I looked around, this morning, and good egads my apartment looks afright. Seems like I have to do quite a bit of spring cleaning, for real for real, this week.
Isn’t it amazing, what we let slide, what we don’t look at or do, when we are in the midst of a storm, a hard time, a life happening?
No need to get on ourselves, about the clutter. Just have to make our way out of it.
Don’t blame me, folks. Blame the ones who sent the non blending trash bins.
Asking for a friend,
Cassandra
Slap your link somewhere so folk can find you. Am telling you, peeps, if you have not peeped her blog you missing out. There are other must reads but I have NO idea how to link them or send them or invite them or whatever the world the etiquette is.🤷♀️
P.S. Don’t tell on me, Britta, when I admit that the other day I actually reached for the phone to call mom. I haven’t done that in a while. Made me catch my breath, it did. Am holding it, still. Scared to acknowledge me acknowledging needing a mom I shall never see. Never has gotten awfully long again. Most days, me and never have our truce. We never acknowledge one another. And, when we do we both pretend never will be someday and keep it moving.
Yea, don’t tell on a sista. Let us eat bacon and hang with Jean Luc a spell…
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
it was an interesting read, broken down within characters explaining detail after detail.
awesome
What a beautiful way to begin the morning—with love flowing in every direction. ❤️ From Father and Jesus to Mom,…
What a beautiful reminder that progress doesn’t always have to be dramatic to be meaningful. 💙 “One step. One step.…
as always beautifully written, beautifully spoken beautifully sister…..your journey is far from over . ❤️
Briefly. Life just too short to stay all up in your feelings.
Anywho, the reason for said all up in the feelings…*sigh*.
Training was tough, I wanted to head right to bed but wanted to encourage someone to let them know that they don’t have to til themselves to the wheel of you have to be all happy all the time else the world will stop spinning on it’s axis. It won’t, it’s not required and not even truthful. Even Jesus cried.
Anywaze, I dig some understanding, empathetic words, from deep within wherever the world they have been hiding since forever, type them up, zip them off, post them here, post them on my FB account…
Fresh hell?!
What the F you mean ‘blocked’?! Blocked from doing what?! Am posting, per usual, to my own blasted FB page, to my own blasted FB apparent supposed ‘friends and fame’s and apparently someone reported it as spam!!?🤬
WHAT?!!! YOU the one either requested or accepted my friend request!!
YOU KNOW HOW I ROLL!!!!!!!
YOU KNOW I’M ALL ABOUT THAT ENCOURAGEMENT LIFE!!
APPARENTLY, YOU UNCOMFORTABLE WITH A SISTA BEING ALL THE WAY LIUD FOR REAL FOR REAL FO SHO!!!!
WHAT YIKES!? WHY AM I HOLLERING AND ALL UP IN MY FEELINGS!?
My bad…*Cassandra begins whispering*
So, I rush to FB and deactivate my account.
Ha!
Go get yo encouragement from folks who gives two damns about you. Folks don’t give two damns? This I KNOW, dummy, why I was sending encouragement and care your anonymous sending way.
I was ready to kick the entire world to the curb. All yall beloveds, included. No, I didn’t know if it was one of yall but hey a sista was all up in her feelings and feeling slighted and small and unappreciated and unloved and all the dumb things we sometimes allow ourselves to feel because some dummy or dummies were knowingly or unknowingly or who only knows and displaced their own lack of loving themselves on top of our loving ourselves and others causing us to briefly stop loving ourselves and making us reach for a stupid and useless cape to hide behind instead of us staying brave by keeping on our Clark Kent’s and loving no matter the outcome…
Whew! Long sentence and sentiment that.
I say all of that, to say this:
There is STILL bacon.🥰🤗
Someone I respect and care for commented that to me. She reminded me to just keep on being me, doing me, loving me, loving others, accepting others may won’t, don’t love me and keep it pushing, anyway.
There is, bacon.
Still.
Always.
This world will forever try and give you reasons to give up and to give in. Tell it, tell negative folks and things to go on head and kick some extra rocks already. Am going to continue to encourage myself and folk.
By the by, you just never know where someone is at. Be mindful when blocking someone or acting a fool just cuz you can. That someone may have really needed you or something just then. How much extra time does it take to care or acknowledge some care sent ones way?…*Cassandra shakes her head at a world ok with blocking love shown and care*🤷♀️
If I have to tell you, beloveds, I would HAVE to remove my cape, the one I promised never to don again.
Yet, I find myself wrapped up, trying to warm myself beneath this Superwoman cape.
Crap.
Fresh hell!
Capes don’t work. Not really. And, not for long.
Capes make us hide.
From, life.
From, our true feelings.
From, hell, from any and everything that ever can and ever has caused us hurt.
I hurt.
See!
I admit it.
Fresh hell!!!
*Cassandra rips off her cape, snatches her Clark Kent glasses off the side table, thrust them on and prepares to be human again*
Fresh hell.
*sigh*
Busted.
Caught.
Pulled aside.
By, God.
By, Life.
By, my heart.
In an attempt to get me to admit, if only just to me, that I have been in hiding since my young friend passed away.
It is why, me and that damned bowl of chili are STILL eyeing one another, warily, each time I open the fridge.
It is why, I have stopped my daily blog reading, not allowing myself the fun, the comfort, the joy in yakking daily to folk hither and yon
It is why, I have not bounded about, like a friendly golden retriever, looking to encourage this one, have fun with that one, see what life is up to with this, wonder what life will do about that.
It is why, I have my building projects building up and staring at me wondering when they will be able to come out and play.
It is why, my fingers no longer rush to the keyboard, anxious to know will come spilling clumsily from my heart, mind and mouth.
It is why, my heart is no longer pining for the ocean, no longer straining to dip my toes into waves anxious to hug my ankles close.
It is why, my soul is not begging for an opportunity to try and see where gifts given to me, could be used to see what I and Life and God could/would make out of them.
It is why, the tiger in me, even now, the kitty in me, have grown silent, still, pensive.
Because, I am a bit angry, with you.
All of you, beloveds.
Why?
Because you make me care. And, to my surprise, I don’t want to care. Not so much. Okay, so not at all, since my friend passed away.
I didn’t even realize it. Not until, this morning. I was texting a friend. Told her I was missing our friend. Told her I was feeling a bit angry about her. Angry, she was taken so young. Dammit.
My friend told me to “think happy thoughts”. My response verbatim was:
Me: Fuck happy!
Yikes. I HATE that word. Absolutely hate it and find it sooooooooooooooo crude. Yet, the moment the word came out, out LOUD, my heart sighed. I promise it did.
My heart sighed, and released all the pent up feelings it had been holding onto all this time.
What was super surprising, to me, was the feeling I had. It wasn’t, anger. It wasn’t even, sadness. Just sheer relief of being able to FEEL, to EXPRESS something. Anything.
Before that, I was being so damned careful:
Careful, to feel the RIGHT things.
Careful, to feel, the RIGHT things, the RIGHT way.
Careful, to NOT feel, the WRONG things.
Careful, to NOT feel, the WRONG things, at the WRONG time(s).
Careful to, do the right thing, eat the right thing, uplift the right way, encourage the right way.
As a woman, particularly a woman of color, I had to also be sure to set the right example as I bear the weight of my community, of my race, of my gender, of my this and that to ensure that those following behind me will get the chance to do whatever, be whatever. Other races, you see, do NOT have to account for their EVERY breath. Every last damned one of them. If we, if I, as a woman, as a person of color, step, outside the lines, or color, outside the lines, why…apparently the world will end for the rest of the entirety of the population(s) of people of color in the entirety of the whole damned world!
So, here I sit, dumbfounded, confounded, astounded that my heart felt nothing but relief at being able to feel whatever the hell I wanted to feel without the constraint, without the ‘halfto’, without the ‘needto’.
It is simply amazing what one can find behind Clark Kent eyesight. May find a ‘Fuck you’ or two or three there.
Yikes!
Egads!
And now, with me, here, now, wearing my Clark Kents, I find myself really wanting to say all manner of things, out LOUD. OUTLOUD!
I find myself, beloveds, wanting to fuss with you, just a bit. I want to run around, snatching off capes. Every one. I want to shake folk. I want to tell them to let their kitty out, dammit! I want to kick them in the hind end, until they get mad enough to let their tiger roar. I want to bang on doors hollering for folks to LOOK at one another, to TALK to one another.
All of that, of this, takes too much energy. I find myself, eyeing that damned cape.
Spring. A word I keep seeing shouted about, here, there and everywhere.
Spring.
Spring, is here, folks are saying.
Spring IS here.
Is it?
Here, it is, Spring, yet not.
Not for my heart, anyway.
The pages, have turned.
The days, have come, they have gone.
Spring, has come, or so they say.
Yet, it has not.
Not, for my heart, anyway.
My heart, you see, is still wounded, from winter.
Winter, sure just does not want to end.
So, I trudge, still, through snowstorms, tall drifts of tufts and tough, trying to make my way, out of this foreign land, called my life, just now.
I look around, amazed, not recognizing what I see, no recognizing WHO I see.
Even the kitty in me has grown quiet, pensive, tired, hesitant.
Not so much, from the hard, from the dark, from the bleak, from the tiring. Just from, from, the sheer never endingness of the dark, the bleak, the tiring, the hard.
The past few weeks, all I have had the energy for is faking it til I make it through the work days. Sadly, folks who are going through, who don’t have hoards of money, are forced to go through, no matter what, toiling through tough work days with a smile. Egads, I am deathly tired of this get after it grin I have been wearing.
This weekend, I allowed myself to turn off everything and just allow winter to continue to rage, on the outside. While, I gave myself the weekend to rest, on the inside. No blogging. No chores. Ran, out for snacks. Ran, back in for Netflix and chill.
I allowed myself to understand that spring did not feel as though it had arrived. It still felt/feels like winter.
And, that’s okay.
Over, yet not.
Spring, yet not.
Spring.
Nice to know, it has come.
In its time.
In, its season.
So, don’t sweat it.
Spring, has come.
The winter IS over, yet not.
Just the residual feelings and dealings to deal with.
Don’t sweat the small things. Whatever the day brings, embrace what you can, get rid of what you can, live with what you must, don’t live with what you can’t live with.
I told impossible to go on head and kick some rocks! Ha!
NOTHING is too impossible for God, for Life, to handle.
Impossible?
HA!!
Go on head, impossible, and take TWO seats!
Go on head, impossible, and be gone.
You ain’t got NOTHING to say to me!
Ha.
HA!!!!
NOTHING shall stop your destiny.
Nada.
Nope.
Not gonna happen, beloveds.
So, wipe those tears.
Dry, those eyes.
Get ready, for blessing.
Get ready, for healing.
Get ready, for unconditional love.
Get ready, for rest.
Get ready, for peace.
Get ready, for joy.
In the meantime, beloveds, rejoice, live, love, laugh, hope, pray, say, stay.
Rinse.
Repeat.
I told impossible to go on head and kick some rocks! Ha!
Keep on going, beloveds. You really do got this. Yes, paragraphically, phonetically and writing rules, notwithstanding, you got this. I get such a kick outta destroying writing rules, at times, in order to make a point. Meaning, we can do what the world we want to with the words, with the words, we have been given!
Do you, beloveds.
Keep on doing, you.
Tell the critics to go on head and kick dem rocks!
Tell your fears to go on head and kick dem rocks!
Tell ALL that would be in your way to go on head and kick dem rocks.
Then, get to kicking some serious hind end and take names!
beating some world tail and laughing all the way to greatness,
Something amazing, awesome, mind-boggling happened after I totally/completely/joyfully embraced my inner kitty.
I have found that some of the bestest, sweetest, funniest, most got it going onness, was locked inside that kitty!
Meow.
I have found, appreciatively, that true strength lies in being able to walk around, not giving one whit about apparent dangers, darkness and rough days.
I have found myself, strolling regally, slowly, blissfully, consciously, joyfully through all manner of fire, brimstones, meteors, quakes, shakes and whatsoever the next what the fresh hell is all this going on has gone on.
Has been of little, or no consequence, for me.
I have found I am the better for it.
For, I:
TRY, harder.
Love, harder.
Say, louder.
Say, prouder.
Stay, longer.
Live, better.
Live, no matter.
This kitty, in me, doesn’t wait for playmates. In fact, she fearlessly goes in search of playmates.
This kitty, in me, does not get discouraged by the discouraging things that discourage. She fails, laughs, then begins, again. Rinse. Repeat.
This kitty, in me, tells the tiger, also in me, to kick on back, relax, chillax, she got this…
YYAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSS!!!
See, the secret lies in the very fact that you don’t have to be full of bluster, always roaring your tiger self, trying to scare away the boogie man.
True strength, comes from knowing you don’t HAVE to be ‘strong’. You don’t HAVE to be the savior. You don’t HAVE to know everything or anything at all. You don’t HAVE to always be the one toting the hard/lonely loads/roads. You don’t HAVE to come bearing gifts to be accepted/loved/validated/appreciated.
Yea, this kitty, in me, knows full well that I be loved.
I AM LOVED!!!!
As, are you.
So, embrace the kitty, inside you.
Let him/her/they out.
Let them roam, freely, beloveds.
Let them discover the greatness, in each, first, then in/with others.
Nothing more satisfying, to me, this past while, then meandering through terrors, dark passages/terrains and not giving two damns. I know where I am going: Forward.
Why Can't I Be Loud?! 
it was an interesting read, broken down within characters explaining detail after detail.