I Don't Recognize Her

I barely recognize the woman I was when I was active in my marriage. The best I can describe it is to compare myself to Adam Sandler's character in the movie "Click."

I was on auto-pilot. I was reacting most of the time or just doing whatever needed to be done, on top of doing me. i can say that I was working on myself every step of the way. Thank God I was enlightened enough to know I had to be my own person. Had I not been I would most definitely been notorious by now.

It is extremely hard to undo devotion. Devotion is an action word. You can often recognize it through what a person does, how often, and for what reason. Being a devoted person it took me a while to let go of the idea that my husband should be the only man to touch me. While I was married I refrained from doing anything that would make a man think I was interested in him. These last two years have been an extreme blow to my psyche. I have had to let go of all I thought I would have the rest of my life.

I never saw myself without my husband. Had he allowed me I would have loved him up until this day. It was not in God's will for me to continue to live with the level of dishonor and disrespect I encountered during my marriage. My way of dealing with it was to understand he really did not know how to be different and truly did not care to be. For me, it was his lack of spiritual base that truly drove us apart.

This woman knows a man who does not know God, does not know how to love or live. That man cannot give anything of value and he cannot lead a home and will resent the woman should she not let things fail since he is unable to do it. This women is fully aware that a person who is selfish and self-centered has little desire to serve others, as they feel completely entitled to what you have and what they are to receive also. This woman knows a man who does not know how to give, well only take and take and take.

Although my marriage was no where near ideal, it was what we created and I would have liked to see if we could have managed to make it into something better. The answering was a resounding no and I have spent two years relieving myself of a marriage that had long went off track. No, I don't recognize that woman who was willing to give up her life for nothing.

51 and Fabulous

Turning 51 is a true blessing especially since I am healthy and have my mind in tact. Oh yes, there are times when I have thought I would not only not see 50, let alone 51. It is all good. I am on the right track and that is such a marvelous feeling.

I am doing what I love to do in all areas of my life. I feel no hesitation, no regrets, no limits. For the first time in my life, I have no questions. I feel free and capable.

I just want to live and love and love and live. I cannot find the words to express how clear and clean I feel. How I really believe I can do what I truly focus on and work to achieve. I have proven myself to myself and at age 51 I'm feeling good.

Peace, love and soul!

What Us Gon Do?

Quote:
"Negroes want change inside but find it difficult to do so unless things outside are changed as well, it is clear that the simplistic solution of "more education" is meaningless when a society is more attuned to race than it is to academic achievement."  Dr. Grier and Dr. Cobbs Black Rage

This quote is powerful, still today. Although this book was written in 1968, it is very relevant today. We as black people have been told that all we have to do is get an education and the doors to success will open up for us. This is not true and never has been. We must change inside to make the world different on the outside. Even white folk have to do that.

It is who we are that keeps us where we're at. Yes, the color of our skin does play a huge roll in our daily lives, whether we recognize or not. Still, we are human and have unlimited potential, especially as black people. Our people survived some of the worse conditions imaginable. We are all miracles times two.

Yet, we have bought into the belief we are subhuman and many of us act this belief out everyday. We are afraid to be who we are, feel our feelings and let it be known that we matter. What us gon do? When will we stop perpetuating the plantation mentality that kept our American African ancestors bound? When will accept that we are a grand people, full of wonder, love and passion? When will we stop the ramped collective self-hate that keeps brother against brother, sister against sister and ourselves in deep spiritual warfare?

We have the knowledge, but we have yet to apply it waiting on the white man to again set us free. Waiting on the white man to love us so we can love ourselves. We are so blind to our brilliance that we don't understand that they already love us. So much so, that they can't sell a car, a burger, a bag of chips, without using our music, our phrases, our style. Why can't we see through their lies? What us gon do?

Why I Only Have 18 Posts Thus Far

I have really been living! Things have truly been happening. For a few months my phone was ringing off the hook. I have been doing things and meeting people, but most of all, I've been doing a lot of thinking.

It took to me almost eight months to tell my husband that we would no longer be intimate. I knew that the day we parted, but I didn't tell him. It has been that hard to accept my marriage is over. It has taken me all this time to say what I had to say and not cry throughout the whole process. I still cried at the end, but I got it all out.

It's all there. I know where to go to get the strength to continue to be the best I can be. I have the ability to protect myself and I must accept responsibility for that fact.

I simply haven't posted because I've been too busy living.

Peace

You Can't Give What You Don't Have

You really can't give what you don't have especially when it comes to emotional matters. People who bottle up their feelings and allow themselves to go through life numb are really unable to truly share with another.

Some kind of way I have been able to hold on to the essence of who I am. As awful as my childhood was, as treacherous as my marriage got, I never lost sight of me. This is why I am healthy and whole today. My mother couldn't scold, or cajole the me out of me. My husband couldn't beat, couldn't make me feel bad enough about myself to lose sight of who I was and he couldn't get me to deny who I saw him to be.

I have been able to give because I have always had the greatest love of all, love of self.

Why I Ultimately Left My Husband Behind

"If an individual is able to love productively, he loves himself too; if he can love only others, he cannot love at all." Eric Fromm, The Art of Loving

After seven years of doing my best to win my husband's forgiveness, I recognized he was unable to forgive because he did not know how to love. Although he professes his love for me, his actions proved otherwise. I went throughout the house and took down all the pictures of us. I wanted to make a clear statement that I knew without a doubt, he did not love me.

He was baffled by my actions. He could not believe I didn't believe he loved me. I told him time and time again his actions spoke louder than his words and I finally accept what I see and I will no longer listen to what he says.

He does not love himself. There is no way he loves me. When he became ill and I saw how much he was giving up on himself, it really pushed the reality that he did not love himself, so how could I truly expect to get love from him?

I left my husband behind because until he loves himself, we will never have anything real or of value. Yes, we've been together a long time. In the beginning, for about five years, I was like most women, giving and loving too much. When our son was born, my husband showed great interest in being a caretaker. Instead of feeling like he couldn't do things, I helped him hone his nurturing skills. In many ways, he is a better parent than I am. We both had a lot to learn. I did, he didn't.

Yet, there was still something missing. The biggest piece of the puzzle, self-love. His lack of self-love is what has led to the life he has today. I had to ultimately leave him behind if I am to ever be loved, because until he learns to love himself, he will never be able to love me.

Why I Was Depressed for 30 Years

Depression is hate turned on the self.

There are two types of depression, exogenous and endogenous. Exogenous depression occurs in reaction to outside events and is closely relating to grieving. Endogenous depression is a result of improperly functioning biochemistry and appears to genetically linked with compulsive eating and/or alcohol and drug addiction. In fact,these may all be different expressions of the same or similar biochemical disorders.

I probably can claim to have been under the influence of both types. By the time I was 35, I was fully aware of where my sadness came from. Some of it is inherent to my personality. I can be melancholy. When my depression lifted, it was like a brand new world. I gave up my old way of hiding behind "being real," when I was actually being cynical. I made the choice to see the positive in as many situations as I possibly could.

It took a while to shift this thinking. I want to say at least five years went by before I realized I was not depressed at all for any length of time. Today, I give myself three days to feel bad, then I'm on to finding a way to make lemonade out of whatever lemons I feel I have been handed.

Depression is awful because it usually hurts the person who is depressed more than anyone else. So many depressed think they are being smart because they see things how they really are, but what makes them depressed is they are unwilling to accept the truth.

Me being a truth seeker helped lift my depression because I want nothing more than to be honest with myself and others. Depression requires that you hold on fast to thoughts and beliefs that keep you spinning and spiraling downward. Depression keeps folk from feeling and living. Depression requires you stay away from most people because folk don't want to see your sad face, or hear your sad story.

I gave up depression for happiness, peace and serenity. Things don't have to go my way. I don't have to be right. I just want peace of mind. Seeing the God in others, making the best out of every situation whether deemed good or bad, right or wrong, that lifts depression. Holding to the knowledge that I was worthy not matter what I did or didn't do also helped me combat depression.

The feeling of unworthiness is the worse. It is hard to breathe when you feel unworthy, let along go about your normal day. I gave depression the boot and now I've got happy feet.

It's the Most Favorite Time of the Year

This time the year is when folk can't wait to lie to themselves. New Year's resolutions give people the impression they are getting a chance to start over, when in fact they are lying to themselves. They wait until the end of the year to think about doing what they should have done at the beginning of the year.

All we get is one day at a time. The most favorite time of the year should be each day we arise. Each day we get the opportunity to be the people we claim we want to be. Instead, we put off and put off what we claim we want to do most. Oftentimes we use having to do for others as the reason why we can't do for ourselves.

Black women or notorious for wearing themselves completely out. Many times they end up hospitalized before anyone else knows anything was ever wrong with them. Their families rally around saying how she has to take better care of herself. They saw the signs of exhaustion, but as long as she was willing to do what they did not or could not do, they ignored them.

Remember, everyday should be your most favorite time of the year.