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It’s 1:37am now. I walked to the store and could have sworn that my clock said 11pm. I mumbled to myself “Foolish girl, you have your glasses on but still can’t see”

It was about 9 or 10 and I was watching a trial show on Netflix. Arguing with the TV per usual. I tend to have an opinion on everything. Which could be annoying for anyone watching TV with me, but I am always watching TV alone and fine with the TV not talking shit back to me.

I took my pulse. 68. Which is normal 60-100 is good. I really don’t like taking medicine, but I knew that I needed to calm down. Whenever I sit in my mind and think about certain things, I get anxious. And I really feel a pounding in my head. I had gone to the nightstand and grabbed my Hydroxyzine. Being someone familiar with Pharmacology and the nuance of how it works in the body, it usually sits there in the bottle undisturbed. But these past couple of days have been immense.

It’s a feeling of remorse. It’s a feeling of guilt. It’s a feeling of sadness.

There are men and women that walk this earth and are so pressed with angst for my desire to leave them with no other choice but to find someone else. To give them no reason to talk. No reason to explain. And that is not fair. I think about that all the time. More than you think. I think about families, kids, cooking, community and more. And I tell myself that I will not experience that the way I want to if I don’t get out of the depressive states that I am in most times. Feeling a drought is not good. It’s hardening my heart sometimes.

I guess I never really sat and worked through these emotions before. I would just move on. We are taught to just move on so much in life. Fall and bust your knee, move on. Get your heart broken, move on. And it’s that feeling that someone has that they don’t have a chance to come and redeem themselves. And truthfully that’s what hurts me the most. That I can shock myself with how enclosed I will make myself become. I will want to focus on something that will better my sense of judgement. My emotional intelligence. My sensuality, such as getting my hair done in a different style. All to better myself, or so I think.

But what if bettering yourself is making it possible for someone to have a way to come back and apologize for not being there when you needed them. For not knowing what you needed. For not being who you needed them to be. For not having something inside them that you could call forever. For not being your forever. It’s sometimes appalling to me, the frustration I hold in my heart when I think about these things. Because I crave closeness in so many aspects of life.

I guess I just fear rejection like everyone else does at some point in life. And in order to avoid feeling that rejection, I put a stop to feeling anything at all. That’s the hardest part. The raw form of emotion is being able to cry in front of someone. And that, to me is true vulnerability. But what does that do for you as a person? In my heart it makes me want to make you stay longer. But sometimes I don’t cry at things other people cry at. I know what it means to be the strong person in the room when a patient is dying. And so I attribute that sometimes in life and apologize for not wanting to show emotion to some people. Although I am genuine, I don’t want you to think that just because I feel uncomfortable crying in front of you, that I don’t cry about you.

I feel that loneliness set in and don’t want to adhere to it. I don’t want to feed into it. I don’t want to see why it’s there in the first place. I just want to move past it. And most often it’s because I have shut myself out of community engagements that really truly do make me happy. Let’s say a speaking engagement for example. A psychology based one. And the man is talking about depression. I will likely cry. And that crying in front of other people will make me feel invalidated. I don’t know why. But I won’t want to feel that so I might not go to the speaking engagement. Confronting my fears is really the most important part of my life right now.

I am afraid of love. Afraid of getting close to someone. Afraid of building a relationship with your kids and with the tumultuous ups and downs in a relationship; having them ripped from my heart. So, I avoid it. That’s the boldest truth. And it hurts. I know people feel this same emotion sometimes, but what does it prevent you from doing in life? What does it prevent you from feeling in life? Where does it prevent you from going?

Procrastination has always been a problem for me. I have always had an issue with being able to assert myself in a manner that can exemplify a solid routine unless I can clear my mental and have the essential things in life set up the way they need to be. And even if my Maslow’s triangle is satisfied, there will be a precedence of fear that then folds into procrastination, and I don’t get as far as I want to.

I think it was me dancing around as a little girl thinking that one day I will have a husband. I loved the old movies and watching the love stories. Putting myself in their shoes. Having children and getting married are dreams that people do hold dear. But they are also things that people get mad at themselves about if they don’t succeed at. They feel like they are less than if they aren’t married.

And back in the old days, if you weren’t married by a certain age you were shunned by the community. They did not look at you like a pillar of strength. They looked at you as weak. Something is wrong with you. Why is it that everyone else can find a husband but you can’t? What the fuck is wrong with you? “An Unmarried Woman” (1978) is a great movie. Discusses societal expectations to a great detail. But you will understand old mannerisms in society. I will watch an old movie with a great big massive smile on my face. And sing along to old Dean Martin songs.

That’s how it would come off, the judgement from other people. And so, you begin to see why a woman would be so depressed. And feel so low. Useless. Worthless. Because all around her people were getting married, but she was not someone that was getting married. I will never forget a scene of this one movie where the woman was walking around the kitchen talking about how she could not wait to get married. Because she was tired of the town talking about her like she was the town whore. And it was true. That was how people would talk about you at the time. Like you were just a tramp if you weren’t married. Especially by a certain age. And being that I am almost 40, I know I had felt that for myself. Partially because my love for old movies and the way that I had adored them all throughout my life. But it wasn’t until I started to take a deeper look at my own life that I realized a part of why I am the way I am, and things are the way they are is because of how I feel. How I treat love. How I treat forgiveness.

So, my objective was to get better at these things. To work through the parts of life that had been hardest to work through. Giving myself the opportunity to be honest with myself. What if there is a person that’s out there that is so concerned about my blood pressure, anxiety and pulse that it affects his movements? What if I have already been with this person, and still decide to disregard that they want a second chance? What if my own insecurities are the very reason they shy away from me?

They describe a strong pulse sometimes as a bounding pulse. And that’s all I want my heart to be, a strong heart.

XOXO,

El’Aundra

Read more if you like…

Cosmic Fortitude.

The Very Peace You Seek.

It was about 16 years ago I had a conversation with someone about what Ramadan meant to them. It meant a lot. They said it was something that freed them. Made them complete. And I respected that. I learned about the Quran. It wasn’t until about 7 years later that someone in a shelter had given me a copy of the Quran for myself. A lovely Arabic woman that made Arabic tea and it was a wonderful experience. Throughout the years, I had overcome struggles and gone through things in life that would make me so excited to celebrate Ramadan coming. It was a time for me to refine myself and give myself a chance. As I did.

There were times over the years that I wanted to convert, yes. But it was because of what was in my heart. A desire for peace. Not a desire to wear a head-dress that seemed fashionable to others. Not a desire to be seen as a target. Not a desire to be singled out. I wanted to find something to conform to in where I would feel complete. Comfortable. I wanted to own my peace. And even after getting hit by the car, I went back in my brain reveling in anguish and regret. Looking on lunch break after my 5th 16 hour shift in a row and seeing a Hijab. Saying to myself

“I need peace, Lord.”

It’s about forgiveness. Which is the most that I can give the person that has done this to me. Nothing else. And I hoped and pray they would not ever come looking for more. Because there is nothing more to look for. There is nothing more for me to give them, so don’t look for it. You are lucky to have my forgiveness.

“Why didn’t you convert years ago?” It was never because of a man. It was because I wanted to be seen as a humble human being. A better mother. A better daughter. A better person. A peaceful person despite what I had endured in life. Sometimes people know what you have gone through in life and feel that although you have a multitude of talents, they must play with your life. Test your patience. Test your strength. Test your wit. Test who you are.

“I just want to make sure you’re real.”

Everyone is real. It’s more of a question of how real you are when you meet them. And how they project themselves to you and how you receive them. I wanted people to receive me as someone that was welcoming. Not someone that had been through hurt and pain and wanted to cause more hurt and pain to others.

Intrigued by the peace that they had within themselves, I decided to learn more on my own. And I did. I was single at the time. A working mom of two jobs and needed a sense of peace. I think I had been trying to find that for quite some time. I had no idea how some stayed calm in a storm and admired the strength to stay untethered by the conditions of life itself. I took note. I didn’t want to impose on their safety and security in their religion, but I found it mesmerizing. I found it intriguing. How is it that you stand so peaceful without putting things in the past? Is it God alone? Is it religion alone? Is it conformity? Is it routine? What is the ultimate reason?

I knew my last name meant something special to my mom. I know what she went through to have me. And I know what I mean to my siblings. I know what they mean to me. I know what family means. I know what love means. I know what forgiveness means. I know what it means to look in the eyes of someone that tells you that you are only worth sex and tell them that you’re worth more than that. And to deal with men that treated me like I meant nothing more than that, I was always ready to throw hands to defend my honor. To defend my name. My soul. My heart. My family. My respect. My reputation. You won’t sit in my face and tell me that I mean nothing, when the very females you idolize don’t respect dignity in other females. They never did. But you honor them, right? Not here, not in my face you won’t. So, I will fight.

I respect the fact that my mother always told me “You are nobody’s bitch. You lay down for no man. No woman. You take no shit and hold your own.” And I do. Because 9 times out of 10 you cannot handle shit for me.

But as someone that will consider how to process trauma in your mind, you begin to think to yourself:

You can disrespect me. Lie to me. Cheat on me. Exploit me. Disregard me. Shame me. Hurt me. Kick me. Beat me. Rape me. Try and kill me. Deny me. Lie on me. Disrespect me. What is it that I can do for myself?

I remember standing up for a patient in the nursing home who was being assaulted by another patient almost 5 years ago. And a coworker was making a joke about it. And I remember looking at her and saying “It’s because of what I went through almost 20 years ago and having a solid support system that I stand here today. That’s really messed up to say.”

Some of these things in the last 37 years that I have been through. A compilation of strength. No need to divulge in who the blame belongs to. They will always know who they are. Not everyone deals with seeking justice the same way. With the trauma the same way, etc. Some people never really get that chance to fight for themselves. Just like the lady in the nursing home.

Why do you think people seclude themselves so much? Because there are very very, very few people that will ever understand or empathize with what you have been through.

I personally am not going to sit here and argue with you over what I have been through.

I don’t have patience for this response:

“You haven’t been through that!”

Like I have time to sit and lie to you after I have typed 800,00 words in a blog. (*eyeroll) I would sooner want to be done with the conversation and leave. Seriously. Strength comes from overcoming milestones and experiences. And the best way to resonate with someone is not to call them a liar when they tell you something about themselves. That’s not why they are telling you. They want to connect with you and by you calling them a liar, it makes it a point if mistrust. Now they can’t trust you.

I have had friends I have told things to. Their response?

“That would never happen to me.”

“I would never let that happen to me.”

And that is one of the most selfish, damaging statements you can make to someone. So, I was glad to get rid of them for good.

I knew the man that bore that last name meant something to my mom just as well. And I don’t play as far as giving her full respect for the woman she raised to this day. The man who biologically takes ownership of me having a completely different last name can take ownership and feel just as complete. Both of them can. All three of them can. And I would stand in a room with all three of them and tell them that I understand. And to mitigate the peace, I can hyphenate my last name or remove the non-biological. But it won’t change who I am at the core. But I don’t play about my respect. My mother never asked for a dime to help raise me. I appreciate her strength. She never shamed either of these men. And I never held resentment for either of them. Honor for both for loving my mother. I didn’t like people that had something to say about the men that raised me or where my last name comes from.

It’s truly none of your business. Unless you’re trying to marry, and I highly fucking doubt that you want to marry me.

The woman who gave birth to me. For a short time, my grandmother wanting some help and then realizing it was better to allow my father to get his life in order and be the person he needs to be for his other kids and himself. Growing up, many of us were separated. My father’s children were not around all but once at a Gus Macker tournament in Buffalo as a teenager. It was the desire as a child for us to be millionaires and have a life together. Not of solitude and loneliness. I had always wanted to provide that. And the guilt from not being able to, was something that ate at my heart my entire life. My guilt for not being able to provide that for others. But as much as I try to on a daily basis, I may not succeed in the general sense with strangers. But as long as I bring something positive to your day, I am happy. That loneliness had set in. Ramadan and religion in general (leaning on a higher power) was something that gave me the strength to be ok with the disproportioned life. Not being ashamed of who I am, I sat with the regard that I need to let people know who I am. Not allow them to think they know who I am. That is something I refused to allow them to do.

I had always had respect for who I am. And in school it was the ‘sand-ni**er’ word that made me irate. They would tell me to go home and put a turban on. Go cause a terrorist attack. I would be stunned. Why would you think that this child that grew up without cable in the home, and with Christian music playing all through the house all the time would want to do something like that? Was it your projecting? And I couldn’t believe the audacity. But it wound up being the very karmic hurt in my anger later on in life that made me crumble. I didn’t handle the retribution well. And I should have. But where was there to turn when most of the world is white-owned. Especially the world I lived in. But I grew up knowing that not every white person is bad or hateful. And applied that to everyone. NOT EVERYONE IS BAD OR HATEFUL. And when some the white girlfriends would make sure that you knew they could take your black boyfriend if not your life. And yet I would go to sleep thinking this:

But they won’t take experiences.

You won’t take someone’s strength.

And although technically you can take someone’s intelligence, it’s that my heart has been inoculated against you because of your hate.

Almost as if a zombie would fight back. But it was okay for people to burn crosses in our front yard as a kid and get away with it. I would take it quite personal. Because people never bothered to ask who I was. You just felt like it was more important to exploit me. Now at 37 I tell you to leave me be to figure it out alone. Don’t come to me apologizing for hurting me now that I have had to glue myself back together and you don’t like what’s reconfigured as a result. A mechanical hardness. Get off your knees trying to apologize and propose. Stop asking me to indulge in parties that don’t honor women for who and what they are. I don’t want it. Because you come from that rhetorical atmosphere of judgement that other people derived from. You don’t take my last name and define me. You don’t take my humanity and define me. Ever. I don’t want to be seen as an object. I think everyone wants to be seen as a person. A human with value. With proportion and potential to be greater. To be more graceful. To be better.

More graceful. What does that even mean? In words? Words. Let me tell you something about words. I love words. I was taught as a punishment to go and read the Brittanica. That was revealing to my potential. Won a spelling bee and loved the ideology of being more than just a lover of books. Loved the idea of writing and that’s all you get. Is my words on paper. I don’t have to share my personal heart and mind, soul body and time with you. Unless I choose. Because suffering is a choice and so is personal space. And I am protective of my personal space as a result of what I have been through. The message is boundaries. Respect. Honor. As a child, and growing into an adult that’s what I wanted. Even in personal relationships that’s what I craved more than anything. But when I didn’t get it I didn’t think like others

“Let me flatten your tires.” That’s blessing you with my presence. My actions. My conversation. My argument.

If in fact I just sit and write and say less (and show a side of me that displays a level of aggression alone); you will be at a loss and wonder

“What the fuck just happened?”

Indeed. What happened. You. You are what disturbed my peace. And I need to show you something. Teach you a lesson. Say less. Write more.

It throws you off if you call me a hood-rat and an ignorant negro and the only place that I act like that is in a room alone. Yelling, screaming, throwing and destroying things that I have bought only to replace them. That in itself will throw you for a loop. I want it to. Because I won’t talk to you like that in person on the regular. Even when provoked, it takes A LOT. I equate it to the pressure of the Hoover Dam. And pressure creates diamonds. So even after reading what I have written in truth, what has my entire life been?

PRESSURE.

And you don’t appreciate a diamond is the point. Or the objective.

What the nature of learning from your mistakes does is keep you underground and hopefully you learn enough so that you can rise above when you have regained strength. Your mistakes do keep you low.

Ramadan meant so much to many people that I chose to surround myself with at the time. Wanting to be strategic about my work schedule. Work through things of my past and hurt. Anger not something I would dispel on other people often at all. I have typically been the type of person to run from you and run home versus run to you and confront you for making me hurt. Does it hurt? Yes. But I don’t care to allow you to have a part of me that makes you feel like I am giving you a chance although you already hurt me. I would sit with disgust sometimes and wonder how people did that. Be so forgiving to let someone come back to them so many times after hurting them over and over and over again. They tell you they hate you. They show they hate you. They act like they hate you. And you are so in debt with love, that you feel like you need their love to feel complete. I never felt like that.

I’ll paint it to you like this. I graduated in 2006. The subconscious mind is powerful. And it knows hate. And whatever it was around that time, was not necessarily around me; but I felt like I was hated. I truly did. I didn’t know why I felt that more than anything else. My grandmother had just died. And the only explanation could have come from people who knew more about things that were going on without me being “around” physically. But my being a topic of conversation is something that even in-depth perspective could have affected me succeeding in life. People don’t realize that. Going deeper, if I am sitting in my room talking about how much I dislike you; that can affect you through the universe. Simply put. Although I may not take responsibility, it’s the truth.

A friendship is a mutual choice.

And coming from a childhood where I was traumatized from an accident at a young age, I knew that as I grew up, I would need to keep my circle small. I was always concerned about what people would assume my potential would be. What would you think I could do versus what I could do. I was never part of the popular crowd. Someone that saw the beauty in those that didn’t see beauty in themselves. I understood where they were coming from. I understood what they were going through.

Because people sitting and gossiping about me would affect me subconsciously through the universe. As it does naturally. I didn’t participate in cliques and gossip. It was never something that fulfilled me. Being something that you could manipulate and play with as you wanted. An object.

An object is defined as a material thing that can be seen and touched.

Just because we can be seen and touched doesn’t mean we want to.

Objective is defined as (of a person or their judgement) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.

Subjective is defined as based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.

So much of my childhood was subjective. And I got tired of living a life like that. It was influenced by the fact that someone hated anyone with a last name like mine. Hated people with my skin color. And I don’t hate anyone. I really truly don’t. I just needed to find love for myself despite the hatred people had for me. Become more objective. Represent facts of myself. The facts being that some of the most representative parts of myself included living in my truth.

I think about that a lot from time to time. How that makes you feel when you are a subject of someone’s thoughts, hatred, conversation, or actions and you aren’t there to defend yourself.

Sitting here and there’s a knock at the door, I begin to think “No, the only person I know by that name is a childhood friend and she lives 5 hours away and we haven’t seen each other since I was 18.” But I simply said “You have the wrong person.” Irritated because I was interrupted while I was doing my knotless braids. The object of perfection can be for someone else when it comes to braids. I know societal pressure can make it so you want them to look perfect. But I could care less how they look to someone else. I am looking for something to satisfy me not putting my fingers in my hair. And the braiding is a way to strengthen the injury to my hand from playing soccer on mother’s day and falling when I had a tall boy IPA. Although what I have done in the past was travel. And if I had a car, I would have made stops to visit people and likely go to church or something else. But I decided to make the most of where I was, stationary. Be well.

XOXO,

El’Aundra

I would say that most people felt like school was a big deal for them. And it was. It surely was. It is. I cannot say that it isn’t. But when you watch documentaries talking about slavery and the mentality of the generations immediately following that time in history you begin to realize how serious it was for them. They didn’t view it as a plague.

It being a plague can be quite daunting. Quite obtuse in reality but to some that’s exactly what it is. Not knowing how to fit in. Not having compassion in your own personal life from family and friends and maybe you not understanding that the lack of seriousness you have about school can haunt you for the rest of your life. It can make things incredibly difficult. Hard to trust others. Hard to believe that they care. I don’t remember school being very diverse as far as teachers. The teachers were quite interested in a matter of fact about the way they lived life instead of understanding what you were breed to see it as through your own lens. Sometimes you can view it as something that

My mechanical hardness began when I entered relationships that didn’t give me the very respect I deserved. Defending myself in school was an attribute I had acquired as a result of dealing with the hatred some had towards who I was as a person. The truth being that I was never a child that was in the principal’s office because of disputes, arguments or fights. I was taught that when the teacher doesn’t really see you that often in that atmosphere, it’s better. So, I acted accordingly. I remember there being two instances in middle and high school that had wound me up in the office. And that was it. So, looking at my high school record as far as behavior you would see the evidence that I was not a bad child. Or what you choose to define as a bad child.

Sometimes people talk about your gait as something that is subject to satisfy them. The way you walk is not here to make anyone else happy. I say that with so much conviction because I don’t feel like it’s necessary to judge someone because of the way they walk. But I began to see a side of myself that was so defensive. And it was because of so many factors in my personal relationships and friendships that made me unhappy. They refused to see the deep chronic depression. They saw it as laziness. And so, I would harden up to keep their love away from me. I don’t want a backrub. Don’t want to be loved. Don’t want to be showered with gifts. Don’t want to be adorned. I will give myself a backrub. I will love myself. I will shower myself with gifts. I will adorn myself. I would ultimately keep these guards up as much as possible because at heart I knew I needed to love myself. I knew that part of me not loving myself was showing in the people I was choosing to be with. The things that I was choosing to deal with. The parts of myself that I would hide. I figured that I would sit and think about it sometimes, and when I did; I felt very isolated. I felt so alone and insecure about these things. How are people thinking that I am supposed to act? Supposed to walk? The walk is something that as a child I would study. I would study the military man that raised me and how he walked. And with so much respect for being strong I would stay thankful and grateful for being able to walk in general. My grandmother said that the doctors thought I would never walk again. And to this day, I am thankful to be walking. To be jumping and running. The gait being mechanical. Elegance is what you make of it. And if I had a choice, I would be in a dress everyday all day. Maybe 4 different dresses in one day. I love heels. I love the feminine side of myself. But I would notice that when I displayed that side of myself, sometimes the friendships and relationships that I would in would suffer for some reason or another. I would feel inadequate. I had to adapt my masculine side of myself to the way that I feel. Not that I felt like I needed to overpower someone and argue more with them about who I am in a defensive way. Just stand up for me for and take less of the berating.

But when it came to grades it was the focus. It was the parts of my childhood that bothered me to the core. It was the accident where I fell out of the 3rd story window when I was 6 weeks away from turning 3 years old. That defined so much of my life. So much of myself. So much of my dreaming was of being able to afford nice clothes. Going shopping and going on vacations. We would come back from school vacations and had not even gone on so much as a road trip. With a road trip being somewhere that I had wanted to go. But when I was much younger, I remember that being something that was evident. Vacation time. Then it dissipated.

Losing my grandmother at such a young age brought me into a part of depression that I could not get out of. My GPA failed immensely. My friendships failed repeatedly. And I felt ashamed for having these types of issues in my life. But beyond my control was the introspect as a child. It can sometimes be up to those around you to hold you dear and show you the way you should be. The way you should go. How things should be for you. But you don’t see past your own trauma. It was the longing for her being around that drove me deeper into sadness. It was the not understanding what had happened to me as a child with that accident that haunted me amongst other things. And I had not realized that those would be the very things that would haunt me for the rest of my life. I remember cutting off friendships because they had laughed at my GPA, calling me a retard. And I said very frankly,

“I don’t ever want to be friends with you again. You will never understand my life, childhood, dreams or anything that I have been through. And I cannot have you around me.”

That sacrifice in itself was unheard of to me. Something that I was not used to doing. Throwing away relationships just because they didn’t understand how their judgement affected me. They didn’t understand or care to understand how what they had done to laugh at me had hurt me immensely. But it had. It had dragged me down. I bore the weight more than they realized. And I ate everything in one bite. Moving on from that friendship to another hopeful adventure hoping I would one day find someone who understands to replace that person that damaged me so much from their lack of understanding.

Racism is something that is an unbearable tear to the heart for some. It is a way for people to express how they feel, and for others it can be a way to hide. I was sometimes dealing with both adverse aspects of the ordeal. Feeling like you might like me because I don’t seem like most “black girls” but there is still some apprehension to getting close to me because of the innate hatred you have for someone of a different race. And the uncomfortable part is that I would have so many sleepless nights holding in what people would say to me. I would not tell anyone. There would be 5-7 years that would go by that I did not have therapy. I would write to have therapy. To have sanity. And when that’s gone, what’s left? More writing, and more memories. It’s unbelievable the turmoil we put ourselves through when we don’t have and understanding of the brandishing we dish on someone else. I want to make you understand. That is what I would feel like someone would be trying to tell me by calling me all these names day in and day out albeit we had to be in school together. We had to play together. We had to exist together. And dealing with the turmoil from that brought back horrible outcomes in tears.

As with anyone that has been a child of someone that has dealt with substance abuse issues, you hold onto the trauma. And when someone sits in your face or goes around conditioning you to deal with how they think of you it makes you argue with yourself. They call you a crackhead. But your mother or father abused drugs. And you lash out angrily because you know this is the 200th time this person has said this about you in general. And it’s not true. But what do they know about you that makes them think that this is a word that is going to hurt you just because they said it to other people so many times to gossip in an ill manner about you? But when it comes to you, they may say it once. And it crushes you. And I mean crushes you from the inside out. Because the way it’s said is no stammering. They say it like they are used to referring to you as this. And in reality, they are used to referring to you as this. Crackhead. It hurts.

It killed more than once in my personal life to be defined by a name such as this. To even have to resort to calling someone a name. But it’s the stammering that I would focus on. Did they stall and think about what they wanted to call me (which makes me think a little deeper about how badly they want you to hurt) or did it just blurt out (which makes me think a little less deep and think that it was just something that came out, although still hurtful).

It can ruin someone’s life, the assumption of knowing who and what someone is. I often sit and think to myself

“Who have you hurt that you need to apologize to?”

Sometimes it’s yourself. And that’s the beauty of increasing your emotional intelligence. Recognizing that you need to apologize to yourself and others. From the heart. Because the heart can become mechanically hardened just as well as it can be mechanically softened. And there were times I would think about life and say to myself “You need to soften your heart.”

Don’t be so hard. Just open that heart up a bit. Be at ease. Be at peace.

XOXO,

El’Aundra

To me, being on the outside looking in:

A child being in jail for skipping school is just lost in the world with no mentors and nobody to look up to. They are in a jail setting and punished in certain ways, I relate it to someone saying to them:

‘Fuck these shoes. I’ll just throw these shoes back in a box for the next 20 years and when they’re nicer I’ll pull them out.’

Instead of just working with the already worn parts of the shoe. Working with the ways that the child needs to be healed. You know very well how to heal that child. Much like a human knows how they treat another human can damage them or lift them up.

Are you mad at the child or threatened by them?

Are you mad at the other person or threatened by them?

And when you answer that question, you can begin to dive into why you do what you do.

Because you’re selfish. And that selfishness is worthless to me. Because I am so selfless it’s shocking to some people. They look at me as if to say

“The audacity of you to think and act in such a selfless manner! How dare you!”

When I merely think in the opposite retort “The audacity of you to think and act in such a selfish manner! How dare you!”

My mind would go towards working with what was already there to help heal the brokenness. How do we keep a child in a mind-state to where they can stay sane if they are hated by those around them? Is it homeschooling? Is it taking them from the very place that they tell you they hate? And the very place that they tell you hates them?

The expectation of some people in life is to just move on from death. Just leave it in the past. Some of us do. We don’t realize what this does to a child. How this makes them feel. Like they have nowhere to turn. They don’t understand it. They don’t know how to release the anger. The loneliness. The hurt. But yet we tell them (as adults) to “move on”.

It’s because you don’t want to be bothered. And I cannot be bothered with people like you that act or think like that. So please stay away from me. I want to hold these children near to my heart. Tell them how to grieve. I have every single type of grief there is. So I know it all too well.

And I will be the last to tell you to just move past the hurt.

You are entitled to live in it. Just don’t let it break you.

I am watching a documentary about a child that is in an institutionalized home for young kids. Not only have I worked in one about 6-8 years ago because I am passionate about lives people live and how they receive love; I just wanted to watch something that would increase my emotional intelligence while I sit in my current state in life and figure out what the fuck has happened to me. A huge part of my ten page resume was dealing with human services and healthcare. How someone would misconceive the notions in this girl’s heart is beyond me. She needed this. She deserved this. To see her mother’s grave on her mother’s birthday, anniversary, holiday or any other day that she needs. Because it can free her from her chains inside herself. But as a woman who has been through an exponential amount of grief at 37 years old, I sat here not expecting someone to understand where I was coming from automatically. No expectations, as I usually say.

In this life that we live how can we expect a child that is 12 years old, and their mother was just shot; to understand the moral and spiritual aspects of life and death? What is death? What does that mean? How do I heal this pain? Where do I get my strength to move on now? Because the one person who made me happy and smile is gone. So, what do I do now? Where do I go? Who can I trust? Who can I love? Who loves me? Why am I here? Am I lovable? Did I make a mistake? Is it my fault? Is there any way that I can bring them back?

These are all questions that I had asked myself when my grandmother died and I was 16. It was like I had two moms in life. My biological mom and my grandmother. And to lose my grandmother was double the pain in a sense because of how people in my hometown and this state had felt about her and her work in social work. And my mother was another voice of comfort when I needed. When my grandmother needed. It was that love for both of them that was unconditional. Can we discover how love can heal? What if the child knew that caring for someone else can cure the emptiness in their hearts of their loved one being gone? There were so many times I had a met a child that had no parents and would tell them to go into nursing. I really think you should just give it a try. I know you love fighting, but understanding that you’re just afraid to open up and be seen/heard sometimes is the reason that you act the way you do. What if you thought of it as a healing aspect for you to be so strong for someone else, and they can be safe for you? You can sit with an old lady and tell her how much your mother meant to you, and that in turn will soften your heart. Making sense of the cycle of abuse, what it means to love and care, what is karma? How do I change these things?

Anger management is not something that is common in schools. But it would have helped a child that lost their parent at 12 years old. They’re telling this one girl that getting a special visit to see her mother’s grave is an incentive. Not a right as a baby girl. And that breaks my heart. Because no matter what, I bet she would have a tent

Unconditional Love: Unconditional love is love that is given freely without expecting anything in return. It remains steady regardless of circumstances or imperfections of the other person

You might be willing to want to be more of a people pleasing person if people pleasing in the first place was based in a healthy rhetoric.

Are you mad at someone because they have not figured out their life yet? And they are a certain age? You feel like they should be able to figure it out or should have a pretty good idea of what they want to do in life. But what involvement in providing a healthy environment did you have for them? To what extent of life did you go for their happiness and yours?

Often getting into an argument over the livelihood of a child when it comes to morals and their mind. As a mother I will fight in a very aggressive manner regarding the logic of you telling me that what I have been through in life is the reason that I am going to have to explain my failures in life to my children. Do you not think I carry the guilt from that? And you carry the guilt for how you treat me when I show you how you could/should have treated me better and with more respect. So as a man how unjust is the circumstance or argument when you’re mad because I pee in your shower at your house? But your ex-wife is the type of female that makes fun of/extorts women who have been abused? And you like to carry on the same cycle of abuse. In a form fit for yourself, you look to others and put on a mask acting like you’re good and wonderful but you know good and well there is no unjustness in my peeing in a shower. It’s how you take respect.

What does respect mean to you? So if you have a disaster such as hurricane katrina, and it’s a time when all people not only begin to panic but as any other catastrophic event in their life that includes society simultaneously; to the point where we then have to act, survive, and exist together as a unit. How then would we obtain the logic sometimes in having more of a desire for the action of thought process and compassion for all facets of life in that moment. Before that moment. After that moment. In time. Example being that if it was a way that we were supposed to act when there is an emergent situation; but the help available to you at the time is not going to work for you the same way it has in the past. We have now decided to argue that it’s how we treat someone with a disability or disadvantaged in life but argue for the ability of greed to not only buy time but peace. Acting on that in an emergent situation; I was wondering if I was desperate and needed a solution for myself; would I ask myself these questions of “What am I mad at and what am I afraid of” if I had not had a desire to see more than just my point of view? To see more than what I am going through?

In the documentary the woman slams down the folder and says it’s getting pretty thick. That sense of sarcasm hurt that child. I saw it all over her face. And had they thought about more than themselves they would have realized there is an active way they can be part of a bigger picture that desires a more positive stance on change. Especially for the child. If you are in social work ask yourself “How well do I really understand the value of respecting someone else in the way I communicate with them and inspire them. No matter what age they are?”

This poor girl was saying “I don’t know how to deal with the anger of my mother being gone. I just don’t know what to do anymore.” And that’s all I needed to hear. But I didn’t need to hear it. Because I know. I am intuitive enough to know what she means by what she said. And it resonated.

The types of grief are below:

1. Anticipatory Grief: Pre-death emotions
2. Delayed Grief: Postponed emotional response
3. Disenfranchised Grief: Unrecognized loss
4. Abbreviated Grief: Short lived response
5. Absent Grief: Denial of loss
6. Collective Grief: Shared community experience
7. Complicated Grief: Interferes with functioning
8. Cumulative Grief: Multiple losses impact
9. Inhibited Grief: Hidden emotions
10. Masked Grief: Atypical symptoms
11. Normal Grief: Gradual emotional decrease

Depending on the research you do, you can encounter Abrupt, Prolonged, Absent, Delayed, Disenfranchised, Collective, Climate, Secondary Loss, and Anticipatory. It was when I attended a grief group that I was shocked. And still to this day work through most of it on my own. Grief doesn’t always come from losing someone. Sometimes putting someone through unnecessary turmoil in life can do nothing more than cause more grief.

Click here for Psych Central’s article on grief.

I will tell you what and how I think then.

I do. I like to pride myself on wanting to perfect my way of thinking in that way sometimes. As it makes my job in life as a human better, more meaningful, deeper, and more enlightening. I am not better that the work I need to do on myself. So, I need to re-evaluate myself on a consistent, obsessive basis at times. It gets exhausting.

I do not like her reprised response in this documentary. Whether it be at that time, or not. What if at some point in life I need a ride to see my mother’s grave? What if someone wants to give me that same sordid response to a need for me to see the very person that raised me? And albeit I am in this position in life, I need this. And you refuse to give it to me.

All you’re going to do is sit back and watch me suffer right now. Then sit back later and say that you’re sorry for what the suffering has done to me. My mental. Fuck that and fuck you.

You know what you did.

I was watching this episode of a show that was discussing prison. The woman said, “Power is seductive” and I said to myself

“Power is not seductive to me. Honesty is. Power is sadistic.”

People often hate themselves, because they see something in you that threatens them. Let that be their issue. Not yours.

Understandably in the reform manner of the child, you need to adhere to the state regulations of the home. Absolutely, but I would do things differently. And that’s all that needs to be said. Is that I am not you. So, I go within my mind and talk to myself about how I would do things differently with more compassion. With better regard for the person as a whole.

As a human.

I cannot sit and watch that poor baby sit in that chair and cry on the anniversary of her mother’s birth or death and feel hopeless. PERIOD. My heart would have wanted to heal her.

XOXO,

El’Aundra

As my mind rattled like a ball for a baby. I think to myself, when I choose the people around me I succeed. WHEN I CHOOSE I SUCCEED. To my own accord I will have what I need. It will not be by suffering or desperation that I will get what I need, no. It will be because I have already worked through the motions of what I have to go through. But when people around you are playing games and you didn’t choose who is around you natively, you chose them because you’re in desperation; you may be mad at yourself when it goes wayward. And it did. As I sit shopping for a right-hand splint. The one that separates the fingers so that the swelling in the joints is minimized. I think to myself, the way I think is not how someone else thinks. Had I not been talked to like I was I would have gotten up and left. Left that nursing home and that conversation that was less than exciting about a place to live. But it was that conversation that made me stop. And say, ‘sleep baby’. And so, I slept. And I wept. Because I didn’t want to blow up at the person in their face and say things I knew I didn’t mean, or I knew would hurt them.

It was cold last year in November. I had a couple thousand in the bank saved up. And irritated as fuck at the lack of progression in things. Let alone people. Let alone myself.
I had called asking if the apartment was for rent. And asked my specifics. Stated my regards to what I require. No drop ceiling. I have done a ceiling before and was not interested in dealing with mold. I told him why I was even in this area. And maybe unbeknownst to him, I elaborated so that he knew. In clear form. It wasn’t because I sat in my mind and chose this place. It was because certain things in my life were fucked with. Certain freedoms. Certain rights. And whether I responded in anger or not didn’t matter. What did matter was that I was working in a nursing home with bones creaking around residents I held so much love for in my heart and I needed reprieve. A place for me to lay my head. A place for my children to lay theirs. A place for my family and friends to come and experience my sense of peace.

As I think in my heart, mind, body and soul; but don’t repeat (but would say to my incoming guests)
“If you want to relax and have a beer, you can. If you want to go out back and jump in the trampoline you can. If you want to come and spend a day with the kids and many more friends and family and need to crash there is an 8 person tent is what’s been on my mind since 2021. It was just the desire to infiltrate my peace that was around me that affected my executing my plans, I felt.”
‘Maybe it’s the men you choose’ he said. Formulating in mild conversation to elude to the apartment being for rent still. And then I’m thinking to myself ‘Why the fuck would I want it?’
I remember saying something that was a separatist comment ‘I am fine thank you. If mothers raised their sons right I wouldn’t have this issue with a man like that in the first place.’ Taking into consideration if a man pays only attention to the fact that treating a girl ‘nice’ will get him whatever he wants; what does he make of a woman that affords him nothing but the opportunity to be in front of a woman that’s ‘real’?
I am not here for your shit either way. And you know what shit I’m talking about so why fuck around? Don’t treat me like I have to take responsibility for your actions. Then as a matter of fact in a community result to the adage that I must take accountability for my own actions. In a result of you declining your responsibilities to mind your own business when it doesn’t concern you; it affects others. Especially when your care and concern isn’t regarded in good form for them initially. I take to consideration the fact that I must take accountability twice. For my own failure as a result of the world around me crumbling and for crumbling as a result of the world built around me. When in fact if you go back to the original statement, the world you build around you without those you choose (that have no benefit to you) out of desperation will be fine. But when you must choose out of desperation, you must take accountability for both crumbling factors. Let that sink in. It’s double failure for one action. Of course some would say

’If you had chosen better’

And I say of course that too. But if a community had stepped in to raise better ad well. And do I take accountability for both of those failures as they relate to my own failures? Don’t disregard the fact that the more backup plans that I have that don’t work out, the more reasons I have to sit back and blame myself even further. I mean, by the time I’m done with you and the rant; I may have 8 reasons to be mad at ME. Not you.

I digress. And regard in the right to choose. To Freeform your life the way you want to. Just as you would with plaster of Paris. Making what mold you wish. But when you step in, you fuck up the artwork. And it no longer looks like art to me.

Cabin fever in the heart. There is nowhere near enough firewood to burn the fire in this heart. The chords of the heart let alone the cords of wood aren’t strumming the same tune. What did you miss? The point. Simple respect when it comes to a human life.

Point taken,

’There aren’t words to explain how sorry I am.’ could be a response.
‘I already know that. Greed isn’t synonymous with Good.’ is likely what I would say.

Starting with the nothingness that someone feels when they don’t understand the world you live in. The world you create for yourself. In your mind. On your face. In your heart. Are the words that describe your pain. Your joy. How could they be rewritten for another purpose? By another person? They can’t. Targeted measures of inadequate training in how to respect the faith someone has in themselves to get out of a hard position and place in life. As if they are a snail that doesn’t know how to seek out safe elevation in life. Could it not be in their nature to seek out happiness at the pace of a snail or sloth? It can. And what you see is the slowness. Not the preparation. Not the strategy.
It is in the same form that my mannerisms remind you of a typical homeless person that is reaching to substances to save them. Their mental. Their soul. And yet I don’t. I barely reach for Rylenol in pain. It’s motion memory. And a forgetfulness of who I am. A belief that I can do more with more. That I can do better if I have better around me. So I mask to conform.
‘Let’s play with the heights they want to reach. They are too slow. They don’t know their worth.’

At 5:28 pm I saw 3 sparrows fly. And by the time I had stood up they were gone. The sky a brutal mixture of blue and gray. It was something to feel the rain coming. But nothing to fear. It is coming alright. Maybe when we all go to sleep and forget this day. Is it pain for some and joy for others.

XOXO,

El’Aundra

I figured it best to compliment this extensive resume that I have. I can tell you that quite honestly I have been a person that wanted to be less about the flattery of a man and getting my life paid for or taken care of by one. More of working and taking care of myself. That’s just how I was raised. And maybe that’s why I don’t have a ton of savings in a way. I lived in the moment. Didn’t decide to save for a rainy day fund. Didn’t rely on a man when I fell upon hard times. Didn’t feel like I needed a man to validate me. And so I would know of the lives that women lived where they had a life paid for by a man but I already had men that didn’t contribute to my life in a certain morale, trying to control who I was. Control things about me. And I didn’t want that. As you understand who I am, you get one thing clear. Independence stands still. Because respect comes first. And for me, money didn’t not equal respect. I would feel like I had more respect for myself if I just went to work and ignored the fact that you only wanted to help pay a phone bill to go through my phone. To pay my car not to have something to talk about with your boys. I never wanted to give a man like that a chance. It’s not that a man is not needed. It’s just that your brash attitude and desire to control a woman’s dreams on one hand while having every other woman isn’t a dream I had for myself. I dreamed of having an ability do singularly for myself what someone who truly believed in me would do simultaneously. He would work with me. Not against me.

This rhetoric that was in other people’s minds that I was around to use a man for his house or car or networking was never the truth. Never adding a man to my lease. And I would go to whatever extent I could to prove that you need to have RESPECT. I pay my rent. Not them. Barely getting your foot in my door. In my life. You needed to understand me. And often refused to as a community. Taking the man’s side. So I fought back. Silenced my actions. Shut the door to my heart. Dealt with being fired for bullshit reasons. Not playing into work politics. Even secluding myself from men and women in general. To see who they truly are as people. How hard will they fight for me? I was never into the using mindset to where when I leave you and I elevate, you feel empty. And it’s my fault you feel that way. If I was an awful person and was only out to use you, You know I only used you. And if I am honest with myself, I would know the truth. But I never wanted to feel that when I laid my head on my pillow at night. So I would move strategically. For the betterment of my soul. To prove how grounded I can actually be. Taking work ethic seriously. Ignoring those who aren’t there for the work itself. Still worried about the souls I serve. Not someone that wants to make me feel bad about being in a position in life that required more strength so they lie to my boss at work and I lose my job. I never worry about those types. I leave them to God.

Because in fact, when it comes to a man that wants to use you for what you’re worth; when he’s done with you he will try and ruin your reputation and discredit you. But you can’t discredit the work someone has actually done. It stands. So although you might have been the very person that didn’t like what I write, what I say, what I do; I don’t do it because of you. I do it because it’s helping shape who I want to become. Leaving reviews for jobs and places I have been will slap someone in the face who feels like they had the right to say something damaging about who I am. As if they own me. Own my resume. My reputation. They don’t. It shows I was here to help. And how some people around me were only around me to distract me or deter me from my dreams, goals and aspirations instead of investing in me. And I mean seriously investing in me. I am a woman of worth. And prove so, continuously.

XOXO,

El’Aundra

It’s not my forte to be a marketer. Or monetize. Therefore being someone that has to ask for help from others. But I have always dreamed of writing a book. And have always been writing.

So, when people talk down to me about being broke. Or not having money, I give them this website. Because I want you to see that there was 10 times this much in my possession at one point in time that should have been more of a focus to publish. I should have had a chance. Should have given myself more of a chance. And still believe that to be true. There is only half a reason for me to sit and listen to the advice of others and have the idea that I should do things the old-fashioned way. But please understand I know me best. And if you even tried to be honest with yourself and stopped deceiving me just to play gingerbread house, I would be getting paid by a publishing house.

No gumdrops and frosting making things seem perfect because they aren’t. Things are real. And sometimes, I feel like people down-play your capabilities because they are threatened by your potential. It is what it is.

I don’t loathe after anyone. Their money. Their lives. Their partners. I want for myself. I find it powerful that I want what I want for myself. I know what I want to make myself happy. So when I look at my writings, and even when I am writing things; I don’t have a feeling in my heart that I want someone else’s success.

What your success means to you, isn’t the same for me. I am grateful for what I have. The relationships that I have. What words I have on my heart. And the growth ahead of me. And if it wasn’t for my faith and strong relationship with GOD, you would see a very different side of me.

It was in high school the girl gave me a dog that set my heart free. A wonderful rottweiler I had in high school. His name was Niko. He was a very vivacious dog. At the time I was young, of course. In a sort-of relationship and trying to mitigate that while being in high school. I didn’t really have a ton of help with the dog, but I managed as best as I could. I remember not being good with budgeting. Not being good with being on top of things. But angry at myself more than not. And yet, mistakes happen. I must have had the dog 6 months. Then it was time for me to move back home with my mom. The dog can’t come. Her landlord didn’t allow pets. So I knocked on someone’s door and asked them to please take my dog. The house was yellow. And they said they would. I remember seeing the dog crawling around in the grass getting familiar with the surroundings. I was fine with where my heart was at then. I was beyond sad. Not knowing anything about eviction courts and how they could help you. How social services could help you stay in your apartment. And pride was larger than the Amazon. I didn’t ask for help to stay where I was. I don’t beat myself up much about that anymore. I loved that apartment, nonetheless. The relationship was only a couple months and by the time I had given up Niko, the relationship had already ended.

Mya was a dog that I had fostered for a little bit. My daughter loving her so much. But I found someone who wanted to take care of her. Although she was a sweet little thing. We kept her for a short period of time. I remember taking a selfie with her in my 2001 Ford Taurus SE. I was going through the LPN program at the time, and my landlords found out that I had a dog and started complaining about me having a pet. Albeit I would have gladly paid extra to keep the dog. I was working two jobs at the time and trying to go to school and be a mother as much as I could. It wasn’t the schedule; it was life. And I was grateful for the time we had with her. She was a cocker spaniel mix. I was single at this time.

There was a dog a couple years after that in Buffalo that we had fostered for a few weeks. She was quite a sweet one as we came to discover. She just had a slight urination problem and the owners were definitely wanting her back. She was very sweet. A cocker spaniel mix. I was single at this time.

I am possessive about my kids and my pets. We have had fish, and other pets. I guess to explain it, I don’t like people coming into our lives trying to take over. I get so territorial over my kids it’s insane. A relationship is like “No, you will not take my kids to school. I will fucking do it.” My children are not used to seeing me in a relationship with someone that isn’t their father. So, they alone are territorial about their mother being in a relationship. But I don’t fall back on a relationship by nature. I fall back to being single. And they know that. That’s their peace. Have me all to themselves. They will get very angry and upset. The man will complain that he can’t build a relationship with my kids. And I will likely think or say “I don’t know what to tell you, they don’t want you to get close to me. They are used to their mother being theirs.“

I am so insanely provincial about my way of life and thinking when it comes to these types of situations in life. So, it’s taken with great understanding how the mental turmoil you go through in a relationship can affect the way a pet is cared for. Keeping in mind a pet can’t go to the fridge and get its own food. And when I make my dog treats from scratch and the food from scratch it is with care and love just as with my own kids. But when you have someone in your personal life that is cheating on you or betraying you and not being honest about who they are as a person; let alone their indiscretions it causes a subconscious failure in my mind. And I start to see it in how I act.

Sadie was a dog that we had driven out to the middle of nowhere to pick up. And I had gotten into a relationship at a point afterwards. It was pretty revealing how a relationship alters the quality of life of everyone in your life. She needed to be groomed so much. And it was expensive. I remember asking for help to pay for the grooming, and although I had already been dealing with financial issues of my own; I wanted to lean on the person I was with at the time. That help wasn’t really there. I got behind on the care of her coat immensely and eventually just asked him to please find her home. In my heart I wanted to be done with the relationship’s toxicity and go back to being a mom with pets as I always had been. Because the care had been so low I was embarrassed. He would talk bad to me about my failures as a pet owner and I understood my faults but didn’t know how to express that my substance abuse (for the first time in my life) was also a reason I needed this relationship to end more than I needed to get rid of the dog. The dog was there for our emotional support always in my house. Substance abuse was never something I leaned on in life. I smoked marijuana at 28 years old. Tried cocaine at 34. I don’t recommend the later. But marijuana is a natural impress from earth. And that I was thankful for; but innately I am not used to leaning on alcohol or even marijuana for an escape. If I am in pain, I will forget that there is Tylenol available and power through the pain. That’s just the type of person I am. In this post “As God Intends” I talk a little about my accident where I fell out of a 3rd story window about 6 weeks before my 3rd birthday. And the way my grandmother handled pain management with me as a child was impeccable. Because even as a teen, and adult I never leaned on pain medication. Always testing my pain tolerance and strength. If she had been a different type of caretaker (my mother and uncle too), I would have used stronger medication to bury the pain throughout my life. Instead of finding more holistic and spiritual ways to rid myself of it. I was grateful that Sadie found a home. Another cocker spaniel mix with a beautiful loving personality. I was torn at that time. The kids absolutely loved that dog. But the person I was with did not, and I did not have the proper representation to get my house back to what I was always used to having which was singularity as the head of household; taking care of children that depended on me.

Justice was a godsend. I remember getting the call from my friend asking me to care for her. I couldn’t wait to get her. She was so protective and inquisitive and just a very interesting personality. And at the time she came, it was right after Sadie had left. “You need a dog in your house that can protect you” is what my friend said, “I can’t take care of her because I work too much, and my landlord won’t let me have her.” I was fine with that. Purina Pro Plan was her food that she preferred. Sometimes making homemade food for her, and she was a very large rottweiler. We had a cat at the time, and the two had to be separated by a gate in the house because the dog would want to eat the cat. When I got evicted, I was too low and depressed to ask for help because I wanted to do it myself. Being guilt tripped into the whole “We have to stay together for us” wasn’t my sense of peace. I wanted to be single and go back to the life I was always used to. Being a strong independent woman with no bullshit in my house. So measuring up in court was not something I wanted to do with someone standing by my side that expected to have a home to stay in and just lay around and do nothing. Which is what that was. I felt like I can save myself, so why are you here if you don’t plan on being a part of saving “us” as a family but are willing to let things fall apart because you don’t want to contribute? It made no sense. As most mind games that people play don’t. And so I faltered. Admittedly I gave up on so many things and lost my mind in many ways. Locking out and just keeping my house to myself was what I desperately wanted but I didn’t know how to ask for help with that from the people around me. I tried. And they would talk to me like shit. Because I was weening off of cocaine and keeping it a secret that I was not asking for help from a counseling center, I was not willing to go to rehab. Just wanted to be done with it in general. I remember sitting out in front of my house and telling a friend at the time that I didn’t know how to get rid of the energy in my house without just packing up and moving. I felt like if I could have had Debo from Friday come in and stay for a week with his wife watching the kids I would have been fine. But I didn’t have that. If I had a family member come in and just intuitively know what I needed without asking. I was so used to my grandmother knowing what I needed when I was younger and hurting. I was so used to me taking care of myself and knowing what I needed. But when someone gets in your face and scares you into sitting and listening to the worst parts of life that are about to unfold in front of you; you sometimes oblige with what they have to say. And I let things go.

Homeless in a matter of time. I had let Justice go to a man that had a Newfoundland, and she was in love with that Newfie. You could see the love in their eyes. I was ok with that. I was thankful for the family and friends that I did reach out to. But I wanted to see if I could try and heal my broken heart and strengthen myself. I remember sleeping behind my storage unit with the dog for a couple nights. It was peaceful for me. I don’t think it was peaceful for anyone else. But it was something that I look back on now and say “I know I could have done more.”

I left cocaine behind in May 2023. Picked a line back up in November 2023 and again in January 2025. And said to myself “That’s it. This shit does nothing for me.” That was the honest truth. Not even marijuana heals a part of me that’s missing anymore. Is it the pets? Is it the children? The house? The social gatherings?

It’s me. I was missing the me that I was without all of that stuff. I missed my Topamax. I missed not having migraines. And man, would I get them a lot. I missed being able to sit and have a Southern Tier 2x IPA without wanting 8 of them just to numb the pain. I wanted me back. Sometimes looking in the mirror and crying. Hating myself. So, I remember I went through a period where I put trash bags up to the mirrors. I know my kids likely didn’t understand what that was. Mommy hated herself for a long time because she was comparing herself to so many people and things in life and not measuring up. She hated that she had lied about things in life just to get by. Telling people, it was my house that was built down south. It was an ex whose parents built it. And I was embarrassed that he didn’t want to have a lifelong love with me. But we had gone and looked at Ryan Homes, but I wasn’t really ready to be a part of the buying process because of my credit. I didn’t want to leave my child at home. I wanted to stay home. He thought I was just being lazy. And when I look at that now, I realize there was always a desire to be something. There just might not have been enough time to explain to someone what I wanted to be. So that they could help me become that. Not only for myself, but for my children.

It wasn’t until I was hating myself for depending on a substance to get me through that I had looked at myself and said “Although you don’t lie very much, you can’t be a liar at all; really. It’s not a good look.” I became angry. Wanting to be honest. Craving those deep raw honest conversations about how I felt about everything under the sun. Because I know I have always had an opinion and a voice. It’s just the overshadowing of my insecurities that made me want to hide at times.

Growing up, if we stomped in the house my grandmother would make us walk up and down the stairs 20 times. So that we learned the lesson. It made me crave a part of myself that was obsessed about getting it right, no matter how many times I have to keep falling down and trying.

XOXO,

El’Aundra

I would sometimes dream of love and falling in it over and over. Even with the times that I was in it for however short or long the period was, I was grateful. Things changed over time. Secretive about how badly I would want it to work out. Tarnished by the lack of honor I would give to a thought over time. It dissipated. I would have such a bounding love in my heart when I was younger. Dreaming of a lace white dress. Dreaming of someday saying yes. Someday having a dream like that come true.

I was just crying and said aloud “I am so terrified of love that I want to go to the psych ward and cry for days, weeks, months.” Sometimes I ask myself what happened in life to make me come to this point. And maybe it’s a selfish one. Never married. I smile so hard because I would wonder

“Are you serious? You’re smiling sweetie pie.” I doubt you want to marry me.

Twice they were joking. And one time, I wondered how I would heal myself and be good enough to be a wife at this point. Contemplating the vitality. And I think sometimes that has more to do with my trauma than I give it credit for. Forgive me, I just don’t expect someone to fall in love, want to be married to me, want to be faithful, etc.

Sometimes dreaming of the seriousness in the matter. Because I need to believe in something greater than me sometimes. Knowing sometimes I encountered love so sour in relationships that they would want to do whatever they could to make sure my next relationship wasn’t happy, lucrative, fruitful or anything. They would stand in between me and a millionaire and anything else that glittered no matter the salary. Some of their best friends being lawyers, psychologists, social workers, police etc. And that idea that I deserve better “can’t get too loud” in the microphone. So, to make sure they have a way to keep me down and they have a way to keep themselves up; there will be an imbalance for me and a balance for them. Sadistic is what it is. There were relationships and friendships in the past that I could not open up to because I felt horrible crying in front of them. It was the narcissist inside themselves that they refused to heal or recognize. They would sit there and yell at me while I am crying, tell me I am too emotional, I am a scared little girl running or just be of no use at all because they would rather me sit off in a corner balling my eyes out. And only come back to them when I have contained my emotions. *eyerolls beyond belief right now.

What’s that worth in the end?? NOTHING BUT TURMOIL.

SADISTIC: Deriving pleasure from inflicting pain, suffering, or humiliation on others.

SOCIOPATH: Someone living with antisocial personality disorder, a condition in which one ignores societal norms, possesses little to no conscience, lacks empathy for others, and is completely self-serving.

We are all worth a better version of ourselves. But often-times I would be confused with their inner feelings.

That is just not me. I have a ton of empathy, and a ton of respect for rules, rights and others.

It made me so hurt that someone would joke about that. It is the look in your child’s eyes when they ask you about your experiences with love. When they want to know what it feels like to be married. To be in love. To have those experiences in life that show you someone truly loves you.

I will sometimes get so upset and say I “never” experienced a certain type of admiration, then remembering that I experienced it once or twice but since I wanted it more and didn’t get it; it felt like never to me. Because it went right back to me not mattering to the person anymore. I only mattered for that time being it seemed. Which hurt the most. After I was done being your babysitter; I was nothing to you. After I was done being your girlfriend I meant nothing. After I was done being your scapegoat for womanizing I meant nothing anymore.

Sometimes when I go and tell the doctor about migraines they ask how often I have them. Rather frequently. And I have to stop myself from crying or it will get worse. What if dreaming of love makes you cry. What if watching a romance movie makes you cry? What if it never did before? What if the songs in my heart are blues songs but I am not willing to teach myself to play acoustic guitar just to be on stage and cry in front of an audience. I can barely find a man that loves me enough to wipe my tears better than my kids will when I answer that question with “Your momma is one of the strongest women and doesn’t have to have a relationship to prove she’s worth loving beloved. And neither do you. You have to love yourself first and I love you unconditionally. Which is how someone should always love you.”

But the amount of time I spend crying? So fucking much time is spent crying. Over and over and over and over and over again. I often don’t know what to say. How to stop the tears and eventually I get so tired from the migraine I just go to sleep. Fuck the bones creaking. Fuck the arms hurting. Fuck whatever I am going through in life. I will do whatever healing I need to, so I don’t associate with this pain. It’s an indescribable pain. To see yourself as something more. Someone more. But your disbelief in how disassociated you are with wanting love for yourself is overpowering. And I find it quite selfish for me to sit here and say that I deserve it from another man or woman for a lifetime. Do I deserve to give it to myself for a lifetime? Absolutely. And I promise to make sure my kids and family see me struggle and climb to the top. Because I know there’s more inside of me as far as emotional and spiritual pain that keeps me from succeeding in certain areas of life.

Watching this documentary, someone said “The man was a womanizer” and I responded under my breath “And here I am 37 years old and a good woman and have been giving up on love for so many years. Terrified of what it means.”

I think more foreign than familiar to have someone want to sit and listen to you talk or cry. Or try and figure you out. And it breaks my heart that so many times, so many people have tried to assist with my healing, but I cannot find answers. How desperately a woman wants a back rub when she is in pain during that time of the month. And I make sure I power through it. No matter how many times in a month I will encounter the pain due to stress. Have I always been this insecure about love and relationships?

It started when I was consistently criticized for not looking like someone else. Not being like someone else. Not being good enough. Graceful enough. Not being enough in general. And it wasn’t through one grapevine that I would eventually find the truth. It was straight from the source and sometimes all over the berry bush. It would seem that sometimes people would know this fear inside of me and what it would do because they had a part in why I felt this way about myself anyways.

Thinking to myself, I want to throw away this bear that I bought myself over 6 months ago because I had wanted it to console me like a husband would because I remember being a little girl dreaming of that day, I would be a wife. Someday I had wished. And in that instant I saw myself throwing the bear away and wanting one that was much bigger like a Lovesac. I was the woman that wanted to be the stay-at-home mother. Homeschooling her kids. And I was always looking at myself through different lenses than others.

Philophobia is defined as:

Philophobia is the fear of love or becoming emotionally connected with another person. It can negatively impact relationships and may stem from painful experiences such as breakups or abandonment. Symptoms can include anxiety, dizziness, and avoidance of romantic situations. Treatment options often include psychotherapy to help individuals overcome this specific phobia.

I feel lost because of this. Inadequate. And yet what book is there to heal this? Is there a blanket? It’s quite probably one of the most difficult things for me to grasp because of my alternative and lifelong desire for love and stability and ability to extend my family. But I would dream of a man getting down on one knee and then cry because if I could just explain it better, I would feel better.

It is not that I would have an issue being faithful, it’s sometimes those inherent abandonment issues that lie dormant for years because you feel like you need to work on yourself more. And at times I feel stuck. I would never want someone to explain how I feel and get it wrong so I make sure I am as descriptive as possible on here when I write. Scared to open up.

So many people go through the same emotions, and they are just trying to prioritize things in life. Sometimes that is all we can do, is try and prioritize.

I would hope that one day someone would know what to do and how to be a strong man or woman that could get it right. But the fight just continues to fall on my shoulders at times, and that’s what makes me cry so much. I don’t trust the nature of most men these days. Females as well. It’s entirely hard to open up and have a consistent dignified relationship without turmoil. And I despise arguments. I am not a jealous female. Not someone who likes to fight, be vindictive or coerce a way of living that is toxic for the family. Sometimes it’s the inability for someone to be on the same page. The inability for them to want to do the right things. And it prevents me from wanting to spend forever with them, let alone a day. Most people see me cry because of how gaslighting and manipulative some closest to me can be, and they don’t care. Albeit the way I want them to care or just learning how to care genuinely. But the revelation of the tribulations I go through will always remind me that sometimes I do want to be single more than attached for these very reasons I have explained.

I may get mad and yell “Do not touch me.” Will you still surpass that and give me a hug regardless? I don’t like my family seeing me upset but a husband or partner was always considered a “vault” to me. Sure, your children want to establish a relationship with their parent. And it’s beautifully welcomed by me. Always. But if I cannot rely on a partner’s strength to consistently provide the love (much like a child), I have a hard time believing you will stay around or even want to stay around.

By nature, a child wants to constantly receive that love from their parents. And they will draw you pictures out of the most amazing tools and techniques. Thats the resilient love I am talking about. And how a child is willing to make you smile no matter how many tears. The beauty is in someone being willing to express that love through the good and the bad. I have to wrap my head around that existing in a partner. Because I have always had that love from my kids.

An infinite love, or unconditional love from someone else (as a partner) to me seems so impossible and foreign. You think I am beautiful, and I appreciate that. My beauty is in what I was able to give this earth and the world. Sometimes I am broken and expended. But that’s ok. I am a work in progress.

I will want to take my children to the park. Sing along with them. Paint with them.

But cry in front of you? No. That I mustn’t do if I have no security and safety in this space we have between us. Sometimes not being able to discern how strong the security and safety is because I get tired of people requiring that I need to explicitly ask for their help. I am just an intuitive person, and I don’t know how to ask is the excuse I put up. Sometimes it’s not that I don’t know how to ask. It’s that I am too emotional, I view this perspective they have towards helping me as volatile and want to struggle and succeed on my own as a woman. Because I don’t believe in the ROI when I have to be less of a strong individual to receive the help I genuinely need.

I hate distributing blame. I blame myself. Therefore, I want people to go find love despite us not being able to succeed at our love.

If you have experienced this, I really hope you find healing. I know I do for myself. And if you’re a parent I know it’s even harder to digest. I have to be accountable for my involvement in my feeling this way because there were times men and women wanted love and all I wanted was for them hold my face in their hand so that I could cry and explain what happened to me over time. If you have someone willing to stick with you and consistently give you the strength you need to open up, don’t let that go. My tears are streaming down my face as I type this sentence. Don’t let that go.

We can all find the love we need. I sometimes tell people I have to leave to reset.

“I have to run to the mountains.”

When, in my heart there’s a desire for them to tie a rope around my waist. Because I am really running from a fear. I will be able to come back around. Finding my place in life can be harder than I initially thought. The devastation. The shock. I don’t even reach for a Tylenol bottle until I realize the pain is unbearable.

But I am not necessarily lost. Maybe a little more confused. Unsettled. Not at ease, as I am used to being. I knew from a young age that I was meant to be a mother, a writer, maybe sing to some (bullfrog to others), an inspiration, a friend, a daughter, a comedian and more.

It’s just hard for me to comprehend how for so long I would sit and be strong for a few years, then set aside how I feel only to push past the pain and then break down for a year or two and not going full steam ahead at my dreams or the dreams of my family and friends. Adequately wondering what more I can do to prove myself.

The one thing I don’t want is someone thinking it’s impossible to love another person who is terrified of love or marriage. I had just been going through it for years.

“What is this I ask God.”

XOXO,

El’Aundra

Dear Lord:

Thank you for today. Thank you for my life. Thank you for this beautiful salad. Because too often I starve myself when I am stressed.

I had thought on more than one occasion that I would encounter a type of alternative thinking that was inherently against what we are usually taught from a young child. To befriend others. To be a good person to others. To know the difference between right and wrong.

I thought to myself about the basis of some of the adult friendships we have in life. How valuable they are. How real they are. How much does someone love you versus hate you and do you know the difference.

It was years ago, but I was talking to him about my friends. “I just feel like she doesn’t respect me. She is one of the most self-centered, selfish people I have met in a long time. She acts like she has an attraction in more than a friend way; but doesn’t understand that I am a different type of person and need to know that I feel comfortable to just say I will be more than your female friend. When she talks sometimes, it’s like she would hold a grudge if I ever opened myself up to her emotionally.”

He rolled his eyes. “Girls and their issues. Why have you never dated a woman anyways?”

I asked “Well, have you dated a man?”

He said no. He has not found a man that he can come to a place of comfort with, in that way. There was always something about the situation or the person. “Sometimes, I would just have a one-night stand because I was desperate for the experience. It was nice at the time. Other times, it would be the person I wanted, but they might not be interested.”

Understandable.

“Was there ever a time where you felt like you wanted to hate someone for not giving you a chance?”

“No” he replied. “What the fuck is the point in that? There are so many opportunities for that in life in general. But I love my freedom to choose. What about you?”

“Absolutely not” I replied. “I can’t fathom wasting my talents and time hating someone because I didn’t have a chance or don’t have something or someone they have. Being that I know I am not like that, I was always able to avoid certain females and men for the most part. One wrong move such as ignoring that type and they want to decimate your entire world and make you into the bad person.”

“My point exactly” he said.

“But that’s why I feel the way I do bro! I really don’t think this is the type of female that would be civil. I feel like she would come into my house and go through my body wash and perfume. Sending the man’s types to her male friends and the female’s types to her female friends. All the while hating me.”

“You’re not wrong for thinking or feeling that way. I have had that happen to me before. This friend of mine was only around because of one of my exes. And it wound up being one of the worst times I have ever had in my life. I don’t know if it was the secrecy or if it was my inability to connect with someone like that. But I was over it.”

As I make my burger in my room, I just thought about that conversation. And how sometimes we don’t recognize how someone truly feels until we ask, or they tell us. There can be many factors in dating (even for myself) as to why I refuse to open up to someone. I will say some entirely sarcastic shit because I feel different about myself and my time than someone else does. I feel like it’s necessary to feel safe in a relationship of any kind. And most often, I don’t feel safe. There’s something or someone you’re hiding sometimes and that creates a conflict that makes me want to be without you and alone.

XOXO,

El’Aundra

If in the event that someone tells me “Nobody Cares”, I will laugh in their face. I can’t spit in it because that is considered a level of disrespect I dare not approach. But not even in the lightest terms should I have to explain it in this way. I am not a person who likes seeing others in pain. But I do know that people like to dish out vengeance. I take solace in my strength being the one thing you will likely be threatened by, and you will want to affect. I would want you to know that there’s no reason for me to touch you in the name of vengeance. What will kill your soul is my strength when facing adversity. I trust in God before trusting you. Always. My words simply, with love and sealed. You cannot tell me that there isn’t someone who cares enough to want to see me paid $4 per word. He might love me enough to argue more per word. And if it isn’t you or that isn’t here yet for me, understand that God can create it for me. I have full belief in that. And no fear in you at that point. You would sooner want to see me fail. Not writing. Not inspired. Not motivated. Just wavering and wilting. That’s not every human. I get chills when I read what I write. Imagine going through it. Imagine loving me because I went through it. That’s chilling in itself. Strengthening my emotional intelligence with every keystroke.

That is bullshit.

It’s not up to me to make you cry. If you choose to cry that is on your own. But when you dispel pain and unfairness on others and expect them to cry; you might be met with the devil. I cannot bring you to my God. Not with me at least. How am I supposed to pray with you. I will always pray for you. I cannot bring you to my Bible and sooner pray for you unless you’re willing. You say nobody cares right? Shaking in between breaths of despair the gut-wrenching truth is that I will not cry before you. You will cry at my truth and feelings about how you hurt me before I ever cry more about how badly it hurts. In retrospect the pain circumference surrounds us. You’re thinking you can suffocate me. Paralyze me. Have me begging and crawling back on my knees thinking I need you. Not to feel better about myself, no. Because in fact if you were concerned about how good I SHOULD feel about myself you would understand what confidence the Lord’s blessings actually bring to me. What if you aren’t that blessing when you say that? Just a curse. A representation of the weakness I had once. The control you had over me once.

Again, I say I will not make you cry as bad as your mother can. Because again, I am a mother. And when my children cry; I cry. And I know how that feels. But I will make sure you know that I am a mother. Who not only has respect for herself but one who has cried because of you and your pain. Maybe more than once. Maybe longer than a day. And maybe your mother cries because you have no concern for the pain you put me through. The disrespect. The ignorance. The insight on how you are superior to me. And I need to bow to you. As if you are God. And what hurts me and concerns me even more, is your willingness to act as if you are trustworthy enough to not play God. But you aren’t. So, you will try. And I cannot account for him blocking you from that attempt. But I can account for him consoling the pain in my heart because your hatred is an existence in my presence that I resent.

What if God isn’t there for you when you need his presence? Because you refuse? Not because in actuality he isn’t there. HE IS ALWAYS THERE.

You’re insecure with my confidence and strength. And you blame me. When you are knowing that God has an open-door policy. You just refuse to abide. All-encompassing jealousy and insecurities, you need healing. And I cannot promise that I am your answer if that’s all you can say to me is

‘NOBODY CARES’

Especially since every word on this blog speaks to my life experiences in love, friendship, parenting, fashion, makeup and more.

That will never be me. That is what I say to myself. I will never be you. And likely because of your continued hatred for me; I can never be with you.

Romans 12:19— “Vengeance is mine; I will repay says the Lord”

Deuteronomy 32:35— “Vengeance is mine and recompense, and their foot shall slip in due time; for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.”

XOXO, El’Aundra