Month: November 2007

And I let him… I feel like I’m finally opening up. I had to thank him for being sincere.

I would not change a single thing about who I am or where I am right now.

Kanye West’s Mom, Dr. Donda West, died today.

I hadn’t heard from my friend Dianna in two weeks when I called her fussing her out for neglecting me. We always fuss each other out, that’s how we show love.

But I wasn’t ready for the reason why she said she had been missing.

Her little brother passed away.

Her family has been in grief ever since. They have an exceptionally close family and they have been through hell and back but they take care of each other unlike any family I had ever witnessed.

Around the same time I read that The Radio Man’s father passed away and that also took a toll on my heart. I dreamt about him that night. That dream shook me.

And then…When I heard that Kanye’s Mom passed I didn’t know what to do. It seems like the world is moving so fast around me that I can’t do anything to stop it. I am hurting so much for him.

Under the emotional strain of dealing with these deaths I sat back and looked at my own life choices.

Is there anyone that I need to reconcile with?

Is there anyone that I need to forgive?

Are there words that I wish I had the guts to say but were too afraid to speak?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

And there’s something else that I need to do.

I need to continue what I started on this blog. My efforts toward manifesting my fantasy life through concerted efforts and believing in my dream all catalogued in real time will always remind me of where I have been and where I am going.

I thank God for the downtime and for the motivation to write again.

I will never give up.

So what did you miss over the last month and a half?

A LOT?

~sigh~

Once I stopped blogging it felt as though a huge weight was taken off my shoulders. Now I see why some people decide to keep their goals to themselves, the pressure of their declarations weighs in when things don’t happen as quickly as they would like to.

But I never really stopped blogging. Those who joined my yahoo group (and those I invited) were kept up to date with my story through regular posts so my itch to share stories wasn’t so bad.

The best thing about not blogging was…the privacy.

I felt free to transform and make decisions and I felt as though I had my life back. It also forced me to deal with myself in a way that I had never done before.

I am no longer accepting public comments because I just want to share..not debate my life choices. If you have a word that you’d like to share with me, my inbox is always open. Feel free to write. I always reply.

I just want to tell my story and I hope you enjoy it…

So here goes…

The ride home from Dallas was wild… It took 3 days….

oh wait…

I gotta go..my friend is here to pick me up.

I’m back.

I had a good time too. My friend and I watched The Boondocks. That show amazes me. Whenever I watch an episode, by the end of it, my mouth is hanging open and I’m thinking, “What an amazing creator.” I may have to do more research on this Aaron McGruder guy. He’s brilliant. I may make him my new fantasy crush. Depends on how I feel. We’ll see.

So where was I?

Wow. I can’t believe I fell back into this so easily. You would think that it would be more difficult to just open up like this all over again, but then..why would it be? I’ve always seen blogging as a form of journaling and until the days before I stopped writing, it never mattered to me what people thought about what I was writing or thinking or doing.

So I guess I’ll start back there.

I was in Dallas. I had quit my dream job at the website because I felt like it wasn’t the best environment for me. I was sitting in my apartment living on faith and eating lots of faith sandwhiches while being consistently bombarded with everyone’s opinions on what I should do next and what I should be thinking and what should be important. I’ll admit, it was overwhelming. Most would say, “Dude, don’t answer your phone if it’s all that.” But see…I have a problem, I’m way too nice. I actually take the time to listen to everyone’s opinion, even if I don’t care to hear it. But so many opinions started to cloud my judgement. So many voices in my ear stifled my direction.

My friend Ruby even said to me, “Tee, you don’t need to allow everyone to have so much access to you.” She was right. At that time, anyone who had ever known me could call me or email me to speak into my life and I felt as thought I owed them the right to tell me how they felt because they loved me enough to speak their opinion.

For a couple of weeks prior to my releasing this blog I kept feeling on my heart that I should take a break from being so public about my life. But I didn’t want to disappoint the people who were following my story.

It’s crazy that I knew that people who supposedly “hated” me would log on everyday to read about my journey. But on the flip side, there were also people whose lives were encouraged by my honesty. I figured if I never became the woman that I envision myself becoming, maybe, through this blog I would help ONE person to achieve their destiny or break free from a bad habit that mirrored mine, then maybe, you know, maybe my talent didn’t go to waste.

It was a Friday night that I decided to take a fast from blogging. That night I prayed and asked God if He would speak to me to tell me where I should go next with my blog since it had begun to feel more like a burden than an artistic release. When I woke up the next morning all I felt in my heart was, “It’s done.” I knew then that it was time to let this go seeing as it had become my spilling ground for every emotion, every decision, every heartache. So I said goodbye.

And then I cried for what seemed like an hour.

I know that sounds so nerdy but this month makes 4 years since I have been writing this blog. My whole journey from college senior to –um–whatever I am now had been recorded and put on blast for all to see and read.

I never intended for so many people to see this. I didn’t start off going to other blogs and leaving comments to encourage other people to read my blog. I just wrote about my life, the embarrassing moments, the moments of doubt, the hopes for my future. Then everything just went crazy for a minute.

I honestly still don’t really care if anyone reads this or not. It’s kind of embarrassing, no heartwrenching actually, to share so many failures with the world. Who wants to be known for fucking up all the time? I know I don’t.

But then…somehow in the midst of my fuck ups, there were people who have shared with me how my mistakes have helped them to grow, to learn more and to evaluate themselves on a deeper level. And if my writing can do that for someone, why should I hold that back?

I am a little afraid to write again. I know, it’s supposedly only a blog, but if you have been reading this for any period of time, you’ll know I’m not just that regular blogger. This is my soul on canvas. This is my art.

Seeing as I may never know where my journey will take me, maybe I’ll accomplish all of my dreams, or maybe my dreams will change. I don’t know.

All I know is..from the moment I stepped away from this I became a new person.

And I love who I am everyday.

And I’ve learned that loving me is the most important thing.

And I’m not afraid to be me anymore.

And I’m not going to hide who I am anymore.

I’ll share with you how I came to that conclusion very soon.

I am grateful that I came to this revelation. On the real, when art begins to feel like work, it’s time to take a break.

For now..I breathe a heavy sigh of relief because I got my baby back.

I love my blog…

Here’s to me and you recording the transition to a beautiful life together.

Cheers!

I feel like a kid whose mouth has been taped shut. I have a lot to say.

In thinking about the men that I admire I had an epiphany. Let’s take a look.

Kanye West
The Prez
Mos Def
Obama
Lenny Kravitz

Why do I find it so easy to “fall” for men like the ones mentioned above?

What do these men have in common?

They all are using their God-given talents of creativity and personality to engage a specific audience and propel themselves to prosperity.

Why does that equal attraction in my eyes?

Because they are all doing what I would like to do.

Each one of these men displays qualities that I know that I possess but for some reason, they are all way ahead in the game than I am.

My attraction to The Prez was merely because he is where I would like to see myself in the future. He has achieved a goal that I would like to achieve and my admiration has transformed itself into lust and love.

In recent months I have been doing a lot of studying about soul mates and how people have found theirs, how they recognized them and how to attract one. It’s really interesting reading but lately I’m thinking that a soul mate relationship can not be purposely attracted because it is divinely matched therefore divinely timed.

One of the things I learned during this time is that the dream mate that we seek is really a reflection of who we want to be and in our desire to attract our true love, we must strive to become the type of person that we seek.

This theory was reinforced when I took a moment to re-watch my own Manifesting my Soul Mate video. ~shakes head~

This is really blowing my mind right now!

Every single attribute that I claimed that I expected from my soul mate are all attributes that I already possess.

I am brilliant and creative like Kanye.

I have a sexy swagger like Mos Def.

I am strong and charismatic like Obama.

I am Mm..mm..Good like LL

I am a little cocky and silly at times.

I am a bit of a nerd too.

But I love me anyway.

It’s as though…

I wrote this video love letter to myself.

All of this time I had been hoping for a certain type of love from a man, when it really already existed in…me.

I am my soulmate.

I wonder what that means…

I would like to dedicate this song by Whitney Houston called You Give Good Love To Me….I dedicate this song to MYSELF.Listen to the lyrics and show yourself some appreciation.I love you.Ms. Tee

Ok, I want to catch up the story quickly because there’s so much going on now but I don’t want to take away from the essence of it so I guess I will take my time and just enjoy writing it all out.

I was just two days away from being evicted from my apartment in Dallas. At the time I had absolutely no direction on where I would go next. I had told God that if I was to leave the city, please let me be going somewhere in particular toward something greater but nothing had materialized. No direction. No leads. No money. Nothing but a CD case full of CD’s that my friend Mike had sent me to aid me in my journey to wherever I was headed.

I remember distinctly being seated on the ground of my back porch with my laptop on my lap when my phone rang.

“Hey Tee,” the familiar male voice greeted me.

“Hey Curt,” I replied softly. I hadn’t heard from him in a while and since I had stopped blogging, I’m sure he was wondering what was going on.

“So what’s going on with you?” He asked.

“I’m good. I’m excellent!” I replied.

“Tee. This is me. You don’t have to be like that. What do you need?”

I gulped. “I need 2 months rent.”

“How much is that?”

“Like 2 grand with all the late fees.”

“I don’t have that on me right now, what are your other options?”

“Choose another city and just go.”

“Ok. If you choose another city, I will make sure you have money to get there and I’ll make sure your cell phone stays on. I’ll put some money in your account tomorrow. Then I’ll put more next week if you need me to.”

“Thanks Curt.”

“You know I care about you.”

Curt is really my angel. He never comes BEFORE things get rough but whenever they do, he magically appears and swoops me up in the nick of time. And to think, I have only met this man one time in my entire life. He tells me all the time, “You are a succes story in the making, Tee. It’s only a matter of time. Any minute now. Everybody who knows you knows it.”

He makes it all sound so….definite. Even on those days when my reality seems to be the exact opposite of what he envisions for me, he still sees the promise.

So the next day I put all of my furniture on freecyle and started giving it away, including my baby, my darling, my 32 inch TV that I carried all the way from Miami, through to ATL, to Houston and then to Dallas. I gave that TV to my neighbor. I don’t think she had one and she was a single mom so…I just wanted to do something nice for her because she had been nice to me.

I went to get my car checked and emptied out my apartment, loading everything into my car..again. I decided that I would spend one night in Houston before heading on to Miami.

I decided to go home to Miami simply because if I was waiting on God to show me where I should be next, I decided that I would rather wait and be able to be around my kids. At this point I had to stop listening to so many opinions because they were all across the board and everyone claimed to be hearing from God for me.

“Miami’s job market is ridiculous why would you go back there?”

“Try another city, Tee.”

“I believe you are supposed to stay in Dallas, Tee.”

I was focused on seeing my sons. Simply put.

At the time it was nearly 5 months since I had seen them.

The night before I left I took a drive around the city. I went back to where I first lived at the hostel. I drove by Bachman Lake. I went to the little park in Addison where I used to sun bathe and I drove up and down Preston Road, saying Goodbye.

I stopped by my old office building, parked my car and just stared up at the huge glass building.

Another goodbye.

Another journey into the unknown.

I slept easily that night and the next afternoon I turned in my keys and drove away.

It was storming pretty badly but I wasn’t worried. I had done the drive back and forth from Houston a few times so I was pretty comfortable, even through the rain.

I hit I75 South and there I was again, heading back through my past. Back to the Houston hostel to spend the night.

The trip was non eventful and I was grateful for that. By the time I got to 45 I was smiling, eager to see the place that I shared with countless strangers for more than a month back when I was homeless.

Everything was the same. The people who worked there were happy to see me and asked how things went in Dallas. I told them that I had a great experience but I was trying my luck elsewhere and they didn’t ask anymore questions. How could they? I’m sure they have seen plenty of people who shared my story over the years that they have owned the boarding house.

After I got my bunk assignment, I went outside to call Tamara and ask for her advice.

“Dawg,” I told her. “I have the world’s biggest headache and all I want to do is go to sleep. But if I go to sleep this early I’m going to wake up in the middle of the night and then I won’t be well rested for the next leg of my trip to New Orleans where I had arranged to stay with a blogger friend of mine for one night.”

“Well, just let your body tell you what to do,” she advised. “Go ahead and get some rest and if you wake up early, then head out to New Orleans, if you don’t then just leave when you get up.”

“One more thing,” I told her as I sighed. “I lost my ATM card in Dallas before I left. All the money I have on me will get me to N.O. but not much further than that and I haven’t been able to reach Curt. I have a little more money in the bank, but I don’t have access to it.”

“Ok, go online and see if there are branches of your bank on the I10. If there are, you can just stop along the way and get more money.”

“Tamara. If I wake up early and get on the road, there’s a chance that I may have to drive straight through to Florida because my friend won’t be back in NO until the evening and I can’t hang around that city all day waiting. If I don’t wake up early then I’ll have time to go to the bank here but I will have to hang around all day here and I don’t want to do that.”

“So you don’t just want to wait there in Houston for another night then?”

“Naw. I think it’s a waste of time plus these misquitoes are deadly!” I told her. “But the trip straight through from Houston to Gainesville is 12 hours long. Do you think I can do that straight through?”

“Hmm,” she paused. “If you wake up early enough you can drive through the day and get there before nightfall. You may have to pull over and take a nap but I think you can do it. I did that drive from Houston to Tallahassee before. It was 10 hours.”

“Ok, let me go check online for the bank branches then. Prince. I see one near Baton Rouge. I guess I can stop there, get gas and get more money.”

By the time we finished my navigation plan it was already 10pm. So much for going to bed early. My head was still throbbing as I showered and climbed into my bunk. I couldn’t sleep through the pain so i searched my overnight and found a packet of nyquil caplets. I took them and my headache went away and I finally slept.

The breeze blowing through the window caressed my warm body and I smiled and rolled over. Damn this bed feels so good to me. I could stay here all day. I feel great!

Uh oh! I can’t though. I have to get on the road. I took out my phone and looked at the time. 4:30am. Not bad. If I got on the road by 5 I could be in Gainesville by 6 0r 7. I jumped up and grabbed my bags. I raced out of the hostel and dumped everything in my front seat. I texted Tamara to let her know that I was getting on the road and I sped off to hop on the interstate.

I watched the sun rise quietly as I reflected on all that had happened in Dallas. I didn’t know why Dallas felt like home to me and I allowed myself to miss those quiet, clean streets.

Five hours later I was entering Louisiana and almost out of gas. I called Tamara so that she could direct me to the nearest bank location and my eyes grew wide as she paused and said, “Uhh. Tee. Last night when you were looking at the bank locations, well, those were only ATMS. There aren’t any banking centers on your route. There isn’t even a bank in Gainesville.”

“Let me call the bank and see if they have any ideas,” I told her.

“There’s a banking center in Arizona,” the lady on the phone said.

“Arizona? I don’t have enough gas to get there. What am I supposed to do?”

“I’m sorry Ma’am. We will mail another card to you but there’s nothing we can do.”

So I called Tamara and relayed the news. I was now stuck in Baton Rouge with no gas and no money.

“Ok Tee, we’ll have to find you a Western Union,” she said and I could hear the key on her keyboard clicking swiftly through the phone. I’ll wire you enough money to get you to Gainesville and we’ll figure it out from there.”

I found the western union and Tamara and I chatted while we waited for the money to come through. Surprisingly I got a text message from my old director at the website asking me if I had purchased the new Kanye CD yet. “I’m sure you were the first in line,” she joked. She knew how much I loved Kanye. Before I left I sent her a farewell email letting her know that I was leaving the city and I wanted to wish her well.

“Someone sent me the MP3 files for the CD last week. My baby is brilliant!” I texted back. “As for the actual CD…soon as I get my money right.”

Once the wire arrived I gassed up and hit the road again.

This next leg of the trip would take 7 hours so I relaxed into my thoughts and thought about how wonderful it was going to be to see my boys again. They had no idea I was coming. I even kept my briefings to my Mama very short because she freaks out when I’m driving long distances.

I drove and I drove and I drove. I was pulled over twice and I got a speeding ticket while drivng through Alabama. Oh well…

By the time I reached Pensacola, Florida I was dead tired.

I pulled over at Wendy’s, grabbed a burger and texted my friends. “Pensacola.Burger.Nap.Bye.”

And I fell fast asleep.