Month: August 2008

Today was actually a good day.

Most of my days are like that, really, but today I actually gave myself a pat on the back because even though there are so many things that I want and needs, I realize that I am always okay.

I am.

I trained today at Denny’s and it was so wild looking at myself in my Denny’s uniform shirt with my name on the tag. Wow. But it really felt good to train behind another server and get to interact with the customers.

I wasn’t even serving, just assisting, and this woman walks up to me and says, “Hi Ms. Tee. Thank you.” She then hands me a 5 dollar bill! I was so shocked and happy! I had no money for lunch that day and we don’t eat free.

I put that bill in my pocket and skipped a little. When I went to pay for my meal, the manager said, “Don’t worry. We got it this time.”

So now I still have my money!

And..I’m even more blessed because my sister came down to visit and she brought me an “I Love New York” t-shirt. She even filled up my gas tank for me and took me out to eat.

I love my life!

Yet…I am nervous about my sons coming home from their summer vacation because now that I don’t live with my parents I have no place for them to come visit me. Their Dad texted me yesterday asking if I wanted to keep them for the week before they go back to school.

All I could reply was, “I can’t.”

I can’t. I have to work. Umm..Don’t you need the child support? Well, that affects my ability to see them because before I was struggling to be able to buy food when we see each other but now I’m in an even tighter spot because I have this child support bill to pay PLUS try to spend time with them, which costs money.

Even though all of this is going on, I have a strange sense of peace. Sometimes I think I must be crazy to still be happy through all of this

My sons love me and they know I love them. I really, really look forward to the day when I can stop laying the foundation for my success and actually see the benefits of my sacrifices and dedication.

I met this guy the other day and as he told me a little bit about his life story he quoted Frederick Douglas: Without struggle, there is no progress.

Hmmm…

Well, I know I’ve been progressing if that is true.

I really believe in my imagined end. It’s one of happiness, success and triumph. I see myself so clearly autographing books, traveling with my children, teaching workshops and inspiring millions with my affirmations.

I see all of that, yet I still struggle through many issues myself. But each time I face an issue I ask myself, “What is this teaching me?”

I think lately my struggle has been living with the couple and watching them be all cuddled up and kissy faced all the time. I feel like an intruder. But that has nothing to do with them really.

I always feel like that, no matter where I am. I somehow feel like an outsider, an alien..different from everyone else. The things that are important to me: spirituality, inspiring others, creating a legacy for my children, well, they aren’t so important to everyone else that I know.

I don’t know…

But what I do know is..there’s something that has changed in me. Inside me. I no longer allow the fear, anger or depression to hang around my heart. I truly am…like..peaceful most days. I feel like I’m on this roller coaster ride and God has the controls.

I trust.

I’m okay.

Today was an absolutely fantastic day!

Nothing special happened, it’s just…I guess I love being ME!

It started off kinda crazy though. I called my BBDD up to see when the boys would be back home from their break. He told me. Then I told him that I would be there early on Monday morning to take the boys to their first day of school. He then informed me that his girlfriend would be taking them to their first day and their was nothing I could do about it because he has custody and he would be out of town and she would be taking care of them. He then hung up on me.

LOL!

I know that doesn’t SOUND funny, but for about 5 minutes I was so hurt. But then..I was like..Man, he is who he is. Every chance he gets to try to hurt me, he will. Only thing is..that shit don’t hurt me anymore. Whatever is going on in his heart HE has to deal with. It’s not my problem. He kinda makes me laugh always looking so angry everytime I come around or talk to him. You would have thought I was the one who tried to force him to have an abortion and then dumped him because he refused. ~shakes head~

I’ma call my kids tonight and tell them I’ll be there for their first day of school. I know they’ll be excited.

Anyway…I calmed down after about 15 minutes and finished up my day at the restaurant. I’m still in training to be a server and still getting to know all of the other women who work there. Seems like a nice bunch.

It’s crazy…All day long I get to smile and be nice to people. I get to cater to them and make them feel good. I really enjoy doing that. Really I do. I feel like an artist as I make salads and make fresh milkshakes and decorate the plates and make the food all pretty. I treat everyone like they are superstars and I love every minute of it!

My next plan to make some money is to sell cold bottles of water on the street corner. You’ve ever seen those people? They sell fruits and socks and stuff on the side of the road. They come up to your car and ask you if you want to buy. Yeah…I think I’m gonna try that. Either that or washing windows at the gas station. I wonder how much I can make from doing that for a day. I’ll probably try them both and see which one makes the most money. Just as soon as I get a day off, I’m gonna be out there in the sun with my little shorts on…

It’s funny cuz I used to wonder why those people did that- sell food on the corner. Now I see why.

THEY NEED MONEY!

Well, me too. So I’ll join the ranks for a little while.

Let me tell you something. I’ve really learned how to find happiness in every situation. I don’t know if it’s because I only feed myself positive information and I’ve learned how to balance my thoughts but…it’s working. I never stay sad for long.

Tamara was in town last weekend and when I went to visit her I spent the night and we both spent hours hanging with her parents and laughing. Her Dad said to me, “Tee, You’re one strong girl. Most people in your situation would be depressed and near suicide.”

I looked at Tamara, who looked away.

Damn…For real? Suicide?

I remember being depressed because I couldn’t figure out why my BBDD was so cruel to me all the time. But I let that go. And I used to be depressed because my parents didn’t seem to support me in the way that I think they should- by acknowledging my good points- I let that go too.

How could MY source of happiness come from the way that OTHERS treat me? If I waited for everyone to line up with how I feel I deserve to be treated then I’d probably DIE waiting for it to happen.

Oh no, no, no. I’m gonna be happy regardless every single day.

That shit really is a choice.

Still riding out my adventurous life! Now that I know where I’m gonna end up, I hold firm to the vision and just enjoy the ride.

I can’t wait to see my boys!

I just got off the phone with my boys.

Man..I miss them so much. The other day I was reading some old entries from my blog and I almost cried, well, I did cry. Dang..we used to ALWAYS be together. Things aren’t the same anymore. Everytime I pass by the grocery store I think of all the times when I took them. Everything reminds me of them, especially since I have nothing or no one to really to call my own. Even when I didn’t have much, I always had them.

But…anyway, I’ve been in pain for the past two days. I got my wisdom tooth removed after 5 days of misery. I simply didn’t have the money to go get my tooth pulled. When I received my checks for the old stories I had written, I deposited the money into my account smiling because with this money I could find a roommate before my time at the motel is up.

My tooth just wouldn’t stop hurting. And then a thought flashed…

Umm…You have enough money to get your tooth pulled. Don’t horde your money, it shows that you don’t trust God to take care of you. You have the money, God supplied, go use it for what you need. Trust God for the rest.

Yeah…So after hearing that I woke up early and went to the dentist. It was the hood dentist so i was there by 8am and didn’t get to see the dentist until after 1pm. THEN they sent me to another dentist in Hialeah to perform the surgery. It was uncomfortable but not painful. Nothing hurts as much as the pain I was feeling before they snatched that tooth out.

But again…I’m back to square one with no money. It’s annoying to me. Sometimes I wish I could just get an office job and sit there for years and just “Take it” like my friend Tonya says. She encourages me to just sit back and wait for jobs to promote me and recognize my shine no matter how badly they treat me or how much I want to explore other fields.

That doesn’t sit right with me. I really wish it did.

Can you ever give up on being who you are? Do most people do that for the sake of having an apartment or having someone by your side?

I don’t know. What’s really important to me is having good sons whose lives don’t reflect struggle at all. I dream of providing them with limitless opportunities for their lives. I know it’s up to them to do what they will with those opportunities but I want them to have them anyway.

Man…I feel like I’m always fighting and pushing and pulling and trying to stand up in quicksand.

I study the lives of successful people and their lives always had a great amount of turmoil….I see that. I know that…I just…I’m tired of going through that.

I want my book to be published. I’m ready to begin working on the next one. In fact, I have my next three books all planned out, I just need…I need to have a place to live and some consistent income so I can eat.

I am going to build a lifestyle for my sons so they will NEVER have to worry about eating and they can focus on their dreams and living their lives the way they want to. I want to prove to myself and my sons that dreams do come true. There is no limit to our potential. I truly believe this and so….

Let me get back to trying to figure out how I’m gonna live at the end of the month.

Please send out positive thoughts for me…

I’m okay.

I’ve been trying to juggle my job as a server at Denny’s with the other marketing gig I got and so far I’ve been doing well.

Ok, Ok, I’ve been fucking up a few orders at Denny’s but no one died. The cooks got mad though. LOL! It’s my first time being a server but I really like it.

My marketing gig is very interesting. It’s completely commission based. What I have to do is go to one of our busiest tourist sites and then walk up to complete strangers and convince them to go view a presentation for a time share. If I can convince them I’ll get a $100 bonus for each family.

That’s pretty wild to me. I’m not friendly and I do not approach random strangers asking them for shit. But I believe that when I develop this skill, the ability to walk up to random people and sell myself, I’ll become even more valuable in everything I do. I can’t wait to see what happens.

Wow. Last night I was on the phone with Tamara when she asked me, “How are you doing? You know, without your internet.”

I sighed. “I’m okay. I just think about it everyday and all day long I’m writing stories in my head but by the time I have time to go use the internet, I forget what I wanted to say. But it’s all good.”

My boys are coming back to Miami on Sunday. I’m a little nervous because I haven’t told them that I do not live with my parents anymore. I have to tell them and I’m not sure how to explain it without worrying them. I wish I didn’t even have to have the conversation but I know they are going to want to spend the night with me, I want them to as well, but it can’t happen until I get a place of my own.

Who knew life was gonna be like this?

I’m trying to get a 3rd job, one overnight or something. I haven’t had the money to eat 3 meals a day much less buy water to sell on the street like I planned but eventually something will happen. I wonder what.

The couple I’m living with are a trip. At the end of the day, all tired from working, we all meet up at the room and drink beer and listen to music or watch a movie together until we fall asleep. I don’t feel as badly about it as I used to. ~shrugs~

The Young Man, who I’ll call Tommy makes us laugh so much.

The other night we were all riding to get some food when he said, “Oh Tee, you know I have to brag to my friends about our situation, right.”

“Brag?”

“Yeah! Three of us in the bed!” He explained. “I tell them how I come home at night and both of ya’ll are sitting there in bed in your night clothes and I say, ‘Hello Ladies!'”

LOL!

Guys are a trip. One night before he left for work his girl and I were already done for the day and he dropped a big bag of magazines on the bed and said, “Ya’ll read these.”

When he left we opened the bag to find: A WHOLE BUNCH OF PORN MAGAZINES!

LOL! He’s stupid.

So you know I’ve been enjoying all of his Playboys right? He said he got them from a friend who used to collect the magazines but now he doesn’t anymore.

Playboy is hands down my favorite magazine right now. The writers featured in the magazine make my writing look like shit and the information presented is always juicy and intelligent.

I wish I could write like that. My writing style is…I don’t even know what to call it but…I guess it’s just..MY writing style.

I’m working on my marketing plan for my book right now. It’s been a challenge and fun at the same time. I just hope that I have enough time to implement it with all of this working I’ve been doing.

In other news Tamara called me to tell me a story that I thought I should share. She told me how her boyfriend has been asking about her brakes and the fact that she’s riding around with bad brakes. He then called to say, “Hey, I ordered all of the parts for your brakes and when I come down to help you move, I’ll bring them and have them installed.”

My mouth dropped open.

Ok. I realize that I’m kind of hard on the men that my friends date. I’m looking for specific qualities that would let me know that this man is going to take good care of my friend. The most important quality is recognizing that the man sees my friend as his responsibility and her happiness and comfort are important to him.

What Pretty Ricky did–sealed the deal.

I’m so sorry ya’ll. I’m so tired. I’m about to head back to the motel. My legs are getting so much stronger with all of this walking and lifting heavy trays. My thighs feel tighter and my arms are stronger too. I said that I wanted to STAY FINE and I guess this is God’s way of helping me since He knows I won’t excercise.

~smile~

Many blessings to you. Keep your head up. If I can, you can too.

The wildest thing about not being intimate with the internet anymore is the fact that now that I don’t have the internet, I interact more with real people.

This is so foreign to me.

I’m so used to being able to hide behind a screen, an IM, a text or a telephone. A writer’s life is kind of lonely if you want to stay focused on what you’re trying to do.

Now, I’m meeting new people everyday all day at TWO DIFFERENT JOBS! I feel like my whole world just turned upside down.

Sometimes my chest starts to hurt but I just put on a smile and remember why I’m there. I want to make money. And then my heart calms down and I can have fun talking to people and learning.

It’s so wild that just before all of this went down I had the hankering to leave Second Life and do something MORE. I uninstalled the program from my computer and haven’t really thought about it since. Maybe I can go back when I’m better at pursuing relationships with people. I never pursue, I think my relationships just happen. No pushing or pulling just the sweet evolution.

I feel like I’m being pulled out the closet. No-I’m not talking about THAT closet, I still don’t have a sexual preference, I’m talking about from the space of consistently focusing on my thoughts and feelings to actual interactions, reactions and emotions with REAL people.

Fuck.

It’s going alright so far. I’m real cool for real. I don’t bother nobody. I just smile to myself and do my work, being nice to everybody. I don’t have time for drama or craziness and I don’t carry that energy with me anywhere. I always get my way.

I don’t speak the dominant language at either job. On one job everyone is Haitian and speak Creole to each other, I am one of two people who don’t speak Creole. And the other, everyone speaks Spanish and I am one of two people in the entire group who don’t speak Spanish fluently. Most people speak both and there are about 3 people who speak no English at all. When the trainer trains she has to say everything in English and Spanish.

I like meeting these people. People tell me the craziest things and they don’t even know me like that. One of the girls is a Black Morman. I was like, “WHAT!” She smiled and answered all of my questions about it and told me her life story and how she worships God. She has a boyfriend, he’s Mormon too, but he’s Like..Polynesian I think. She showed me his picture, he’s hot.

So many people…So many people…So many people.

Today it is raining like crazy here. I love the Miami rain though….it seems to wash my brain.

There’s something about being surrounded by water. There’s no place like home.

I’ve spent the day working on a story that I’m a little nervous about writing. I mean, I think I can make money from it yet I don’t want to disrupt anyone’s life by writing it.

I’ll have to think about it some more and go over it with an editor if I can find one who is interested. The crazy thing about being a journalist is I can see stories that others can’t. I don’t have any other journalist friends to bounce ideas off of or to ask for advice or direction about stories that I want to write and that makes me sad. Sure Ruby graduated with a BS in Public Relations but it’s still not the same as knowing a hungry journalist looking for the story that will break them into the big leagues.

Yeah, I know WRITERS but making stuff up is completely different from reporting a story. Recently I received an email from a reader of my blog that I met when I was in Dallas and she came across my blog by chance long after I left Dallas. She’s also a journalist and she said that she wanted to try to write a story about my life.

I questioned her intensley to see where her head was and she answered all of my questions easily and in a heartfelt way. It reminded me of when I first came across that story about the couple who got engaged in the Ritz Carlton and their slide show bounced around internet land millions of times. When I approached them to write their story they questioned me and questioned me but I stood firm, hoping to convince them that I had good intentions with the story.

I guess the idea worked because I was the first to publish their complete story, even before other mags and websites like Essence and Oprah.com got a hold of them. Yay! I scooped them!

I can recognize a good story. Stories that have drama, conflict, struggle and change make good stories. Stories that depict ordinary life in an unusual way make a good story. Stories that show people who do extraordinary things make good stories. Stories about people in unusual circumstances make good stories.

Because that writer who contacted me recognized all of those elements in my story, it lets me know she has a real eye. I really hope she can sell it and make money and that it will help propel both of our writing careers.

I remember back when I was in college I was doing this project in the community and I told one of my classmates about it. She asked if she could write a story about it and I told her yeah. The story ended up on the front page and they offered her a staff position.

I was happy and hurt at the same time. I was going for the same staff position but I didn’t get it. ~smile~ Now I just laugh and remember how a small idea and a guesture of goodwill on my part ended up getting me front page press.

I’m a reporter who does news worthy things. Isn’t that sort of a conflict? Blah..We’ll see what happens.

I’m almost ready to start my 2nd job as a marketing agent/tour agent. I have access to discounted tickets on every attraction in Florida and lots of hotel stays and cruises to sell. I finished training on Friday and I’ll be working evenings and hopefully pulling in money on commission. I’m scared really. The trainer said that nearly 1/3 of the class will likely quit within the first two weeks because you have to be strong to take so much rejection. Am I that strong?

Both of the jobs that I have don’t pay much. If I continue to work them I’ll be able to afford my own place but if I try to quit one job I won’t be able to.

Catch 22 because if I work both jobs and have my own place I can’t see my sons as much as I would like to. My only other option is to go back to where I was before I left Miami two years ago- back to working in an office and emailing my friends back and forth everyday- that is IF I can find a job like that.

Honestly, I wouldn’t mind that. I don’t know. I really just want to be able to take care of my sons and give my gift of writing, creativity and inspiration. I hate when people say “You can’t have it all.”

Why not?

Oh Lord…My back is hurting and my arms are aching. It’s not because of the physical labor I do at work, it’s because I haven’t been held or touched in such a long time.

I crave affection and without it, my body goes through withdrawal. No, that’s not why I have random secks with men. When I feel like this I usually need to cuddle. Thank God my boys will be back tomorrow, but then again, I don’t know if or when I’ll have the time or the place to cuddle with them.

We’ll see how that goes down.

On another note I don’ t know why I was thinking about JB so much last night. Remember him? He’s the editor from Atlanta that I used to..um…~be with??~ for a short while in 2007. I smile when I think of him. I think of all the men I’ve encountered he was the one who most appreciated me for being who I am. The freedom I had when I was talking to him was unlike anything I had ever experienced. He never judged me harshly for being me and I really liked that.

It’s kind of like that article I posted about how to tame a free spirit: Allow them to be who they are and they will love you more for it.

He gave me that, to a degree, and I loved him for it.

I wonder what he’s up to. Dang, he must be 35 by now.

Let me go google him and see what he’s writing lately.

After laughing at my roommates who were experiencing their very first “Miami Tropical Storm” I went in and started my new job the other day.

It wasn’t difficult. I like to talk to people so I just start a conversation and then tell them about our resorts timeshare and the gifts that they can receive if they agree to listen to a presentation. My little sister and her fiance came by to help me out by listening to the presentation. I appreciate that so much. My sister is a sweetheart!

My boys came back in town on Sunday. I picked them up immediately and we rode around while I had a talk with them explaining my living situation. I tried not to sound fearful because I’m not really but I often wonder how they are processing my situation. Do they feel sad for me? Do they resent me? Do they understand how difficult it is to handle all of these responsibilities? I’m sure they have no idea that their Dad has put me on child support which makes it even more difficult to see them since all of my money goes to that..well, not yet. I haven’t had the money to pay it yet.

At night my body shakes because I haven’t had any affection in a long time.

~sigh~

I’ve been working overnight shifts at the restaurant. I like it better than the day shifts because the tips are bigger but with this new job, I’ll be working from 4pm-11pm and then from 11pm until 7am the next morning. Double shifts for a while and we’ll see what happens.

I have exactly 6 days until my hotel stay is over. After that…I have no idea what will happen.

~shrugs~

I’m tired. My voice is completely gone. I can’t even go to work today. I didn’t go to work yesterday either because of my voice. I don’t get it though. My throat doesn’t hurt, my voice is just..gone.

I don’t understand.

I’m tired.