Orlando, I miss you.

He said:

"I'm starting to realize what's the point in being so against the city you grew up in? Idk, getting this job, and doing well in school, maybe buying an apartment or just renting for another year. I feel like it's cool to have a foundation. Moving and being transient has been fun, but it's exhausting having to pick up and start all over."

I replied:

"Dawg, I now understand that. Like I love Orlando. It really is where I am from and I like what I had there. I love it actually. And it's hard to start over. Letting people in, learning to trust them, and having to tell your story over and over again. At first I was taking this move as an opportunity to rebuild myself. But then it started dawning on me that I am already built. Maybe I should just be refining what I am." 

I am, because of her

I love my mom. 

I absolutely adore her. Oh. Don't get me wrong, we've had a hell of time with our ups and downs. But at the end of it all, I love my mother. She is caring, and warm, and insightful and funny and mine. 

She taught me things with her knowing, me knowing and sometimes without either of us knowing. She also taught me things that I didn't want to learn, like how to be independent. How to be outgoing. How to drive stick shift (at the illegal age of 13) how to forgive and move on, how to be comfortable with where I'm at, how to adapt, how to make people feel welcomed. She has instilled in me the qualities that I like most about myself. Also some that I don't like, but you can't always pick em, haha. My mom is strong and so am I. So here's to my mother, the queen in my life!

When was the last time you evaluated the relationship between you and your mom? When was the last time you nourished, cleansed or celebrated that relationship?

Shhhhhh

You ever just want quiet? Simple peaceful quiet. To just for a blissful moment turn everything off and have a moment to yourself where you can bask in the glory of nothing. Not to run away from life. But just get a personal moment, a break. 

I'm tired right now. 

I'm tired of stories. I can't wait to have the discretion of when I have to listen to stories 

Ever feel that way? Everybody just wants to talk about their problems. And you listen willingly, cuz it's a reprieve from worrying about your problems. But then somewhere down the line you realize that your problems actually matter too. That maybe you want people to ask how you are and actually care about your response? But thats not how the relationship was founded so it just turns into a drain, a somewhat nagging tug of playing the same old cards, giving not receiving and being melancholy about it all

Dimensional

Sometimes when I think that I've gotten in way over me head, I pretend that I am watching my life on a movie screen

Pretend as if it's not really me experiencing these things, but an outside third party. Makes things more bearable. Ya think that maybe it has something to do with when I mentally left that one time?

Lately, my perception has eased into:

nothing even matters. 

It's a concoction of hakuna matata, who cares, things will be alright, we're just specks floating in space, life is a game (a tragic comedy of a game), and a dash of delirious laughter. 

A mixture so sweet, you'll wonder why we are capable of stressing as the magnificent, curious creatures that we are. 

You see, I teeter between opposite poles. From caring a whole bunch about my life, the world, environment and what's morally just to not giving a flying hoot 'BOUT NUFFIN! I flitter between why not and why bother. Everyday, I wrangle my emotions. Strain to fit them to what the day requires. Roping in the courage to take on the days tasks. 

INT. EARLY MORNING, BEDROOM

7:30AM: "get up. Seriously, get your butt up!"

8:00AM: "feed yourself"

9:00AM: "get off of Facebook, you have three Urgent items on your to-do list!"

9:30AM: "you really need to get off of the computer. Please don't go to back to bed, please."

10:00AM: "you still have your to-do lost!!"

And then the other voice chimes in:

"Have a shot to get your day going, ease the burden of beginning your day. Or! Maybe get yourself a double shot of espresso and smoke a cigg to get yourself into gear? You know you can always just smoke a little and slide yourself into not doing anything, right?" 

loose as a goose, (whatever that means. Who actually knows the reputations of geese???) but that's how I feel, like I'm slipping and climbing in the same breadth 

Tin man

Where has all of the courage gone?

My eyes as my witness, I have to question where the backbone of earthlings has gone. Have we let it be beaten out of us? Why is it that 85% of people will see something wrong and remain silent about it? When did the silence become institutionalized? Does self perseverance blind us, willingly or not, to ignore the wrong that occurs and remain still? If you could create a story, one that moves the heart, there would be heroism stroked within the lines of that story. As in, a heroic story moves the heart with joy. Why not feed that joy outside of the imaginary world? Do fables satiate the heart with the joy they bring, causing heroism to lay dormant in our daily lives? Man is by default a machine, which can service itself if it only were to try. 

Deliver me

Maybe things are the way that they are because they just are. 

"Life isn't about finding yourself, it is about creating yourself." Bernard shaw

On my walk to the gym today, I felt a sense of me falling into place. The lessons I've learned making a complete form of who I am. Kind of like the power rangers coming together to create one big force to be reckoned with. I'm okay with my past and I'm working on bettering who I am to myself, and the people around me. 

I've started working on apologizing to the people that I have wronged and I believe that it is allowing me greater access to my full potential. 

It is liberating me from the cellar that I was confined to where I could store the guilt and shame. I'm allowing myself to clean out the closet and free myself. I'm giving myself room to create, and I am formulating the person I want to be. I am creating who I want to be. I'm happy for this. I'm glad that I can do this, I am blessed in this regard. 

I don't think that I would have been able to do this without getting sober. It's astonishing to look back and see how limited my thinking was while high. Whenever I got into a bind, I looked towards weed or alcohol or uppers to console my feelings. I was dependent on them, subconsciously, or rather I was unwilling to see how I played them into my game of life. I neglected my family, friends and earl all just to escape from myself. I wonder if it has something to do with the way my brain is structurally or if it was myself who conditioned those types of responses. Right now, I'm working on retraining my impulses when things aren't going well. It starts off with recognizing the urge to do wrong to myself. Then I look at those feelings and suggest to myself something else I could do with my energy, time and money. I let my brain focus on what it wants for a little bit. Then I use my strength to push myself in the right direction. It's a process and I vow to myself to that I will continue to work on myself. And I will be happy!

the dragon

i haven't smoked in a month. its weird. this is the first time that I have gone this long without the ganja. At first, it was because I was with family, then it turned to me not even having a need for it (or access). But I was learning something about myself in its absence. And with this new mind-frame, I began to question my affinity for the greenery.

I remember the third month of me smoking, It was the first time that I felt what love was. I loved the feeling that came from the herb. I loved being free, It was the first time I was in love. And i took that love to a whole new level, I wanted to always be around weed. If toking wasn't tolerated there, then you can count me out. I started tailoring my life around this new found love. Honeymoon stage transitioned into a habitual stage. I had cultivated a world for myself where everyone was doing it and we were doing it to the max. Wake up, bake, before we eat, bake, before we go out, bake, before bed, bake. It was a ritual that i was no longer aware of, I was subconsciously adhering to the love i felt so long ago. I hadn't checked myself to see why I was currently in this relationship. I just moved along as time ushered us along. shameful. I wasn't able or willing to evaluate the situation i was in. I went through my actual relationships along the same lines. Looking back now, there was a lack of quality in my life. I let life live me, I wasn't living it.

And so now, as I have taken a step back from the puff puffing of the dragon, I wonder, Why do you smoke? When was the last time that you asked yourself that?