Cleaning Out Our Closet

Ok,

So it's beyond evident that since my breakup with The Ex-Significant I've gone into a weird, dark, sort through mode. Something similar to Rihanna in her Rated R phase where after everything that took place for her, things are just in pieces and you sort of have to buckle down as much as it hurts and put together the pieces again. The thing is, as you go about doing this, the pieces do not form the same person. It's a whole new "beast" as sorts that you've created.
I've thought I've cleaned up.
Or rather....cleaned out...

But apparently, when you think you've wiped everything down there's always a spot you've overlooked.
And apparently, people are cleaning out their closets as much as I have been.

It's safe for me to truly say, that the Ex-Significant and I are two new people. Over the last 8 months I've changed so much mentally, and truly so has he.
It's sad when you look back and say, "Haiti was already the poorest country in the entire world and it took an earthquake that slaughtered over 200,000 people for OTHER people to realize that Haiti needs their help." It took an earthquake for people to change.

Well, it's the same parallel with the Ex-Significant; it took an earthquake to instill change.
We've had nearly the most honest conversation ever.
I mean from drugs...
....to marriage....
...to more cheating.......
.......to that he got his ex-girlfriend pregnant while he was dating me.....

We literally started cleaning out our old closet.
Cobwebs that all parties weren't aware of.
We started cleaning it out.

And no missiles were fired. No gunshots. Not even a screaming match. Not one curse word was thrown.
Not...one.

And I can't even cry.
You think you can. Trust me.
You hear certain news, and even if it was a month ago or even a year ago, you say to yourself it hurts so much that I could still cry about it now in this present moment.
And then, your soul hits a level of sorrow that your eyes are physically dry. Your eyes have cried so much and so often that it's truly as if in this moment of pain that your eyes go numb and not a single tear can be formulated. Your nose doesn't burn, tingle or turn red in anticipation of tears. Your ears don't itch. You don''t even get that heavy feeling in your stomach. Your heart rate doesn't change, it doesn't speed up as it should. You just know....that your soul aches.

Your soul aches.

It's the rawest conversation I've ever had with him.
And after it all...

I miss him.

Those are the only two things I know...
That my soul aches and that, I miss him.

Breakeven

Written on 2/2/2010:

I have to breakeven now.

Instead, all I've been doing is breaking down.

It's crazy that in two months, I'll be 24 years old and I'm realizing for the first time in these 23.82 years that it's ok to break down. Especially when the people closest to you know the truth. It's ok to be vulnerable.

People take advantage of people not because something is wrong with that person, or because that person is necessarily weak. I've always felt that I've been preyed upon because of 'weakness'. In turn, I've become a sort of monster.

I truly have. A beast of sorts.

I do lash out. Near constantly.

I scream. At levels that would break a child to tears and make any adult flee in fear.

I do this because I hurt so much. I handle mental pain so horribly. My tolerance for physical pain 1000 times exceeds the tolerance for anyone remotely telling me my shoes are ugly.

Or that my blouse is not their "cup of tea".

To quote The Script, "I'm falling to pieces".

I truly, truly have been. It's been brewing for years now. Maybe even as far back as my grandmother passing in 2005. I've been a wild child.
No sense of direction.
Random spurts of direction and focus.
Everything else chaotic, messy and just plain wild. Living on the edge and damn near letting people push me off of it. Patience, out the damn window the day she died.

I'm not erasing what has happened. Or attempting to erase all the pain I've felt and even currently feel, but I have to at some point just breakeven. I have to.

The pain isn't progressing me, it isn't building me, it's been destroying me. It pushes away the people that I'm most close to, and if I think I'm feeling pain now...just imagine if all the pain that I lash out on the surface were to push these people away permanently.

That's a pain I don't want to imagine, or more importantly endure.

I'm in love with this same All-Star that I wasn't supposed to fall for in the first place. I'm letting it warp my mind to the point that I'm not breaking even, again I'm breaking down. We had an honest conversation and he loves me but he isn't in love with me. There's a difference that sometimes even I don't differentiate from. I wish it was the latter. I wish so much that he felt the same way I do that he's IN love with me. But I have to be real. I have to breakeven. Though my heart aches and all I think of is that the perfect person for me isn't in love with me..you have to break. How can you entitle the same privileges as a significant other to someone who isn't your significant other and has no desire to be.

Its hard though. When you know how your heart feels and that person tells you they love you..that they need you. You sink. You drown..in love and passion. Someway, somehow you're supposed to just put the breaks on and remind yourself "hey, you're never going to get anything out of this..they aren't IN love with you". When it comes to that, how do you breakeven.

I can't even breakeven with the Ex-Significant. He wants me back but after 3 1/2 years of irreconcilable damage..I can't take him back. To him, breaking even would be getting back together and to me that's not even, that's breaking me into more pieces that he's aided in creating.

No thank you.

"I'm still alive but I'm barely breathing"..hell, I'd just like to breathe in general. I'd like to go a week with no tears. I'd like to go a week without any repairs to ME to be made. Without some love longing for someone I cannot have or some situation I have no power to alter. I just want to breathe if that's ok with anyone.

Anyone.

You'd think my heart has hurt for so long over so much one would ask, "what does one need in order to numb out?" At this point not even elephant tranquilizers seem to be doing the trick. I respect pain now, and its not that I don't want to remove the ability to feel..I just want to feel happy.

I just want to breakeven and breathe easy. Just for awhile.

"I'm still alive, but I'm barely breathing"...my goal now has to be to just breathe easy.

Heart of the Matter

I told him...

I told him about his lies and the 10 story wall he's put up. I told him that I used to hate him. I believe in Jesus, and that I truly don't believe in hate anymore. I told him he's guarded and translated his nightmare. The nightmare where he told me that he was blindfolded on a bridge, and that I told him "fuck you, jump off". I told him that I don't believe anymore that he ever loved me. Nothing he did in 3 years to display love made sense. I told him he has no core values and is full of disrespect. I told him I realize a new evil that he's committed against me in the last 3 and a half years, every single day.

I told him I shouldve left him two years earlier. I told that he is broken inside because he practices hatred for his father. A hatred for his father that he's yet to solve at 27 years of age, and that he always spilled and took out on me. He always punished me, solely for loving him as if the crimes against him done by his father were done by me. I told him I went through stages: sadness, frustration, mental instability & hatred. I'm leaving hatred and entering a healing stage. Like I said, Jesus doesn't want me to hate so I focus on not doing so, and not spreading it.

But I told him. I told him everything. Everything.

The Ex-Significant came to my house last night. In efforts to re-kindle and salvage what we had after I've broken up with him, permanently, months ago. He showed up around 9:30 and departed at midnight.

Now, when I think of it. It felt like 5 minutes.

Like the most liberating 5 minutes I've ever experienced.

I let out every dark demon against him in my soul. In my entire soul. Everything I suppressed, everything that's made me ugly and angry and frustrated and feel trapped inside of myself. I told him things that I haven't been able to say to ANYONE about how much I've hated him and how much I loved him at one point in my life. I opened up about all the levels of fuckery he's put the two of us through...and that I'm working on forgiving him as a PERSON, not for HIM, but for me. For my own peace. For my own quest to be closer to God.

I quoted things from the Bible.

I told him that I resented him.

That I'll never forget how much money I've shelled out, versus him and now I'm dirt poor with nothing to show for it and he is the one with the high paying job.

How he destroyed my self-esteem by incessantly cheating, no matter what I've done

I told him to talk to his father, if he really wants to get his life together. To learn to forgive.

Forgive your father for leaving you, and your mother. Forgive your father for not being there. Forgive him for creating a black hole in your heart that only I know how deep it is and how much it kills you and how much you lie awake at night. Fill the hole with forgiveness.

Because that's what I'm learning to do, forgive.

I'm learning to forgive my mother. For all the years of lacking to love me. To treat me right. To enable a true mother-daughter relationship. For all her resentment and mistreatment. For her neglect. For providing me with a life that will never truly know what its like to have an open, honest, happy relationship with a mother. Regardless of this, I'm learning to forgive.

I'm learning to forgive my friends. Certain people, wasting their lives away. Making nothing for themselves, that I associate myself with and I'm judged, negatively for this association. I'm forgiving them for their lack of desire. For their lack of change. For their overflow of ignorance. For their lack of appreciation. For their lack of regard for their own very lives.

I'm learning to forgive the Ex-Significant. For years of crying. For aiding in destroying my self-esteem. For a web of unnecessary lies and deceit. For destruction of trust. For his lack of core values. For his inability to forgive. For his past. For our past.

I'm learning to forgive myself.

I'm learning to appreciate myself.

I'm not as unattractive as I believe I am. And, yeah, maybe I do have some writing skills I can give myself some credit for..if so many other people enjoy my writing so much. I'm unhappy with my weight, but I don't look as horrific as I tell myself I do. I am funny. I am loyal, and there's nothing wrong with loyalty. I'm learning to stop hating myself. I'm trying to raise my self-esteem. I am creative, and I have an empire I want to build... and what I'm trying to do, I'm learning to tell myself that it's not impossible. I'm learning that even though my mother's presence in my life is only physical, I'll survive and get things done with or without her support. I'm learning it will not kill me to remain single for awhile longer. I'm reminding myself not to give up on true love, and that it's not foolish to still believe in it. I'm learning what its truly like to be abused by someone you love in the shadows and no one on the forefront know about it. I know the difference between love and abuse. I'm learning to forgive my body, and forgive those who think that my curves were only supplied by God for their sexual pleasures. I'm learning that its not ok to allow people to use me as a sexual object. I'm learning to forgive people who judge me by my appearance. Those who say "your face just looks angry no matter what". God gave me this face, and I'm learning that there's nothing wrong with it. Absolutely nothing. I'm more than what people try to force me to believe I am. So much more than that. And I'm learning to forgive those who don't want to know what it is, that makes me, me.

Because after the heart of the matter, all that truly matters is .... forgiveness.

New Jack Update: In One Year's Time

I'm trying the best to give myself a time cap. A limit.
Maybe, installing a time cap will place enough pressure under me to get some things moving. I'm starting to realize that I'm too distracted.
Just....too damn distracted by things that as much as they shouldn't matter generally, of course they matter to me and it's not helping me further anything. That's the problem that I need to see. IF I actually got it through my lovesick skull that I'm chasing and getting distracted by things that aren't adding more money to my pocket or getting SFLN or Dulce de Cocoa off the ground and providing exposure to garner more money then...I shouldn't be really chasing after those things.
At least, not right now...
The focus has to be adjusted to doing something brand new...it has to be adjusted and stay fixed.

The issue with me is that, I'm not keeping the focus fixed. I had to vent out so many of my frustrations in Red Kool-Aid because that's exactly what I feel like is going on in my life every minute of the day. The man I want, I can't have. The men I don't want, are roaches and want me. I want to be the girlfriend/wife and people think I'm mistress material. And in all of this, is the frustration that I just love, love and I'm so far away from having any piece or part of it.
Unfortunate as that is, I have to truly dig my heels in and remind myself that this is what its going to have to be for awhile. Not forever....just awhile.

I need money...and I need my career to take off. I need a new car as I'm now officially car-less, and I need an apartment, preferably in Nassau county. These are not things I want, these are things that at 23 years of age I officially need. I need to fucking get my act together. Chasing after the man that I do want, who he's chasing after mainly 3 of "X"amount of women IS NOT going to put money in my pocket, my own apartment in front of me that I'm really, really dying for, nor get my boutiques off the ground, nor put the Pontiac G6 that I need to get around in in front of me either.
Trying to fend off the roaches that assume I'm mistress material or that are not worth my time in general but insist on stalking after me, isn't going to make these things come to fruition for me. I really have to take the sound advice that Joshen has already stated "When you focus your ambition like a laser you can make actual physical tears in your reality." Followed by the advice he gave me directly..."Instead of being the Kool aid that attracts the roaches, become that 200 watt bulb that once on makes all the roaches in the room scatter".
In applying these things, I need to truly alter my reality.

When you look at it, both Drake and Kerin Rose, two people that I admire greatly TRULY altered their reality in approximately ONE year. Drake went from being teased by mainstream folks as the "mulatto" kid from the 'Degrassi TV show' to a MIXTAPE garnering him two Grammy nominations. Not an album...a MIXTAPE.
Kerin Rose, went from living in Long Island very much like myself, making her own sunglasses with a bedazzler gun to having those very same sunglasses being photographed constantly on Rihanna and now living in Manhattan and boutiques begging her to carry her sunglasses.
In One Year's Time.

With the year ending, a horrific year at that, it's truly time to redirect and fixate the focus. I truly, truly hope in one year's time I can say the same success stories about myself. I know what I want point B to be, I just am still stuck at point A.

Not forever...just for awhile.

"Enjoy your times of turmoil, if you make it through you will realize that those days are the ones that lead to your day of glory. During your darkest hour, with your most dire wounds, your only choices are to heal or die."-Joshen

New Jack Update: Red Kool-Aid

"Water doesn't attract roaches, but red flavored kool-aid does though".

This quote was directed at me last night, and to be quite honest I don't know how to feel about it. I do genuinely believe that I need a break from men...after all that's transpired within the last 3 years of The Ex-Significant/MVP and now with the relationship 300% done you can't just jump into something else the following Thursday. I've been single for 3 months now, which is not nearly as long of a break as I need to take, agreed with the general public however at times my feelings for an All-Star consume me.

As much as I feel for him, and part of me agrees he feels for me I'm realizing that I'm starting to fear him. He's not classless like The Ex-Significant was, and there are particular things that I know I would never expect to see from him ever, however he has his own potential to cause me grave pain. Daily, that's becoming more and more knowledgeable.

I know the theory, that you can't find out if something is right for you if you don't 'jump' into the air and see if you're caught. There's a 50% chance you'll be caught, there's also a very prominent 50% chance that you wont be and your skull will be cracked.
What my friendly counter parts seem to not understand is that I'm not pushing, rushing or accelerating anything. I'm truly not. Just because I'm aware that I personally need a break, and I am TAKING one doesn't mean my brain just shuts off and I don't see...it doesn't mean I don't feel anything either.

It doesn't mean that I don't hope or dream. Desire or want.

The simplicity that I know I need a break, I took a minute and stopped sleeping with the men I was sleeping with because I know it wasn't going to do any good. Sleeping with them was only embodying to them that I'm only something worth sleeping with..not more than that. I can't express a general frustration that I have in just the sexual desire part of it because apparently it makes me look bad..like "red koolaid" which "attracts roaches". It recently started to fuck with my head, when someone I know who CLEARLY has a girlfriend )that everyone knows her too)contacted me because he wants to have a side line relationship with me. Mind you, he's not MY friend, he's a friend of someone else that's close to me and we NEVER speak really but he apparently looked at me and felt CONFIDENT enough to contact me because I look like not 'girlfriend' material but great 'mistress' material. No matter how I change my look, physically and no matter how much I don't even speak to put the WRONG image of me out there men always think I'm just mistress material. Women are always threatened and intimidated by me on the assumption that I'm mistress material.

I'm not a mistress or dominatrix, nor do I try to be. It's one thing to do put on a show for the man I'm dating, but I don't apply this to "random nigga number 5".

It's making me sick.

A couple of people told me that long hair adds too much to my sex appeal. Hell in efforts to change things for 2010, I've already cut it all off to underneath my chin to reduce the "sex appeal" if that helps. I've only had it for 2 weeks and I haven't gone out in a public setting to determine whether its helping or not..but people still assume that I'm just perfect mistress material.

It saddens me, and I feel sort of hopeless about the matter. I feel as if I just have to be alone and I can't even generally express my discontent about it without being wrong in some facet. I can't express my loneliness because it makes me look weak. I can't express my sexual frustration because that poises me as a whore. I can't express my sadness because that results in pity and me appearing to be pathetic. I can't dress, act, speak or express in a certain manner because that "attracts roaches".
I went from a couple to being a single woman, and all of a sudden all my freedom of expression about MY situation just got stripped from me.

With love and with my friends, I feel as if I just cannot win.
And apparently all the red kool-aid I'm covered in has got me stuck in a sticky place.

New Jack Update: Setting Up Shop

It's as if I've caught fever...
But I guess, it's a fever I don't want to sweat out. But this fever, I tell you, it's lit fire under my skin and made a lot of things move for me.

I was repeatedly given advice to worry about me, and me only for awhile. My feelings for The Ex-Significant as well as just the positioning of others in my life was always too much to make me do just that. And, I'll admit for two months, I didn't. I was 200% worried about The Ex-Significant and an All-Star that I had an insane amount of feelings for, none of the time worrying about myself but more so, what would be the end result. Better put, it was always about what am I going to 'get' not, what's going to happen 'to' me. After two months, you may have to just admit to yourself that your ideas are just not working and maybe it's time to try something different.

So I have...

I've buried myself into the project of finding a job, not necessarily a salaried job, but a decent job that will pay the bills and that I can merrily more than tolerate. In the short span of three weeks of making that my sole focus, I got hired as a full-time account key holder at Perfumania. So far, I like my co-workers, I get paid a base pay as well as make a commission. Enough, if used correctly, to pay my bills and start saving and making my goals come true in 2010. I'm not going to lie, not only me, myself but pretty much all of my friends have had an awful, stressful and corrupt 2009. Job losses, deaths, financial woes that words can't describe, loves lost...the list is too long and it doesn't solely apply to me. I'm using 2010 as a starting over point. Not just an, "oh 2010 is going to be great and who knows what will happen after that". No.
I want 2010 to be the beginning of the rest of my life. In positivity. In abundance. I don't want to work for anyone else, I want to work for myself. Doing what I love. And I want to spend the rest of 2009 just preparing and organizing for the first new day of the rest of my beautiful life. 1/1/10.

There will be setbacks. There will be haters. But, the beauty of my life will not dissipate.

With that being said, I'm going to edit The New Jack. No more frivolous posts.
The New Jack is two years old, and in two years from this post, today I want to see that I've continued to grow and make change. That I've truly come to see the beauty in life. The beauty in every day. That I've helped people. That in some way, I'm assisting putting someone at peace. I don't care how many page views The New Jack gets anymore, because it's not about publicity...it's about life & love. The only two things that truly matter.

So in 2010, The New Jack will get a much simpler face lift....
What will be about publicity wont be my life as The New Jack, but Shoes From Last Night-the online and hopefully, physical shoe boutique that I'm setting up and Dulce de Cocoa-a candy & clothing line that I'm working on simultaneously that will donate proceeds to Action Against Hunger.

All this activity, thought and movement has literally happened in a span of two weeks. It's like I said, its as if I've caught fever. But in actuality, its the best fever I've ever caught. And this is what happens when you apply yourself to you. I have a passion to move. A passion to grow. A passion to change. A passion to assist in change. A passion for my future and the future of others.

So, I'm setting up shop.
Setting up shop for others.
And, setting up shop for my life.

Beyonce Update: Videophone

Featuring Lady Gaga...absolutely and truly amazing....

50 Cent Update: Baby By Me

Featuring Ne-Yo

The only adorable thing 50 Cent has done recently...

2010 Bootcamp

It might be approximately 2 months before New Years, but if there's anything I've been ready for in my life, it's certainly 2010. The year of 2009 can end tomorrow, and it would be the BEST news I've heard during this wretched year.

I've celebrated two years in writing in The New Jack and with age, comes wisdom.

I'm ready to embrace that wisdom.

I'm 23, and during 2010, I'll be turning 24 in April. Recently, my mind was in a really dark place in regards to money, love, plans, family, you name it.

I've had no money, I went from being salaried at a place I despised to being free and happy about that freedom but with $30 in my name meaning "rich". I had finally ended my relationship with The Significant and it was difficult and even trying to have a basic relationship/friendship was worse because we were so angry and hurt but now, slowly, we're getting better and better. I fell for an All-Star that even up to last night, confirmed that he'll never commit to me. I'm heartbroken. The sad part is, the only flaw I find in him is that he won't commit to me. He has all the qualities that I've ever sought out, but can't be faithful to one woman (or at least for right now)-surprise. My mother and I haven't spoken to one another in two weeks. Our relationship has always been a strained and negative one, but these days its scraping the bottle of the barrel. I didn't know that we could get so low..until now. The transmission on my car is dying..a car sold to me by my uncle that I've only had for 4 months. Naturally, he sold me a fucked up car but it waited to fully fuck up just when I'm unemployed and I'm powerless to fix it.

I've realized though in always conversing with a pair of "John" cousins, (love you both with all my heart) that listing and re-listing all the problems in my life is not going to do anything. I need to focus on the good. And if I can't find any good in that present moment, then make good. In efforts to climb out of the dark place I was in, I just started write down a "boot camp" list if you will. A list that if I can accomplish all these things that I've left on the back burner and force myself in an Army like mode to get them done, I'll actually start to feel better and then be able to accomplish another list of things to follow afterwards.

I started to carry a mini notebook with me.. everywhere. A small notebook, with the Oneonta state insignia on it. Every time a remotely came across a thought or a goal and the processes to complete that goal I started to jot it down. There are some things I've beaten myself up about that I haven't completed without truly realizing that I can't get them done without completing some minor steps beforehand. So I started an order. First, the duration of the "boot camp" 11/1/09-12/31/09. I've hated 2009 so much, that I can spend the next 2 months of it distracting myself in immersing myself into the preparation of 2010. Things such as my goal of losing as close to 35 pounds as possible and HOW to do it. Tackling some minor basic work for SFLN such as, domain names and proper logos. Moving my 401K from my former employer to under my watch in my personal INGDirect account. Doing a full body detox program from GNC and not drinking soda or liquor for the next months. Fixing my checking account. Finding a volunteer program to participate in while I'm unemployed. These are just a few things that I've listed in "boot camp" in which I wrote that list in blue ink, everything from very deep and personal to changing my look for the beginning of 2010. I'm even going to take the advice and truly recover from The Significant and The All-Star by being single for awhile and will even be celibate for a minimum of the next two months.

I'm single. It's time to acknowledge it and not be afraid of it.

I followed up that blue-inked boot camp list with a 2010 list. Everything on both lists is very much within reach and can be accomplished it's just a matter of serious application and dedication. The 2010 list I did in black ink, listing all the things I'm trying to accomplish with deadlines & even fall back deadlines based on the goal and the month. Everything from being able to do a side split and how to up my vitamin intake to my real estate license and a newer car.

I feel really positive. I feel ready to do all of this. No sacrifice, no victory

Halloween was amazing and I used it as a tool to get all of the last bit of craziness out of my system so that as of November 1st, especially so that it began on a Sunday, it would be the beginning of it all.

And like I said, I'm ready. Ready to grow up. Ready to start incorporating more positivity in my life. Ready to be healthier. Ready to start throwing some real accomplishments under my belt.

So with that, let boot camp begin.

No sacrifice, no victory

Rihanna Update: Bubble Pop

"Bubble Pop"could be slightly annoying to some, but its a simple, carefree, no-brainer track by Rihanna from the new album, Rated R.

zSHARE - JKMS.mp3

Two Candles Down, Many More to Blow-Happy Birthday New Jack

October 27th, 2009 was the 2nd birthday of "The New Jack"

I'll admit, in two years I haven't gotten this blog nearly anywhere to the level that I've wanted it to reach. But though I may not have the readership and exposure I seek, I still gained.

I've truly gained a place to lay out all my feelings and all my experiences in the last two years. From jail to freedom, from being coupled up to single-hood and everything in between. My thoughts are deeper, and I still have a lot more growing to do but regardless of which, I've grown. From a 21 year old who just came out of college with a multitude of instant expectations to a 23 year old who finally understands that love is all that truly matters in this world.

In the last two years, I've had few solid plans. I used to believe you just do, and as long as you do you should just receive; but, I'm older now and a bit wiser. I know a couple things now about work ethic..about love...about trust...about pain...about how to rebound.

The thing that I'm proud of most is that this blog has given me the opportunity to rebound.Two years ago, this same person let the issues of her world destroy her. Now this person may get weakened by it, but always knows in the back of her mind there's a way to rebound.

Two years...

Two candles down...many more to blow...