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Monday, March 31, 2008

How Can You Lose Yourself?

Funny, since Friday, I have said to a few close friends that I feel lost. Then I explain further that I feel like Dorothy when she was whisked away by the tornado. I said the 'I feel lost' comment today. Everybody seems to understand with my personal and professional lives in a turmoil right now. But after stating this statement today I started thinking 'How can I lose myself?' It's not like I misplaced myself in the same manner as my phones, keys or remote. I know exactly where I am. Although, I handled my professsional life with professionalism and grace, I can't say I did the same for my personal life. I went to areas that I would never ever had gone through in the past. Now, I do know that although I express my professional and personal life as two completely entities that it is still the same person. But in my eyes, I see them as separate.

In my professional life, there's the question of where's my passion, what do I want to do, will I be unemployed for a while and if so, for how long and will I be able to support myself?

In my personal life, how long has he been lying to me, did he ever love, why did he act like he wanted me to be with him, was he really married all this time?

These questions as time goes by will get their appropriate answers. I have already unleashed them to the universe. As for my professional life, I can work with the universe for abundance. For the personal, time heals all things.



Forgetting Who I Am

Today, I did things that normally I would never do. I, rarely if ever, lose who I am. And yet, today I did.

I am a person who would not confront unless confronted. And yet today, I was the one confronting. I was the one who kept harrassing the other person by continuing to call, even as I knew it was wrong.

Who was this crazed woman who did not just walk away? What have I become?

I must never forget who I am. The person that I am is not the person mentioned above and therefore, that behavior will stop as of now. I forgot to be still.

Update: I am still not keeping still. I am trying but I love this man. No, after finding this out, I NEVER want to be with him again. Truthfully, there are no questions left. Then why am I doing this? I have no idea. I need strength to resist the urge for justice and leave it in God's hands.



Sunday, March 30, 2008

Vulnerable

Definition: 1 : capable of being physically or emotionally wounded 2 : open to attack or damage : assailable 3 : liable to increased penalties but entitled to increased bonuses after winning a game in contract bridge

Today is the day that I am officially unemployed. While doing my normal Sunday activities, it did not dawn on me what today is. But I felt a bit off. I thought it was because of the pending question about the man I love and our subsequent phone call. But no, it's deeper than that. I feel vulnerable. I am not sure of my past, present or the future. I am so confused because I am, for the most part, a logical person and everything I am doing right now is illogical. I am hurt because I wonder why a person who said he loves me is showing he doesn't. I feel that everything I knew to be true does not seem to be so.

So what to do when I feel so open, so vulnerable? As soon as I wrote the title of this post, the words came into thought, Be still and know that I am God.

Therefore, my time has come to be still and let the fog dissipate with the knowledge of my faith.



Following My Instincts

What are instincts?

Some say it's your subconscious; others say it's God talking to you. Either way, everyone knows the saying 'Follow your instincts and you won't go wrong.' I believe instincts come from a situation or situations where your consciousness does not register what's wrong but your subconscious does. This post is about not following my instincts.

Last year early March, my instincts made me do another background check on someone. I found some divorces but also a marriage that at the time was about 2 years old. I confronted the individual on this fact, after that our 'relationship' went downhill which further confirmed my suspicions. Now, before I go further, let me explain that I am not someone who dates married or separated men. To me, even if the man has been separated for 10 years, he is still married and that means off limits. I was faced with the possibility that I had fallen in love with a married man. This was too difficult for me to handle. So what is an intelligent woman who is in love to do? Well, something not so intelligent, believe him when he says he is not married. The question nagged me for months and months afterwards. In some cases, he did seem single but in others his actions did reflect a man who was having a secret affair. Today, while looking for my former manager's address, I looked the questionable man up. Again, his 'ex-wife' who should not have anything to do with the address due to being married and divorced in another county, appeared along with this man. I confront him again and again he denies it and then goes on the defense. Now, you ask me, didn't you write that this relationship is over? Why are you continuing to do a search for him? Are you obsessed or psycho or something? The answer is yes, it is over but this would explain a lot on his actions, that really don't make a lot of sense. And no, I am not obsessed or psycho but if he is married, I would like to know that I was dimwitted and accomplice to the adultry.

Now, thinking back and hindsight being 20/20, I should have walked away from the situation. I should have followed my instincts.



Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Obama Speech: 'A More Perfect Union'



Barack Obama speaks in Philadelphia, PA at Constitution Center, on matters not just of race and recent remarks but of the fundamental path by which America can work together to pursue a better future.

The text below was taking directly from barackobamadotcom.

As Prepared for Delivery...
“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.” Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories tha t we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild.”

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicia ns, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committ ed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together. This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit. This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I’d like to leave you with today – a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”

“I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.



Friday, March 14, 2008

Forty-One



Wow, today I am 41 years old! Just yesterday, I was 16 years old, really I was...LOL





Here's my take at being 41 versus when I was 16 and older, and yes I am one of those lists and quotes people so bear with me after all it is my birthday. :) These are just random thoughts and are not in any order of importance.
  • I am much wiser but not always smarter than when I was 16.
  • I still believe in the common good of people.
  • I have learned what the words "love", "patience" and "compassion" really mean.
  • I no longer think the world revolves around me.
  • I believe there is a time and place for everything.
  • I am less active than when I was 16 years old and it shows :)
  • I no longer care about my reputation more than I do about my character.
  • Having self-worth, a confidence of who I am and belief I can do anything I set my eyes and mind to is the same today as it was when I was 16. Although I really do know who I am today.
  • At 16, I had a written journal. Today, I have a digital one.
  • My singing still sounds like a tortured cat but I continue to sing out loud no matter where I am to Chaka Khan, Culture Club and Stephanie Mills songs.
  • As I was when I was 16, I love being at home more than "running the streets."
  • I have greying temples and don't care.
  • In 14 days, I will be laid off for the first time in my life. At 16, I never knew what having a career or a job was like.
  • My best friend at 16 is still my best friend today.
  • I still live in NYC but no longer think "Why would people want to live any place else?"
  • I have friends that have been my friends for 2 and 3 decades.
  • I have lived in 4 different states and 1 common wealth.
  • I still believe in love and the "one".
  • I have been in love twice in my life.
  • I know what it means to have your heart broken.
  • At 16, I had an IBM laptop that I had to use a disk to boot up. Today, I have a Dell laptop that boots up automatically.
  • I no longer consider myself a religious person but a spiritual one.
  • I still go to a church on Sundays just not a Roman Catholic one.
  • I have been a member of several religions - Catholic, Jehovah Witness, Buddhism, and Hinduism.
  • My belief in GOD perseveres.
  • People still think I am much younger than what I am and look shock when I say my age.
  • Younger men now call me ma'am instead of baby.
  • I continue to say "Puerto Rico and New York", when people ask me where am I from.
  • I no longer desire to live in Puerto Rico. At 16, I wanted to move back to Puerto Rico.
  • I still prefer to live in a warmer climate.
  • My curiosity of other cultures, food and way of life remains.
  • At 16, I was Puerto Rican not a Black woman. Today, I am a Black woman. My culture is Puerto Rican.
  • I can no longer write in Spanish but I can still read it.
  • I know how it feels to have sex.
  • I see my "girls" once a month as opposed to getting together every weekend.
  • I still love to eat sunflower seeds with milk (yuck!...I know that's what you are thinking.)
  • I now see my parents as human beings more than invincible mini-gods.
  • At 16, I was a volunteer at GMHC. At 41, I am a volunteer at GMHC and 3 other places as well.
  • Today, a 30 year old is young. At 16, a 30 year old was old.

After taking a look at this very short list since I can still write more but am sparing my readers, I just realized one thing... I am still me and I love myself at any age.





Monday, March 10, 2008

Will Spitzer Resign?



The New York Times has broken a story about New York Governor Eliot Spitzer being tied to a prostititution ring. This man was known for battling against such rings. Here's the NY Times story: http://tinyurl.com/2qsdms.

Honestly, I don't care about Eliot Spitzer, never did. What I am more interested in is if the first African American to be the Lieutant Governor of New York will end up finishing Spitzer's term should he resign? Becoming the first African American to be Governor of NY, even if it is just as acting governor.

Read more about David A Paterson here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Paterson. The official site, ny.gov site is down at the moment of this post.



UPDATE David A Paterson will become the first African-American governor of New York on Monday, March 17, 2008.

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Interesting...


I rarely look at my horoscope; I just outgrew the whole zodiac sign/horoscope thing by the time I hit 25. But today, I saw my Yahoo! Horoscope button and decided to click it and see what was written.

The road you're on may be covered in fog, but you're heading in the right direction.

Interesting....

Friday, March 07, 2008

Mid-Life Crisis?


So being a bit intoxicated today, I decided to share a few secrets. This post may or may not survive. You have been warned.

The truth is that I am tired of the rat race. I have been tired since 2000. Somehow my priorities changed. Being successful in Corporate America no longer appealed to me. I was very successful in the financial company I was working at in 2000. But I decided that I no longer wanted to manage the 40 people I was responsibile for nor did I want to become SVP. I was a VP at the time and my manager had told me a month before I quit that I was being promoted to SVP. What did I do? I left to become an underpaid consultant in my old company. I was a consultant for 5 years there. Underpaid and overworked. When I was hired, my salary was increased to almost 20% of the current salary. I decided to move to another group after considering heavily that I will finally happy. The truth is...I changed. I don't know when it happened but no longer did money or status appeal to me. I got older and friends and family became more important. I kept telling myself that I was just burnt out. The truth is my priorities just changed. I starting viewing Corporate America success as a deal with the devil. I continued to pump myself up but I couldn't. I kept this a secret from friends and family. After all, isn't the goal to achieve the American dream?

So next week I will turn 41. And after thinking deeply on the subject, the truth is I just want two rugrats, an old fashion home and a Volkswagon Bettle. So much for the American dream. Everyone I know expects me to bounce back from this pending layoff and land on my feet. The truth is I no longer want to work but need money in order to live. I really don't know what I want to do.

Am I going through a mid-life crisis?

Update: Someone read this post and wrote a post about it in their website: http://in-spiros.com/artofallowingmindset/?p=18. Check it out.

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Doing Too Much - My XV6700 to the Rescue




It seems that lately, I am doing too much. It's funny, last year I felt I had all this time on my hands. This year it is the complete opposite. Besides trying to finish getting a college degree and all that is involved with that, I am also working, documenting my work for the job transition, meeting with my career counselor, volunteering time in the hospital, helping my cousin pack her home since she is moving to VA, networking, meeting with friends and family, updating this blog and Twitter, bible studying, in a women's support group and managed to join 2 book clubs. On top of all of this making time for my boyfriend since we decided that our relationship is worth working out if we communicate more. All of this is being handled by my trusty PDA phone. Originally, the calender reflected my work calendar. Since my notice of job elimination (which is not since someone is replacing me), I have changed it to my personal calendar and boy, good thing I did. My personal calendar has several appointments and to do's daily. I don't know how I can do it all. Thank goodness for my phone. I update both this blog and Twitter via my mobile's web or text messaging.

Of the two book clubs I am in, one of them is suffering from my busy schedule. The book is titled Yurugu by Dr. Marimba Ani. So I have decided that I am going to drop the other book club for this one. The Yurugu book study takes place in PalTalk in a chat room titled 'The Ankobia in America.' A very powerful, thought provoking, opinion sharing, growth expansing chat room in PalTalk that I have had the privilege to attend. Unfortunately, I just log on to PalTalk now and I am rarely there. So starting this week, I am changing that and my trusty PDA will track it all.

I just love my phone and have no plans to replace it even though its 2 1/2 years old.