Just Play.

April 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment

I’m about to let you in on a secret. I’m a huge fan of clichés. I don’t generally walk around spewing tired platitudes like “there’s beauty all around us” but there is! I may have a bit of an angry face but in my head, I’m saying stuff like this all the time.

Lately, I haven’t explored this love like usual. In the last year, I’ve transformed from a thinker -the reflective, contemplative type to more of a doer. I rarely keep still. I’ve found the transition to be necessary and appropriate, effortless in fact. The new me is a lot less aloof and indecisive – less annoying even! Last year, deciding if I was gonna order pizza or buffalo wings required the brainpower of preliminary research. Now I just choose the cheapest or whichever is closest. I hope that doesn’t mean I’ve simply become broke and lazy.

Anyways, I digress. I am currently completing a yearlong fellowship. Thus the job search begins again. All of the employees at my job have been hounding me with one question, “so have you figured out what you’re doing next year.” They’re freaking out for me. They can’t imagine being in my position with my whole life turned around in a day (which would be the day I get my last paycheck and have to exit the apartment provided). Yeah, that day may suck, but I’m pretty sure I’ve had worse days.

I’m just not about to let that phase me. Reading the article: Don’t Work. Be Hated. Love Someone. only solidified the fact that my judgment is usually that of a sage.

At this juncture in life what I find most beautiful is precisely that: this juncture in life. I’m in my early 20s, I live in one of the greatest cities in the world, and I have no kids. As far as I’m concerned, life is grand.

I need to play. You should too.

Easier said than done, right?

I know. I’m not so strong. I get weak. I know it that securing a job with a salary is the responsible decision. It would be wise to put a dent in my student loans. Sometimes I wonder how much could be reduced for an insignificant body part or two – like my pinky fingernail or my second toe that doesn’t bend anyway. Those together have to be at least 5Gs. Come on!

However, taking a job that does not excite me would be me buying into some facade of responsibility impressed upon me by societal norms in a culture that probably works too hard and has a crappy economic system to show for it anyway. I would do so out of compulsion rather than desire. What I need to work for is finding something that love rather than something that simply pays the bills.

PLAY.

Cheers to finding courage and discovering your purpose!

Filed Under: Blog, Career + Internships, Featured, Other Side Tagged With: , , , , ,

I Used to Love Him

April 17, 2012 by 2 Comments

The thing about finding the right timing for a partner is that you have to be in the right timing yourself. For me, that means shedding all of the emotions from my tumultuous 2 year relationship with my college boyfriend. It was one of those roller-coaster relationships where everything was either perfectly peachy or horribly wrong.

I remember when we broke up. He told me “I need you, but I don’t want you.” I remember the five sleepless nights where I replayed that scene and that quote in my head over and over again, believing that I was the reason why the supposed love of my life no longer wanted me.

I remember two good friends staying with me during the weekend and staying up all night as we watched re-runs of Sex and the City and ate gummy bears until we almost exploded. In between each episode we deconstructed my relationship. We discussed what I did wrong, what he did wrong, and more importantly, why I stayed during all of the negativity. I never had a rational answer. My friends never understood why I pretended to forgive him when he didn’t come to my college graduation. I never understood why he pretended to forgive me when I held him so close that he found himself stuck between a rock and a hard place.

See, the thing about break ups is that they are nothing like the tabloids. There is no million-dollar payout from some random magazine that wants the secrets to your ex. There is no television show special that you attend in order to dispel the dating rumors between you and your alleged rebound. It is just plain loneliness. There are moments of “I am better off without him,” and moments of “What did I do to influence this?” There is this continued emotion that rocks your body to the core, but at the same time uplifts you from the shackles of the day to day disconnect between you and him. The media portrays heartache as this two day flu that is remedied by some good friends, cheap chocolate, and horrible television. After you finish your prescription drugs from Dr. Cupid, some beautiful man bumps into you at Wal-Mart and the whole process starts all over again. But that is not the real world.

I used to love him. I used to love the way he said “I love you”. I used to love the way he would bring me my favorite soup from the university coffee shop. I used to love the way he would surprise me with my favorite flower after a long week of finals. I used to love our addiction to each other. It takes more than a hug and a pat on the back for the pieces of my emotions to shape back together. I am getting over it, slowly but surely. I am finding my way throughout the world as a one person team, instead a double. But now, I am more in love with the idea of loving myself without him. I am learning more and more that in order to be the best partner for my future partner, I need to love myself first. I need love myself hard. I need to love myself to the core.

With this new found single freedom, I am realizing that it is ok to be happy, confident, sexy, sassy, without being in a relationship. It is perfectly fine to be content with singlehood. And it is perfectly fine to fall in love again with Mr. Right Timing at the right time. Until then, I will continue to find the joy and the love for me inside the multiple deep layers of my own emotions.

We had a phone conversation about a month ago. My last line: “I wanted you and now I no longer need you.”

Filed Under: Blog, Featured, Lifestyle, Other Side, Relationships Tagged With: , ,

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Giving Up When the Statistic Is Not Enuff.

March 22, 2012 by 2 Comments

Let’s face it. That princess fantasy of finding your prince charming in the university library or locking eyes in the middle of a college lecture is not the norm for all of us. It is true that some have found true love matches in this manner, but for me, that was not the case. I spent my high school career trying to find myself through my high school transcript and a plethora of after-school activities. Even though I had the urge to date, I didn’t find anyone that I could connect with on a deeper level or someone who was willing to be questioned by dad and his supposed shotgun that he stored in his imaginary closet known as “overprotective”.

So when it was time to attend college, I only dreamed of a place where there would be intelligent men at my disposal. At the tender age of 18, I decided that I was going to find my future husband at some 4 year institution. Between history papers, math finals, and hanging out with friends, my prince charming and I would fall madly in love and name our future children. Little did I know that the minds of college 20-somethings don’t usually have the capacity to think past “I just need to graduate” and “thank God my parents are not around”.

Fast forward 4 years. I graduated, got the good job, started the perfect new lifestyle with an income of my own disposal and I am single. I went on multiple dates in college, had a couple of long term relationships, but nothing stuck. Some of them were my fault, some of the were his fault. But the point is that I walked across my graduation stage with a dual degree and no promise to a Tiffany sparkler. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a wake-up call for a young professional workaholic like myself. Despite the media’s portrayal of us black college educated females as desperate and forever single, I am not desperate. We are not desperate. As a matter of fact, I am very comfortable being single. Just because the media portrays me as this depressed workaholic who has everything but the man by her side, does not mean that I perform this behavior. Being single is uplifting. It is an amazing experience that lets you find yourself. Being single is freedom. It gives you the freedom to be who you are and to figure out what you want to be become.

But I would be lying if I said that I do not think about the possibility of my Mr. Right frequently. I have a college degree, an awesome first job, a massive collection of contacts on LinkedIn. I have put myself in a position to succeed in the working world. The bills are paid and once in a while me and Nordstrom.com rekindle our relationship via my credit card. But this whole love life thing is something that I haven’t seemed to get a tight grasp. It is windy, it is confusing, and it is full of ups, downs, and circles. I have been on multiple dates since my start of singlehood, most of them ending in very strict good byes. From the students, to the working ones, to the “saving money by living at home”, I have met them all, talked to most, date a handful, and selected a few as friends. And what I have realized is that maybe Mr. Right is does not exist because Mr. Right is the wrong man for me. Ladies, what we are looking for is Mr. Right Timing. You know, the person who has had his ups and his downs. The person who has figured out their goals, their dreams, their flaws, and their strengths.

So this is my new prophecy! To all my single working girls who are looking to find themselves and a Mr. Right Timing: We will not give up.Our partners are out there, somewhere. Just because he didn’t pop the question before we moved to this new chapter of our lives does not mean that we won’t find someone for a moment or for a lifetime. But before we are ready to be united with this “perfect partner” we need to take the time to look at ourselves.

Call in the big guns, call in the militia because this is about to be a wild ride full of fun, confusion, fabulousity, and just overall entertainment. To All my Single Gals: Stay Tuned for the truth- Balancing the career dreams and the dating dreams with style, grace, and a couple of good laughs.

Filed Under: Blog, Featured, Other Side, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , ,