Deep in Thought

As you may have noticed, I haven't posted since Whitney Houston's passing. I had to take a hiatus and get some things right in my mind. Aside from occasionally posting on FB, I've been ghost for the past few months. Obviously I didn't know her personally, but I was a huge fan of her music and her passing really effected me in a huge way. I began analyzing--in a way that I hadn't before--what I really wanted, where I really wanted to go, and what I was willing to do to get there. It's one thing to know what you want and what you need to do to get it; it's a whole other thing to REALIZE what that thing is and what it will cost you to do it. I had to really ask myself what I was doing, AND WHY. Also, what was I NOT doing...and i had to really analyze why not.

I know some folks think I'm too analytical, and sometimes, they're right. I make no apologies for that. I'm a deep thinker, and I think it's one of the things I love most about me. I'm not really a surface dweller, I can't stand shallow relationships, and I don't really play well with folks who only want to talk about the weather. I like to really dissect things, both physically and mentally. I have a deep burning desire to know the 'whys' and 'hows' of life; thankfully, as I grow and mature, I'm learnning to ask the right questions vs just a lot of dumb ass questions. LOL! AND, more importantly for me, I'm more able to accept the idiosyncrasies of my personality and embrace them as part of what makes me multidimensional. I still have more questions than answers, but honestly, the death of a person whose genius I admired so much really forced me to sit down and find more answers in myself.

Today is Thursday, May 3, 2012. It's been almost 3 months, and I still think about it almost every day. I would hate to choose a path for my life that leads to destruction, or abuse, or an untimely death. She had talent, she had money, she had family, she had love...but it was not enough.

Well, WTF else is there? How do I avoid the same fate? Where did she go wrong, and where can I make a different choice? Here I was, thinking all I needed to do to be successful in life was to make it big: be talented, network and make connections, get my money right, and have good family around me. These were the things I'd set out to do, thinking shit would be all good after that. Naive? Perhaps. But I had come up with a whole plan to do just that, had rearranged my entire life around those few goals...and BAM. Someone who already had all those things went and offed herself with a combination of drugs and drowning in bath water.

All these questions--and tons more--ran through my head for weeks, months. Whitney had demons just like any of us. ANY OF US could be her. I am talented and, after so many years of feeling depressed and powerless, I FINALLY have enough confidence and self esteem to embrace the things I'm gifted at. I have the love and support of my family and good friends. (In fact, my mom just walked in the room and announced "if you hear a strange gurgling noise coming from the bathroom, its me. I'm on a colon cleanse this week." o_O [Thanks Mom. That's just great.] Any of you who know of my relationship with my mother understand why, despite it's vulgarity and general ratchetness, that comment represents a closeness we now enjoy that we never used to have.) Ive finally learned to sit and listen, to be patient, to release the need to control every single situation that comes my way. I'm finally seeing a therapist that I absolutely love (and can afford) and am taking baby steps to reclaiming power in areas of my life I previously thought would be lost to me forever.

But is it enough?

I've finally outgrown that icky phase of self-consciousness where I look around and it seems like everybody around me is getting it right except me. I now know that they prefer concealing their struggles whereas I tend to wear mine on my sleeve. All this work I'm doing to live a more authentic and meaningful life, is it really gonna pay off for me? Or will I eventually fall victim to my demons as so many others have? It may sound irrational, but for me, it's really scary. I really want to do big, grand things with my life (even though I'm old now) and that may one day include fame. Will I be overtaken by the fame monster and succumb to drug addiction and pressure? And if I don't become some big, grand person, will I be okay with just being a good person? Are the things I fight for, strive for, aspire to do really what I want to spend the next 10 years working towards? The sacrifice, the work, the change, the adjustments, the constant transition, and at times, the OPPOSITION I know I will face as I continue to ascend. Is it really worth it? Could I throw it all away and just be what I consider a regular person? Or, scale it down and live a little smaller, with smaller ideas and gestures? AND If i did do that, would I really be okay with that? Would I feel like a sell-out? like I gave up?

SN: My mom works two jobs, the second of which keeps her out until 10pm each night. Right now, she's home from her first job and getting ready to head out to the second. From the hallway, I just heard a deep sigh, followed by "LAWD! Back to this cage AGAIN! Please, Lawd, help me."

*blank stare*

I cannot. I will not. That ^^^^ is why I fight to make sure all the things I love doing, I will get to do for the rest of my life. I refuse to spend my days doing something that I refer to as 'a cage'. But, AGAIN, what if it happens, and it's not enough to give me the joy I'm seeking?

This is what happens when you watch too much Oprah's Lifeclass. LOL.

I'll get back to posting regularly again soon. Alot of times, when I'm in my head like this, I think no one else wants to read about it so I go into hibernation and won't post for months. Everyone likes the funny stories, or the bizarre tales of dating woes, but when I get too deep (especially in blogging) I feel like people tune out. LOL! Which is fine. That just means I go off and process in silence and blogger doesn't see me for a while. I'm not a pro blogger. Not even close. I don't even really promote my blog the way most people do. in the world of blogospheres, I'm just a tiny sea urchin. I'm finally okay with that, too. Some asshat once told me that since my blog is clearly JUST for me, I should get an online diary instead. After I put down my middle e-finger, I got right back onto blogger.com and kept right on posting. I prefer an audience, even if it's only 1 or 2 people who never comment (but, to be clear, comments are WORSHIPPED AND ADORED around here :-).) My best friend works in child care so alot of times, when I want to talk or tell a story, she's not free to just pick up the phone and listen until after all her kids leave. Plus, she has the worst memory in all the world so sometimes I'll tell her something and she'll be like "YOU DIDN'T TELL ME THAT!" when really, I did. So, blogging is a way for me to tell the story as long as I want to, to my little heart's content, and to document the things that happen in my life, in case she forgets and needs to go back and read it again. I try to include every single detail.

I'm a storyteller, that's what I do.

Happy February!

One of my goals for the past few years has been to blog consistently. I was very hesitant to even get into blogging initially because, well, i'm pretty long-winded and blogging didn't seem to be the platform for that. After much discussion with my inner self, I decided to jump right into it. And immediately stepped on the brake. Whoa! What had I gotten myself into?? Uh, HELLO??!!!

Because most people know me as a makeup artist, naturally, everyone encouraged me to become a beauty blogger. The problem with that was always this: I'm not le product whore. Working makeup artists don't buy new products as often as makeup enthusiasts do, so alot of the FOTD that I did were using the same products over and over. That's what I did for clients, it's what i did for myself. Soon enough, i began to feel self conscious that I was employing enough variety in my makeup looks...so I stopped blogging. It went from being something fun that i looked forward to to being a chore that I had to constantly find new material for. it was a damn full time job!! I had NOT signed up for all that! Days, weeks, months went by and i found myself writing online but not in this blog. There were other issues and things I wanted to discuss that weren't makeup-related, so i made up, like, 5 other blogs just to talk about the things I wanted to talk about. And you guessed it, after about 2 weeks, I was wanting to erase the word blog from the English language. I couldn't figure out how other bloggers did it. Was i really supposed to talk about makeup and nothing else?? I ain't got it. And I wasn't gon' get it, either.

I was mad. LOL! At who, I don't really know but, yeah, I was hella salty that i couldn't combine all my thoughts into one blog. I had so much to say and alot of the times, most of it had absolutely nothing to do with makeup. Arrrgh!!! I.was.pissed! So finally, I abandoned my poor little blog. Each day, i would write posts in my head and promise myself to add them to my other blogs, but it never happened. I was too damn mad to write, lol. The makeup posts would come every now and then, when i was really in the mood but otherwise, eh. #pass. #fail. Eventually, I got tired of managing 4 different blogs, and tried to find a way to combine them. That didn't really work either, so I just shut the other ones down and opted to focus solely on this one. Then hell broke loose in my life and my last thought was "uh, blog who??" O_o

*scratches head*

It is now February 2, the day before my birthday, and I have a lot more free time to blog than I did way back when. Still don't have a lot of new makeup, lol, but I've decided that that don't e'em matter. I'ma just blog about what I want to blog about anyway, even if I'm the only one who reads it. *big cheesy grin* Jeah, cuz I goes HARD like dat in the paint!

(Not really. I'm just tired of having to manage so many separate blogs.)

Once I figure out hot to import all the other ones into this one, we'll be back in the sack!



Later gators! (i do have a lot more to say, but it's 3:04am which means it's time to blow this Popsicle stand)

B.D.