He wanted to just be comfortable. I told him, love is outside of the comfort zone. It was as if he wanted to sketch Sunday sunsets with his fingertips, while rocking back and forth on our porch. Maybe he wanted to drive the minivan to our son's soccer games and go apple picking in the fall. Those things sound comfortable, they even sound beautiful. Maybe one day, I will do them all, maybe I won't do any of them. They sound like comfortable things, like tamed waves and bridled horses. They sound like fair weather and perfect body temperatures - all beautiful and necessary things but it doesn't seem that my love operates that way.
My love is fever. It is a boastful, crashing wave that slams into the shore for more abuse. The salt and the sand mixing into the grainy gray areas called "feelings we just don't know what to do with." My flaws be the jellyfish. Sometimes they sting, but most of the time, you just enjoy seeing them up close.
I am the tug and pull of the ocean, you know, kinda arching my back to the moon, glistening under its light and sh.t. Yes, touch me like that there. Pull my hair like that. Yank my head back to find my mouth on top of yours. Let the horses run full stampede into your chest. That's what your heartbeat sounds like in my head. You take up so much room in soul, I have no appetite for the scrumptious, just the necessary. When I take the time to describe what loving you feels like, none of that sounds comfortable. It doesn't sound easy like Saturday morning pancakes. I want to push you to greatness and I want you to pull me from the depths of myself. I want to fill in the rest of your sleeve because I want to be the only person who remembers what your naked looks like. I want you to peel my tattoos off because you want to see the scars I was hiding under them so bad. I mean, this just doesn't seem comfortable. It doesn't seem easy but for you, I would move out of my comfort zone. Rip the lease up, pay a ridiculous amount of rent just to live on the edge of your love, on the cusp of my own sanity and on the line where Heaven begins to descend onto Earth. I want to live there and love you there for an uncomfortable eternity. But you want to be comfortable and that's the one thing I do not have to offer you.
Monday, June 17, 2013
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Oprah's Commencement Speech to Harvard Graduates
"You will find true success and happiness if you have only one goal there really is only one; to fulfill the highest most truthful expression of yourself as a human you wanna max out your humanity by using your energy to lift yourself up, your family and the people around you."
The Healing
I struggled with how to return to you. I searched for the right way to say "I'm here y'all. I'm back from the dead or so it seems." Nothing seemed appropriate or witty enough so I'll start with "Hello."
My name is Tassika and 2012 was easily the most devastating year of my life. Did I tell you that already? Well, whatever. I'm still not ready to disclose all the reasons why yet but at least I'm one step closer today than I was yesterday. 2012 was the catalyst to writing and completing my first novel. It had been in the works for years to come, I mean this blog is the beginning of it. But last year, God moved himself in my life so viciously that I had to sit still and observe. In my observation, I discovered so many things about others but especially about myself. The more I observed, the more I found a stillness in my own soul, and the more words came rushing out of me. I promise you, there were tidal waves of wisdom coming through my fingertips. What else could I do but write a book? Maybe I could have talked it out but I am much more fluent on paper - that in itself is a gift and a curse.
Anyway, I came back to tell you that the book is complete in the sense that I know how it ends, I know its purpose and I figured out how much of myself and my observations I'm willing to expose. The writing will never end. I'm constantly editing, tweaking, adding commas, pauses and sessions of lovemaking every time I look at it. So, in a sense, it's also not done, but the version I have designated specifically for you? Well, we can say that's done and in its final stages of completion. What took me so long? I had it all figured out until I didn't. Something else happened (like I needed another disappointment) and it convinced me that I must change the ending. I had to tackle the feeling too many of us feel - the feeling of not being good enough, not being chosen. In hindsight, I couldn't believe that I didn't mention that, considering that the feeling of insignificance is sweeping across our population in monstrous proportions killing some of us quickly and others slowly. It is a sad epidemic and I want to say there is a cure but even in my own self awareness, I know that there is none. The feeling of not being good enough is a disease that sits quietly in your veins and flares up at the most inconvenient of times. It is mostly dependent on external factors and even the most confident person will have moments of frustration, defeat, unworthiness and low self esteem. The worst part is being made to feel any of those things because of someone you love. And I am so sorry but there is no cure for the person you love, not loving you back. It is not a wound that time can heal nor is it a wound that is purely superficial. That kind of disappointment can very well be fatal.
But because I can talk so candidly about sadness, I have also learned how to be vocal about joy. Joy is easily becoming one of my favorite words by the way. Moving forward, there is joy in each of you. That joy is defined by your purpose and your purpose is defined by you. Defeat is a choice. It's a pitiful one, one that I am far too familiar with but it is still a choice. We choose to die in the arms of people we love. We choose to accept the mediocre men and the whining women. We choose to settle for a job instead of chasing our careers. We choose to torture ourselves with old memories instead of exciting ourselves at the thought of making new ones. I am telling you, from the bottom of my heart, CHOOSE YOURSELF. You are so much powerful than the combination of events that you have gone through. And I will also tell you this - serving brings you more of what you need than what you give. Did you hear me?
SERVING BRINGS YOU MORE OF WHAT YOU NEED THAN WHAT YOU GIVE.
It's up to you to decide who and what you're serving but keep in mind that what you receive from it is a byproduct of that decision. If you serve hate and judgment, you are going to get loneliness and depression in return. If you serve hope and passion, you are going to get favor and opportunities in return. The decision is ultimately yours but remember, within you lies the POWER TO PROCEED.
Personally, these last few months, I have felt so much joy, unspeakable joy, the kind of joy that you hear in Whitney's voice when she's singing gospel. And don't get me wrong, I've felt pain too, the pain of not being good enough and not being chosen. But I chose to multiply the joy. I made the decision to focus on the joy and that joy was the healing. You know how they say, "a watched pot never boils?" The same applies to your own heartbreak. The heart does not heal in front of you, it heals in spite of you. Focus on the joy and the healing. Focus on serving and the blessings will pour themselves into your lap. Focus on your purpose and your passion will give you wings. I know these things to be true, so true that almost 60,000 words of healing poured out of me. Yes I have been hurt but yes, I have also been healed. I love you.
My name is Tassika and 2012 was easily the most devastating year of my life. Did I tell you that already? Well, whatever. I'm still not ready to disclose all the reasons why yet but at least I'm one step closer today than I was yesterday. 2012 was the catalyst to writing and completing my first novel. It had been in the works for years to come, I mean this blog is the beginning of it. But last year, God moved himself in my life so viciously that I had to sit still and observe. In my observation, I discovered so many things about others but especially about myself. The more I observed, the more I found a stillness in my own soul, and the more words came rushing out of me. I promise you, there were tidal waves of wisdom coming through my fingertips. What else could I do but write a book? Maybe I could have talked it out but I am much more fluent on paper - that in itself is a gift and a curse.
Anyway, I came back to tell you that the book is complete in the sense that I know how it ends, I know its purpose and I figured out how much of myself and my observations I'm willing to expose. The writing will never end. I'm constantly editing, tweaking, adding commas, pauses and sessions of lovemaking every time I look at it. So, in a sense, it's also not done, but the version I have designated specifically for you? Well, we can say that's done and in its final stages of completion. What took me so long? I had it all figured out until I didn't. Something else happened (like I needed another disappointment) and it convinced me that I must change the ending. I had to tackle the feeling too many of us feel - the feeling of not being good enough, not being chosen. In hindsight, I couldn't believe that I didn't mention that, considering that the feeling of insignificance is sweeping across our population in monstrous proportions killing some of us quickly and others slowly. It is a sad epidemic and I want to say there is a cure but even in my own self awareness, I know that there is none. The feeling of not being good enough is a disease that sits quietly in your veins and flares up at the most inconvenient of times. It is mostly dependent on external factors and even the most confident person will have moments of frustration, defeat, unworthiness and low self esteem. The worst part is being made to feel any of those things because of someone you love. And I am so sorry but there is no cure for the person you love, not loving you back. It is not a wound that time can heal nor is it a wound that is purely superficial. That kind of disappointment can very well be fatal.
But because I can talk so candidly about sadness, I have also learned how to be vocal about joy. Joy is easily becoming one of my favorite words by the way. Moving forward, there is joy in each of you. That joy is defined by your purpose and your purpose is defined by you. Defeat is a choice. It's a pitiful one, one that I am far too familiar with but it is still a choice. We choose to die in the arms of people we love. We choose to accept the mediocre men and the whining women. We choose to settle for a job instead of chasing our careers. We choose to torture ourselves with old memories instead of exciting ourselves at the thought of making new ones. I am telling you, from the bottom of my heart, CHOOSE YOURSELF. You are so much powerful than the combination of events that you have gone through. And I will also tell you this - serving brings you more of what you need than what you give. Did you hear me?
SERVING BRINGS YOU MORE OF WHAT YOU NEED THAN WHAT YOU GIVE.
It's up to you to decide who and what you're serving but keep in mind that what you receive from it is a byproduct of that decision. If you serve hate and judgment, you are going to get loneliness and depression in return. If you serve hope and passion, you are going to get favor and opportunities in return. The decision is ultimately yours but remember, within you lies the POWER TO PROCEED.
Personally, these last few months, I have felt so much joy, unspeakable joy, the kind of joy that you hear in Whitney's voice when she's singing gospel. And don't get me wrong, I've felt pain too, the pain of not being good enough and not being chosen. But I chose to multiply the joy. I made the decision to focus on the joy and that joy was the healing. You know how they say, "a watched pot never boils?" The same applies to your own heartbreak. The heart does not heal in front of you, it heals in spite of you. Focus on the joy and the healing. Focus on serving and the blessings will pour themselves into your lap. Focus on your purpose and your passion will give you wings. I know these things to be true, so true that almost 60,000 words of healing poured out of me. Yes I have been hurt but yes, I have also been healed. I love you.
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