Reckless Abandon: a letter to my King

I'm tired. I'm irritable. I'm vulnerable. I want you. I need you to want me back. You have crossed the threshold into my heart. I want you to want me down to my core. I don't want to return to when I was crippled by fear to move forward. I don't want to worry about you generalizing me. I want to feel your love. Yes, I'm imperfect. Love me anyway. Don't just love me anyway, love ON me anyway. Hold me until you smother away my fears. Or caress me until I can at least no longer acknowledge them. Hold me until my whimpers become null and void. Kiss me. Tell me sweet nothings in my ear. But don't speak it from your mouth. Allow it to come from your heart. Jump-start my heart again by having your very own to massage mine. Just love me. It doesn't matter who tries to talk you. It doesn't matter who tries to talk to me. It is just us. And we are all that matter. Yesterday, today and tomorrow. I don't care what anyone else thinks, just love me. When you love me, I am at my best. I am strong. Because your love makes me resilient. Love me, so that MY love speaks volumes. Love me so I can shower you with all the love in me. Love me so that I am free to love you into oblivion. Love me so I can love your worries away. Because your love makes me resilient. And it comes back 360. I cannot help but to pour into you the love that you pour into me and flip it like a "nickel and dimer" to the point where it's overflowing. That's 360. What goes around comes around. Let me love you. I want to touch you so that this transfer of love takes place and and my love has permeated through you to the point where your body is merely the host to this seemingly parasitic love of mine that has no intention to leave your body. It is now a home for my love. You are a home for me. And without you, my love is homeless. And I, merely a nomad...

To Do or Not to Do...(a little girl's search for her father)

So, here it is a blazing summer day in the A, and my thoughts are vacillating between rebooting this search for my father or to just leave it be. Something triggers me every year. If I'm honest, something triggers me every other day, but they are not as pressing as when they hit annually. In 31 years, I've never known him, and I've led a wonderful, fruitful life, so another 31 without him in it won't hurt, right?! Who's to say?
Last week, my trigger came from watching a reality show about basketball wives (yes, I'm almost ashamed to say), and one of the women wanted a relationship with her biological father. She began to cry from the pain of not having him there and before I knew it, I found myself wiping my own tears (and if you know me, you know I HATE being vulnerable).  You see the answer to my aforementioned question is that yes, it can and it will hurt to go the rest of my life without him being there. There are so many unanswered questions that I have. Questions that no one would be able to answer except him. I've developed idiosyncracies, trust issues, abandonment issues and a host of other issues that I'm convinced were derived from his absence.
I've been on this road before. This search that is, and it is indeed an emotionally arduous task. This journey takes me from high to low, from hope to despair and every point in between. One moment, I feel like I'm fine without him, but the next moment, I feel like I'm dying to know where did I get my eyes from? Am I his complexion? What about this stubborn attitude...did that come from him? What about medical history? Is there something about it I should know before I bring my own children into this world? More importantly, how in the hell could you create a life, and not want to be a part of it? I think I'm a pretty good person, at least I always try to be. One would be inclined to say that "you're" really missing out.
At any rate, once I got past this line of questioning with myself for the 50-11th time, my friend calls me and tells me that some of her father's people found her on facebook. She sounded so happy and her plan is to go meet them. This new turn of events in her life put me right back at square one. I wanted to feel what she was feeling. I wanted to discover where I came from all over again.
Why has it become so commonplace that men are absent? I'm not implying that some men don't want to be there because I realize that some do. Little girls as well as little boys need their fathers. Maybe if I had a father around to nurture me, I wouldn't have to go SO hard that I come off as dominant, not independent. I've known some of the most nurturing men to relinquish their God-assigned throne to me because I've given off some vibe that I can take care of myself and that I don't need them. Yes, my lips mouth, I support you, I support you, but my presence exudes "I don't need you." I don't even know how I became such a walking juxtaposition. Maybe if "you" were here, I'd learn how to trust. Yes, I may say I trust both men and women alike, but in the back of mind, I'm always waiting for someone to betray/hurt and/or neglect me. When and if it happens, I'm only mildly devastated because I was waiting for it all along. Perhaps if "you" were here, I wouldn't have made so many left turns when I was supposed to turn right.
Perhaps, if "you" were in my life, many things would be different but as it turns out, I didn't turn out to be a jezebel looking for a father-figure and filling the void with a man's tempory affections, or a welfare recipient with 10 kids, or even a man-eater. I'm a very well-versed, well-rounded, educated multi-faceted woman. However, when it comes to finding "you", I'm still just a little girl lost. Maybe, just maybe... I can be found...maybe I can find you with this new little development that has been produced that is your phone number. When I'm ready, I will call. It's never too late...and I, myself am very curious to see where this journey will lead. I'll be sure to let you know as well.

Fun, Foolywang and Failure

So, this past weekend I FINALLY made it to the crescent city of New Orleans! I was completely stoked as I'd not been there before and it's been on my short-term bucket list. But this weekend, my friends and I took that 6.5 hour trek for the Essence Music Festival.

We had a rolling ball, and here at my desk on Tuesday morning, I'm paying for it! I am not sure if the city didn't sleep simply because it was the Essence Music Festival Weekend, or if that's just how the place got down. Either way, I barely winked the entire time that I was there. The city has this shop called 'Daiquris' and they serve drinks ALL of the time. I mean they have these places in the malls, and you can even DRIVE-THRU and get one! And the business is a franchise so they're pretty much on every other corner. I'm not a drinker, but even I was impressed! We people-watched and partied until I felt like I was sleep-walking and I learned some of their lovable lingo...and let me just tell you, their linguistics sound like NO other place on Earth! It's not just for television! And Bourbon St, I'm convinced is Babylon. I saw so much tomfoolery and debauchery that I never have to watch t.v EVER again!

I found that this place is an enigma to me, and I'm sure it would've been the same pre-Katrina.  The city's tourist areas looked just as I imagined...vibrant, full of life, gaudy, gorgeous, and armed with old money. The French quarter and it's view of the Mississippi River was absolutely breathtaking, and I enjoyed every minute of the view, even with the devil breathing down my neck (I'm sure it was hotter than hell). Once we finished with all things touristy, I felt we'd be remiss not to visit the lower 9th ward. You see, I love to have fun, but I also like to be checked in reality. And boy, was I!! I saw so many homes that still were abandoned, boarded up, spray-painted with hazard numbers and just plain ole debris. As fun as my weekend was, these are the sights that wiped the smiles clean off my face. I just didn't understand how I could go across a bridge and witness SO much devastation and dilapidation when the "other parts" of the city were still thriving like nothing has ever happened. I completely understand that in order for the city to continue to generate revenue, they have maintain the "ritz" of the tourists' areas, however I don't understand how people can be in your own backyard, literally and be so impoverished. I became livid, overwhelmingly sad and motivated all at the same time. We REALLY failed with Katrina, and I mean epically so. It's a shame that even 6 years later, conditions like the aforementioned in the city still exist. I don't know if people come to the place and just don't care to see the devastation or just don't care about the fact that it exists altogether. Either way, after having a blast while I was there for the festival, I came back home with a different inspiration to do my part in aiding impoverished cities and at-risk youth. It's one thing to see things from afar (it seems like everyone has forgotten), it's something altogether different to travel the same path. And you can mark my words, as sure as my name is Anneka, you can bet that I will do what I can to help with such a catastrophe. I encourage and even challenge you to do the same.