revelation, couple years in the making, feeling less hardheaded now

1. i assume and i run.

2. every time.

3. is it possible that i'm right about what i see in you? is it possible i can touch a part of you that hasn't been touched yet? is it possible? does this matter? will it change?

4. oh, to be beautiful and alone. shit fucks with you. excuse my expletives.

5. i'm always wanting someone to reach for me, while not doing much reaching.

6. i wonder how much i've ever wanted, more than wanting to be wanted. that's not quite love.

7. i think that's why i've never quite fallen for anyone, for anything.

8. who's not terrified of giving and wanting everything and being left with nothing? ... i'm thinkin, now that i know that's what i've been doing... i'm not terrified. i'm not scared anymore.

9. or rather, i'm finally ready to be courageous.

10. i've been courageous in other stages. usually, the only time i allow myself to do something (and it almost
always turn out great... either way, i'm believing it's been necessary) is when i don't know what the hell i'm getting myself into. i'm always nervous/anxious before starting things; i've got a million ways it's gonna turn out in my head, and all that ever matters is that thing i can't see. what am i gonna do with what i can't see?

11. i think i'm always being taught that i have everything i need to come back from things.

12. RISK.

13. it'll be okay. it'll be fine. it'll be GREAT.

14. i just don't wanna be frozen. i want to be present. whatever is thrown at me that i couldn't see
that's that. and i will respond accordingly.

15. it's a funny thing, listening to your heart. there's this comfort in acting logically, it's a false sense of security to say "this makes sense." Making sense never saved a life. Has it? Well, that's not what is gonna save my life. What's gonna save my life is something that goes past what i could possibly understand from what i've already learned, what i've been inclined to believe. It's gonna be beyond that. 'cause it should be.

16. i don't trust positive signs. i never really have. i'm learning to see them.

17. i've learned about myself recently, that i need someone that's gonna say "Jessica, no, what I'm asking is that I can do _______ for you. Not this other little thing you think I'm offering. I'm offering you much more. Cut it. Stop expecting so little from me. I'm not what you already know. Let me show you something different. Let me open your eyes. Let me love you. Let me appreciate you. Let me in. Let.Me.LetGo."

18. Now that I'm aware I need that, I can look for the moments where I can let go, where I can let people keep speaking, where I can stop trying to run for cover from boldness or nekkedness. I want to stop trying to run for cover. Stop qualifying experiences. If I'm happy, I'm happy. Or more importantly, if I was happy then, I was happy then. Not, "I was happy then but little did I kno later so and so would happen." And?

19. For all my wanting love, I have to remember... I don't get a cookie for loving someone, and not showing it. What grand thing am I doing having the power to do something brave and not doing it? Would I really lose everything if I sustained glance someone? If I let a couple great smart ass comment moments slip by? If I took off the mask of "You can't touch me?" Because that's probably why people don't try to touch me. Because even when I'm more intimate than I ever go I'm still protecting myself. I'm still letting people know, you can't break me. Truth is, no, I won't be broken ... permanently. More importantly, not everyone is trying to break me. But I always try to prepare myself for if they can, if they will.

20. Sometimes I miss people. Sometimes I want to be around them. Sometimes I don't. But truth is, I've just gotten used to not showing much affection because I grew up afraid of rejection of that affection. Or, I figured, for what? What will you do with my heart? What do you know about treating me right that I don't kno? that others don't kno?

21. I want the answers to those last questions. And those answers come from letting people know they matter to me.

22. The world won't end if I let someone know he or she matters to me.
22a. WITHOUT qualifiers. WITHOUT  covers. WITHOUT logic.

23. The way I take in the world may be different from everyone else. The way I experience emotions may be scary or feel like too much sometimes, but I have to let myself be myself and share myself and maybe someone(s) will share themselves with me, authentically and courageously. It's hypocritical to expect someone to give give and prove and reach out without giving them something to hold onto. Without giving them me to hold onto.

24. I'm gonna try this new thing my mom mentioned to me some years ago: start people's tank on full.
Which is to say, either they'll run it down to empty, stay at full ... wait wait. i'm letting go of this metaphor.
It means, I want to try not making everyone prove to me they're worth my heart. Everyone deserves love. Whether love is me finding some change, a dollar whatever to give to someone that touches me on the street or the subway, or love is asking someone to hang out with me or listening to a problem someone has.

25. I don't think love has to be this big untouchable wait forever for thing. Thinking that way is why it hurts so much when I think about never having been in a relationship for 21 (or maybe I'll count it as like 4 because I wasn't really ready to be in nobody's relationship until like 17 or maybe I haven't been ready until now and that's the point of me being alone.... ) years. I'm talking about different kinds of love here. I got into a big argument abt this 2 years ago actually. They're still two different things.

26. I dream of a love that involves *ahem* closer contact than some of the examples I've given but I agree with the person I was in the argument with then now #touche (haha) about loving where present, taking the edge off of the love that's not yet here. I can live with that.

27. I'm learning how to be present. Less anxious. Less scared. Less guarded. I'm really good at those things. How bout I try something different? How bout I challenge myself? How bout it.

28. Mmmmhmmm.

29. i love my life. i LOVE my life. Though there are times I wonder what it would be like if I could touch whatever everyone else seems to get that I ain't gettin I love MY life. It's mine. and I'm gonna do the best with it I can.

30. That's it.

this was a great idea.

the feist clip that is.

this jude law one is just a little ridiculous.

and no, i will not be commenting/posting on the video abt the little black girl lovin her hair. i'm too conflicted abt it. 

i will say this tho, how long has Sesame Street been doing the absolute most?

i had these thoughts today (wee hours to mid afternoon)

1.  when i'm out of school, i'm gonna read LOTS of books. take that! Rat Race. ... not that i'll be in the Rat Race, really...

2. what if i'm not meant to be with just one person? what if i'm just meant to give where i'm meant to give and be given to by who i'm given to? what would that be like? Open my eyes. Sacred comes where sacred comes. How sacred comes is how sacred comes. I'll learn. I just have to get in it.

3. but WHY is she wilin' tho!?! mad real. *while reading Ellen Kennedy's "Shit Poem" *

fin.

"get up. i kno you're down. when you gone get up? i see you're down. when you gone get up?"

"come on put a little love here in my void."

i'm not paying those fines again .

I roll over to 8:30. To 8:45. To 9:29. T0 9:50. I shoot out of bed. Eyes barely open and all. I’m hot. The velor side of the comforter against my body for something like four hours. I shoot up and onto the floor. I pull my tank top down. Yesterday’s bra on the bed post. I strap the back in the front. I twist around. I pull up. I pull up. I put on my jeans. I put on my plaid flannel shirt. I pick up the two books from the window sill. I toy with the idea of running out with a flat afro. I use the skinny end of my rat tail comb and pick my hair out a bit. I’m out in less than a minute. 9:51. The elevator is making “I’m close” sounds so I run. I get to the elevator, on the 16; I make it just as it wants to be on the 14^th, so much so it didn’t even light. It lit with the speed of light than unlit and I didn’t catch the light. 9:52. 9:53? Out and walking. I think about all those people I’ve seen run, this is totally acceptable. I start to run again. I think “Well I don’t even run and I wanted to this year.” I run, in flip flops, until there are more people on the other end of this corner. Many of them don’t know me as the runner. I think one guy maybe saw how I changed states. I decide, “Hey, he saw this thing now.” 9:54. down those Low Library steps. Fast. I’m talking I hardly remember it happening. But I do remember feeling like my calluses were splitting on the balls of my feet. 9:55. 9:55. That walkway just before Butler. 9:55. Tap the black rectangle. 9:55. Two books 9:56. I’m not paying $2 for books I didn’t even finishing reading last night. There’s this one thing I thought at 9:54, I think. At some point, between the steps and the woman that said “Excuse me,” while we were like 2 feet from each other because she underestimated my speed and our ability not to knock into each other, I think “At some point, this has to mean more than I’m not asleep anymore. It has to mean more than I’m just out of my bed.”  So when I walk out of the reserves room, I make it the length of my body and half before I reach out my right hand for the floor.  I sit on the floor, knees at chest level. Me looking up, towards something insignificant. I think, at some point, this has to mean more  than I made it to the Reserves desk, more than I got an early start and I like early starts than “Hey, I should really start running. That would be cool.” It has to mean that I’m going to meet him. Even without brushing my teeth. It has to mean when I’m typing this story he’s not too far away. It has to mean, that I can type “Hello” to him for lack of date with Colgate at 9:51. I miss him. I miss the last time I wrote the man with no face, no skin, no wrapping me around me this morning. I haven’t felt close to him in so long. But I want to. At some point, I want.

so i can remember what worked last time

so! i am writing a paper due at midnight. it is a 7-8 pg paper. i have been trying to work on it for days. i wasn't productive until i started writing it today about 7:15ish. WILDLY, this is working for me. It ain't nothin but the Lord. but there are a couple other circumstances i wanna record maybe for next time i'm in a rut while i'm feeling pretty functional and hella happy to be so :)

1. Fela Kuti Pandora station, where I find the songs I'm always like "Hol' up, what is this?!" is always Fela and not the related people. I can't wait until I get some time to really sit down and study this music, or at least, rather, the lyrics.

2. I done wrote me all kinds of motivational, positive, "Jessica, cut the shit! (fear and doubt and what-ifs)!" notes. And they workin, y'all.

3. Sometimes it really just takes a couple days for something to look different to you and for you to hear it and it click somewhere else for you to REALLY listen and hear. This is why I need to work on papers/readings days in advance. It wasn't until I read these three poems I'm writing about out loud again to myself with a clear mind and calm 'tude that I heard something I believed was happening in them.

4. So stop pressuring me! Gosh darnit!

5. Also, I have to relearn to trust my own process in getting work done. Whether I dare to believe it or not, I know what I'm doing and I always have. I just have to do it, even when it don't make a lick of sense to me or anyone else, when it seems like it would be SO much better for me to do it the way errbody else do it.

6. I had a doo doo crap day and was NOT looking forward to tonight and the midterm I have to do after I finish this paper, but at least I've stopped toying with the idea I may not be capable of completing these assignments to the best of my ability. That's just a matter of throwing EVERYTHING I GOT at these questions, concerns, arguments etc and completing what I can and turning things in on time.

7. Certain things in my day were good. Like an extension on turning in all the response papers not yet turned in for a seminar I missed the last two weeks in a row before today. Smh. haha. Oh, my life! But I'm gonna do my best to catch up here. And to create the least stress environment for myself this semester.

Oh yes!

8. I'm  not gone pretend I know a whole lot, because I've really just started listening to this music but I shall say that I'm excited :) and... proud to be black! :] (I'm aware that there can be all types of arguments about blackness, African-ness and African-American-ness, but I don't care to go into all that right now)