The last weeks have been some of the best weeks of my life.

Nothing epic happened. Nothing epic that you could point to.

There was no lottery ticket. There were no inheritance. Not even a $20 bill in an old pair of jeans.

No beautiful girl… Well, beautiful girls, but none that confessed their undying love for me.

Nothing epic happened externally, but there was a spring cleaning in my mind. A reorganization of my mental closet, if you will.

What did change was the realization that my life was my responsibility. Totally my responsibility. Everything.

The way people treated me was my responsibility. The negativity that I allowed into my life was totally my responsibility. The successes that I am proud of, and the failures that still twinge. I came to terms with them. I accepted myself. Warts, bad habits, pain, weaknesses, fears, and strength.

I got free. Free even with Sallie Mae shaking her chain. Even with the familial responsibilities that I have to face when I get up from this computer. Free. in spite of, not because of anything.

I took a honest look at the issues facing me, and I started to work on changing them.

This realization changed some things. And by some things, I mean everything. In the midst of this realization I threw off a lot of the definitions and paradigms that I used to define myself. This was helpful.

However, now I’m on the other side of this realization and trying to figure out if I threw out the baby with the bathwater. I’m wondering if there are some restrictions I should keep. Wondering what guidelines protected me and which hindered me. Trying to look at the old pieces of myself that I threw off and figure out what piecesI had on for warmth and which I was wearing to hide in.

I’m in the midst of working some things.  Pardon my progress.

OFO.

 

Bumpin. Heavy.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/487/harper-high-school-part-one

Just read a quote that struck me squarely in the eye. 

“We accept the love that we think we deserve.”

How true this is. Excuse my gangsta for a minute while I get soft. #nohomo. The older I get the more I realize that life is all mental. We only rise as high as our image of ourselves allows us to. We all start helpless, and not many of us start off rich. I know I didn’t. #startingatangent

When I think back to my childhood, when we didn’t have much. I can’t help but ask what separated my parents from the many parents surrounding us. What made our path different? What made me different from Donavan, who ended up in jail? Woo-woo who got caught selling drugs? 

It basically boiled down to their view of life and what they thought about their future, and what they deserved. Their vision for our family led us from where we were, which quickly became the hood, to an area with better schools. Their faith saw a future that didn’t exist yet and found a way to create it. But their future-vision can only be explained by their past-experience.

So how does this relate the the previously mentioned quote?

For me I know it does. I’ve made my share of mistakes. *cues Jay-z “Regrets”*  I’m a perfectionist. I’m hard on myself. I sometimes  feel like I don’t deserve love. A love that is everything I desire. 

There’s a quote from a song that I can relate to from frank ocean..

“I dont believe my hands are cleanly/ I can’t believe you let me touch your heart” 

 

As a result ..sometimes I stop myself from pursuing the women who really catch my interest. I don’t let women close enough to really know the whole me, in order to prevent them from rejecting me.  So I know that the first battle I have to win, is not the fear of talking to beautiful women. Its believing that I deserve a wife. That I don’t have to be perfect. That my mistakes don’t count me out. Seemingly simple things to accept..but easier to accept in theory than in practice. 

Working on Flying. 

OFO

So, I was running.  On a paved sidewalk.  And I fell. “How?”  you ask. I think someone pushed me. (Nobody pushed me.) Or there was a broken piece of pavement (The pavement was newly paved). Or my shoes were untied. (They were newly tied and tight as a second skin).

One in a million chance I might have not been paying attention. [I definitely was not paying attention]

For some reason, I’m the type that believes that everything happens for a reason. And I’m always looking for the moral to the story. Anyway, as I bled from my hands on the way back home,  I got to thinking what I could learn from this.

1. Running is for suckas

2. “if you going to do it n***a do it.” – Andre 3000 – If i’m going to run (or do anything) Do it wholeheartedly, don’t drag your feet or half-a$$ it. I think I was tired and so I wasn’t lifting my knees like I should have.

3. If your pushing yourself, you might get hurt. Keep running.

4. You can’t worry about the 7 million witnesses [in their air conditioned cars, who are stopped at the red light] to your embarrassment, just clean yourself off and get back to running. Eventually that red light will change and there will be a new batch of cars who only see you “running round and gettin’ it”.

5. Life happens. Protect ya neck. Or at least the Ipod touch with an appropriate insurance policy. Or otter box.

6. Use your pain. For a blog post. For a personality change. To create a new habit. To stop a bad one. Don’t let your pain go to waste.

7. Don’t sleep. Don’t get lazy. Sometimes the pavement can trick you into thinking its safe because its more civilized. Its not. Sidewalks are dangerous. Love is dangerous. Pushing yourself is dangerous. On the unpaved road your more aware of the danger that is inherent in life.

Run, Fly, [and sometimes]/or Fall.

OFO