Identity Crisis.

Mmmm so, as I mentioned in my last blog I slept over at Remi's last night, n` in that time we had quite a few discussions, but there was one particular topic that really shook some serious foundations for me.
That was our talk about the difference between having a God given gift & talent.
I used to think they were the same but it's really not.
For example, one of my sister's best friends could watch a dance on TV once & then she'd know it off head without having to look at it again, whereas it'd take others a good couple of hours or even days to learn it by having to continuously try and memorize it.
Another example is that one dude in my Art class last year can just look at something and immediately know what was in it & how it was cooked, whereas another would have to refer to a cookbook and probably couldn't just guess the ingredients just like that.

Do you see what I'm gettin` at ?

The reason that shook some foundations for me is because all of the things I can do and I'm good at are mostly just talent. Like I'm good at Art but I'm an Art student, student being the key word because I had to go to school for it to get better & on the other hand I know some who never really took Art seriously or paid attention to it at school a day in their life yet they're absolutely amazing at it just effortlessly. Or those who never took vocal training a day in their lives or even have to warm up or anything but have such amazing voices...you know...those who can SANG. But I took up vocal training when I was 16 & then stopped after a year & now at 19 I'm doing it again, meaning I had to work for it to make it better and find my own sound, I have to actually sit down & learn to play the guitar and the piano...hell that's not even the point, there are people who could go through the same vocal training by the same teacher and go through the same stuff yet one will still sound blatantly better & more powerful than the other.

I hope all that is makin sense.

But all my commenting on it just means that Art & Music are just talents...I wanna know what I'm truly gifted at.

In my saying that, Mary dropped that a persons Gift can be anything & that mine may be the ability to listen and give good advice, be compassionate & bla bla bla de bla.
Now I thought about that & I realized I had a lot of mixed emotions about it. On one hand I felt good because of the fact that I like to help, it's not something everyone can do and almost everybody in my life see's me as some kinda agony aunt that they can talk to & I like that. However on the other hand half of the people I play agony aunt for don't deserve it. It ends up being a thing where they take & take but don't give back and ONLY ever talk to you when they need help and advise or they wanna gush about their love stories or just talk about themselves, as if I'm not human. It becomes the case where you're saving everybody else & no one really puts you or your feelings into consideration.
Sure thing yeah, as human beings everybody in their own way is self absorbed but it depends on what level you take it to. Like I know I see girls like Mary, Remi & Hope as older sisters so if I'm in desperate need of big girl advice or I'm just strugglin with my feelings I tell them so I can get their advice & i end up talking & talking & talking because they're listening to me talk about me & they don't mind...I have some big amount of respect & love for them because they're doing for me what I do for others & it helps...it helps to be able to get that reassurance/ wake up call and advice from somewhere or just simply be able to let it all out.

... which is pretty much the same thing that got me into hot water the last time.

But I digress. I get that everybody's human & everybody needs a shoulder to lean on, but the bottom line is half of the people I go out of my way for don't deserve it full stop.
But I can't help it, I can't know I could help someone or have the advice to give them and then in the end keep quiet, that's never been my nature & it's something I'm proud of uno ? Being able to help where I can, that's why I volunteered with the good samaritans in the first place.
But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt sometimes...


xoxo

I'm TIRED.

Eesh man.

I've had such a busy last couple of days.
On Wednesday I was pretty much runnin around like a headless turkey all over Harrow lookin for...God knows what, I can't remember, all I remember is that we ate Sams.
On thursday evening me & Cynthia graced Oceana with our presence, unfortunately no pics due to my old phone being sooo ghey & my camera not being charged so no pictures :o( Boo hoo.
However I had an amazing night. Great music, nice atmosphere with vibrant people. I ran into a couple of old faces from our high school too so I got soo comfortable there & I got talkin to some pretty friendly people...really I was just there though to let my stress out, dance n enjoy myself..& that's what I did :o)
We got home at 2pm & I slept off at like 3 or so feelin like I was gonna DIE, even though I didn't get drunk out the alchohol still was enough to mess me up.

12pm the next day I was back in Bella's office, we had a pretty intense talk & she opened my eyes AGAIN to the fact that I have a tendancy to put other's feelings before my own and then it in turn lands me into my own emotional distress...so I had to re-evaluate myself & re-prioritize from when I left her office.

I then bought about...seven books *cheeses like I've never cheesed before*
I bought :
- The House of Knight book series [ So that's about five or so books ]
- The Host
- The secret life of Bees

See ? Seven :o) I've still got like 4 other unread books to go *looks over at my stack* but it doesn't matter, it'll keep me busy.
So then I bought my blackberry charger & rushed home so I could go down to The Mabel project, a good 2 hours of singin *does love heart sign* it was good times.

After that rushed home again so I could get to Remi's sleepover...there was about 16 of us there at hers...no pics either due to my forgetting my camera AGAIN...& we were all too busy talking anyways. It was good cause we all got to properly know each other & had some deep discussions, we didn't get to bed till about 6am & Mary was so kind as to distribute swine flu packs so we're better prepared on how to prevent it & more informed on how to deal with it if it comes...also she gave us some alchohol hand sanitizer thingy [ which I mistook for glue ] & plasters, soap, tissues & all this stuff. We slept late & I came home today at around 5pm when I then again just crawled into bed until like 9pm & slept off.

... So all in all I'm pretty exhausted x_x

xoxo

Emotional Evenings.

I wanted to find a good movie to watch but nothing worth watching was on.
I couldn't find my reading book.
I'm not feeling well so I didn't go out ice skating like I was supposed to.
I have nothing constructive to do, so again here I sit, with my thoughts.

It's 2:55am & I'm supposed to wake up 8:00am to go running with Cindy tomorrow morning, I'm tired but I'm wide awake. I want to write something...anything...but I know if I write anything with any significance I won't go to sleep n' I can't afford to stay awake all night cause I have a vocal lesson tomorrow.
I don't even really know what my problem is, I'm just here...& I've got nothing to do and that's the problem cause whenever I have nothing I do I start to think, that leads to overthinking n` that's always a big problem.
I've spent the better part of this evening questioning life, my future, where I'm headed and what the essense of my past was. It's so funny how you can have it all figured out one moment n` then the next minute absolutely nothing makes sense... somewhere deep down I'm hurting, but I don't want to address it cause then I'll start to dwell on it, so for the moment I really don't know what my problem is.

*Sigh*

I'm gonna go to bed anyway, I've got a busy day tomorrow.
By the way to all readers I'd advise you to never do what I'm doing, when you're hurting address it, identify your feelings so you can get over them...if you can help it make sure you do it before you go to bed, so you don't wake up feeling like complete crap the next morning. Do yourself a favour and be honest with yourself cause if you front to your OWN self about how you're feeling who's winning ? Not you.

xoxo

Here I am, as I am
Nostalgia grips me like life
Clinging to me like a jacket too small
Leaning onto me, just the way I've always been
Pieces of the broken glass you left behind
Fragile as I was, naive as I've been
Touched without being touched
Love in the midst of no love at all
Leave me in the pool of my tears
Watch me run, slender and slim
Scratching too hard in the paper as I write
Sniffing too loudly as my tears spill
Remembering the face that was never there
The voice that I never heard
Oh how you fixed & destroyed
Left the words of your own story all over
I really owe you nothing at all
yet I still wonder...if you're okay...

xoxo

This & that.

The wedding was absolutely beautiful. I had a lot of fun getting to know some of my new extended family, very good looking & very friendly people. They're from Cameroon but I learned that they share a lot of their culture with the Calabar culture in Nigeria so they share a lot of the same foods & stuff. Even though I was sick during the wedding by God's grace I was dancing by the end of it lol, which is a big deal for me cause usually during that time of the month I'm damn near paralyzed. The food was absolutely amazing, the wedding reception hall was beautiful, the bride & groom wedding dance was so cute [ awww my uncle is so shy bless him ] & it was just overall good times. I got to meet Tabi & Misan, my new neice and nephew. They're so cute, Misan's one years old & the smartest one year old I've ever come across, overly cute too. Tabi's 5, a bigtime trouble maker but I adopted him anyway, I'll steal pics of them from my uncle's camera & eventually put it up on here.

After the wedding we went straight to New York. I went on my first ever tour bus, this was it :



I liked the look of it, it was quite peng.



That's me & my cuz on the tourbus, she was tired [ she's ALWAYS tired now that shes preggers ] & she lost her earings so she was jus tryna relax there behind me. The tour bus was a lot of fun, it just rounded up our day & it was a nice journey too.

Next day I met my cousin's Bawo & Alexis.




Two of the sickest people on the planet. Bawo's 20 & Alexis is 13. They're crazy as hell, intelligent & just overly fun to be around, Alexis step dances, graduates top of her class in EVERY class & that is her REAL HAIR bravz.
Bawo plays all the sports in the book, works in a sneaker store & is a genuine full blown ladies man. Charming all around & a very friendly and sociable dude, he has some extremely gorgeous female friends who are all hung up on his personality cause it's so sick...he's the type that'll open doors for you, pay for your shit, get you discounts in lady footlocker & buy you soul food then snap you out of it when you're fallin asleep. He has your back for days too. It pays to be charming people...it really does.
The two of them gave us the REAL New york experience, they took us on the trains & buses where there were more crackheads than I can count on my fingers then they took us down to Harlem. Harlem is like east London in terms of the way it looks but the people are completely different. The people are S.I.C.K. I'm sure some will disagree with me but they're very down to earth down there if you know the right people, Bawo knew every Tom, Dick & Harry on the roadsides so we were already hooked into knowing cool peoples anyways. As I said there were some gorgeous females who were just screwed up off his charm, his male friends lol...long stories.
But yeah it was good times down there man, I think that day we spent in Harlem was probably the best day. We watched the movie "Blood, the last vampire" in the evening.
It was.
In one word.
CRAP.
NEVER in my life have I seen such poor acting, grammar, graphics & storyline. It was complete & utter RUBBISH, me & Bawo were just laughing the whole way through, the gore wasn't even the type of gore that'd make you wanna spit out your food or nothin, the blood looked like juice bravz.
But I digress.
We went to woodberry commons on the last day, that was rubbish. Designer clothes aint all that uno, people make such a big deal out of it but it's just overpriced nonsense with someone's name on it. We went to all the designer stores in that place and the only place I managed to buy stuff in was 2b bebe, everywhere else was just the most amount of bull. I like clothing lines like "House of Dereon" & "Applebottoms" & "Baby phat" n what not, but this year the clothes...were just not doin it that much at ALL. I dunno wtf is goin on with fashion them sides...it's like they got some kinda wack hippie theme goin on right now, I'm seein clothes that look like tye dye were just dashed on them wrecklessly that are costin $70-$100 dollars, bun that.

The flight back was a horror movie, turbulance all up n thru and I couldn't even sleep properly, all my body HURT after n it was just some new form of suffering o_O but at least I'm home now though.
The trip overall had some good & bad times, I learned a few things and got a lil restless just sittin there because I wasn't doing anything to touch on my goals or my dreams, but now that I'm home I can. I definately wanna go back in December but I danno if I'll have enough to hit up 3 places, so I'll have to plan that out as time goes on.

So in a nutshell...that was it.

xoxo

Pookie's back.

I'm back now. But i'm goin to bed due to extreme exhaustion...I'm feelin really Nostalgic out of nowhere this evenin though, might be the music I'm listenin to but I dunno. I should know better than to listen to music just before I sleep & soak up the lyrics.

Hmm..
I'll drop my stories tomorrow anyhow.

xoxo

New Jersey today, New York tomorrow.

I wanna go on record by saying I don't like New Jersey too much. Everything's so damn far apart, all the taxi driver's I've come across have all been trippin on C-R-A-C-K, the weather aint as fabulous as Houston or Miami [ my future home *does love heart sign* ], the people aren't as friendly but most of all...it's just damn DRY out here.

This trip so far has been hectic/crazy & slightly annoying. I have had some good times, got to know some of my new extended family & they're nice people I won't lie... but some of them deserve swift backhands & I've just been under unnecessary stress, I feel like I'm loosin my hair out 'ere fambam. I finally got to eat the burger king I been cravin for but it's nowhere near as peng as I remember it. My dyspepsia has been actin up so I aint slept properly in the last 2 nights, my sister & my older cousin have been workin my nerves, I feel like I'm doing unnnecessary work out here when I came out here to relax, things aint even going according to plan & the fact that I wish I would've stayed in London to work on some of my goals is...a bad thing @_@
This trip is forcing me how to keep my temper & just holding my tongue quite nicely...I'm finding it hard as its looking like I'm getting irritated at least once on a DAILY basis out here be it my sister, my cousin, some random fool taxi driver, someone at my uncle's house or just the fact that things are so unorganised but I just find myself gettin vex at least once; especially since I'm touchy at this time but I'm holdin it down.
However it aint been all bad.
A lot of gossip, a LOT. I have some amazing new family.I went shopping yesterday & bought some of the PENGEST stuff, as in I found everything I've ever wanted in life in ONE store...& that was just one shop bravz, when I touched down in the others I was like "O_O Mine."
& of course... the men are lookin...in one word...scrumdillyumptious <3

Tomorrow is the wedding so the crazyness is gonna be over then after that we're going to NY, no one should pester my life there ahbeg, I'm lookin to finish my shopping, go to the theatre at least once & then be goin back to London so I can continue steppin towards my dreams...rather than feelin like stabbing someone once a day out here.

xoxo

Grounded.

Now, I've been in New Jersey for the past couple of days so I've been dead to the internet world for a bit, but when I did come on long enough to check my facebook I see this lady "Shanel Cooper" all up n' through. Her videos have managed to sweep through almost everyone's facebook and today I was lucky enough to be able to watch a couple of them.
The first thing I'll say is that she's absolutely stunning, her confidence and self assuredness makes her even more beautiful but she's fine full stop. Second thing is is that she's got some of the most real talk I've heard a woman come out with in a long time... her words are absolutely amazing, she's inspiring & managed to relight some of the reasons why I'm working towards the goals I am and the importance of knowing your worth and yourself. She explained that you need to be in check with yourself before you can start makin any kind of checklist about what you want in a man, how you need to fall in love with yourself & how important it is to set goals for yourself and watch them manifest by putting in the hard work. She also seriously stressed the importance of putting in the legwork when you want to change yourself and your destiny.. I weren't slippin but I was getting slightly weary, knowing I had no one to blame but myself but this video reminded me that there is no time for that; checking yourself & prioritising should always be high on your to do list.
She's got it goin on.

xoxo

Forgive me.

I forgive you for making me question who I am

I forgive you for making me fall with no intention to catch me

I forgive you for listening to me, but really not listening

I forgive you for seeing me, but not really seeing

I forgive you for letting me voice what was on my heart

I forgive you for also taking my heart apart

I forgive you for decieving me, making me love the promise that wouldn't come

I forgive you because you knew I cried for and over you...yet you continued

I forgive you for destroying my peace of mind

I forgive you for hurting me in a way nobody in my life ever has

I forgive you because you taught me the importance of touching on my dreams

I forgive you because you played the role you were put in my life to play

I forgive you because me realise what's out there for me

I forgive you because I know I'll find better than you one day

I forgive you because all the times you told me I deserved better, you meant it

I forgive you because without a lil pain you can never know love

I forgive you because as my first love, you taught me lessons only a first love could

I forgive you because I know deep down what nobody else knows

For the good and especially the bad
I forgive you...I really, really do.

xoxo

Me & my bowl of cherries.

Tempting aren't they ?

So I'm here wide away & sitting side by side with my thoughts.
Today during my vocal lesson, I was asked to delve deep into feelings that I try my hardest every day to dismiss in order to reach a certain emotion and portray it throughout the song...it was easier than I thought, n the things I've been holding in managed to all flood out at once. I almost cried at a certain point in the middle of the song...but I didn't.
My point in saying all that is...despite my healing going so well...there's still obvious areas that need fixing. My sense of feeling lost, my feeling like there's a blank space in the past 2 years of my life that I had previously thought were filled with so much promise...of course there are lessons I couldn't have learned any other way in that time...but the fact that I had to learn them in such a painful way is something I guess I could've gone without, I'm just greatful I came out on the other side of it where others have crashed through the middle.
I got lessons in patience, loyalty, kindness, the importance of letting nothing get in the way of your dreams, how important it is to not let another human being become your everything, how easy it is to fall in love & how difficult it is to fall out of it. The significance of actions for actions without words remain nothing but letters, the importance of staying true to yourself, just how much the advice of others should be heeded when you know in your gut instinct its right, how important it is to TRUST your gut instincts, what trust really means,just how easily it is to loose yourself & always putting God first.
I am ever grateful for learning all of this, but with all this came the sense of feeling lost, empty promise, heart ache & break, shame, tears, fear, silence & lies. But everything contributed to who I am and the woman I'm trying to be today.

Life isn't always gonna be a bowl of cherries, in every bowl of cherries you're bound to have a few rotten & sour ones...sometimes you bite into the sour ones not really knowing they're sour because they look ripe on the inside, this is the same with mistakes. Of course sometimes you have the common sense to KNOW and prevent when something bad is gonna happen to you/ your gonna get hurt, but other times it's simply entirely out of your control...you can, like I did, beat yourself up on the inside till the day comes but that won't change the fact that the mistake happened. Hurt is never easy to deal with, heartache & unfortunate circumstances are never fair...but such is life. You can never truely learn a lesson by learning from someone else's mistakes, you have to feel the burn yourself to have fear enough to never get into it again...the wound would have to cut deep enough to leave a scar.
Life truely is what you make it n it took me the longest time & so much soul searching to realise this...I'm still searching, still hoping, still believing & moving my feet taking everything one step at a time. As a human being I do stumble & fall, make stupid decision & don't invest in my time wisely...but I'm growing.
On the end of all this pain lies so much promise for me, so many blessings, it's things like this that keep me going & with each day it gets a lil easier to bear & easier to ignore cause I'm keepin my eyes on the prizes.
I'm just babbling I guess, but it's late & like I said my thoughts are nudging me.

xoxo

*Sniffs*

I watched "My Sister's Keeper" tonight.
All I can say is...the movie made me leak from my eye's SEVERAL times...some parts were so unbelievably beautifully sad...but it's another movie I recommend to people to watch. It really makes you value life as well as realize just what it's like to be completely helpless to the situations around you... the girl who had cancer was so so beautiful, I just wanted to hug her...n she was an amazing actress.
*sighs*
Apparently though, like all movies that come from books they left out some vital bits, RUINED some vital bits & completely twisted up the ending...I'm gonna go buy the book anyway to see, apparently the book just makes you forget about life bravz as in it's SO sad, so I'm gonna get it as well as a couple other Jodi Piccult books.
Another book I'm lookin to buy is "The time travellor's wife"...the trailer for the movie looks breath taking...so I know the book is definately gonna be better so...I'm on it :o)
Also, I'm gonna see "Adam" aswell, the trailer man eesh <3

There's a lot I've got planned for this summer, learning to play the guitar is one of them.
So I have a new guitar that I fell in love with the other day, his name is Jub jub, I'm gonna post pics of my baby soon :o). So you know how I love with acoustics right ? This girl "Priscilla Renea" with her amazingness in her music just helped me come to a decision about the question that has been roaming in my mind for the past couple of months..."Should I learn to play the guitar ?"...the answer was of course yez.
I'm also as you know learning to play the piano & read music...I'll be a one woman band before you know it :o). I haven't done any writing lately though, which worries me...I planned as soon as I got out of college to start fillin up all my lil notebooks but they've remained untouched because I've been runnin around so much, looks like I'm gonna have to start making more time for myself to do so.
I've also joined a vocal workshop *Claps for myself* run by "the mable project".I'm excited about this because judging by the first session I went to it looks really promising, I'm also as well as learning stuff Hope has already taught me I'm picking up on new things...like I can't drink cold water anymore or eat any harsh foods before I sing...also no greasy food allowed :o( but I don't think I can hack that...I'm goin to New York on wednesday man & BURGER KING is on the agenda...oouh that halapino(sp) sauce...*drools*...but yeah..the workshop is lookin quite live-o's !
I plan on gettin a job & learnin how to drive too...so my summer is lookin pretty full thankfully...I have God to thank for all of this of course, all appreciation belongs to him.
A lot of things in my life are changing...in good ways and bad...some are confusing, some were the inevitable, some I'm really glad are happening & some I'd rather they weren't happening...but all things work together right ? From the place I was at mentally before, I know for a damn fact I'm movin up...& it's always worth gettin that extra kick, to be able to touch on your dreams.

xoxo

My piece of cake on "A piece of cake".

Best.Book.Pon.De.Roadsides.
Absolutely more than brilliant. I finished reading this book with a new viewpoint on life, God, relationships & self and spiritual growth.
This book educated me on such high levels boi, like she takes you through what it's like to be a real gangsta in california, she was part of the Crips so she talked about all the rules, the language, what it's like to properly be part of a hardcore gang, not all these fake jedi jedi bois in the UK who think they're hard because they jacked some ANY guy's blackberry phone.
But I digress.
I was also educated on what it's like to be a true hardcore trash can junkie i.e real hardcore drug addict. The way she described everything made ME feel like a crackhead & I've never done or tasted any drug in my life, she just did SUCH a good job. I even started using American phrases during my time while readin it, it was just so catchy, she's an amazing writer *does love heart sign with my hands*.
& the book is actually quite hilarious uno, certain times readin it on the bus or in the salon or wherever you'd just see me crack a smile or burst out laughin unnecessarily, hell if they were readin what I was readin they'd laugh too !
But what overall got me is her rise from the lowest of the low to being the woman she is now, we're in completely different situations and I could have never gone through what she did and come out the way she did on the other side...but her rise inspires me to want to be all I can be, makes me feel like I can do anything...she's just an inspiration bravz, trust.

Definately reccommend to all those who think life's lessons come easy, they don't.
It's worth more than what it costs...those of you who like reading & even those of you who don't...should definately take time out to read this book.
*Another love heart sign*

xoxo