April 14, 2009

Feeling the Blues

Some days I don’t want to feel anything. It hurts to truly and deeply feels. When you are alone, vulnerable and the truth shows up there’s no running from it. I would rather not feel today. My heart hurts and I physically get ill to my stomach. I am thinking of too many things I need to accomplish and not able to at this time. Every time I make one step forward I seem to make three backwards usually because of circumstances beyond my control. I get down and depressed, I gain weight and I get more depressed. It’s a rather vicious cycle. It’s the feeling one gets when ever so often you stop and take stock of your life and it’s not where or what it should be at that particular moment in time.

Seriously, I am grateful for my health and that of my family. I am grateful for my family and friends and the fact that I have a roof over my head and food to eat. I’m grateful for just being. But I believe there’s something wrong in not being productive and earning your way into accomplishing your dreams. I got laid-off in December of 2008 and it’s now April, four months and still not working. I’ve sent out applications, even manually dropping some off and still nothing, which is not surprising based on the economic conditions, but you hold on to faith anyway and hoped. Thank God for unemployment benefits, and shrewd money management and decent food -shopping skills, I am managing. But it’s not easy by any means.

Late at nights when it’s quiet and the sounds of sleep and silence is all you can hear, I begin to feel. I think; sigh, think and I feel. It’s usually like a heavy black rain-cloud sitting on my chest and it becomes overwhelming and I want to let the dam burst and the tears come. I’ve come to learn that the power of tears can cleanse as well as comfort you. That doesn’t happen though; I just lay there and feel. It’s hard to cry as much as I’m hurting and trying hard to breathe. I can’t, I just feel and take deep breaths. I tried to analyze exactly what I’m feeling and then let it go, but it wouldn’t let go, held on to me like a jealous lover!

My phone made the text-message-coming-in-sound and I grasp it in desperation hoping the message was enough to distract my feelings. I looked at the clock, it was after midnight and it was an acquaintance sending a message that she missed her significant other and how depressed and stressed she was feeling. That has got be a cosmic joke right? I was supposed to find words to encourage and cheered her so she could sleep and rest fitfully. I was not amused at the Universe’s sense of humor, but I complied anyway.

I sat up in bed and wrote her a two page message doing just that. I encouraged and implored her to have faith, the sun would come out tomorrow and it wouldn’t always be like this. Those were some of the things I wrote and I meant them too. But just for her.

A rather funny thing happened afterwards. I felt better. The bad feelings didn’t just magically disappear, but I was breathing easier. Even though I was aware of the feelings and the heaviness of heart, it wasn’t dominant. I was less focused on me and more on the young lady who texted me. I know it’s not over; these blues that has time and time again come to hug me like a long lost friend who’s too obnoxious to take a hint and leave me the hell alone, but I do my best to maintain my sanity and keep going.

Like that old saying, “when the going gets tough, the tough gets going”… Lata!

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Update!

About three days after I wrote this piece I got the best call of my life!! I was called back to work! I’m back working and feeling productive and though at the end of the day I’m totally exhausted, it feels good! Thanks be to God!!

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Beep! Beep! Beep!

He was holding and loving her ever so gently, sweetly and intensely. She was in ecstasy and knew instinctively there was no place else she would have or should have been at this moment. This was where she belonged, right here, right now in his arms being the recipient of his sweet and intoxicating loving. She waited a long time for this and nothing was going to spoil this moment, she was going to savor and enjoy every minute of it.

The music poured through her soul, the lyrical melody seeping through her pores, her skin, and into her veins as she moved in rhythm to the sultry-whiskey-laced-gravelly-voiced wisp of a girl who was belting out her feelings in song. The organ playing hauntingly and beautifully as he rained butterfly kisses on her eyelids, tip of her nose and on her lips. She stretched and purred like a satisfied cat that had just had his fill of creamy milk. The lyrical notes caressed her heart, the timbre of the songstress’ voice filling her being as he continued to rain soft kisses on her breasts, teasing her nipples. She was on fire, the song bathing her in a passionate dance of climatic proportions. He was now caressing her from head to toe, “ooh, this is sooo good, hmmm, hmmm”.

Suddenly he stopped and stared at her. Seeking and finding her eyes he stared steadily at her. Gaze intense and with heated passion he gently lowered his head and without saying a word, found her sweet lips. There was nothing soft and gentle about his kiss. She was in sweet pain as she held on to him tightly, responding to the message his lips were sending and letting him know she had received it. He lowered his head, rubbed his hand lightly across her belly and began punctuating it with soft kisses as his hand explored her inner thighs. The music began to swell to a crescendo, her breath coming in short gasps as she made herself more accommodating and the girl sang, gotta a right to be wroooong, in that sultry gravelly voice, “sing it girl, siiiing, sing, don’t stop please, please don’t stop, a plea she silently screamed to them both while in throes of ecstasy…Beep, Beep, Beep… Beep, Beep, Beep!!

“What, huh? Nooooooo, don’t stop, not now! Beep, Beep Beep!
She jumped up in bed and realized the alarm clock was going off; she stretched across and angrily slapped it off the night table to the floor, where it clattered. She looked around trying to find her dream lover but he was no where in sight, of course he wasn’t, he wasn’t real. Sheets were tangled up in disarray, clothes on every which way as if she was in a fight and the darn clock on the floor was still beeping. She had forgotten to hit the snooze button. She had to get going, didn’t feel like it today, work was the last thing on her mind, but she had to get going. Beep, Beep, Beep! “Shut up already” she yelled.

She got up, grabbed her towel and headed for the bathroom to shower. Marching with purposeful strides to cool the fire between her thighs, she stubbed her big toe on the clock and angrily kicked it across the room in a corner. Her toe still smarting from the blow, she hopped into the bathroom. Turning on the tap she stepped into the shower stall, thought about it and stepped out again. Went to the living room where she found the remote, gently lifted her hand, aimed at the stereo and filled her apartment with Joss Stone’s, Right to Be Wrong. It was seven-thirty in the morning, the music was loud. She didn’t care. She felt tons better already, singing along as she entered into the shower stall. Maybe today wouldn’t be such a bad day after all.

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