The problem for me is I've heard how beautiful, talented and smart I am, my entire life. You may think; "Lucky you, I've been ugly, talentless and dumb my whole life!" Than I would point out to you how you were wrong. I would show you ways that you excel, and areas of your life that possibly need improvement, but that does not under-value you as a woman. I have found that when you ask for advice someone is always ready with answers, that doesn't mean those answers will be the correct solutions for your life.
Would you rather rent a home or buy? Would you rather get a new puppy or an old dog? Would you rather listen to others, or listen to yourself? Whatever answer you are attempting to find in your life I believe the voice of reason has little to do with what others have to say. I have let the voice of my family, God, and my friends rule my life. I have listened to friends that told me to stay in a relationship that wasn't working, and I have listened to my family when I wanted to get out of my marriage long past the expiration date. There is only so much of the wrong advice a girl can take on her journey to womanhood. There are no easy answers.
The problems that come with making decisions for yourself are hard to foresee. You may work a job where you believe the people are honest and hard-working, and you wanted to excel badly to add to your bottom line, not for yourself, but for your child. You wanted more than anything to be able to take him to the places he wants to go and help his dreams come true too. You keep getting stuck, hung up on an ex-husband who is hell bent on controlling your life, and has been successful at doing just that. So you start to do what any rebellious teenager with strict parents would do, and you rebel. You push back! After ten years of control, violence and fear, you push back, you let him know that he needs to go FUCK HIMSELF because he never was good in bed anyway, and just because he likes to have affairs, and lie and cheat and steal it doesn't make it okay does it? Just because he has a smart fancy-pants lawyer that he thinks will solve all his problems, you know things about him that will BURY THIS MAN. You fantasize about all the ways you could bring him to justice, and you know that even though you'd like too MURDER IS NOT AN OPTION, even though he's plotted your murder several times himself. You learn to live fearlessly and unafraid of consequences, but that doesn't mean you'll abuse the privilege.
When you are beautiful and have a natural full bust, nice ass, and long blonde hair, someone will always tell you, that you're beautiful. The men you refuse to sleep with will always call you a whore, a tease, a bitch, a cunt. You decide whom you believe. Just because you sleep with attractive men you may or may not love, it doesn't make you a whore. Whether or not you've ever slept with someone your entire life doesn't exactly make you a virgin either. The parameters are vague, at best. You decide who you let in your life and what to do with the consequences that follow. You decide how to let that beauty shine, or dull it down. You decide to have cleavage or wear a turtle neck. You decide whether to grow your hair long and blonde for your husband or chop it short and dye it black for yourself. YOU DECIDE. You stop listening to everyone who assumes they know you because they've watched you grow up, but they weren't there inside your mind or your body were they? They weren't the ones living with the guilt, the shame, the fear, the horror of the "secrets" you were told to keep. They weren't the ones living with the burden of raising a child on their own, hurting from exhaustion, guilty from sins that were not their fault, and trying desperately to rise to the top.
No one will ever understand you, so don't waste your breathe, why even try? No one will understand how you can be beautiful, fearless, and forgiving all at the same time. No one will ever accept all of you in your fullness and glory, no one will truly "get it." Lots of confusion will follow, lots of drama, lots of fear, because sometimes you make the wrong choices too, cause let's face it, you are human after all. You may unintentionally hurt those that you love the most because they are unintentionally hurting you, and you may decide to be afraid of the things you have no control over. You may decide to marry a man you truly love and those who love you the most, sabotage it for you. That still doesn't mean you'll ever shut up, no it doesn't. It means you sing Adele's Rolling in the Deep with fever when the song says: 'And I'll lay all your shit bare.' You learn to sing softly and quietly with Sara Barielles when she sings: 'I've got a glass-caged heart you can see right through, I'm just a basket case, without you. He's not a magic man, or the perfect fit, he had a steady hand, and I got used to it, I'm not an open book you can riffle through, I'm just a basket case, it's what we do. . .' You may also sing at the TOP OF YOUR LUNGS along to Halestorm's 'Here's to us; Here's to love, here's to us, all the times that we fucked up, here's to you, raise the glass, cause the last few days have kicked my ass, here's to you, raise your glass, tell em' go fuck themselves HERE'S TO US!'
No matter how many cuss words you drop, or how many tattoos you get, or how many times you change your life and your hair, you still love God. In your mind, he loves you too, it brings you comfort to know that no matter where you've been, you're still going on that journey, and you'll get back to him one day, but for now, you've got to let your hair blow in the breeze and get through a lot of shit, and drown out the words of others and only look ahead, cause looking behind will scare you, and looking too far in the distance the horizon starts to get hazy. . . so you just keep moving, and you learn to live life your own way and take it at your own pace, cus it's not about anyone else living it for you, it's about your own story, and being accountable for the conclusion in the end. Best Wishes and love to all that have supported me along the way, all my single mom friends, my family, even though we've had our hard times, The Millionaire MatchMaker, and my CD collection, Steve Jobs, and Family Services Alliance, and my son who is my light in the darkness, my strength when I am weak, my SUPERHERO, I love you more than you could ever know, more than you could ever understand. It's not over yet, we're nowhere near the end.
