Happy Founders' Day!

Ok, it's been awhile... I'll work on that... But I had to stop in and drop some love on 1/13/2010 to wish all of my sorors a HAPPY FOUNDERS' DAY!!!!!!!! OOOOO-OOP!

"It started way back in 1913 when 22 courageous women had the ultimate dream! Dedicated to service, they reigned supreme, that's why we stand here today before you wearing Crimson and Cream!"

"*97* never looked sooooooo good, ladies! :-)

Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated

January 13, 1913

Howard University

My Decade in a Nutshell

Well, well, well… 2009, and in turn, the 200- decade is coming to an end. Of course I have some sentimentality about this, but as I am only 23, this is the first decade shift where I am able to reflect intuitively about the changes that I have been through. And there have been many.

This decade has seen me through high school and college. And I grew significantly in each. I doubt people with whom I lost touch from HS would recognize me now. I do not look much different, but my attitude is completely different. I have grown as a person, and I now, I love myself. I’m not sure that I did in HS.

Anyway, college continued lessons that I began in high school. I learned that you can’t trust everyone, but that you can trust a very few people with pretty much everything. I became a woman of the greatest sorority of all time, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., by the grace of the Mu Beta Chapter. That alone taught me so much about myself. What I was willing to do for something that I wanted, and exactly how much of myself I could give to others, to the greater good. And how much I could get back.

I realized that although Sisterhood, Scholarship, and Service meant more to me than before, school isn’t everything. Your learned experiences sometimes teach more than a professor lecturing from any textbook.

I realized that my heart was truly breakable, but that I had to love myself more than I loved anyone who did not explicitly want the best for me. I learned what it was like to want something or someone so badly that you would fight nearly to the death for it/them, and I also learned that sometimes you walk away, your head bloody, but unbowed, picking up your own pieces and moving on.

In this decade, I worked in the “real world,” and discovered that it’s really not that bad. You struggle with it if you aren’t willing to take your lumps to get to where you actually want to be; when you decide that you are too good to climb a ladder and decide to leap tall buildings in a single bound. J

I also embarked on a remarkable “idealistic journey” of service and development when I joined the City Year family. CY is hard, mainly because you don’t have a clue what you are getting into when you join it. But while the people you help would make it worthwhile anyway, the people you meet keep you going everyday.

2000-2009 brought joy and pain, suffering and loss and happiness and gain. All of my downs taught me how to appreciate being up, and all of my ups prepared me for being down. ALL of it was made possible by my Lord and Savior. He has truly kept me up, and been the footprints in the sand of my life.

I don’t think that any other decade will see me going through so many different stages of life. From high school to college to work to service. From innocence to love to heartbreak to a much deeper knowledge of what I want from myself and from others. It was all easy, and it was all hard, and regardless, if I had to do it all again, I’d face it chin up and with my hair blowing in the proverbial wind.

2010-2019 is going to be a damn good ride.

What Has Happened to Moral Obligations?

Hello beautiful souls!

So, I woke up this morning with nothing to do. Work has been cancelled, and this is the third day that I am relegated to my apartment because of "Snowpocalypse 2009" (according to the media hype). So of course, I wake up, call home to wish my little brother a Happy Birthday (he's seven!), and grab my laptop. Why not see what is happening in the world-at-large?

I check my email, and see some messages from friends, some spam, and some things in between. All of a sudden, a headline (from one of the many news sources deposited to my inbox daily) catches my eye. I click it in disbelief, hoping there is more to the story, and I get to this link: Headline: EMTs On Break Allow a Pregnant Woman To Die.

SERIOUSLY? The basic rundown of the story is that a pregnant woman started to have seizures in an Au Bon Pain in Brooklyn. There were two EMTs there buying breakfast who refused to help because they were "on break." They told the employees to just call 911. The Au Bon Pain was in the same building as the Fire Department HQ. So even if the EMTs didn't want to help, they could have easily found someone qualified to do so.

To me, this is extremely ridiculous. Being on break is fine and all, but you are an EMERGENCY MEDICAL TECHNICIAN. This was a medical emergency. This woman and her baby are DEAD, and her 4 year old son is now without a mother. How DARE you even THINK that you are allowed to turn your back on her!? Where is your human decency? And then the two EMTs get paid, but restricted leave. REALLY? They get a paid vacation for allowing a woman to die because they wanted breakfast? What a joke.

This is insane, and I am more than outraged. Americans are SOME OF the only people whose leisure time matters more to them than another human life. And that is just said. I'm too disgusted with this...

What is the Foundation of this Relationship?

Soooo... I'm sitting here watching "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days." I have only seen this movie in bits and pieces, but being snowed in as I am, I finally got a chance to catch pretty much the whole movie! I'm sure this has been discussed ad nauseum, but it really has me evaluating relationships and the foundations on which they stand.

Clearly the premise of the movie is kind of ridiculous, as two people would be hard-pressed to have a successful relationship that was begun on a bet, or on the idea that one is trying to "gain" and then lose the other in 10 days. However, it is a good starting point to discuss the foundations of successful relationships.

I am of the opinion that it is impossible to have a stable relationship without respect, honesty, and trust. Honesty and trust seemingly go hand-in-hand, but many people are so damaged by their lived experiences that even if their partner is telling them the truth, they can't trust it as such.

I leave out love because relationships do not start with the two people in love, or at least not very often. Love is something that is grown and cultivated, not only through the respect, honesty, and trust necessary, but also through the time and effort of the people involved.

These days, people seem to barely respect themselves, not to mention the people that they are trying to involve themselves with. Relationships are rarely the desired outcome of getting to know someone; we just "go with the flow" and "see what happens." That kind of flexibility is great to build a relationship on, but not if both parties are not willing to define anything at all. We live in a society that is dedicated to keeping options open without understanding that open options often lead to feelings of instability and uncertainty.

I pass no judgements on how anyone decides to live their life. I have settled for less plenty of times, and sadly, I have been one of many options in a field of many, sometimes knowingly, and sometimes not. However, I think it is time for many people to decide that they are worth the time and effort it takes to build a true relationship. Even if you don't think you are worth it, I do, and I hope that means something to someone...

Also, I know that not everyone wants a relationship now. And sometimes, relationships contain more than two people. Or whatever other things people can think of to debate what I have put here. Regardless, when respect, honesty, and trust are inserted, I can't help but to think that even relationships that fall outside of the realm of what I have spoken about will be much happier and more fulfilling. But you know... maybe that's just me.

Waking Up Together

Heavy eyelids betray

As I try to stay awake

and cling to your every word.

As you pontificate on the wonders of the world

- or so I imagine -

my mind wanders to matters more important,

like how your lips would feel

moving like that

on me.

Shaking off the haze around my brain,

a haze induced by my proximity to you,

my focus on your words sharpens,

and utterances of your goals, hope, and dreams

drift to my ears.

And I can't help but hear the

"we's" and "us's"

that abound in your speech.

My brain spasms hungrily as these words penetrate

my mind, act as an aphrodisiac to my senses.

As I come down from my high,

I realize the necessity of reciprocity here,

and mentally fresh, I share

my intentions with you as well.

The resulting silence is our mental cigarette

as we process and bask

in the euphoria

that comes from acknowledging

a shared future.

What's Missing?

Hello all!

So, I am sitting here, at about 11:30 pm on a Sunday night. Sunday nights are generally a slow, sometimes depressing time for me, because the work week is beginning again. And I feel myself slipping into an introspective state. I know there is something that I need to think about; some issue within myself to solve.

I have felt lately that there is something missing from my life, and it's difficult to put a finger on exactly what it is, or if something is indeed missing. I've figured out that I need to increase my amount of "me time," but there seems to be something else. A little while ago, I made the realization that I am actually ready for a relationship again, should the opportunity present itself. Like, I have pretty much let go of all my negativity about stupid shit in the past.

So, is that what is missing? A man? And if so, is that ok? Meaning, in this day and age, is it against some female code of honor to say that you actually desire the kind of companionship that a man can give? Not that I really care, but I'm curious. Does that set us back some indeterminable amount of time? I hope not, because regardless of what they pay lip service to, most people desire some kind of loving companionship. It's just human.

So, am I missing a man? Will that kind of relationship just be something else pulling me in yet another direction, stressing me out even more? Or could that person be a sounding board; someone to just chill out with and be myself? Not that I'm not myself with my friends. But you know, it's just a little different...

I'm not sure that a man is what I am missing. That's a tad too extreme for me. I think that it could just be one of many solutions. But the "getting to know you" process, while fun, can be exhausting, and I don't know if I miss that right now, lol.

Or maybe I just miss my family a little more than I realized, and in that case, going home for Turkey Day should alleviate some of these feelings. Because I really feel out of touch with myself, and it's really unsettling. I need to fix this, quick!

Suggestions? ;-)

FINALLY - The Shooting Star

Hello all! I know it has been FOREVER since I last updated this thing, but this last relationship summary has been HELL on earth to write. It's so involved, and so loooong, but… Here it is!:


Ok, so the last relationship in this installment also happens to be my last relationship so far! I had the HARDEST time coming up with a nickname for this one, but I finally decided on "The Shooting Star." The dictionary definition of a shooting star is "a bright trail or streak that appears in the sky when a meteoroid is heated to incandescence by friction with the earth's atmosphere." This is such an apt description, because when The Shooting Star was in my life, I barely saw anything else. He lit up everything, and it blinded me to so much. Anyway, on to the nitty gritty… ;-)


So, I met The Shooting Star exactly a week after all the drama with The Free Agent. We started talking, and the rest is history. He was a breath of fresh air, and since I had no expectations, he wasn't able to disappoint me. I did catch feelings early, but I wasn't attached. I just liked him.


Our first snag came about when I found out that he had been in a relationship with someone at my school when we met. Rather, I did not know that he was still in the relationship, but I found out that he had lied about what I thought was a friendship, and said that it was a previous "relationship." We talked it through, and we let it go. I came to find out later that he actually had not yet ended said relationship when we started talked. But… We'll get to that.


The next snag was more of a giant rip in the fabric that was our relationship, lol. Basically, I found out that he had been cheating on me for 1.5-2 months. I can't even begin to get into the details of how I found out (a whole other post in itself), but please know that it dragged over a period of about 3 days, during which he didn't speak to me on our 1 year anniversary of knowing one another because he was "disappointed in me for accusing him and listening to the accusations of others." …Yeah. He went there.


Anyway, I was SO convinced that what we had was real, so we talked it out. I found out that his prior relationship was not technically over when we first got involved, and that it had been a 5 year one. That information along with the fact that he had been cheating for so long almost broke me into a million pieces. When I got the damning piece of information, I was with two of my linesisters, and I completely broke down. But when we talked it out (myself and The Shooting Star), we decided to break up, but that we would stay in touch, because we actually were supposed to be together. LOL.


So, after only about a month, we got back together, and it was quite possibly one of the stupidest things I have ever done. I thought I could work through it, that I could forgive and put it behind me, but not enough time had gone by for him to earn back my trust. I was completely selfish, because I wanted things to go back to normal, and I did not give it enough time to do that. So of course, about 2 months later, we broke up again. That was February 2007.


Basically, we continued dealing with each other on and off until April of this year (2009). We would be on for awhile, until I would find out about yet another female or yet another senseless lie. In terms of the other females, it is hard to say who was really at fault. In reality, we were never really together, with labels, so technically, he was able to do what he wanted. However, in my opinion (and I was vocal about this), we had too much history to go back to the casual dating phase. Just because we were testing out the waters did not mean that other streams were allowed to join our river. Lol… Because he did not object to these terms, I always gave him the benefit of the doubt that he was upholdling his end of that bargain. Apparently not. But I was in love. So I kept going back.


As for the senseless lies, he would lie about things that happened when we weren't even speaking to one another. And I would always find out, one way or another that he had lied. One of my pet peeves, probably exacerbated by this situation, is being lied to for no reason. And that's what he was doing.


I went back and forth about whether I even wanted to be his friend so many times. In my opinion, you cannot care about me and want the best for me when you are lying to be repeatedly for no reason at all. But I have invested so much of myself, and I actually do care about him still, even if it's not in the way that I once did. He will always have a part of my heart, and I hope we remain friends.


We are friends now, in a loose sense. We talk occasionally. And I know that if I ever really needed anything, he would be there for me. And I hope he knows that I feel the same. The Shooting Star really did light up my path, and when he passed through to light someone else's, I truly did see darkness. But somehow parts of us ended up intertwined, and that's why we will always be around each other, in one way or another. I did a lot of things wrong, and so did he, but those things got me to where I am now. And that's a whole other blog post. ;-)


~IntenseEntropy