We hurt, We Learn, We grow

Ten years ago I had a totally different idea/ conception of love. I guess because I was young and resilient or maybe because my heart hadn’t been through the wears and tears of time OR maybe because it hadn’t been dragged through the mud yet. I used to dream of that wild love. The one that leaves you drunk and drives you completely crazy, the one that just hits your brain and your heart in a split second and that you can’t get enough of. I know... It was a very naïve conception of love but I was a pretty young thing and I didn’t know better. But I learned. I learned through the lonely nights, the nights where I couldn’t sleep because I was wondering who he was with; the lonely nights where I would cry myself to sleep, wondering how he could put me through so much shit and go to sleep as if nothing happened. I learned through the lonely nights where the only thing that seemed to mend my heart was praying and writing my pain and heartbreak away because really I didn’t know what else to do. I would try to speak and words would just be stuck to the back of my throat. I would try to breathe and it would feel like I was drowning in my sorrows and my tears. I would try to eat but I couldn’t: it seemed like all the butterfly that were flying in my stomach every time he would smile to me and tell me he loved me had just died. My stomach was a funeral home: dead butterfly all over the place. My heart was broken, my soul was a wreck and my life (along with my hair) was a mess.


I hurt. I ached. But I learned. I learned that after being drunk in love comes the hangover and it is never a pretty sight nor is it a good feeling. I have learned that love is like a drug: getting high feel exhilarating at first but the aftermath is chaos and darkness. I wish somebody had told me about the violence of the crash. I wish somebody had told me : "baby take a parachute just in case. Just in case you go too high. Just in case you fall from up there, we don’t want to see you die". I wish somebody had explain to my why we say "fall in love", I wish someone had told me that the crash could be as unpredictable and violent as a tornado wrecking havoc everything crossing its path. I wish somebody had warned me about the fall, the one that shattered my heart and my soul in the process.


But even then I grew and I learned. I learned that a broken heart lets in the light and that at some point the light replaces the darkness. I learned that for a while you cry yourself to sleep and one morning, you wake up and all of the sudden something has settled in your heart. You can smile and laugh again. You can be yourself and alive; striving and kicking when a few years, months, days ago you were barely living, sitting on the edge of reason, only surviving. You open your eyes one day and despair has given its sits to hope. You think about love and you don’t get angry anymore. You think :" Perhaps one day I’ll be able to love again" instead of disappearing into a puddle of tears and acting like a lunatic. All of the sudden, you are on the other side of the storm. You don’t know how you made it through but you just know you’re on the other side because you can finally look back and not be sad. Or bitter. Or hurt. You’re finally at peace and you won’t let the past nibs its way through your newly found heaven.


Love was never easy to begin with. It is one of those things we gamble with, betting our hearts out of sheer madness, hoping and praying that things will work out. Love is one of those crazy things that we can’t live without. It’s one of those things that can freeze your heart or set your soul on fire.
To each one its own hell and may the odds be ever in our favor as we attempt to turn hell into paradise.

 

- Excerpt from a memoir I will never write #4

The Rising Of A Warrior

This article is starting like most of the ones I write and in which I pour my heart out: sitting on my bed, processing a long day and eating my feelings through a giant box of chocolates.

I have always been fearless when it came to the pursuit of my dreams and the things that set my soul on fire and coming to the U.S was one of those things: a dream for better tomorrow, perhaps home, perhaps here or perhaps somewhere else. I didn't exactly know where chasing my dreams would lead me back then (and I still don't) but one thing I knew for sure was that there was something big awaiting for me at the end. I enthusiastically dropped my luggage in my room as I got here for the first time, thinking about the big things I was going to do, thinking about the accomplishments I was going to cross off my bucket list. Little did I know that I was on to a fight, than only those with the courage, will and mindset of a Spartan could win.

When people get to the US (or anywhere else really), there are a lot of things they don't tell you. And thus, there are a lot of things you are just unprepared for. People don't tell you about the culture shock. They don't tell you about the depression and the stress that can either make you suicidal or homicidal. They do not tell you that someday you will  miss your home and you will want to just drop everything and go back. They don't tell you because well... I don't know why... Or maybe they do but we just don't listen. From my experience, no matter how bad things got, no matter how many nights I cried myself to bed (because there were just days like that where only crying would soothe my soul and allow me to fall asleep) I always reminded myself that I didn't come all the way here, made it to where I was to back down. Giving up was not an option: I had too much at stake and I couldn't risk jeopardizing my future. So no matter how difficult it was I always had to push harder and challenge the limits that seemed to be imposed to me.

And then in a blink of an eye it was graduation: I told myself it was the crossing line. It was the end of the beat down. Boy was I wrong... The funniest thing about studying Biology (yes... I am a biology major) is that pretty much 90% of the things I learned apply to life in some kind of way. And what I have learned as an international student striving to make my dream come true (despite a system that cage those who are not natives) is that it is all about the survival of the fittest. This concept originates from Darwin's Theory of evolution and all boils down to one simple thing: in order to survive you MUST evolve and let me tell you my post graduation experience has been one of those moment where I had to evolve to "stay alive". My post graduations years have been all about survival to the point where even when things were going good, I couldn't help but plot emergency plans for when things would go wrong (Talk about being paranoiac!)If you are an international student in the U.S you will understand.... If you are not, I wouldn't wish that to you. Getting into this laws system can have two different effects on you: it will either break you or turn you into a Spartan. I bet you wonder what it turned me into...

I have had the best of both words: some days ere beat downs and one mental/ emotional breakdown after the other. It was bad to the point that sometimes, I felt like I could never catch a break: from the pressure of finding a job under strict deadlines to the highs of finding one and back to being empty handed because the Biotech industry is as unpredictable as a woman on her period. It was a lot to handle on most days and honestly there were times where I contemplated the ideas of packing my bags and leaving. But then there were just days where God's grace carried me through. There were just days where my mind was still, my heart was calm and I just had an unwavering assurance that God was going to pull through and make something work (and He never failed to do it!) It was stressful at times but His grace carried me through. And I was blessed enough to see doors open before me, one after the other; not without a fight but they eventually did open. And I am grateful for that, especially when I think about those who weren't as "privileged" to have the kind of opportunities that I have or just to have the opportunity to live their dreams. Period.

This post is not about my Faith or my religion. It is not about me bamboozling you with some Jesus stuff even though for me, it did work (along with my efforts to find a job of course). This article is about encouragements. It is about letting you know, if you are an international student reading this, you are not alone. There are plenty of us who have been through, are going through and will most likely go through what you are going through. And some days it might feel like you are not going to make it. The system makes you believe that you are not going to make it. But you got to trust that even if life is tough, you are tougher and no matter how bad it is at the moment, you will make it.

Keep your head high and keep pushing, you will get there.

With Love

Saints Or Ain'ts?

"Counting other people's sins does not make you a saint"

Welcome back to the blog and to a new article. This one might come as a little bit of a shocker but I'll try to be as cool and soft as I can but there is no guarantee it's going to work...

Church is supposed to be the place where you can find comfort, people to trust and to help you get back on your feet when you happen to fall. But more often than not, what we tend to see is that those who are supposed to be a support become the ones condemning the people who came to them for help in the first place. I have found that we (I say we because I am a christian too) look down on people who have been guilty of not so pretty things forgetting that we have once been there and/or that we might end up being in that other person's shoes/ position some day. For being in positions, and places that are left to desire, I have been more than careful about judging people who came to me with issues/ things they were struggling with. And it came from the understanding that as human nobody is exempt from sinning. Moreover, I understood that people should not be judged because they sin in ways that we think we wouldn't; And honestly, what so we know about our positions? how do we know that those people who come to us with questions and have the ability to confess / understand their position are not better off than us, pretending to be saints when in reality we are just ain'ts?

Some people just genuinely struggle with things that they haven't found the strength to let go of and some other people just chose blatantly to go wrong. I have been in both groups. And one thing that I can tell you is that judgment never made it better. Judgement never made me question my position or some of the things that I did. If anything, it made me keep going. Why? Well: a) because I hadn't have a real encounter with Jesus and b) because the way people talked to me felt more like condemnation rather than trying to point to me what I did wrong from a place of love because conviction without love is condamnation.

Being a christian doesn't make anybody immune to sin. Being a christian and following God by developing a true, profound, sincere and intentional relationship with Him, leads someone to seeking God more and little by little turning away from sin. And the more time you spend in God's presence the more you start to develop an aversion to sin if and only if! you have truly surrendered your life to God and desire Him more than you desire the habits, decisions, actions that bind you to a sinful life. And this sanctification process doesn't happen overnight. It takes time and it is an ongoing, daily process in which sometimes there can be mishaps. It happens for everybody. And we shouldn't stay stuck on it but rather cry out to God, confess our sins and pray that He transforms us to bring us closer to his image. People tend to forget what/ who they were in the past, they tend to forget the path they have walked to be at a place today where the things that used to keep them in bondage do not affect them anymore or do not affect them as much. Jesus in John 8:1-11 when confronted with the issue of the adulterous woman stood before her accusers and said :"All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!" and all of the sudden they were nowhere to be found. Jesus message was really clear: Don't judge/ condemn people because they are sinning differently than you. We are all as guilty for the things we do whether we realize it or not and perhaps the reason why we can still look at other people down is because no one has found out yet the nasty things we do. And even if people did, their job shouldn't be to condemn us but to call us upon it with love and compassion and if anything else fails, keep us in their prayers. The truth is we are no different from those people we condemn at all: we are just being "bad" in our very own, best and sneaky ways.

May God help us be kinder to those who are not at our level of faith to help them get closer to Jesus.

Much love

❤

The Ghosting Trend : When The People We Love/ care about Turn Into Casper

Welcome back to the blog and to a post I hope you find as interesting as I did writing it. I debated if it was a good idea or not to post this but I guess if it is not a good idea, I’ll just ride with it and get whipped later. Let me start by saying that the topic that is discussed today is a “thing”, a trend that I myself have also been guilty of. So truly this is a time to repent and a message to all the people who have been on the receiving end of that behavior I have exhibited. Ladies and gentlemen welcome tonight the most trending behavior of all time: Ghosting.

I do not know who invented this but let me tell you something from a black woman: that thing got me messed up! I am not even going to lie. The guy who says he’s going to call after a meeting, the girl who is talking to her mom and will call you back in 5. Yo… some of us have been waiting for 5 years!! For booboo the fool to be done at the barber shop and come back to go the movies (yeah I still got the tickets sitting on my night stand) . Let me catch a breath before I catch a mental breakdown. Having ghosted people and having been ghosted (yeah Karma was like: “girl you’re about to learn some!” and trust me I learned my lesson), I tried to understand the root cause of it. And after giving it some thought I understood that it was a phenomenon fostered by the society we live in: a society that has raised generations who have become inadequate.

We have become inadequate at expressing ourselves because we do not know how to communicate anymore without technology and outside of social media. We have not developed the skilled necessary to handle real human interactions. We have not learned to explore the broad spectrum of emotions which for us is limited to a double tap on Instagram, clicking on a reaction button on Facebook or sending a bunch of emojis via text messages. Anything outside of this frightens us because it is not familiar. It frightens us because we have not developed the tools necessary to handle people's emotions and the way they affect us. Or maybe we have but we simply don’t want to have to do it because we do not feel like it is our responsibility? Or perhaps we simply forbid ourselves to deal with people’s feelings triggered by our words, actions, decisions because it would imply that we have some kind of responsibility and accountability with regard to how they feel? Responsibility, accountability, duty, commitment to truth, inadequacy… All the things we hate to hear in one sentence… I feel the anxiety rising PLEASE give me a brown bag… Not working... I changed my mind!

And then once the panic is gone, we decide to ghost. We try to rationalize it and make ourselves feel better by fabricating lies. We stitch them up together, make them look nice and good, but let me tell you that it didn’t feel good to me when he didn’t return my calls, when all of the sudden he stopped texting, moved in with her and then got married. The crying, the wondering, the constant questioning of your value or self worth: “Was I not good enough? What did I do?” It never feels good and we will never understand but somehow we find the strength to move on because we realize that perhaps it had everything to do with them and little to do with us.

 Ghosting is not childish: there is nothing innocent or fun about it. It is a deliberate choice to ignore someone and destroy his/ her self-esteem in the process. And this is never acceptable. It is a disease that has been around for years and for which only cure will be the future generations if we teach them the right way to do things and instill in them the desire to build genuine relationship with people without the emotional numbness of technology and social media.

God help us all!

Until next time,

xo