Tuesday, November 11, 2008

No title

There are many things i am ashamed of. One of them is something I don't think anybody shares: how much or little respect they have for their parents. Among my siblings and I, its a running joke. It's the only way we feel any justice for the parents we were given. We talk mad shit about them. They deserve it... sometimes lol, but i dunno, i feel bad.

I respect and love my parents to no end. No End. I would give my life for them, but a long time ago I thought I lost respect for them for the bad choices they made that affected themselves and their children.

Now that I am older I understand that it's more that I respected them, but not the things they did. But when i was younger, because they made bad choices, i would use that to my advantage, rub it in their faces and hold it over their heads. It's like holding a fault somebody has against them. Manipulation and revenge rolled into one.

Crying... again...

There are the times where i look back on myself as a child and I weep. I am saddened by the assumptions I made from the actions of my parents. I mourn for the child that got lost along the way. I was so loving, caring, emotional, free-spirited. I wanted to do nothing more than love and be loved. Why couldn't life just be that easy. I was shut down repeatedly by my parents, specifically my mom.

I don't blame her, though. I cry for her as much as I cry for me because i know she was raised by strict parents from the Caribbean. They themselves, as she explained to me just last week had rough upbringings: grandma wasn't wanted by her parents and given up by a nasty split-tongued mother that was biracial back when it wasn't cool. grandpa was raised by a dictator father with an iron fist and too many children to know what to do with.

So, that loveless bond was passed down from generation to generation, almost guaranteed to be passed down when packaged with "Do as I say, not as I do" "Don't question your parents" and "Because I said so". Thankfully along with that bottomless heart, God blessed me with an uncanny sense of smell for bullshit and the courage to speak up (when you're far enough away NOT to get backslapped). As I got older, I questioned my parents when things didn't add up, but by that time it was too late: the scar tissue had grown over my heart. I've been picking it off the last few years. it took a while for me to start the process of breaking myself to build myself back up. It's not easy.

Big Girls Don't Cry

I don't know how that other crying post got away from me at the end. Short attention span, bless my heart!

I pull out a journal entry archive of Jan 23, 2007. Back when I was trying to free myself from mental bondage:

Today is January 23 2007

Penelope Cruz said when she was acting in a movie of another language:

"Oh so scary... I was always going to the bathroom to cry and coming back and trying to hide it"

So I was thinking if something is so scary
and makes you cry, why would you do it"
I dunno... If something made me cry like that
I wouldn't subject myself to it. Why? Because
of what it means to me when I cry. It shows
weakness. And vulnerability. You can't control
your emotions and you let someone get to you
and affect you that closely that u cry. But
apparently that's not the case with her. She
uses it because she is scared. Maybe it's
like peeing when drinking a lot of beer or
trying to hold smoke in when there's a fire.
If that's the case, then it's a release thing.

Maybe people like Penelope are so much more
in touch with their emotions. maybe life
is so much more
different for someone
who can cry. What if I was really
stresed and about 60-90 percent
of my anxiety would be relieved through
crying. maybe I'm missing out on that.
So say If I went out and
cried. Then felt better. In my mind
I would think that ppl would be thinking
that im childish. That I cant be a grown
up and act accordingly. When i was
a child, crying was frowned upon.

My mom would tell us if we cried
"You better stop crying or I'll give
you something to cry for". I mean,
then you stop crying because the thought
the mere thought of your mother that
you love dearly more than anything will
give you unwarranted pain unjustified
pain
over your crying, which by the
way isn't always controllable!

Oh, my God, are you serious? You can't be
serious? You would really hit me? That
would make me even more sad and I could
see myself crying even more.


It's like you're not allowed to cry over
your feelings. Not allowed. No emotions are
intense enough to warrant tears. Only
pain. Physical pain."

I'm crying inside and outside

I have GOT to get over this fear of crying!! OMG total ridiculousness! lol,

Why oh why do I associate crying with weakness?! As my mother says: Pray tell!!! (Damn, my momma's weird, speaking in Medieval Shakespearian old english... ha ha).

Anyways, I have been going through the reversal process of disallowing myself to feel. To connect emotionally and empathize, as i do so well. I would say that my progress is good. I am sentimental about almost anything, which is to be expected. I can't watch "The Locator" without crying my eyes out, and I get choked up when I listen to When You Believe by Whitney and Mariah... Progress indeed.

I am not sure where I am going with being in touch with my emotions, I just know that I'm tired of being numb.

My next choice I am afraid of, though. Scared shitless, even. Doing it would even allow me to tap into my raw unabridged unbridled self, and to be honest I am afraid of myself. I know I am being kind of vague, but let me try to break this down for u.

#1: My next choice: getting off of the Depo Shot. Why I am scared? Depo supresses my cycle. It also suppresses my libido, yearn for the opposite sex, and emotions that I encounter every month. Forget PMS, have you heard of PMDD??

#2: Why i am afraid: My emotions are on steroids when I go through the monthly cycle without Depo. I cry for no reason, I am sad for no reason, mad for no reason, ecstatic for no reason, and this is for two weeks out of the month. Who has time for that?! I dwell on thoughts that are meaningless to the average person during this time, I question and analyze anything and everything people say to me or do to me. I am just too strung out on unimportant things. My emotions get the best of me and although I KNOW better, rational and logic thoughts are pushed out of my head by irrational, emotion fueled nasty toxic thoughts. I feel like I have no control over myself or what I'm thinking. It's a scary place to be.

Once I was soooo tired and afraid of my own self destructive thoughts that I went to a ob/gyn and she prescribed me... uggghhh... Sarafem (aka Prozac).

I hate PMS.

Monday, November 03, 2008

I'm not free

I know I'm free. everyone keeps telling me that. My ancestors fought for my freedom. I could not be where I am today because of them. I get it. But the more I learn about economics and I guess delve deeper into philosophy, I realize I am NOT FREE.

The moment I am born in my society i am in debt. I am taxed upon, counted and categorized. I am worked into the system of census, the education system, Selective service (for males), accountable for taxes from the IRS, expected to abide by the rules and norms of this country. Anything I do that goes against the grain is not only frowned upon, but the "system/government" has so many things in place to make my life living hell, a total nightmare if I don't want to just be normal. I am bound by FICA scores, credit scores, library cards that track my knowledge gaining, bank account statements, timecards that track my hours, hell, even web browser history. I am penalized if I move too many places in a short amount of time. Hell, the ground I walk on isn't free. Dirt is free. rocks are free. but the space that it occupies, oh, u gotta pay for that. I can't breath. I am claustraphobic just thinking I can't come and go as I please. i can't even leave the country on a whim if I want.

I don't mean to sound too extreme, but it's such a sad realization that I can't even be friends with whoever I want without the government potentially wanting to know AND maybe holding it against me at a later date. Uuuughghgghgh. What to do? I dunno. It's just frustrating and disheartening at the same time. I'm tired of the playing the bullshit games that man has invented like stocks, real estate, corporate ladders, , retirement, institutionalized religion, and shit, institutionalized education for that matter. Why should I prove my existence and compete with so many people on a plane that will never be even? I am frustrated because I am told what is supposed to make me happy, like having a good job, a nice car, a college education, my own home to live in for 50+ years, a husband, children and grandkids. Who the hell said that's what I want? I don't have to and you can't make me.

Everybody that knows me knows that I don't like people telling me what to do, lol. Is it evident?

Please don't be alarmed, these are just thoughts, I won't be staging an uprising anytime soon. No coups here. And I'm not that good at being an agitator either. Just some thoughts that have been bouncing round and round and round.

Connections

Whenever some topic is on my mind, for some odd reason, it comes at me in many directions and in many vessels. Maybe it's the law of attraction, I won't pretend to understand but I'll take it for what it's worth. For instance: I was reading a fiction book about soul mates, wisdom, following your dream. I was struck with the thought that while I am constantly absorbing knowledge, I need to think about wisdom as well, and learn more about it. It is just as, if not more important...

So, the next day i call my grandmother and my uncle and within minutes of each other (not even aware of each other's convo with me...) they both talk to me about wisdom, its importance and why I should seek it. I did not ask them any questions, nor did I present any problems or things that were on my mind. I don't want to say eerie, because it would take the attention away from the fact that I need to focus on wisdom. This happened two weeks ago.

So then 1)at work someone calls me a libertarian without me knowing what the heck that is 2) i keep having thoughts of the impossibility of freedom in our society and 3)I had discovered that my views are libertarian in philosophy class and we talked about free will. All in about 4 days did these three things happen. They are all connected and are related to each other. Again I find it interesting that it almost always comes in threes.