jaded, the healthy alternative?

I think I'm starting to understand what it is like to be in Los Angeles, and now I am more conscious of the things that I was afraid of in the first place. I was afraid to come to LA because I thought people would be superficial and fake, and arriving here, I've been very pleased to find a community of old friends, and meet some wonderful new friends who have helped me reaffirm my faith in humanity, artists, and people who just have a certain understanding about the ways of the world, systems, human behavior and relationships with people.

However I've also begun to understand how being here could make me jaded, and the strangest thing about it, is that I'm not sure if it is unhealthy or a "necessary" reality check. The ting that has made me realize it most is my relationships with people, and the hardest part about this past week is that I feel like all I hear is a big I told you so from my ex echoing in my head, and the thing is that he never even meant it like that.

I am used to living in a reality which I am beginning to realize, though I've neared this realization before and pushed it off as pessimism, that my reality, my rules, my way of viewing the world around me, and perhaps most importantly my expectations of people and what relationships mean and work, isn't the norm. My ex hurt me bad once, he said something to the effect of, "You need to stop thinking that everyone you are invested in is as invested in you, because they aren't." And that hurt. That hurt because I've tried so hard to find a community despite the fact that I've never lived anywhere for more than four years and have trouble being truly vulnerable with people because I don't necessarily see them as permanent. I value my relationships with people, but I've more recently in the past few years been realizing what it means to not only invest in people you see on the daily, but make real efforts to reconnect with others, stay present even when not physically present. And it isn't easy, and I can't say I'm good at it.

But being out here is different. The kind or behavior that I grew up considering to be respectful, intuitive, second-nature, all of these things that I took for granted, rules like "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" are not necessarily rule for everyone. Or perhaps that isn't even it entirely, because its a combination of being willing and able to be available to people, to have an "its just nice to be nice" outlook on life, but then it also has to do with being able to recognize what people want and need.

At times it might be just recognizing if someone is lonely, if someone is bad at asking for help but needs it, if someone is just having a tough time and might need a hug...because I do very truly believe in the power of human touch.

It's strange because just last week I had a conversation with a wonderful friend of mine who was saying that there was something very wonderful in the way that I am not jaded. But this week I wonder if its just something that should be chalked up to naivete. I don't know if my naivete is something I want to hold on to or not. I want to hold on to it, I want to be someone who gives you the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. But I'm realizing that this is often a lifestyle that leads to hurt, pain, disappointment, complications, or just straight up awkwardness and miscommunication.

I don't want to be jaded, I kind of want to be naive, if being naive is just being equated with being nice, and happy, and carefree and optimistic, and trying to do the right thing. I have always thought a lot of this outlook on life comes from my faith in God, my confidence, because I do not feel alone, because I have a relationship with God that makes me just want to do the right thing, help people when I can, try to make people smile. But now thinking about it, I see the turn the other cheek thing more clearly, and the fact that the answer to how many times to turn the other cheek is seventy times seven means a lot of pain. So does being Christian in that way, among a community of people in the world who do not believe the same way or react the same way mean a lot of constant pain. I would say yes, but then if I go back to Eckhardt Tolle I see that the pain comes mainly from the disappointment, from the realization that things are not reciprocal, that everyone doesn't see the world the same way you do. And if that is the case than the key is just to be nice, do things for other, try to meet others where they are, always go out on a limb for people, always try to come through in the clutch, try to be the reliable one, the ride or die chick, and not expect anything in return. And that, that is a hard road to walk. And one that, unless you are extremely involved in a Christian Community (which I don't necessarily know if I want to be, because for some reason I always feel like I'm not doing enough, don't care enough, perhaps am not naive enough, because I don't want to give everything that I feel like these communities are constantly asking of me) where you are not seemingly the only one attempting to walk that path, is a hard and lonely road.

So right now its almost as if I am considering becoming jaded, considering putting on a tough shell, just to not be constantly upset or feel so easily hurt by things that probably shouldn't hurt me.

singledom

i've been single for a year and 2 months.

april 10th 2009-june 8th 2010

this is the longest i've been single since i was 15.

i was celibate for 6 1/2 months, longest i'd been since i was 15.

these numbers and statistics might not impress you.

but they are for me and not you anyway.

but for those that know me...they are interesting and shocking statistics.

and so now i am reporting back to the world and myself what i have learned.

in re-reading my old notes, poems, writing, whatever i should call those relics of high school...all 64 pages of teenage angst that i've been recently retyping, i'm not sure i've learned much.

every new revelation i could have had in the past year plus seems to be a conclusion i came to 4, 5, years ago. but maybe this time i will listen to myself.

i broke up with musiq because of all the pressure i felt in the relationship. but i realize now i think it was pressure i put on myself. i wanted to be a good girlfriend, i wanted my logic to make the most sense. i wanted to be able to have my cake and eat it too, while feeling completely supported in the relationship. he explained to me what he could give, what he could handle, and what he couldn't. arguably he was what katt williams calls a 98% good man, but rather than have a 98% good man i decided i'd rather be alone.

but our life philosophies were so different. I couldn't be with someone who feels that all of your good friends in life you already know, who didn't leave the door open to meet more people, who feels there is one way to do things, who didn't embrace spontaneity of seek to challenge me spiritually. i needed someone who could push me and pull me, not just stabilize me. he was good at stabilizing me, which is most certainly a challenge in itself, but i don't think i was really challenged.

i'd also say his dad was right, that we were too young. that i was too young. when i first arrived in college, and we were both doing our own thing, the relationship with him was the only thing that really slowed me down, but i don't think the allure of the game was completely gone. it crept in sometimes, much to his alarm, an alarm which led to my frustration...how could he not let go and trust me.

i trust you until you give me a reason not to.

he doesn't trust you until you prove your trustworthiness.

so we were at odds.

but also i was in college, we both were. we were supposed to be growing and forming, undergoing changes and becoming more of ourselves. but we were only becoming ourselves in the context of each other, and this was the issue. i didn't know who i was without him. i didn't go through a daily routine without him. i wasn't sure if i was listening to the music i listened to, eating the food i ate, choosing the television shows i watched, deciding what to wear when because it was what i wanted, or because it was what i thought we wanted. it had become an issue for me. maybe it wasn't for him? i don't know. i don't know that I "tried to make it work"

"But if you believe you'll do best without me

I'll let it go girl it's over but before we say goodbye let's give it a try

If you leave then baby I'll leave
I'll let it go girl it's over but i have no doubt we can work it out"

musiq soulchild & mary j. blige

but until recently I was never of the mindset that a relationship took work. I thought a relationship was just when you and someone who you were drawn to became very good friends and then naturally more. i am a believer in 97% platonic relationships with a 3% crush that can be very easily contained and ignored. but the idea of having to "work" on a friendship or relationship is something new, something i experienced in college, something i am now putting into practice. sometimes i think to myself that if i had wanted to make it work, had tried, then musiq and i would be fine and be together. but in the end i think this period of singledom has been so important for me that I don't regret the loss of the relationship with musiq, even if i could have made it work.

its unfortunate that he resents me.

thats a dispassionate way of admitting that i miss him terribly and wish we were still at least friends, he means so much to me, has been one of the most stabilizing and important figures in my life in the 3 years leading up to this last one. then he transformed into a source of pain and discomfort that i tried to relegate to my inner world...perhaps i was successful. but it is unfortunate nonetheless.

what have i learned? perhaps i don't have to be 100% whole to be in a relationship with another person. perhaps it is okay to feel somewhat broken, and share this with someone else. but this person needs to allow you time and energy to feel broken (though not dwell in it) but to feel broken and be in a state of self-improvement, without feeling somehow responsible. i should have listened when musiq asked me how i knew that it was the relationship causing me the most grief over the past months. i didnt know, it probably wasn't. i'm just not good at asking for help, not the best at allowing myself to feel dependent on someone else, and so rather than delve more fully into him and us with my issues i think i chose to pull back into myself, to deal with it myself, to try to understand myself.

was this the right decision? i dont know. i don't necessarily think it should have been the most surprising one. it isn't the first time i've failed to open up and share and instead pulled into myself when i feel the most alone. sometimes its too easy for me to feel its me against the world. me and god. and no one else can really help, so why bother allowing them to try.

this is why the word community has become so important to me this year. it is a novel concept. on i love and hadn't allowed myself to become familiar with previously. imagine, relying on a network of other people (also imperfect, but striving for wholeness) who you trust. this concept of community has never been me, i've always been secretly afraid to rely on anyone, i wasn't sure what this reliance asked for in return, required of me, i was selfish.

you can't be selfish in a community. but you can protect yourself, you need to. i'm still nervous and scared, i want to be in a community but i don't want to be taken advantage of, or find myself in a situation where i am willing to give to others who aren't willing to give to me.

life, love, & process

uh oh. its been a little while. tumblr made me neglect my little ziggy here.

i want to talk about some things, so i can remember them, process them better, be honest with myself about them, if not understand them, at least store them in this archive. its important to me to be my own archivist. i'll even make them labels! accountability, clarity, god, community, love, ecv, art, death, vision, purpose, lent.

I guess another part of this year's resolution is starting now, in the season of lent, which I've never celebrated before. because i never understood it, had never been exposed to it. what the point of giving up sweets for 40 days? is it supposed to bring you closer to God? I never got it. I don't see the point of it, it's like going on a break from a relationship...pointless. Be together or don't be (not that I've never done it)

ECV: Elm City Vine Yard is the coolest little church I just found. I'm loving it, I was introduced to it by one of my friends whom (in the style of the great JPW) I'll name Overflows. So Overflows introduced me to ECV and now I love it, so based on information I've gotten from them, which I'm about to look over now. I'm going to try to understand Lent.

Starting to go to ECV as well as my interactions with Overflowing and seeing the way that God works in her life, her communities, and her interactions with other people has been both alarming and inspiring. How does someone manage to be so overflowing with love for others? What about taking care of yourself?

A few weeks before Valentine's Day I began thinking about the concept of radical love, it was suggested, imagine if we could radically love each other in this community, what that would look like, what that would feel like. I had to think about it. am I ready to radically love right now? I wanted to say yes, but I wasn't completely sure. If radical love consists of picking up everytime you call because I know you think you need me, staying up til 4 in the morning to be there for ou or just to spend time with you because i love you though I know my body doesn't function well on little sleep nor can I practice as well as I should when my body is this tired then that kind of love doesn't work for me. Is it radical if it's self deprecating?

I was inspired though on Valentine’s day, to write some little notes to some of the people I love but don’t tell as much. This year, a new group of friends I’ve entered has helped create a space in which the idea of radical love flows widely and openly, thanks to Overflowing of course. It is what I see that can happen in this community that I want to share with my friends outside of it. So I sat down and wrote to them about how much I love them, how I want to be there for them, want them to know that I’m investing my life in theirs, which is a very new phenomenon for me, one I’m not good at, but one that I want to try, need to try.

The whole investment thing has to do with investing in a community in people, and is tied up in the radical love concept. My parents see their best friends maybe twice a year, out of convenience more so then out of a need to see them, to be there for them, to know what is happening in their life, if they’ve cried recently, if their kids have won an award. If someone passed, if something they saw on the street inspired them. My parents don’t know these things about some of the people who mean the most to them unless someone breaks out of their normal cycle of things and makes a phone call. Listening to one of the leaders of ECV talk about a life lived investing in people and creating a loving community made me want to do exactly that. I want my friends to know that I want them to be my bridesmaids, godparents, aunties & uncles for my kids, vacation partners, and babysitters, lol, and I want to be the same for them. I want to be a shoulder for them to lean on, an ear they can vent to, someone to pray with, someone that picking up a phone to call is not awkward or nerve-wracking, regardless of the circumstances of the call. That’s the kind of stuff I told a few of my friends on Vday.

As for accountability, I think theirs is something great to be said about calling people out not only when they are doing dumb shit, but also when they are not doing all that they could be, when they are blocking themselves from reaching their full potential.

That’s all I have time for right now. Sadly.