Headed In The Right Direction

"Headed in the right direction

I can see the light of day

I've got faith and intuition

telling me that I will be ok..."

-India Arie

2011... Wow it's a brand new year and about six months from the last time I checked in with you. Detox was rough, but I actually was successful (not at first) in completing it and I feel great. I am in a much better place. A place where bitterness although not completely gone is not a major focus. A place where I'm no longer mad or angry at the penis-ed species. A place where I am each day being more and more introspective. A place where I'm finally content in my singleness....

Rehab caused me to ask a lot of questions and as a result I began this journey to contentment. I began to ask myself why? Why was all of this so important to me? Why was I soo wrapped up in this idea of a man ushering me into my "happily ever after"? And when I asked myself these questions I was no longer satisfied with the answers I had been telling myself for years. No more excuses having to do with socialization, or family traditions, or daddy or even disney movies. I'm a big girl now. I'm no longer ignorant of these things so I can't use them as excuses or justifications. The truth of the matter was I needed to put my knowledge and my learnings and growth where my mouth was. It was no longer enough for me to talk about how I had grown to know myself and love myself, I have to do it. I have to quit moping around waiting for some figment of my imagination to come and bring me happiness when I am entirely capable of doing that myself.

So, I did.

I realized that my problem was not wanting to be in a relationship, it was the fact that I was putting off things in my life until that happened. I associated too many of the possibilities in my life with someone other than myself and that is never ok. I was turning into what I had grown to hate and I realized that I had to make a change.

So I put away fear and picked love back up, but this love was a different kind of love. A friend of mine told me that one of the most powerful prayers you can pray is to simply say to God, I accept. In doing this you are completely trusting what God has for you and giving up control in order to receive the greatness in store for you. Each day this is my prayer and I have been blessed beyond measure. A wonderful son, my dream job, a wonderful apartment, great family, rockstar friends and the list could be a thousand pages long.

So beginning this calendar year and in a couple days a new life year, I am wrapped in love and gratefulness. Giving up control and trusting that I am receiving everything that God has for me. I definitely think this is the right direction. :)

Until the next song plays...

-Jazz

Good Mourning

"Good mourning independence or is it loneliness? I know I said I wanted this but I have regrets I pray for God's will to be done The very next day you were gone"
-India Arie

Day 20

Speaking of musical comfort the soundtrack brings me to India who is the ultimate musical soulmate...
At this point in my soundtrack I just feel sad... I'm sad that something I want so bad is unattainable. I'm sad that my heart just simply will not submit to this detox and is giving me a hell of a time in my attempt to give up on love... I just want my heart to get with the program. I mean time after time after freakin time life is proving the reality that love is not for me so I need to just stop right?!

I prayed for this... I prayed for my desire to be in a relationship to be taken away since I know that is never gonna happen... Yes it's sad but I'm tired of being sad... I'm tired of feeling down and feeling defeated. I know this is what I wanted when I embarked on this journey but I'm beginning to wonder if I bit off more than I could chew...

Regardless sadness seems to be an emotion I just can't quite get away from nowadays... Things keep happening that cause me to fall off the wagon all over again... They say joy comes in the morning... I just hope it comes after this mourning...

Until the next song plays...
-Jazz

Exhale (Shoop Shoop)

"Hearts are often broken
When there are words unspoken
In your soul there's answers to your prayers
If you're searching for a place you know
A familiar face, somewhere to go
You should look inside yourself
You're halfway there"
-Whitney Houston

Day 18...

Love Detox is definitely kicking my butt... Yes I can say I'm doing much better than last time but I'm still at this crossroads in my life where I'm searching fro the answers. The soundtrack has brought me to an artist that serves as the equivalent to comfort food in music form. No matter what is going on I feel like Whitney has a song or even a note that can make it feel better or at least allow me to express that which is so hard to express....

This song came out in a time where love and life were very new concepts to me. I mean I had this cd and I knew all the words to all of the songs and I even had to sneak to see the movie but being of such a young age I didn't really understand what this all was about. This movie was about 4 women that were looking for, needing, desperate for something more. Love had done them all dirty and they were coming to terms with how to deal with it.

I feel like as a young girl I wanted so much to identify most with Bernie, Angela Basette's character that famously burned all of her ex-husband's clothes in his car... I guess I saw her as taking an active step in gaining her closure. But now that I think about it I think Whitney's character is the one that at this time I most identify with.
She was the one that was always going from one bad relationship to the other and then goes from bad to worse when she allows herself to be swept off her feet by a married man that promises her one day he'll leave his family for her.

Now don't get me wrong I've never been with a married man but I know what it feels like to compromise your self, your values, your hopes and dreams to be with some man and his promises. And when you look back on it after it's over for whatever reason, either you coming to your senses or they seem to leave to go on promising someone else, you just are left feeling used up. The longer I'm on this detox the more I realize the bullshit love has put me through. And I set out on this detox first out of bitterness... At love, at men, at relationships, at broken promises and unfulfilled dreams. But the more I reach inside and find the pure love for me that I have been overlooking I realize that I have to let it go...

I have to let go of the bitterness of those past relationships. I have to forgive my ex-fiancee for getting that hoodrat pregnant, and forgive my used-to-be friend that led me on and lied in every interaction we had together. I have to forgive love, and men and most of all myself.

I have to EXHALE.

Shit has been hard, and my love life has sucked but I will never be able to get to that place in my life where real love is waiting for me if I continue to carry around this grudge. And as mad as I am at love I have to fogive it... I have to understand the part I played and I have to let the past go in order to embark on my future. So here I am... transparent for all the world wide web to see...

I am letting it go and I am exhaling and DAMN IT it feels GREAT!


Until the next song plays...
-Jazz

Another Again

"So we did it again
Knowing we should quit it, but we simply won't admit it again
Oh it feels good, it's so good, but I won't do it again
It's so dramatic again
After we go at it, we get mad then we go at it again
Oh I love it, then I hate it, she's my favorite again
I'm wasting time
I can't help it she's so fine
Oh I like her style
And I love the way she talks and I smile
As much as we may try
Can't quite see eye to eye
So in the meantime, I guess we say bye-bye"
-John Legend

Day 14

I just don't get it... I am trying my hardest to finalize this long goodbye but love seems to have more of a hold on me than I thought. It's crazy. I have been on this detox for about 2 weeks and although I've never been addicted to an illegal substance I am understanding now why people crawl into corners and rock when going through rehab. See this love detox was so easy at first I mean hey I just start telling my friends that I'm not getting married, I stop thinking about guys, I just remove myself from this damn vicious cycle of crush-hurt-crush again-hurt again. My thoughts initially were that it would of course be hard to de-boycrazy and de-romaticize myself but in the end I'd be fine...

Yeah looks like again I was wrong. I am now realizing how much love and all that it means and encompasses is like a part of my DNA... I am still, even tho I hate jerk-boy (as I so lovingly refer to him) I still can't help this (much smaller now) part of me that wants to find our happily ever after. Yet this same part of me is also the part that cries each time he flaunts yet another of his flavors of the week in my face...

I can't keep doing this so I remind myself over and over of how much I have to do this. There is absolutely no turning back and as much as love is trying to trap me and not let me escape it's grasp I am fighting my way out of this. I am literally fighting myself each day to transform my ways of thinking.... Getting those nouns out of my life and filling up the space with me...

The motivating factor is that I know for a fact I cannot go through another again...


Until the next song plays...
-Jazz

Long Goodbye

"you loved me crazy
I lost my mind
listen...
you're everything I never wanted
and all the things I didn't need
this ain't who I wanna be
you don't have to stay forever
I'll take passion over pride
full moon, high tide
let's make it a long goodbye"
- India Arie

10 days...

I'm not really sure how to feel world. I mean in some ways I'm very proud of myself and I think that I'm making great strides in overcoming fear and looking life and love in the face and coming out better than I was before. But there has been as expected these overwhelming feelings of sadness. And it's not just sadness that I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life but sadness that this was the conclusion that love brought me to. I mean yeah I get it nothing in this world is promised and I have had these conversations about my disappointment with love ad nauseum. But I have gotten to the point where I just feel like I've wasted so much time playing games with love, investing in it and to get to this point of knowing I will never love again has me all messed up.

I know I know I haven't forgotten epiphany #1 or 2 but I guess this is the part of rehab that has people climbing walls. You know that whatever poison you continue to push through your veins has only lead to hurt, disappointment, failure, anger, and hurt yet when someone takes it away or you chose to go away you want it so bad because for however long you've been it's addict you've been addicted to the minimal high it gives and at the same time you hate the very essence of it because of how low it brings you...

Damn I didn't realize it was this bad... I knew better...

And the funny part about it is that soooo many guys have been showing their interest toward me since I've begun detox and it kind of pisses me off. I guess love really begins to miss the water when the well runs dry... On top of all of this I just don't know how to feel about certain things before I mean I never said I woudl never be attracted to anyone ever again and how exactly does this attraction look? And how do I navigate dating? Will I never date again or just never get married? I dunno I have A LOT of self-inventory to do.

These questions are good tho because I'm really getting to the heart of this fear and this new chapter in my life. Pain is good some say it's fear leaving the body... I guess for me it's my way of saying goodbye...


Until the next song plays...
- Jazz

Love of My Life

"Everything I did before you, wasn't worth my while
It should've been you all the time"
- Brian McKnight

Day 6 my friends and at almost a week in I am starting to get into this realm of constant questioning...

See it's a lot harder to reject something that has been the major focus of my life for basically all of my life. I can't really think of a time when I wasn't anticipating my wedding, planning for the future with my husband, or just all caught up in the greatness that I thought love was. This being said I am now finding myself with a lot of displaced feelings. Instead of having some foolish boy to crush on and devote time on my life to the what-ifs with him, I find myself a little dumbfounded with what to do with all of this extra attention.

(Insert epiphany #2...)

I am the love of my life! and the thing about it is I should have always been. I should have realized that since love was not living up to it's hype, and I was the one always doing the loving, I had no place to look for reciprocity except inward.

Woooow... I mean all this time I've been such a fool. I mean I've known all this time that I am great at being a love interest. I do all the things that make that special someone feel... well special. I mean cards for no reason at all, special dinners, presents, quality time, affirmations, I mean the WHOLE NINE YARDS. I am basically fluent in every love language and I've been wasting this gift on fools that just want to use me up. Well I'm done with that crap!

For the duration of this detox and probably for the rest of my life, I am now going to be the love of my life. I'm going to do all of those things that I would have, did, and wanted to do for some foolish male, for me. This should definitely fill up that void that I had and give me something to do with all of that displaced emotion. Thank God for this epiphany because otherwise I may have just converted all of that to anger which would not have been good for anyone...

So here's to the new me loving all of me. Here's to recognizing that every boy that I wasted time on before this a ha moment was a waste of my time and I should have been my focus from the very beginning...

At least it only took 25 years to find my soulmate...

Until the next song plays...
- Jazz

Ain't That Funny

" It’s been awhile since you came around
Now ya wanna see what’s goin’ down
Tryin’ to tell me why ya want my time
Tryin’ to tell me how I’m on your mind
See it never had to be this way
You should of never played the games you played
Now I’m seein’ that you’re kinda lame
Knowin how the situation change..."
-J-LO


Day 4 guys... I gotta be honest about this, I didn't really think I'd get past day 2 so I'm really feeling good about myself ::pats self on back::

I'm entering my first weekend without love and I can't help but chuckle a little when I think about how foolish love is or has been with me... My soundtrack las led me to J-Lo and although I've never considered myself her number one fan I do think that the lyrics describe perfectly what a phone convo between love and myself at this point if that were possible...
In looking over the past and coming to epiphany #1 I think I've gotten past the anger stage and now I'm like ok you got me good for a long time but now who looks foolish?
Every cause needs an advocate right? And each deity a loyal servant right? Well love just lost both... It's to the point where some people have said that my newfound rehab from love has led them to question love as well... This wasn't my intention but after hearing that I can't help but think... It is kind of funny and they say laughter is the best medicine :)

We'll just say this is my form of methodone for my time in rehab...

I'll take a couple of converts for the dark side and I'll consider it reparations for all I've gone through...




Until the next song plays...
- Jazz