2003-10-29 - 11:20 a.m.

Okay, I'ma be real and address something that's been bothering me under the surface for a lil' while.

Everytime I come to post, I have T H I S in the back of my mind. It's always there, reminding me that clarification of the things I say on here may need be present. Even though I don't feel I should have to because it's my space for my thoughts and views, the feeling is there nonetheless because I really do hate to be misunderstood.

I read a comment ( I-Boogie) in regards to this too. And I agreed with the comment wholeheartedly. Why? I didn't know.

Had a conversation with " the attacked" where we attempted to examine my feelings towards poetry and love. Had to agree with some of the things he said too, even though I didn't want to (LOL) but mostly because I knew he was right but I didn't understand why.

For some reason, while I was perusing blogs totally unrelated to the subject today, something became a little clearer to me. I don't have a lovely view of love because of the "love" situations I have seen throughout my life.

The relationships I've been exposed to have not been positive. And I mean NOT AT ALL.

From the beginning, my father was not even there so that relationship was non-existent.

Grandaddy's marriage contained no love. I could see that even as a young child.

My two uncles who are married seem to be married more out of responsibility than love (okay, maybe one may have a little bit of love there but it does come off as more of a business relationship).

My aunt who was married was physically and emotionally abused by her husband. I had to witness that over the years that they lived with my mother and I.

My other aunt who believed she had found her soulmate (may he rest in peace) in her significant other, they lived together for 8 years before getting married for a few more. That wasn't the issue with me. The issue with me was that they ARGUED from the time they woke up until the time they went to sleep. I would have to stay with them sometimes and it would drive me crazy to hear the constant arguing and fussing and fighting...

There were really no other relationships for me to see up close and personal. I'd never had the opportunity to see a real relationship until my mother and stepfather got together. I was already into my teens by that time. By then, I had seen all that I could see. Even though they're still going strong, it's very difficult to look at that one relationship that I have been exposed to and allow that kind of love to erase all of the other "love" relationships I've seen in my life.

And I see in me, when something has the potential of being anything, I run to the hills in the other direction because I do not yet fully know how to handle someone saying that they "care" for me. They better not even tell me that they "love" me because my damn idea of "love" is so warped, I bet that the back of my brain is changing "love" to "beat". So, when they're saying, "I love...", I'm subconsciously hearing, "I beat..."

Maybe that's why it's so difficult for me to see those kinds of words on paper. It's almost like I'm a dyslexic. Instead of reading the word backwards or all mixed up, I'm reading another word entirely. I'm reading the antonym of the word I'm seeing in front of me. I can't trust the words I'm seeing in front of me.

And these relationships I've seen have had poetry attached to them. One party wrote a lil' poem to the other party to express their love. But that shit wasn't true in the end so what did those words mean? Nothing.

So please excuse me if I'd rather just have a picture, if I'd rather you draw your love for me. Draw me some blue skies and a setting sun. Give me something that I cannot misinterpret. I need that picture to tell me those thousand words that you might want to say to me but really can't say. You have those feelings inside of you that you need to get out? Just draw 'em down on a piece of paper. Even if they're just stick figures. I'll even take that over a poem (especially a haiku).

For now anyways...

At least until I learn how to read properly.

And that romantic kind of "love" has not really helped anyone in my life in any way that I can see. If anything, "love" has done nothing but been a destroyer more than an assistant in what I've been exposed to.

Nevertheless, it is slowly but surely redeeming itself in my eyes through the relationship between my mother and my stepfather.

But it's gonna take me some time to trust it fully. And that's on the real. I ain't even gon' try to lie. It don't make sense to lie to myself and say "I TRUST love today!" to try and conform to other's views on love.

I don't know if this makes anything any clearer to anybody else but it sure as hell make a whole lot of thangs clearer to me. They say the first step to recovery is acknowledging the problem. Now that I know what the problem is, I'm going to work towards correcting it.

And as far as me worrying about being misunderstood, there's nothing I can do about that. This is only a place for me to express my feelings. I can't explain everything behind my situations to everybody. I can barely explain them to myself. But that's why they're my feelings. I don't have to explain anything to myself in order to feel it. The feeling is just there.

So for those out there who feel they can BEAR (not BARE! I'll get into THAT another day as well!) with me as I express my damn feelings, welcome aboard. This is the way it's gonna be from now on. No apologies or explanations for what I write. I may even be making a temporary change of residence just to rid myself of the feelings I have when I log onto Diaryland under "mzkzmylyf" 'cause the name is tainted for me. This name means that I feel I have to explain what I write. "Mzkzmylyf" means that I'm writing for other people. And I never wanted it to be this way.

And it's only my fault. I just hate to be misunderstood. But much of life is misunderstanding from the outside. As long as I work out my kinks within myself, that's all that matters to me.

antes - despues