm too black to be paying my respects?  So her daddy, who had already determined he wasn't going to the funeral, she was his heart and his heart was broken when she took to a life of the streets but it was completely broken when she died and he didn't want to see her like that, said he was going and he dared someone NOT allow me in and to say something to me.  Whelp, the same place they laid her body out is where CKB will be also and it's kind of hard for me.  It's a reminder of the day that my innocence was lost and I realized just how ugly the people in the world were and how close that ugliness was to me.  How I swam in and out of that ugliness everyday without even a clue of how ugly folks truly were.  CKB family lived three blocks from my family.  Our family had generational friendships.  But deep down inside, they believed they were better than me because they were lighter than me.  Maybe that is why it was so easy for me to wake up and find CKB taking what wasn't his to have.  Maybe that is why folks in the world find it so easy to TAKE what isn't theirs to have...

Some years back, CKB and I reconnected on the FakeBook and he apologized and I told him what was on my heart and that was that.  He stopped sending me friend requests and deleted his page and I hadn't really thought about him until a couple months ago when he popped up on my uncle's page and I went to his page and said, "Thank You Jah because sometimes we forget how blessed we are to only have been burnt by the flamed and not engulfed in it."  And then last week I got a text telling me that he was dead and my heart instantly went out to my kiddos cuz well I still love me some them, even if it's from afar.

I miss my uncle.  I still love MK.  Time is running out, the sand is almost gone.  Innocence lost.  My place still not found.

Oh the tears.

"Be the light in the darkness.  Be the beauty amongst all the ugliness.  Be the flower blooming despite the weeds.  Innocence is worth protecting."

Gotta Luv Moi, Cuz I Surely Do ~ Smooches

The Art of Giving...

I was always told that if you are truly giving something from the heart that you give it and forget about it. 


So unfortunately, it is that statement that I am armed with when I give, whether it be my time or financial support, it is also what standard I hold you up to when you give as well.


I am loving all of the Prince stories on one hand, because it shows that he too understood that if you giving from the heart or because it is the right thing to do, why you gots to tell the entire world?  On the other hand, I just wish folks would have kept the gifts as they were, private.


We already live in a society where folks need to ask themselves why are they giving, is it cuz they were moved to, or is it for likes and shares on social media?


It's no secret that I have been down on hard times for a minute. Cancer and not being able to work will do that.


However, it was only known within my closest circle that I did not have some things that many folks may consider to be essential, like a bed.   Recently, as in two days ago, I was blessed with a free bed because one of my sister friends is relocating and wasn't taking any of her stuff.  Imagine my surprise when I received a text from someone I barely know asking me if I had set the bed up and used it yet.


I was taken aback to say the least; but, knowing my friend, I just had to hope it was shared with this individual that I was getting the bed and everything else that A Wider Circle didn't take because she was over there helping her pack and inquired about what was going to happen to the rest of the stuff.


But giving and the need to tell folks what you had did was something that I had been pondering for a long time even before this happened, as I saw folks on my timeline on Fakebook boast about what they had did for this friend in need, the homeless, their family member etc.


It reminded me why I very rarely will seek help from someone outside of the F10.  I can't get down with folks asking you if need help, and then breaking their necks to tell folks that they helped.  Whether it be to feed my child, watch my child, pick me up from the hospital or what have you.  If I can't get it on my own, I don't need it.

"I can't tell you what I have done for most people, I typically do it with my left hand, while the right isn't looking."

Gotta Luv Moi, Cuz I Surely Do ~ Smooches

A Mother's Loss

I had no words.  None.  Just tears to offer.  But then I remember how ignorant folks were when it was me and so I pulled myself together and called and simply said, "What can I do to help...do you need money?"  I ask the questions that most haven't gotten to because they are still stuck on the why, how, what in the world.

It's so sad we live in such a microwave and entitled society.

We feel we have a right to every intimate detail knowing full well if the shoe was on the other foot mums the word.  How do I know, cuz according to Fakebook, everyone leaving the 'Ye Good Life.   Everyone making it and shole as heck ain't relating to Tupac's struggle of barely making it.

All I needed to know was that a child was gone.  A mother was grieving and that she was my sister.  And as such and one who had already experienced such loss, I needed to be there in the manner I wish folks had tried to be there for me.  Not with questions of how and why but of what they could do to ease my neverending pain...to soften the load of having to bury your child.

It also never cease to amaze me how important folks have to be during others time of need.  I don't get it. Sharing secondhand information like it's first.  Sharing answers that was forwarded and obtained by me and others in first person.

I just don't get it.. and this is why I will go out just like Prince... and one day soon, I will have to share my Prince story and why his death around this time is just surreal for me.

"I'm sorry, not sorry because the best apology is changed behavior and I refuse to be sleep." 

Gotta Luv Moi, Cuz I Surely Do ~ Smooches

And Still I Rise....Choices

 http://i.istockimg.com/file_thumbview_approve/12624756/5/stock-photo-12624756-sparkling-number-16-xxl.jpg






Today I said my final goodbyes to my friend, my doctor.  It was bittersweet because like most of the other deaths this year, Prince, Phife, Doug it didn't have to be.....

I am not sure of what the cause of death was, but I am willing to bet my last born, that it was a heart attack.
He was overweight.  We often joked about it as his belly got more oval and there was no more letting out of his pants.  He was good with life. So happy and content with his wife and his boys.  And his bonus daughter whom he treated as his own.  He was like if something happens to me, my family will be good.  I remember wishing everyone could be doted on in the fashion that he doted on his family.  The last time we spoke was in August.  I always made my appointments in August so that I could remember to get the date of the cookout.  I scolded him more harshly this time about his weight because the loss of our dear compadre, his colleague, my former colleague, mentor and friend was still sending me into bouts of tears.  I told him I didn't care if he thought it was good for the pushing or his love weight, that I needed him to get it off because it was unhealthy and I didn't want our esteemed university to throw him a piss poor sendoff like they did the Macman.  Oh how I miss my boo more today than ever before.  He told me that we both weren't going anywhere and he would see me at the cookout.

That was August.  I didn't go to the cookout, I wasn't feeling up to it.  This is April.  I still can't believe he is dead.  I wonder if he thought he was invincible because he was a doctor.  I don't know.

At his funeral, I was already emotional, because I knew that at the stroke of midnight it would be the 16th anniversary of the first time I became a mother.  And three weeks later, the anniversary of the second time I became a mother.  But, nothing prepared me for the emotion I would feel when my most favorite doctor walked in.  I nearly lost my mind.  I had to fight back the tears as I embraced the man that restored my faith in the broken system we call life.  He looked as handsome as ever.  He was like a rockstar of sorts.  Everybody was beyond elated to see him.

I remember the last time I saw him and so did he because we were both in bad shape.  I couldn't feel my limbs and some more things and he, he was wearing stress on his face, which wasn't like him.  I remember our conversation verbatim.  I told him that he looked bad and that he needed to cash in on some of his sick leave.  I told him that I was serious that he needed to stop running himself so raggedy and worrying about everyone and take care of himself.  I told him that he needed to get some rest because in the decade plus that I had known him, he had never wore the stress on his face.  Two days later he was airlifted to another hospital with conflicting reports running through the hospital.  He had a stroke.  He had a brain aneurysm. He was near death.  blah blah blah.  I stopped going to the doctor after he got sick and left.  He tried to come back numerous times, with me scheduled in as his first patient and each time he tried, he had a setback and didn't make it.  He was the reason I didn't sue the hospital 16 years ago and the reason that I was able to successfully become a mother for the third and final time 3 years later.

So it was definitely bittersweet to see him. He listened and lived.  The other did not and died.

16 years I have been pushing....and for 16 more I will keep trying.  Life is about choices and what comes with the choices we have made.  For most of those 16 years, I decided not to live and to let depression and sadness consume me.  The result of all of that stress is why I am fighting to see another day, everyday today.

Today, because it is now past midnight, I will choose to celebrate all of the wonderful things that came out of that pain 16 years ago.  Like the friendships of some incredible doctors, two of whom have left me too soon but one that is still here showing me that if you choose wisely, you can beat the odds.

"Life is often hard and unpredictable; however, but for the flood, we wouldn't appreciate the rainbow" 

Gotta Luv Moi, Cuz I Surely Do ~ Smooches

The Tide Is Coming The Tide is Coming

If I was only so lucky to get those types of warning when the tide was rising in life.

I have been here, fighting my way out from under a riptide. 

It has been one thing after another ...back to back to back to back.

My homies are going through it.  Fathers or daddies whatever you want to call them, cuz I've only been acquainted with donors and hasbeens,  have been sending for their kids.

And when I say sending for them, I am saying with that hard knock at the door followed by 'you have been served' sending for.  Daddies who never wanted anything to do with the child in the first place.  Daddies that have been M.I.A. mentally and emotionally but now in the 2000-one six, these daddies have been hit with a wand that tells them it is time to step their game up

That would be all the daddies EXCEPT the one that shot his dana in me.  That tired bama like the entire tenure of my child's life thus far was a no call no show when I told him to come get his lying, thieving child.  I thought it was only right for me to dump my child with the person's whose traits he was exhibiting. 

This ninja stole my money and passed it out at school like it was Monopoly money for his classmates to buy chicken and fries.. no seriously... I can't pay my mortgage but it's all good cuz y'all ate good cuz "Big Money Grips" keep y'all fed with my hard earned duckets.  Then this ninja gonna tell me when they produced the evidence, a photo with him holding 2 of the one hundred dollar bills before he was about to give them away, that it wasn't him...the picture was photoshopped.

Now what I needed to do was bust him in the head to the white meat and tell him that blood running from his head wasn't real, it was a mirage.  But I didn't...I let him live because he will learn to regret the day he allowed the devil to get in his way and cross me.  Gonna tell me if I make $50 an hour I can make up all the hundreds he took in some hours.

I should have slapped all the snot out of him... yet I didn't.  I wanted to...I wanted to stomp him dead like I would have a regular ninja on the street who had stolen my bread.   And I look good in stripes and orange so I could just go ahead and seal the deal...

But he ain't worth it.

Anybody who would bite the hand that feeds clothe and goes without so they can have, is not worth it and unfortunately, that is how I treat him... I'm just counting down my sentence until I can put him out. #realtalk

In March alone, I lost five folks to cancer..back to back to back... my support system has taken tremendous blows.  And here we are in April, where it is already sink or swim through the depression.

le sigh.  I am missing my babies tremendously this year.  16.  I would have been almost free.  I am reminded how grateful I am that I got the chance to tell one of my kid's namesake how much I appreciated them last year before he checked out of here.  I miss him too.

"life isn't fair... and sometimes it isn't even worthwhile.  however we wouldn't appreciate the rainbow but for the flood." (Luv)

Gotta Luv Moi, Cuz I Surely Do ~ Smooches

The Process of My New Life

Everything is a process.

This ain't the first time you are hearing  this.

My life was derailed when I was raped and life was left in me only to be taken away from me almost as violently as it was created.

I stood lied crawled cried slept in darkness, anger and despair for years because my ego wouldn't allow me  to reconcile that I the strong one, was weak.

I tried to bottle up all my pain and keep it inside so no one  would know that I was drowning even though everyone knew I was so far underwater that I might never break the surface again but me.

I ruin everything trying to save me.   Friendships credit relationships employment routines health

But as some of y'all remember,  I set myself free and decided to give active living a try. I  am still actively living and on most days,  I choose good over bad.

I am a vision that was once deferred and now I am a vision waiting to happen.


Everything takes time... that's one thing you can't rush

So like these dreams put on hold and temporarily destroyed,

 The visions that I see that are for me, that are God's will,  will certainly become my reality once again,

in due time

The process may not be easy but from the looks of things, it's surely gonna be worth it!

"Healing takes time as does finding your rightful place back in the universe, so enjoy the journey because the destination is but a vision that can suddenly change." 

Gotta Luv Moi, Cuz I Surely Do ~ Smooches

When Dreams and Promises are Broken

It's a process that one has to go through before they can be made whole again.
Sometimes that process involves a lot of anger....
A lot of tears, yelling and screaming
Sometimes it involves a lot of cussing, if you the cussing type

No two episode or processes are alike, just like snowflakes; they may look the same but if you look
ever so closely, you will see that they are indeed different.

Pain has no boundaries.  Pain knows no names.   Pain will come like a thief in the night and will stay like a lover's scent.  It will wrap itself around you and embody you and try and seep down into your soul.

One of my sister-friends is in the midst of this pain.  This pain is trying to swallow her whole.  It keeps poking a finger in the hole in her heart that appears when the things in your dreams don't match up with reality.  I have traveled that road a time or two...

Haha, this is about transparency, who am I kidding, I'm still on that road.  I have my good days and my not so great days, but everyday I am making progress.  I shole ain't where I was when I started this journey.  I remember folks were trying to put me on that Sandra Bland watch.   *Le Sigh*

But I was suicidal.  Not really....but yeah a lil bit.  I wanted to sleep myself to death.  Ha and now faced with death, I don't know.   Some days I tell death and the debil to get behind me because I got things to do and people to see...and maybe even some people to do.

Other days, I'm like take me lord.  Take me before I send some folks to yah.  I be over here screaming, "I'm coming Elizabeth."

I am a walking contradiction.  An oxymoron.  I am an anomaly of sorts.  Just ask my doctors, not that they would tell you with HIPAA and all.   I am my biggest accomplishment and my greatest failure.  I am a work in progress that is still in the process of trying to pick up and put the pieces back together.

The shattered dreams of doing the right things and helping folks and paying bills on time etc etc would pan out into me having an exceptional life.  The shattered dreams of having my trust broken by someone who was supposed to care for me and our seed only to see them make moves to hurt us financially when they shole ain't ante'upin' a dollar let alone 15 cents for someone that was part of their master plan ~ not mine.

The shattered dreams of thinking love would be enough.  The broken promises of forever that turned into never. 

It's something when your world comes crashing down and you no longer have the curtains, smoke and mirrors or mask the first to hide behind.  It's something when you are laid bare in front of all who care to see your nakedness.  It's something to be judged by folks who are steadily pushing skeletons into closets, drawers, and under beds.

You can't rush mourning.  You can't rush pain.  You just have to sit with it and in time, after you let nature take its course, you will be able to gradually get up and start to pick up the pieces to your life and put them back together.

"Things will never be the same after a major fall, but that's okay because scrapes, bruises, cracks, dents and the such add character, depth, value and wisdom to the journey.  Just remember to get back up."

Gotta Luv Moi, Cuz I Surely Do ~ smooches

My Soul is Crying Out

and it's time for me to listen....

I have been here, trying to find the time to blog what's been running around in my head.  But one thing after another, seemed like my "do nows" would never ever end.  I was prepping for a surgery that I wound up not being able to have.  I was prepping to say my "goodbyes" just in case it was the end.  Death is real and something that I have to think about on a regular basis because I never know when this cancer bug is going to really go in.

I have loss so many loved ones and friends since my battle began.  My liver's remorse takes me under again and again.   Just today, someone told me that my "brushes with death have been plenty and why do [I ] think [I] am still here?

I don't know.  I wished I did so that I could possibly never let that event happen so I can stay here on a good day or go ahead and do it so I can take part in the eternal sleep on a bad one.

My uncle died and folks had a lot to say about how his homegoing should be but didn't want to ante' up with no dough.  Then my cousin wanted to come for me when she knows very well that unless I send for you, you should leave the sleeping lioness alone.  Talking about it was unfair for me to post about her mama on social media.  Ha, I didn't post just about her mama seeing how I used no names, but if the shoe fit, pick it up and kick yourself in butt with it cuz I am so tired of folks, whether they playing the victim or the saint.  How her mama figure my father her brother should pay for their brother's funeral by himself and she would pay him back, knowing good and well she ain't paid nobody back my entire life?  And why she think I should be the one to call and ask him especially since I ain't talked to the man since he said what he said about his grandchild not being welcomed there if he tied the knot again.  I can't I won't and I didn't.

I have learned a long time ago that people make time and spend money on things that they feel are important.  My uncle their brother uncle what have you was not important enough for them to get off not even $10 dollars to contribute to the pot.  Me, I loved my uncle.  I was his favorite and he was well my second favorite, his other brother was my heart.  I remember when our relationship changed and why and also how that changed my relationship with my father.  So our love was complicated but he loved me best when it counted the most so I did what was in my heart and used my medicine money to get him turned to ashes before he totally rotted out.

My cousin asked why did it matter so to me.  Said I didn't even speak to my grandmother who was 80 something years old and that I needed to forgive her blah blah blah.  Ha, let me tell you basically what I told her.  I have forgiven her but folks mistake forgiving with things going back to what and how they were before.  Uh-uh-uh.  That's not how forgiveness works.  Forgiveness is so I can be open and free to continue progressing in life.  If my grandmother died today, I would not go to the funeral and I would not put money in the pot but I also wouldn't be running around talking about how she was my favorite, or I was her favorite, or how she lived with me ... nope, none of that.  I wouldn't say much past, "Condolences" and I really don't care what or how anyone would feel about it because I am okay with being me.  I am very comfortable with using "No" as a complete sentence. 

"Everyone doesn't deserve a seat at your table and likewise, you shouldn't break bread with those who are only trying to feed you the scraps or the leftovers."

Gotta Luv Moi, Cuz I Surely Do ~Smooches