Ever had a day where you feel so emotional and you have noone to talk to? Or who you normally talk to is part of the poroblem, or will be biased towards the situaton?

Plus you are behind career wise when you compare yourself to others. I know, logically that we are not to compare ourselves to others, but over time, and seeing everyone so successful and happy, I cannot help but ask, what is the secret? Is happiness or self acceptance that elusive for me, or is it still just a dream?

I am a neariung 30, Afro-Jamaican woman, fairly intelligent, fairly attractive, fairly well liked but as always over the years, I ask myself, why is it so hard for me to be happy?

Why is it so hard to express my feelings?

Increasingly frustrated, increasingly stressed and always me.

I miss my bestie

I realize that I am in love with my best friend but my best friend is in a relationship with someone else. I've succumbed to our cycle and find it hard too break from it. Forbidden love can be so addictive, yet is it worth it? I know my emotions make me weak but he is my strength and the sunny ray among the clouds of dreariness.

*deep sigh*
I have issues...

Relaxers or Hair killers?

So today, I am going to touch on a touchy little subject that is dear to many women's hearts-a relaxer.I wonder how many women who actually relax their hair actually know what is inside their little home kit or professional tub of relaxer? Across the board, there is one primary ingredient in all relaxers, and that is lye. Lye is sodium hydroxide(chemical formula NaOH) and this product is substituted in no-lye relaxers by Potassium or Calcium Hydroxide(KOH and CaOH respectively). Lye is known to be caustic and is used in many cleaning products.

Shopping urges

Since getting my Scotia Visa debit card, I'm facing a hippy/preppy/goth/emo/vintage chick's worst nightmare... Where the hell to shop and where am I gonna get that cash from? And when I do get that cash, I have to consider if I have anything else to spend it on.

But I want pretty clothes! I want the flowy skirts, corset dresses, throwback 40s and 50s outfits, fascinators and the like. I want the cute makeup, nice nail polish colours, sexy hair... Speaking of hair I want shea butter, curlformers and a damn good flat iron.

After all those thoughts, I realize I may be a fledgling shopper-holic. I need help.

Wrapping up your organs.

Recently, and I do mean recently, I came across a Lady Gaga quote that says, “Women need to protect themselves. You put that condom in your purse and save your own fucking life.” Such a lovely little quote isn't it? I'm tired of women hollering and bitching about men giving them babies and even worse, diseases because they didn't wrap it up. I mean the reasoning is simple:

- I shall assume that we all have sex organs*checks panties, yep*

- By virtue of us inviting a male's penis to penetrate us for a few seconds, minutes or even hours, we thereby become a willing participant( hereby excluding victims of rape and D.V.)

-As willing participants we share 50% of the blame in the outcome and as such cannot solely blame the male for whatever may have gone wrong.

-To go back to the first point, since our organs are on our bodies, we need to ensure that our bodies are our first priority. Combined with the third point we must accept responsibility for our downfalls when it affects-yep, you guessed it- our bodies.

-Heterosexual women, married heterosexual women, young women under 25, black heterosexual women-shoot heterosexual women of all varieties are the leading victims of AIDS/HIV and a host of other diseases. Also, don't leave babies out the equation.

-Long and short, if you have the cognitive ability to sex it up with either one, ten, fifty or a hundred men(or women, whatever your preference is), then you have the cognitive ability to reason that you need to protect yourself. No one else can do it for you. Your punash, your health.

The f*er pissed me off

So I heard (well more like received via IM) some news this morning that gave me one of my ‘aha’ moments. Well, while the back story would give perspective and make my tale juicy, it involves stuff that people who should know, don’t. So after reading the news, my reactions were: the bomboclaat fucker; chuckling; a couple tears; begin to plot my revenge; forgiveness; and finally curiosity.

Yes, I’m one of those persons who if you see me chuckling before the tears come, RUN FO’ COVER!!! If the laughing comes after the tears, take into consideration afore mentioned warning and be afraid, be very afraid. It is a simple equation. More tears=more forgiveness=less likely to plot revenge and more open emotion sharing. More laughter=less forgiveness=more likely to plot (not just revenge) and evasive emotion sharing. Then after forgiving, and depending on my satisfaction of curiosity, I move on. Sadly, my friend outright refused to give me more details so I can’t plot my revenge/action fully, for fear of jumping the gun (dutty bastid). I realized that the person who may have hurt me was someone I care for, but just because I care and will still do so, doesn’t mean I’m a soft hearted desperate floozy. By virtue of me putting up with bullshit, it means I’m a nice person who tries to be understanding and not fall back on darker behavior. Seeing as how I did fall back on darker behavior because I just knew that something was off in this scenario, I’m finding it funny. Seeing as how I expected the person to act like they wear big people britches, I am exceptionally pissed. Pissed enough to boil a couple oleander leaves and make the person who offended me drink it, but since that entails work and me possibly going to jail, I won’t. Also seeing that I tried to honour the person’s wishes and still they refused to be honest, and when I was even doing something similar to what they may have did, they flipped, I am fucking enraged.

Do not, and I repeat do not cross me. I have come very far in my attempts to be a nicer person, in my acceptance that I have a temper that ought to be reigned in, in my aim to not be a manipulative brat who feels no remorse in using the masculine sex, in my wish just to you know, try and conform. So since it seems that for some reason each time I try, I get goosed, I won’t get bitter though. I’ll still be a friend; I’ll still try and care, and to some extent love. After calming down and mulling this over (albeit sober and without comfort food), I may decide to have a nice conversation with a couple friends. Then I may talk to the person and not ignore everything-sadly ignorance is so blissful and it is a preferred coping mechanism. And just maybe one day, I can look, talk to or even just think of the person without any homicidal tendencies. Woosah, that made me feel a little better.

The search for Mr. Right and Ms. Wife, and Mr./Ms. Me

I have not written an opinion-themed piece in ages so bear with me and my scatter-brained thoughts. Oh, yeah, CARIMAC people, please do feel free to do the grammar and punctuation check( I know you can't resist)...

So after reading the many Facebook notes, comments and having-even eavesdropping on many conversations about relationships, love and sex; one thing that is common is that we all wonder if the person that we currently like, date, or just scratch a sexual itch is going to the 'one', Mr. Right, Ms. Wife etc.

Now, I don't exactly conform to that view about soul-mates, that there is one person out there that will be your one and only forever and ever amen, selah. Why some of you will ask? For one, if there was that one person out there for each of us, the world would be a better place and many persons would have their many needs fulfilled by that one person, or would be happy even if they weren't all fulfilled and also is tied into the societal(well at least ours) standard for monogamy. Also, I am not ok with the pre-ordained notion that there is some 'one' out there waiting for us to find them-as a good friend pointed put, what if that soul-mate dies while we are searching for them. Yet, even for cynics and non-romantics like myself is still a strong wish and hope that we can find that one person who we can love, and/or tolerate more than the rest. My personal take on this is that in our sojourn in dating, we will find quite a few persons that we will like, get sexually hormonally imbalanced about or just straight up love even if the hormones die out; whoever we end up with is a matter of choice, and to some extent logical computations and expectations.

Alright, some will say "how love supposed to be logical?" For me, it just is, one should never get too caught up in the rising tides of emotions, and don't lose your sense of self just for one person, just because you think you were meant to be forever while searching for your happy ending (thanks Avril!). In my view women especially are caught up in this thing, putting up with bull poop just so they can have someone, snort. You choose to date someone, you choose to put up with their lies, cheating, shoot you chose to lose yourself. In the end you have a part to play in your own heartbreak-and yes I have been heartbroken before, and no, it did not cause me to be like this.

Anyways, I seem to have become distracted. I find myself wondering that if there is supposed to be a man out there for me, somewhere, why have I been in relationships with those in my past and the one in my present? Would he be happy with me now, or would he prefer a different version of me, whether an upgrade or downgrade? Would he run to the hills in fear of me turning him into a licentious depreaved nympho? Or will he convert me into the Jamaican June Cleaver? Since he is supposed to my soul-mate, would he try to change me or would he recognise my soul from a previous incarnation?

That aside, I've had female friends suffer through so much and were willing to put up with the foolishness a bit more just so they could be with the guy they thought was the one or wanted to be the one. I've had male friends call me wondering why the girl they want to be with and get married to turned out to be such a bitch. In both cases I have had to keep my harshest comments chained up because I do not see why they put up with the silliness and then turn about crying while not seeing their part in it. After all that, and not truly allowing their emotions to heal, they continue along the yellow brick road searching for the one. But why search for the one? Why not search for yourself, what would truly make you happy?

hmmm, interesting innit?

I can't fault them, I used to be like that, then I realized through a series of unfortunate events that my dating life would be better if I stopped searching and started living, and by being a bit selfish with my heart, I may have better experiences that I can learn from. Guess what? It worked. I lived, loved, hurt and caused hurt, made friendships, learned about myself, learned about others and learned about life. I realized that I do not need the one to make me happy, all I need is love for myself, a few friends, and family(whether I have fully learned to love myself is another story).

Now, I intended this note to be cynical and it turned out to be more introspective that I wished for. Oh well, I can always try for cynical in a next one.

wow, he thought she was his soulmate. opposites attract?