establishing me-ness

I've never felt this way before, so frazzled, shaken and unsure of myself. It's odd for me, and as I feel it more and more I question as to why. What have I done to lose myself when I thought I was trying so hard to be better connected with myself. So many things point to the obvious, the perhaps truth that I try to push away, ignore, and pretend about. But then all the signs in the aftermath have just told me that I did the right thing for me. Up until now I never questioned it.

But this isn't the time to question it, not really. It's the constant state of being frazzled that makes me wonder why I decided to knock my own feet from under myself. but alas. what's done is done and there's no looking back. can't be. not this time. you only get so many chances to get it right.

so I'm looking forward. staring forward. determined to move forward, even if I don't even know where the hell I'm going. i guess that's why the past is so appealing.

so where did I lose myself? I stopped thinking deeply, stopped being constantly in contact with myself, when everything is going well I think it's easy to do that. when you are honeymooning its easy to stop asking questions. So then you are running without guidelines and begin to loose yourself. Wow.

why does everything just bring me back to a spike lee movie. girl 6. she had specific guidelines when she was acting, that no i wont take my clothes off in an audition, thats not about my acting skills, in her element she set her boundaries.

but outside of her element, as a phone sex operator, she didn't set boundaries, and let it suck her in, let herself go too far. it's easy to slip into fantasy.  you got to have guidelines regardless of the circumstances.

i threw myself into all these new positions of leadership, and cut myself off from the most constant and supporting sources in my life, because I felt it was necessary to progress, to stand on my own feet, or at least to test myself and be assured that this was what I had been doing the whole time. remind myself that I had not fallen into an unassured and dependent self. But in this quest to claim my independence, to remind myself or my strength and ability, here I am lost again, and feeling more lost than before.

but its because there is so much new coming and I'm scared, and nothing is for sure.

am I going to make it.

i guess that's less of the question. it isn't is it going to be alright. It is always alright, because you're living, right.

but is it going to be painless, ideal, wonderful even? not so sure about that.

i've been pushing some people away and drawing some nearer, i've been identifying the people I can't live without, the people who I originally wrote about as those who I think would and could take this journey with me, be in my corner and understand but also enhance the journey. but i don't know if I've had a clear enough mind while I've been doing it.

I can't just ask my dad yes or no anymore it seems.

i was so mad at hombre, for making me think he was waiting for me to grow up, to grow into someone else, to grow into his ideal woman, and i didn't want to give myself up. now I'm not sure if that growth is happening anyway, if it's better and it's needed, or if i'm just so tired and worn that I'm losing myself in another way.

but I'm determined to remember who I am, and to be sure that I establish and re-establish myself, to myself, every day.

-honeychild

Stress & Abstinence

Two things on my mind. Stress & abstinence. Some could argue that it's my vow of "temporary abstinence" that's stressing me out, lol, i lost an outlet. 

Well...not going to argue or agree with that one...

I guess first I'll talk out the abstinence thing. I decided on it about six weeks ago, because I wanted to decide exactly how I felt about sex and sexual activity, thought it was time to take a step back and do some evaluating. I've been doing that, but I've also been so busy that I couldn't really stop and think about it. I think, at least in my experience, it's as easy or difficult to have sex as it is to not have sex. Not sure if that makes sense, but it makes a lot of sense to me. I think the bottom line I've decided upon is that it's time for me personally to be done with casual sex. I think sex is wonderful but I think it is very much dulled when it is not meaningful, when you do not have a connection and attraction to a person outside of simple lust. 

Casual sex is pointless. But is it harmful? At one point I was conceptualizing casual sex similarly to thinking about eating sweets. Eating ice cream is pointless. Eating a mint chocolate chip double scoop ice cream cone does nothing for me, it just makes me feel good. But is it harmful? Well I think casual sex and ice cream differ on a spiritual and emotional level, they both might seem harmless if you have them once in awhile...but with casual sex there is much more to lose. I think you give a lot of yourself when you have sex, a lot of your physical energy, but also when sex is casual there's something at risk. There's the concept of sexual imprinting that says that each sexual experience kind of has a compounded impact on the way one thinks about and experiences sex. But also there's a high risk of abuse. I mean emotional abuse (though physical abuse is definitely also a risk and happens often), with sex one little thing going awry, one odd mutter or request can bring immediate and extreme discomfort. That discomfort could very much stick with you, it's stuck with me.

So the conclusion to the abstinence...no more casual sex. Only meaningful sex, with a partner i know well and trust with myself. 

Onto the stress...

Well I guess im a little nervous, or scared, or just feeling really off my game. 

 Once again I'm in the library, I'm here a lot these days. Alone.

I guess I feel more alone that I've been in awhile. Because I've been in pretty serious relationships since I was 15! And in the few spaces of time when there wasn't a serious relationship there were fillers. Crushes I knew were mutual, random hookups, something.

Now that I'm cutting down on the fillers I feel very much alone.

And then my other ways of relieving stress are becoming equally less accessible. Can't shop because I don't have money. Can't paint, because if I'm painting I need to be filming and I need a memory card because I lost mine and I can't buy one because I'm broke! Exercising does work, but somehow all my other "being down" feeling just disappears during practice and comes right back the minute I leave. So it's more a distraction than a relief.

Anyway, after meeting Terrie Williams and talking to her about her book, Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We're Not Hurting, I'm going to go vent in mental health today. Lol, not because there's anything wrong, just because I'd like to vent my stress to someone who isn't going to internalize it and therefore also be stressed out!

the broke challenge

i spend too much money

and i don't have money

my current job doesn't pay cash, it pays housing

i haven't been this strapped for cash in years

so it's a challenge, and i have to meet it

i shouldn't be so worried about money and spending

but I'm so used to being comfortable and being able to control my cash flow

i just have to recognize that this is in fact a challenge

and take a deep breath

and go from there

touch

I'm sitting here in class and we are speaking about the concept of touch, who can touch, who should touch, and culturally speaking who touches. One of the guys is from India, and we were talking about the concept of a 'bro' and 'bromance'. He was talking about how in India everyone is a bro, and if a guy is just happy he might come up to you (another guy) and hug you and kiss you just because. He spoke about how it is strange how much men in the states do not touch and also how this 'bro' culture goes back to other cultures, less seemingly evolved cultures as the states like to claim themselves to be.

 I like the idea of touch as okay, it was great to hear him talk about touch. "I love to be touched," he said, then went on to speak about his mother's touch, his friend's touch, and then how boring the concept of being touched by no one other than his significant other for the rest of his life would be. 

I think about myself and how I feel about touch, with both guys and girls. I think I'm a very 'touchy' person, but that sounds strange. I'm very affectionate, my dad has always noted the way in which if I would come into a room where he was as a child, to watch tv or anything else, I would constantly be snuggled up under him, as much as I could. I think I'm still like that, but I'm also awkward about touch. I think I often feel the need to be the one to initiate the touch. There are certain people who if I'm around th

em I'm constantly touching them, my closest guy friends it is always this way. I was always awkward around girls until boarding school, then the influx of female touching threw me off, now I've normalized and I think that yes I am now as 'huggy' with my girl friends. But my guy friends it's definitely much more so, and the line between which its platonic is an entirely other question.

I think often it's either very platonic and both parties understand that, the other individual is also a relatively touchy friend, or there is a mutual attraction. I think where I get weird is when I don't want to give the wrong impression and I think the person might not be much of a toucher themselves with most of their friends or they might think it means i like them in a way where I would want to do something about it, and that's not the idea.

Maybe I'll come back to this, I really haven't deeply considered the way in which I touch before.

deep breath

The main thing that needs to be done today is avoid allowing myself to get so down. I don't really know why I'm feeling like this, guess I'm stressed about my apps for school. My first one is due November 1st and I feel as if I haven't really had the time to sit down and make them very good. Then i also have film due constantly it seems and the technology is the only thing really holding me up. I'm trying to take a deep breath today, get some good work done. I just won't be able to really see any of my friends this week outside of practice.

recent fetishism

My newest interactions make me want to blog even though I'm definitely in the middle of an unfinished paper due today. So I'm giving myself an 18 minutes study break to think things out. Couple things going on right now in the realm of love and lust, which is actually not so serious as it sounds except for that love is what makes the world go round, is it not? 

The sounds of Dylan somehow reminded me of a slightly buzzed conversations about fetishism in which I was the perpetrator. What an interesting, absurd, and yet perhaps accurate idea. As a black woman who studies these things I'm always hyper conscious of the way that I'm being viewed and the way in which my public performance effects this view. Hyper conscious and self conscious are two very different things though, in my world I would consider the former to be positive and the latter negative. So... the question remains could I possibly be fetishizing my newest crush, is it possible for me to do so. As one of my freshman would say, Certainly.  

They'll stone you when you're walking on the street
They'll stone you when you're trying to keep your seat
They'll stone you when your walking on the floor
They'll stone you when your walking to the door
But I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned

Certainly.  To fetishize is to make a fetish of something.

fet⋅ish

  [fet-ish, fee-tish]  Show IPA

–noun

1.	an object regarded with awe as being the embodiment or habitation of a potent spirit or as having magical potency.

2.	any object, idea, etc., eliciting unquestioning reverence, respect, or devotion: to make a fetish of high grades.

3.	Psychology. any object or nongenital part of the body that causes a habitual erotic response or fixation.

So...have I been fetishizing my crush, I would say that when you fetishize someone you are intensely interested in them as an idea, and the idea of them gets in the way of how you really see them or who they really are as an individual. So a stereotype for example, might make you that much more interested in someone, but in many ways you are projecting your own ideas on the person. People would likely say that because I'm so intensely interested in west indian culture and rastafarianism then if I meet a rasta with dreads I'll immediately fall in love with the idea of him, even if normally his personality traits etc wouldn't have me crushin head over heels. This is what I think about the idea of fetishizing a person.

So where are white guys concerned? It gets complicated. In a way when my girls and I talk about white guys its always an seen as an unconventional idea, "well you better go find you a white boy." It's always said somewhat comically. I took a lot of shit for dating a white guy in high school, but only so much because I'm also white, Im bi-racial. I think white guys are always super surprised when you are interested in them, for this reason you have to approach them completely differently from the way in which you would approach a black guy. At least that's how its been in my experience, I've had to make things very plain, unless the white guy is particularly forward and comfortable with different cultures etc. himself. Normally a white guy who a black girl is crushing on would need to be extremely open minded anyway, to have avoided buying into a lot of signifying icons and images of black women in popular culture and being therefor jaded by them and thus likely to be similarly prone to fetishizing her.

So the question I'm asking myself is if I'm guilty of recent fetishism. I'm going to let myself off the hook and say no. I'm attracted to people who have solid ideas about the way in which they govern their lifestyle. That is something that I appreciate, why? Because I know for a fact that someone who can stimulate me mentally, which often times means having a more existential conversation, becomes that much more physically attractive to me. We already know I have some ridiculous standards in terms of what I find to be attractive, so adding the physical attributes I look for to someone who is a lover of ideas (and deep thinking about the way in which you choose to live your day to day life) is an immediate plus.

I'd love to go on...but I'm already four minutes over the alotted study break and the editing is calling...

love

I'm not afraid to love you deeply, regardless of reciprocity. and oh yeh, im on my brand new shit and my swag is serious.

this is whats been repeating itself in my head recently.

i think i had my a very important experience recently, where it was okay to have a deep love and the feeling was mutual. and I'm speaking pretty strictly platonic.

 My friend and I (we'll call him X because I'm super creative) reunited after some time, two years maybe. and we were talking about when we met and he was like honestly we had one week where we were inseparable and that was that, there is no logical reason why i like you as much as i do, but I truly care about you. and its important to me that you know how you have become extremely important to me, you are one of a few people in my life that I don't want to let go of. (not word for word)

it was hard to not just let my tears stream down, these are things that people might think and feel but don't say to anyone, except maybe a significant other. who can handle you saying something like this to you. or rather, who is really that important. and what must it take to be able to tell somewhat that. it isnt just confidence, but it is something else too. I think there is definitely some god in it, how else can you know and be comfortable with love in that way. love is something different and often misunderstood i think. 

I think I was reared to love people, but also to know that in the end its just you, or just you and your sister is what my parents always told me.

the point is. i feel so loved, i feel unbreakable, and so blessed to have the people I do in my life. who challenge me.

X challenges me greatly, and two days back together again before parting was has already changed my life. 

I really need to think more about my every action, and not do things out of ego, which I'd definitely fallen into. I think my casual physical interactions have all been out of ego. its this ego that has made me just try things to see if I can, and enjoy the chase, but it wasn't really about an action that can deeply affect me as a person. In my head it seems right and good to go back to that as the goal in these interactions. But I am not even sure that this deep emotional connection is really what I want. It seems like so much less fun...is the just for fun stuff "wrong" or "negative" at least. Who decides? I wish I could pinpoint for myself exactly the affects. for example...I don't want to lose pieces of myself and rack up ghosts in my bed ...if that is what happens with each of these experiences, a very particular type of imprinting, one that is likely hurting me. i'm not sure I buy it though.

If I'm going to be able to make a very specific change in my life, behavior etc. I need to really believe that there is a reason for it, and I'm not sure I do believe that.

The other thing has to do with loneliness. I think with leadership and wisdom there does come loneliness, and im not trying to say i'm super wise or the next mlk, bu I have been blessed with intelligence that I can recognize, and through my relationship with god I think there is a certain amount of discernment I also cannot avoid. I'm wondering how I will deal with this loneliness as I go on with life. sometimes i embrace it, and sometimes I run from it, as fast and far from it as I can.

X has experienced this kind of loneliness, i think it ws something he couldn't quite articulate, but he didnt have to, just looking at his face i felt it, i wonder where I will end up? I love people, and children, I love to make a difference when I can, and I want to live a life to serve humanity, I definitely do, but I also want to be comfortable, and there's usually a disconnect between serving others and serving yourself, its hard to do both. 

I think through film I'll be able to do both, do what I love, but bring attention to serious issues in a digestible way, but success in the film industry is a completely different story all together.

well. x loving me is so important to me. having people in your life that you can relate to and speak to about spiritual things is really important to me.

its hard to keep in touch with people, but i want to do it. i want the people who have touched me deeply to know it. even if only for a minute.