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 I’m pissed off and feeling desperate all at the same time. It’s a horrible feeling. In the past four months I’ve been kicked off of unemployment twice because I ran out time to collect my allocated benefits. If they’ll only release one check a week how the hell do I run out of time to collect them? I’m ready to go kick someone’s ass down at somebody’s state office somewhere here in the city. Oh, wait. Damn! I have no money on my metro card. Well, when I get my next check I’ll be down there!
In the meantime I’ve been looking for cash only gigs to help me illegally supplement my unemployment benefits while I look for a job and finish draft two of my novel. After an in-depth perusal on craigslist I realize that my business degree and corporate experience, global or not, has really left me at a disadvantage.
Here are some of my options:
Gold digger
I have such ethical issues with this “profession” that I can’t bring myself to do it. I would feel too guilty. Plus, you usually have to go through a trailer load of guys before you snag some live ones. Um, I’m not interested in spreading my goods around NYC like mustard for a cheeseburger.
Escort
There’s less lying going on here, which is a plus. I give you the vajay-jay, you pay me money. But I can’t picture myself pulling the paycheck horizontally with some funky guy with hot breath spraying spit into my face. Eww.
Masseuse (unlicensed)
In other words I rub your package and a little more and you give me money. No.
Sauté line cook
I like to cook. At home. I imagine myself in a small, dingy hot ass kitchen at a counter working twelve hours shifts for like six bucks an hour.
Retail
You need a Ph.D the competition is so fierce these days to be a salesgirl. Plus I’d have to work fulltime to pull in what unemployment is paying me weekly. And few retail stores hand out full-time positions cause then they’d have to offer real benefits.
Home health aid
Not so bad BUT I’m not bathing, showering or wiping the ass of no one! And I’m not cleaning your house. It’s home aid, not maid mutha effers! This isn’t going to work I have way too much attitude going on here.
Boxers
Uhh, real boxing? I can fake box. I’m as delicate as a butterfly and as sweet as the honey in a beehive.
Handyman
I can bake cookies for the handyman!
I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to just buckle down and finish the rewrites of my novel and pray to the good heavens that it’s as good as I think it is and everyone else says it is. Cause unless I can find a marketing, communications, project manager or writing gig, I’m up shits creek.
 Remember the days of imaginary friends? In my early years I freely talked to myself and at times freaked my mother out to think there was someone else in our house, only to find me in deep conversation with no one but me. An only child until five years old it was a great way to keep myself company.
Fast forward a couple of decades and talking to an imaginary person out loud is not so cute. Sure we mumble things aloud at times as our minds race continuously without pause, but the full blown imaginary friend conversation days are over. So, if that’s the case and imaginary conversations are no longer acceptable in adult society why are there so many people accusing each other of imaginary shit.
Instead of the label “imaginary thinking” we call it making assumptions. And don’t get an assumption confused with intuition. They’re two completely different things. You know what I mean, the “I assume I know what you’re doing when you’re not with me and I’m sure it’s no good” based on my imaginary thinking of worse case scenarios. Or the “I know you inside and out” because of the imaginary person I have created in my mind that looks just like you. Whether it be a parent, lover, friend or boss I swear the shit is out of control.
The make-believe in people’s head should be enough to send them to the loony bin considering that dealing with them can actually send you first. Of course we would need to find some way to assess it because not enough people are in therapy. I suggest we implement a brain scan over every toilet in the world and the data would instantly upload to a master computer. If you get a purple envelope in the mail you know what the deal is. It’s off to the loony bin bitches!
But until we can get that system enacted here’s a helpful piece of advice, most of the shit in our heads is just that, shit. Sane people know how to step back and put things in perspective. Crazy people let their thoughts run wild and influence their actions. In extreme situations those imaginary thoughts send people to physical violence, cheating, stealing, verbal and emotional abuse or just plain old hurt to others and the planet.
The next time you’re dealing with someone who can’t get a grip on their imaginary world, check out. Until they wake up they’ll only cause you a headache and in some cases more.
 You’re standing on the edge of a cliff. The sun is quickly setting off in the horizon and night will be upon you before you know it. If you don’t jump now you won’t have the benefit of daylight and instead you’ll be jumping off into a black abyss. It’s now or never.
You’ve made this jump before, countless times. Yet, each time you stand there as anxiety and fear grips at your chest and clogs your throat. Your stomach churns into a knot and you’re frozen with fright as self-sabotaging thoughts race through your mind. What if you don’t jump far enough only to land on top the jagged rocks below? What if you jump too far and miss the soft waters of the lake all together?
The what if scenarios can leave you there till nightfall and then what are you going to do? Sleep there till morning dawns just to stand there another day gripped with the same fear only now it’s had all night to build and solidify itself.
Take the rocky cliff and lake and substitute it for any obstacle you’re facing right now. At present moment the cliff represents for me a necessary move from my current living situation. How many times have I moved in this lifetime? The answer is too many times to count. So why does the idea scare the hell out of me? The fear of ending up in a worse living situation. But then the question of the day is, “why would I move somewhere worse?”
 Living in New York City can be hectic. Cars, people, kids, horns, the never-ending stream of construction projects, ice-cream trucks, fireman, police cars, delivery guys, irritable New Yorkers, the metro, the list can go on for days (feel free to insert your own list here). The busy chaos only increases with the lure of warm weather and sunshine.
So when a friend suggested I embark on a six-day silent meditation retreat with her I immediately said yes and then worried about the reality of the ordeal later. The main question on my mind was, “what will I do all day?” It’s not just a silent retreat but a meditation retreat. Will I sit crossed-legged like the Buddha meditating ALL DAY?
After I signed up I stopped worrying and decided that I would play it by ear (pun intended). With bags packed and survival first aid kit secure I hopped on the free bus from NYC to Barre, Massachusetts with a diverse group of young and older folks for the POC New York Insight Mediation Retreat. Brown, tan and olive skin tones of all hues and backgrounds littered the packed bus.
Barre, Massachusetts is a scenic small town with preserved forest land, farmland, wildlife and serene lakes. On several long walks I bumped in cows grazing, beautiful deer along the banks of the road, chipmunks eating sunflower seeds (that other yogis left him) at my feet, horses, dragonflies and more. The birds sang as my heart and mind relaxed.
But as one of our teachers stated during a Dharma talk (the Buddha’s teachings), “these retreats are not for sissies!” The day began at 5:15am with our first meditative sit at 5:45am. The mediation hall is a beautiful space with rows amongst rows of mats for the yogi’s who can brave the floor (of which I was determined) and chairs for those who needed a rest or prefer the chair. Breakfast is served at 6:30am and the day goes on from there with a combination of sitting meditation, walking meditation, a scrumptious lunch, an hour work period and talks by four outstanding teachers who donated their time and energy for the benefit of the participating yogis. The last sitting meditation ended at 9:30pm.
The only goal I had for this retreat was to come away glowing and looking relaxed like my friends who have done these retreats in the prior years. What I did not expect was the flood of emotions and burdens of suffering that I’ve been dragging around with me to come flooding to the forefront demanding to be dealt with and released. The retreat proved to be the kick start I needed for a true healing process to begin. As another yogi mentioned on our last day of the retreat, I feel as if my Buddhist practice of the last seven years is now just beginning all over again.
I am now home feeling fresher than ever, with my “Buddha Glow” as we’ve nicknamed it, ready to move on from burdens that have been weighing me down over the years. My handy-girl box is equipped with more tools than ever to help me live a more balanced life and to manage the never-ending obstacles that are a natural part of this existence.
With eyes opened wide, as wide as they be I’ll take each day as it may, in this life where nothing is permanent other than the simple fact that nothing remains the same regardless of how we’d like to will it.
 I’m not interested in finding a husband, having a couple of whiny kids fighting in the background, waking at the crack of dawn to get the husband and kids out the door for work and school along with myself to then come home cook, clean and deal with the husband and whiny kids again before falling exhausted into bed each night. Then step and repeat day after day until the kids leave the nest, the husband leaves me for a younger woman or I die. Maybe I’m being too hard on the institution of marriage. Perhaps, I’m not seeing its beauty.
Marry money you say? Sure I could marry a wealthy fella so I can have a nanny, stay at home and hang out with the other mommies whose husbands bring home the bacon. But even that set-up is not the answer for the bored housewife and the condescending controlling husband who’s banging his secretary while feeling completely trapped by the nincompoop he’s married to, but if he divorces her now she’ll take him for all he’s got.
Maybe if I weren’t the oldest in my family of six kids and two divorces I would have a brighter outlook on the above ideals of so many but in a very organic way I’ve already been there, done that and let me tell you it’s whack. Yet many singles out there don’t discover this fact until they’re knee deep in the shit. And we haven’t even touched on the sexless marriages, lack of communication, money arguments – he’s too cheap, she spends too much, lack of laughter and enjoyment of each others company, etc, etc…
Life is but a series of experiences. Good, bad, fun, smelly, painful and then we die. Everything we start will come to an end. Happiness will at some point turn to sadness. The shit people spend their money on will deteriorate; get holey, moldy and at some point hold no value at all because nothing lasts forever, the yin and the yang. So, why go barreling into something that most people find absolutely miserable? What’s the current divorce rate in America? Depends on who you’re talking to but the general consensus seems to be anywhere between 40-60 percent.
With the sexual explosion in the sixties folks tried living in communal houses, an alternative attempt at to the status quo model, but fucking a house full of people obviously was not the answer. Fast forward fifty years, I know both straight and gay couples who practice open relationships but I honestly don’t think they’re worth the effort. Open relationships take up more time than raising six kids and working two jobs. I could always stick with superfluous relationships with multiple lovers, never getting attached, never getting too involved but the problem with that is we live in a time when sex can kill. I can only dream of the days when things weren’t so severe. Also, once I get old and wrinkly I think I’d like to have someone to hang out with and chat.
Forty years ago I would have been considered a spinster. Today I’m an independent woman. Although the latter is more socially acceptable both suck right along with their alternatives. I guess if I become bored enough perhaps nature will over power me I’ll get hitched and take one of the models above, or just fuck it all and pay for my own nanny. That’s unless I can find and alternative to the alternatives.
I woke up today with a pounding headache. My body aches and I feel as if I might be coming down with a fever. At first I figured it must be super early in the morning, like seven o’clock, for me to be feeling this way. When I looked at my mobile phone’s digital clock (the only clock I own) the actual time was twelve thirty in the afternoon. Frick! I’ll never make it to my writing group on time. It starts at two o’clock and it takes me an hour to get anywhere on the east side of Manhattan below the 80′s, although I live on the east side myself. Go figure.
I raise my head and pain tears through my brow and I’m dizzy. I lie back down. What the hell, I think to myself. My mind returns to the night before. What did I do? I clearly remember not drinking anything but water. It’s true I went to bed at four in the morning but its noon, eight hours is eight hours, right?
 Perhaps it was that snotty nosed kid that kept sneezing and spraying his germs in front of me at the Guggenheim. It could also be the tap water I drank at the bar I went to afterwards. I don’t like their drinks so I decide not to waste my time or money drinking them. It could be karma coming to bite me in the ass for the late night of naughty chatting online with an old lover or mine, or a combination of my entire night.
Today my horoscope read: An unexpected obstacle stands in your path. You might try to plow through it at first, but that is a no-go, so the more quickly you can turn your attention to alternatives, the better off you’ll be.
I’ll take that as the Wednesday gospel. Leaving my house this afternoon is not happening as I opted out of meeting with my writing group today. I’m home drinking tea and sneezing all over the damn place as I sit and get some writing down, angst about how slow the editing process is going with my novel and contemplate keeping my appointment for a (free) full bikini wax later tonight at Shobha.
Just writing this last paragraph hurt my head. Think I need a nap.
June actually brought warm weather this year and this summer I have it all. No stressful office politics to contend with or suicidal thoughts due to my workload. Instead I have air conditionings during the hot days, views of Central Park, late mornings of sleeping in and free time to do as I please. Just yesterday I spent an hour mapping out things to do this summer in the city for free, oh lucky moi.
Shakespeare in the Park, Museum Mile festival, Summer Stage, free readings, the Harlem Book Fair, the African Arts Festival, Pride, museums and cheap eats with all those restaurant.com gift certificates I cash in with unused frequent flier miles that I’ll never use with United. The list is endless.
Then it dawned on me, with so much to do when will I have time to do it all and finish editing my novel? Sure I have at least sixty years ahead me, two lifetimes really, but I mentally cannot plan my life out further than three months at a time. Everyday I think about editing, rewrites and the such but then I do the dishes, run an errand, do “research” (I’m planning on adopting a deployed soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan) on the web, go work out in Central Park, then I’m hungry, perhaps I should clean the house, what can I donate to the needy, I just remembered I need to buy renters insurance, oops the phone is ringing, etc… You get the picture. By the time all is said and done its ten o’clock in the evening and now I want to watch a movie.
I’ve lost my A-game and I’m drowning!
The problem for me is that I find the editing process more taxing than the actually writing. Normally, after a session of writing I feel calm and rejuvenated but after several hours of reworking a chapter I’m exhausted. Four to five hours of drilling through a piece is painful. My back and ass hurts from sitting without moving. I haven’t eaten or drank very much because I don’t want any distractions. I loose days at a time without leaving the house, in other words I feel and look like shit. The only good thing about it is I feel accomplished at having ripped through the mess of a chapter and getting it tight. And yes I know all my hard work will produce the results I want in the end but I can’t think that far or I’ll lose half a day in daydreaming.
Perhaps what I’ve got is a classic case of procrastination because once I get my flow back I won’t be going to any free concerts or trekking to Brooklyn to flirt with cute guys. Instead I will be too entrenched in pages upon pages of my manuscript to leave the house. The only thing I can hope for is that my neurosis is so bad I finish my edits before the end of the summer. That way I can do one or two things before the sun leaves this part of the hemisphere and winter moves in.
 During a recent discussion with a friend of mine we both realized we’re more alike than previously thought. See, she’s always in a relationship. I’m not. I always thought I had a fear of commitment but have recently come to terms that that’s not my problem. I commit to lots of things. I have long-time friends. I pay my rent. I easily see projects through to the end. In reality I’m a pretty committed person.
Turns out we both she and I have a fear of intimacy. Yet, according to societies standards we girls supposedly have been dreaming of marriage and children since we were three. At three, I was deciding what I wanted to be when I grew up and had decided I wanted to be a doctor, a lawyer, a ballet dancer, an ice skater and the president. The problem I faced at the time was how I would do them all. Never did I see a future husband. I never dreamed of a big wedding and I never dreamt of having kids.
I wanted to be independent and have money. So that when the last slice of bread and peanut butter was gone, I’d have something to eat instead of arguing with my husband who spent all his money partying with his friends and doing coke.
Needless to say, I have not trusted intimacy since the age of three. The vulnerability of emotions that comes from opening up to someone else and allowing them to see you is overwhelming to me. I’m sure I’ll get hurt and be left alone in the end. If I’m seeing someone and my walls begin to shift I start having visions of marriage, being together forever and children. Although I’ve tried to see that scenario as a positive it scares the hell out me. I begin to feel as the air around me is evaporating.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m a pretty smart cookie. I respect others. Got positive energy. I’m nurturing and listen well. I love to cook and make things. I’m not a bad catch. But when the scent of intimacy comes a knocking at my door one of the following scenarios ensues:
- I completely steer clear of it as if it were the plague (abstinence anyone?).
- Create a non-sexual intimate relationship with the person. That way I can control my emotions and there’s still the “one day we’ll be together when I’m ready” safety net.
- Date unavailable people who come with a blatant expiration date.
- Sabotage the shit.
My friend is the opposite of me in her approach. She takes the first leap and enters the relationship but once the honey-moon phase is over she doesn’t know what to do. Or how to do keep things going and eventually falls out of like with the person and breaks up with them; leaving a long line of broken hearts behind her.
Where’s the manual?
Judge not thy neighbor. Although I have to say everyone seems addicted to judging and critiquing anyone they can muster a breath about: strangers, co-workers, lovers, friends, family, the president, people in big cities, middle-America, Europeans, Muslims. It’s an epidemic.
You cannot put people in boxes. It’s impossible. We’re constantly changing, evolving, discovering new things about ourselves and hiding portions of ourselves from the outside world. If someone’s behavior does not flow well with me I go my own way. No need to ostracize or put them down, I’ve got better things to do.
Yet, with all this free love I give out I realize I’m still quite judgmental, but of myself. The bar is high but that high standard has come at a steep price.
I’m a closet self-criticizer. I would never put myself down in front of others (oh God no) but when I’m alone or in my head, it’s on. I slept too late. My hair is not right today. I don’t look good in my favorite outfit today. My nose looks bigger today. I’m not writing enough, how will I ever be successful? What if the dinner I’m cooking doesn’t turn out delicious? Am I being a good friend? Maybe I’m not being fair enough, understanding enough, generous enough. I should have gone back to West Africa with my job instead of returning to New York. If I hadn’t come back to New York I probably wouldn’t have working drafts of two completed novels. I can’t even make my mind up about what to be critical about.
So I conducted an experiment. For one week I would not judge myself. If I wanted to lie in bed until noon, fine. If I didn’t write that day it was okay. I would not hate my hair, my face, my body. I accepted that there are some people who are not good friends and I don’t need to feel guilty about not wanting to hang out with them. Do I feel guilty for hiding my money from a pick-pocket? No!
Well, I cut the self-critiquing down a bit but old habits die hard. Just yesterday I frowned at my reflection in the mirror because I felt my face looked fatter than the day before. Yet, the scale had just said I was two pounds lighter.
Every morning I will repeat “today I will not judge me because I love me just as I am.” If I forget to say my mantra, I will forgive myself and say it when I do remember it. Let’s see what happens.
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