Growing up I had a fascination with holidays - mainly because I wasn't allowed to celebrate any of them. I wondered how it would feel to give and receive gifts on special days, to follow traditions cultivated over the years, to feel a sense of unity within all cultures because of a certified "Holy Day". I was most interested - a bit selfishly I might add - in birthdays. I remember parents popping into classrooms with cake and juice, singing "Happy Birthday", and someone, for that one day, getting to make a wish...
My secret is that every year, on my birthday, even when I wasn't able to celebrate it, I always made a wish for myself. Sometimes it was that my birthday could magically move to during the school year so that I could celebrate it with my friends. Sometimes it was that my mother would have a change of heart and I could finally have that birthday party I always wanted...
Sometimes it was for a kiss.
Two nights ago I celebrated the birth of one of my new/old friends. An amazing woman with a light in her that I am in awe of. She's a little thing - physically. Kind of like a Puerto Rican fairy :). But she has strength - of heart, of character... And as I watched her get her "Single Ladies" dance on, I made a wish for her. To have love come into her life. A growing, embracing, incredible love. She deserves it...
And then I looked at myself and asked "why is it so much easier now to make wishes for others? Don't I deserve a little 'birthday magic' too?"
Out of all the things that I believe in - both magical and mundane - I find it is hardest sometimes to believe that I deserve something great in my life. It is easy for me to see the potential, the glow, in other people, but when it comes to myself - I can talk the talk, but I don't believe it.
Trying to be better about that. I thank the Divine every day for what has come into my life in the last six months, both people-wise and experience-wise. I believe in the magic of moments - and I have had some of the most wonderful moments of my life within such a short period of time. Much of it required uncommon action on my part - so I wonder if I continue with said action, who is to say that the magic moments will stop? I'm thinking about that part at least.
Today is my 28th birthday. I may have awoken with a bitch of a hangover, but I plan to ride this out until midnight. I want to watch the stars and make my birthday wishes - yes plural. I want to say my private birthday prayer - which is kind of like a wish but mostly a really big Thank you that I am still here, alive, kicking, breathing, shining... There may not be any cake to share, but my love for you all is boundless - plus, no sugar crash :).
(Fair warning for all haters - move the fuck on. I plan to rock this life of mine, no matter what you try to throw at me. That's the only one you get, so take it serious.)
One time for all the Cancer girls!!! Muah!
Always and Forever,
-Asha
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
With this ring...
Ten years ago I was fully and completely in love. I may not have been all that excited about the future we were careening towards, nor did I feel completely in control of my life. But I did know with absolute certainty that when he took my hand, kissed my lips, placed his cheek on my belly, that I was safe, loved, cherished...
Five months later I was a married woman - with no idea how I'd gotten married, why it didn't feel 100% right, how to be a wife when I'd barely settled the idea that I was a woman. There were doubts leading up to the nuptials and doubts during and doubts after. The one thing I didn't doubt at all was that I had married the right man. I want to say that I was young and naive, that didn't see the warning signs because all I could see was him... and maybe that is true. Or maybe it just is what I think it is. The best of possibilities, the wrong timing. And that just sucks all around.
My birthday is next Saturday. I've been letting this blog grow as I do, change as I have, put my questions out into the universe, regardless of whether they get commented on or answered - I am a big believer in the intent and the effort and the thought counting. Today, my thoughts are on the ring that lives in my jewelry box, still loved, still meaning, still a weight to hold me down.
I remember when I was standing underneath those trees in the darkness, surrounded by people who were supportive and loving. I remember both of us having tears in our eyes, shaking a little, scared. I remember feeling swallowed by light when he slipped that ring onto my finger...
Ring has been off my finger for months now. I still sometimes rub the space where it was, when I'm nervous, when I'm edgy. I am still shocked sometimes that it isn't there - though an indentation of ten years is.
When he first abandoned me, with promises to return, to make our lives right, to give me the babies I had wanted and waited for for years... I took it off. Because part of me knew it was over - that he was lying to me again, trying to make himself feel better about it all. At that point I had no trust left - and rightfully so. But within a month, when I was struggling financially and knew I would have to do something drastic to keep myself afloat - it wasn't the diamond engagement ring that you got me after the Heidi-fiasco. It wasn't the garnet earrings you got me after Shannon. It wasn't the necklace from the very first one - whose name you say you don't recall, which makes it that much worse.
It was the ring, my ring. The one we picked out together when my belly was rounded with your child and there was still light and love in both of our eyes. We were in Parkland, visiting my very best friend, and being the team of two that we had always been, instinctive, dedicated, powerfully in love. We were so broke it was ridiculous - but we weren't unhappy. Money wasn't motivating us - a passion for each other was. You picked that ring because it was special and delicate and beautiful and unique - everything you said that I was.
You were the one who named me Asha.
Today I am going to sell that ring. Not for spite, more for necessity. And I am crying because I feel like it will kill my memories of that twosome, of being full of love, of believing in promises...
Might need some positive energy sent my way - its harder than I thought it would be.
-Asha
Five months later I was a married woman - with no idea how I'd gotten married, why it didn't feel 100% right, how to be a wife when I'd barely settled the idea that I was a woman. There were doubts leading up to the nuptials and doubts during and doubts after. The one thing I didn't doubt at all was that I had married the right man. I want to say that I was young and naive, that didn't see the warning signs because all I could see was him... and maybe that is true. Or maybe it just is what I think it is. The best of possibilities, the wrong timing. And that just sucks all around.
My birthday is next Saturday. I've been letting this blog grow as I do, change as I have, put my questions out into the universe, regardless of whether they get commented on or answered - I am a big believer in the intent and the effort and the thought counting. Today, my thoughts are on the ring that lives in my jewelry box, still loved, still meaning, still a weight to hold me down.
I remember when I was standing underneath those trees in the darkness, surrounded by people who were supportive and loving. I remember both of us having tears in our eyes, shaking a little, scared. I remember feeling swallowed by light when he slipped that ring onto my finger...
Ring has been off my finger for months now. I still sometimes rub the space where it was, when I'm nervous, when I'm edgy. I am still shocked sometimes that it isn't there - though an indentation of ten years is.
When he first abandoned me, with promises to return, to make our lives right, to give me the babies I had wanted and waited for for years... I took it off. Because part of me knew it was over - that he was lying to me again, trying to make himself feel better about it all. At that point I had no trust left - and rightfully so. But within a month, when I was struggling financially and knew I would have to do something drastic to keep myself afloat - it wasn't the diamond engagement ring that you got me after the Heidi-fiasco. It wasn't the garnet earrings you got me after Shannon. It wasn't the necklace from the very first one - whose name you say you don't recall, which makes it that much worse.
It was the ring, my ring. The one we picked out together when my belly was rounded with your child and there was still light and love in both of our eyes. We were in Parkland, visiting my very best friend, and being the team of two that we had always been, instinctive, dedicated, powerfully in love. We were so broke it was ridiculous - but we weren't unhappy. Money wasn't motivating us - a passion for each other was. You picked that ring because it was special and delicate and beautiful and unique - everything you said that I was.
You were the one who named me Asha.
Today I am going to sell that ring. Not for spite, more for necessity. And I am crying because I feel like it will kill my memories of that twosome, of being full of love, of believing in promises...
Might need some positive energy sent my way - its harder than I thought it would be.
-Asha
Sunday, June 13, 2010
The Yellow Crayon
(Note: This is gonna be a two-part blog, simply because of the complete change in tone. Promise this is not a sign of any schizophrenia on my part - it's the days that have been like that - I'm going with the flow.)
Being back in my hometown for a week reminded me of some truths about myself, things that I've had to look at, remember, and decide whether or not to claim them again. For one - I'm still looking for home. It's not a place really - more of a state of mind. I'll know when I've got it, I remember what it used to look like for me, and it is something I can look forward to again. Two - my circle of strong women is growing, changing, evolving, and embracing of this new me. It felt good to be accepted, to be loved and not criticized, to get high fives from fiercely fabulous females who understand the chaos that I am living, the struggle to be not just independent but SUCCESSFULLY independent, the desire to be loved at my most unlovable... I spent a lot of my time in Miami in tears. I felt Grace and Hope and Despair and a lot of other things...
When I returned I got two surprises. One was that I had been missed. Two was who was doing the missing. It's confusing to realize that while you were doing your best to follow the rules, say the right things and hold back the wrong ones, to not push... that the rules are still being broken, things are being said that can't be unsaid, and little nudges are backing you into a very uncomfortable corner.
Friend of mine got married this weekend. I wished him Mazel Tov via text message while angrily drinking vodka lemonade and wishing desperately for the cigarettes I've never smoked in my life. Why did I care?
My little sister told me that this whole divorce thing should be taken as a learning experience, one of life's lessons in store for me. She said I should look back over my relationship and recognize all of the signs there were that no matter how good of a wife I was, how faithful, how "eager to please", this shit was bound to blow up in my face... she didn't say all that but I am improvising. The thing is, while I was in Miami, inundated by ghosts of my past, memories that hurt like hell at every damn corner, I started to see what she meant. Things that I let him get away with, that I went along with for his favor, things I did that killed a little bit of me because I knew they were wrong but I did them anyway...
And I cared because those signs I just named for my doomed relationship - I see them in his. He's going to get hurt...and I have to let him.
It's strange - this whole hindsight thing. It really does give you clarity. They don't tell you how much putting yourself under a microscope will hurt... and it does. Like the damn dickens. I carried that hurt with me onto the plane, placed it in the overhead compartment, wheeled it through the airport, and drove it home with me. It's like a thundercloud over my head and the last few days I've felt like its been raining for forty days and forty nights...
You can imagine the mood it put me in. Emotional. Vulnerable. Unsure of anything. Reaching out for some unknown cure-all without really knowing what exactly I was looking for...
Sure as heck didn't find it in the bottom of a bottle, that's for sure. Cause I looked - heck I'm still looking if we're being honest.
When I came home and opened my door, I noticed that I had put a current painting-in-the-works back on my easel before I left. Variations of yellow, which I did when I was in a hot and sexy mood. I expected the lift I always get when I see it... instead I just felt tired and lonely and in desperate need of a hug. I spent the next day and a half trying to pull myself out of the funk with no results... I went to support my friend at an art show and even in my yellow dress I felt out of place - like my skin was too big or something. Went out for drinks the same night and got accosted by some drunk motherfucker who thought that putting your hands on a woman's breasts - after said woman had warned you twice about invading her personal space and inappropriate touching - was completely acceptable drunk behavior. I wavered between wanting to stomp his nuts into the ground and running away in tears - mortified. Damn yellow didn't work later, despite a very creative man's interpretation of "Woman, thou art loosed" played in a studio...
Yellow - sexiest color in the crayon box - was failing me miserably.
Tonight I feel like a yellow crayon - accidentally but irrevocably broken. Maybe with the break still inside the sleeve, so if you try to use it, you realize immediately that something is wrong. Perhaps it was a long time coming, or a recent development, but there is no denying that its broken now. I'm kind of looking around in shock, wondering how in the hell I accomplished this one. Too available? Lack self-respect? Too emotional? Difficult to love?
I don't believe any of those by the way. I love myself. I don't play "catch me - kiss me" games. I'm honest and earthy. I know what I want and what I don't, what I'm ready for and what I need more time on...
I think I told you that I watch old TV shows like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Just finished the final season and in the very last episode she talks about how she's "cookie dough". The analogy was kind of adorable, but completely understandable to me. That's how I feel. I'm cookie dough - not quite done baking yet. Not sure who's going to end up with cookie-me in the end (though they would be very blessed to do so), and I'm not trying to figure that out until I'm ready.
Sorry about the yellow crayon-cookie analogy. Too much TV I guess :).
Here's to trying to figure it out, having the guts to admit when you've fucked up, and to waking up tomorrow morning ready to start it all over again - because that's what fighters and bad-asses do.
Still love you.
-Asha
Being back in my hometown for a week reminded me of some truths about myself, things that I've had to look at, remember, and decide whether or not to claim them again. For one - I'm still looking for home. It's not a place really - more of a state of mind. I'll know when I've got it, I remember what it used to look like for me, and it is something I can look forward to again. Two - my circle of strong women is growing, changing, evolving, and embracing of this new me. It felt good to be accepted, to be loved and not criticized, to get high fives from fiercely fabulous females who understand the chaos that I am living, the struggle to be not just independent but SUCCESSFULLY independent, the desire to be loved at my most unlovable... I spent a lot of my time in Miami in tears. I felt Grace and Hope and Despair and a lot of other things...
When I returned I got two surprises. One was that I had been missed. Two was who was doing the missing. It's confusing to realize that while you were doing your best to follow the rules, say the right things and hold back the wrong ones, to not push... that the rules are still being broken, things are being said that can't be unsaid, and little nudges are backing you into a very uncomfortable corner.
Friend of mine got married this weekend. I wished him Mazel Tov via text message while angrily drinking vodka lemonade and wishing desperately for the cigarettes I've never smoked in my life. Why did I care?
My little sister told me that this whole divorce thing should be taken as a learning experience, one of life's lessons in store for me. She said I should look back over my relationship and recognize all of the signs there were that no matter how good of a wife I was, how faithful, how "eager to please", this shit was bound to blow up in my face... she didn't say all that but I am improvising. The thing is, while I was in Miami, inundated by ghosts of my past, memories that hurt like hell at every damn corner, I started to see what she meant. Things that I let him get away with, that I went along with for his favor, things I did that killed a little bit of me because I knew they were wrong but I did them anyway...
And I cared because those signs I just named for my doomed relationship - I see them in his. He's going to get hurt...and I have to let him.
It's strange - this whole hindsight thing. It really does give you clarity. They don't tell you how much putting yourself under a microscope will hurt... and it does. Like the damn dickens. I carried that hurt with me onto the plane, placed it in the overhead compartment, wheeled it through the airport, and drove it home with me. It's like a thundercloud over my head and the last few days I've felt like its been raining for forty days and forty nights...
You can imagine the mood it put me in. Emotional. Vulnerable. Unsure of anything. Reaching out for some unknown cure-all without really knowing what exactly I was looking for...
Sure as heck didn't find it in the bottom of a bottle, that's for sure. Cause I looked - heck I'm still looking if we're being honest.
When I came home and opened my door, I noticed that I had put a current painting-in-the-works back on my easel before I left. Variations of yellow, which I did when I was in a hot and sexy mood. I expected the lift I always get when I see it... instead I just felt tired and lonely and in desperate need of a hug. I spent the next day and a half trying to pull myself out of the funk with no results... I went to support my friend at an art show and even in my yellow dress I felt out of place - like my skin was too big or something. Went out for drinks the same night and got accosted by some drunk motherfucker who thought that putting your hands on a woman's breasts - after said woman had warned you twice about invading her personal space and inappropriate touching - was completely acceptable drunk behavior. I wavered between wanting to stomp his nuts into the ground and running away in tears - mortified. Damn yellow didn't work later, despite a very creative man's interpretation of "Woman, thou art loosed" played in a studio...
Yellow - sexiest color in the crayon box - was failing me miserably.
Tonight I feel like a yellow crayon - accidentally but irrevocably broken. Maybe with the break still inside the sleeve, so if you try to use it, you realize immediately that something is wrong. Perhaps it was a long time coming, or a recent development, but there is no denying that its broken now. I'm kind of looking around in shock, wondering how in the hell I accomplished this one. Too available? Lack self-respect? Too emotional? Difficult to love?
I don't believe any of those by the way. I love myself. I don't play "catch me - kiss me" games. I'm honest and earthy. I know what I want and what I don't, what I'm ready for and what I need more time on...
I think I told you that I watch old TV shows like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Just finished the final season and in the very last episode she talks about how she's "cookie dough". The analogy was kind of adorable, but completely understandable to me. That's how I feel. I'm cookie dough - not quite done baking yet. Not sure who's going to end up with cookie-me in the end (though they would be very blessed to do so), and I'm not trying to figure that out until I'm ready.
Sorry about the yellow crayon-cookie analogy. Too much TV I guess :).
Here's to trying to figure it out, having the guts to admit when you've fucked up, and to waking up tomorrow morning ready to start it all over again - because that's what fighters and bad-asses do.
Still love you.
-Asha
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Dammit Janet!
(Excuse the randomness of this blog. When I get back home, I will have my shit together - promise. )
There is a place in Charlotte, kind of looks like a warehouse or something, called "Dammit Janet". No shit, that's really the name. I don't know what goes on there but whenever I see the sign I want to pull over and find out... haven't had the time yet.
I've been in Miami for five days. I've done almost no homework. I've cried A LOT. I've sung out my frustrations with Alanis Morissette during karaoke. I've been drinking like a fish. I've visited my son's grave. I've been hugged and sent love by some of the most amazing women I know. I've looked at my mother and finally seen her for the woman she is...and realized that I can truly love her, because flaws breed character and forgiveness is divine...and I looked into the eyes of the boy I've loved all my life, and did not feel negative, did not feel hurt, understood what the situation is with no room for bs, and accepted it. The love is still there. Will always be there - but at this point in my life, I need more, deserve more, than affection based on lots of years. I want someone to be madly, totally in love with me. So we're knocking on door number 2 there...
Side-tracked - sorry. There's a lot jumbled up in my head.
I've been staying with a friend - a girl who I've loved forever, my soul sista. And she has reminded me, almost on a daily basis, of the girl I was before - pre-marriage, pre-sex, pre-complications. Even then, way back when, I was Asha...just didn't know it yet. I had the female version of swag :). I was flirty and interesting and nerdy and a little hopelessly adorable. I had crooked glasses, a bright green jacket, a huge heart, and a hunger...to be more, to succeed, to dare.
It's one of the reasons I am so glad I reconnected with old friends and continue to do so. They help me remember that there was so much to me, even then, before I let a man take over my life. Dammit I was feisty!
In fact, I've been a bit feisty since I stepped onto Miami soil... I remember that when I was that girl so many years ago, my goal was to be sexy as Janet Jackson, savvy as Oprah, and as talented as Toni Morrison... and I've had to wonder - what are my goals now? Who do I want to be when I grow up? What kind of woman should I be now, what risks should I take, what hopes should I hold onto? What dreams should I let become reality?
Don't really want to be Oprah - I have no desire to multi-task like that...and Toni Morrison? Still great but my writing has evolved beyond a single genre, so dropping that one too...
Listened to and watched several Janet Jackson videos... "If". "What's it Gonna Be". "Velvet Rope". "Doesn't Really Matter"...and yeah. Still wanna be her. :)
Dammit Janet - lol.
There is a place in Charlotte, kind of looks like a warehouse or something, called "Dammit Janet". No shit, that's really the name. I don't know what goes on there but whenever I see the sign I want to pull over and find out... haven't had the time yet.
I've been in Miami for five days. I've done almost no homework. I've cried A LOT. I've sung out my frustrations with Alanis Morissette during karaoke. I've been drinking like a fish. I've visited my son's grave. I've been hugged and sent love by some of the most amazing women I know. I've looked at my mother and finally seen her for the woman she is...and realized that I can truly love her, because flaws breed character and forgiveness is divine...and I looked into the eyes of the boy I've loved all my life, and did not feel negative, did not feel hurt, understood what the situation is with no room for bs, and accepted it. The love is still there. Will always be there - but at this point in my life, I need more, deserve more, than affection based on lots of years. I want someone to be madly, totally in love with me. So we're knocking on door number 2 there...
Side-tracked - sorry. There's a lot jumbled up in my head.
I've been staying with a friend - a girl who I've loved forever, my soul sista. And she has reminded me, almost on a daily basis, of the girl I was before - pre-marriage, pre-sex, pre-complications. Even then, way back when, I was Asha...just didn't know it yet. I had the female version of swag :). I was flirty and interesting and nerdy and a little hopelessly adorable. I had crooked glasses, a bright green jacket, a huge heart, and a hunger...to be more, to succeed, to dare.
It's one of the reasons I am so glad I reconnected with old friends and continue to do so. They help me remember that there was so much to me, even then, before I let a man take over my life. Dammit I was feisty!
In fact, I've been a bit feisty since I stepped onto Miami soil... I remember that when I was that girl so many years ago, my goal was to be sexy as Janet Jackson, savvy as Oprah, and as talented as Toni Morrison... and I've had to wonder - what are my goals now? Who do I want to be when I grow up? What kind of woman should I be now, what risks should I take, what hopes should I hold onto? What dreams should I let become reality?
Don't really want to be Oprah - I have no desire to multi-task like that...and Toni Morrison? Still great but my writing has evolved beyond a single genre, so dropping that one too...
Listened to and watched several Janet Jackson videos... "If". "What's it Gonna Be". "Velvet Rope". "Doesn't Really Matter"...and yeah. Still wanna be her. :)
Dammit Janet - lol.
Your girl is back!
-Asha
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Home Again...
I found myself on a flight "home" today, destined to catch up with old friends, see an old love, hug my family, and do my very best to not immediately want to fly on back to the Queen City...
Miami is full of ghosts for me. Born and raised in Dade, there aren't many places I don't know, haven't been, where memories of an Asha-past live. It's one of the reasons why coming here is so hard, why I've been dragging my feet, putting it off...but eventually, life and reality catches up with you. You can always go home again, but sometimes you really don't want to.
Don't get me wrong. There is much I love about my hometown. And I tend to bring the "Miami-girl" with me wherever I am... that's not the current issue.
Over the past few months, my evolution has led me to growth and strength I didn't know I had, didn't know I was capable of having. I'm different - I both acknowledge and accept that. But this is also brand-new, just out the womb, frighteningly fragile. And I worry that returning home, to where I was small, pushed into a box, unloved and afraid, completely lacking in radiance and light... I worry that my return has happened too soon.
I left love behind - in Charlotte, in Miami. Not just the romantic kind, though that is true too. :) But I found that, upon deplaning and once again being on my "birth-soil", I felt that I had been split in two, and that a missing part of myself was found again...
I have to admit that there is more Miami in me than I confess to. :) I can drive like a soldier in the rain, eat the spiciest foods, break into Spanglish as necessary, breathe deep in heat that would stifle most Charlotteans...and the ocean - she still sings to me.
I used to wonder at those songs. Were they the mythical siren's songs, calling me to my doom? Or were they lullabies...coaxing me to sleep, to dream, to desire more?
I have yet to see my family. But I have seen the rain. I have yet to confront my wayward lover. But I have cemented for myself that, without him, there is so much good in store for me in my life. Good that thinks I am amazing and beautiful and so much more, so why keep crying about it? I may not be rocking the six-pack I always wanted but I finally got to drive a hot red car... :)
Pluses and minuses...what would life be like without them?
So I'm home again...
...and its not too bad. :)
Love yourself.
-Asha
Miami is full of ghosts for me. Born and raised in Dade, there aren't many places I don't know, haven't been, where memories of an Asha-past live. It's one of the reasons why coming here is so hard, why I've been dragging my feet, putting it off...but eventually, life and reality catches up with you. You can always go home again, but sometimes you really don't want to.
Don't get me wrong. There is much I love about my hometown. And I tend to bring the "Miami-girl" with me wherever I am... that's not the current issue.
Over the past few months, my evolution has led me to growth and strength I didn't know I had, didn't know I was capable of having. I'm different - I both acknowledge and accept that. But this is also brand-new, just out the womb, frighteningly fragile. And I worry that returning home, to where I was small, pushed into a box, unloved and afraid, completely lacking in radiance and light... I worry that my return has happened too soon.
I left love behind - in Charlotte, in Miami. Not just the romantic kind, though that is true too. :) But I found that, upon deplaning and once again being on my "birth-soil", I felt that I had been split in two, and that a missing part of myself was found again...
I have to admit that there is more Miami in me than I confess to. :) I can drive like a soldier in the rain, eat the spiciest foods, break into Spanglish as necessary, breathe deep in heat that would stifle most Charlotteans...and the ocean - she still sings to me.
I used to wonder at those songs. Were they the mythical siren's songs, calling me to my doom? Or were they lullabies...coaxing me to sleep, to dream, to desire more?
I have yet to see my family. But I have seen the rain. I have yet to confront my wayward lover. But I have cemented for myself that, without him, there is so much good in store for me in my life. Good that thinks I am amazing and beautiful and so much more, so why keep crying about it? I may not be rocking the six-pack I always wanted but I finally got to drive a hot red car... :)
Pluses and minuses...what would life be like without them?
So I'm home again...
...and its not too bad. :)
Love yourself.
-Asha
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