The 10 Second Stress Limit.

      That's all I can allow. Things have gone much better since I vowed to stop being upset. I understand now that something happened. Something made that girl too upset to function. It's something else that makes her upset at you. It's not you and maybe the issue is that it's not you. You treat the people around you how you want to treat them. So while I embarked on writing this with the intent of semi-apoligizing, I take my half-assed, hal-expressed apology back. 

        I dont regret anything I've done. I stand behind all of the attitudes, all of the arguments, all of the yelling the paintballing, the egg-throwing, the writing all over your mattress and throwing it outside of your house, the bloody lips, the bruises the statement I made about you life and in whose hands it would end because I truly meant it all. I had reason for it all. Perhaps there was anger seething underneath that neither of us could see, but I wasn't there yet. And I needed that. I needed to be the worst person in the world to understand my greatness. I had to pinpoint my weaknesses and work on each of them individually. Now, I am unstoppable. Now, I am the dream. I chase love & labels in the same race. That's two goals on one path; I multitask my ass off. So while I chase the riches I never forget the importance of my heart. The one place I think females go wrong (because I turned down the road once, btu smartened up and retraced my steps) is that we choose one over the other. We think it's money or love. It's a family or an education. It's him or me. In reality, it should be both. And it should be effortless. 

        I need a partner. I've always envied the gay community in that they have "partners" and I don't. I want someone to be my equal so when I allow them leverage, they understand it's all love and not ownership. If I call you daddy, it's not because you own me, but because the title fits. It's not because I should listen to you but because I want to. It's not because you're the head of the household, but because you're fit to be that someday. I need things to run smoothly. I need someone to feel the vibe and not rely on the words. I need someone to be invested 150% and have faith in the decisions I make without them although those would be very few. With that said, we need get along. 

      I don't know what it is about an argument that alleviates stress. It's simply something you need to win. It's a battle you can claim victory over. So when there's nothing left to do, we act on our barbaric nature and wage wars on our neighbors when, if we sat and came to an agreement, we could simply expand the empire keeping both parties' interests at hand. This is what I understand: There is no need to fight. I give myself 10 seconds to be upset and then I force myself to be happy. I challenge myself to think of the real reason I'm upset. Is it even him? Or do I just need attention? Who really pissed me off today Sometimes, you get a good man sitting across the table from you but you're too caught up in your emotions --fighting for his love-- that you push him away instead. You give him the angriest you possible and determine that he should love you no matter what. No, he should love you because. Why make it difficult for him?  Granted, everyone has the right to be upset... so allow yourself 10 seconds. Turn that shit around & get back to business. Sometimes it was nothing, and sometimes you have to make it nothing. All stress and drama does is sidetrack you from the shit you should be doing.  You've got to clear the path before you start down it. 

     Your ultimate goal should be to make one another happy. If he's not making you happy... you need to leave. I'm not sure how to sugar coat that. If you don't, it's your own fault. You know that you should leave. I pray you have the strength to listen to your heart and understand the value of your happiness. But at the same rate, if he's not happy... he has the right to react as well. "If every time I come here, we argue, why would I want to be here," my ex asked (I learned so much in the 2 days we dated smh). He was right. Who wants to stay in a bad situation. & whatever your current engagement is missing, you try to find elsewhere. You no longer look forward to it. Remember when you first started dating and you were nice and you paid attention to everything he said. You read his text messages twice so that you understood them through and through. You let your response sit and wait until you had time to look it over again... all to keep him around. And then you stop. You stop caring. You stop caring that he had a bad day and don't care how he slept last night. You only hit him when you see him tweet someone else and you only call him "baby" on Facebook. You're not who you pretended to be. Actually... you are  who you pretended to be, but for some reason decided not to do that anymore. 

          Maybe it's not your fault. It's almost impossible to keep being nice to someone you don't like. So, I encourage you to reevaluate your situation. Understand why you're upset at him. If you truly do have a reason, calculate how much stress that's bringing into your life that you don't need. Or how much stress you're giving him that he doesn't need. Some relationships just aren't meant to last. For that reason, I take mine very seriously. So serious, I end them as soon as possible. I'm sure many of you have been in a relationship for longer than you needed to. I read through old text messages the other day and realized that my 2 year relationship was more like 1.5 had I paid attention. His responses changed. There was no more love. I should have ended it when the fights first began --as we all should, as I now do. I think that down is a permanent direction. You should plateau at the least. Growth is all you should witness when you're with someone. If we're not growing, not moving, not improving, then --obviously-- this isn't meant to be. Why would I tie  myself into an arrangement that doesn't benefit me?

       Pay attention to love. But also pay attention to stress. The fights are a sign. When you start looking the other way, you begin to head in the wrong direction. Stop pretending you don't see it. Take ownership of your relationships and your happiness. & Pay attention to him. He wants to feel like you just met for the rest of your life. If he loves the person you are now, continue to be that person. Fuck "maturing" and "growing", be yourself. Life moves regardless of what you do and you'll change along without whether you pay attention or not. The important things about you (and the important people around you) will stay the.

     Fuck it. Be happy. Be in love (or on the way there). Stop fighting. Stop stressing him. Quit the attitude. He doesn't always want to fight you. He's not always doing something wrong. And if he is, the better you treat him, the guiltier he'll feel as he commits his sins. You can't change the way the world is towards you but fuck... Karma's a pretty bitch if you take your time & dress her up right.

<3

Ella.

Feelings.

    You hear the word and start running. What he doesn't know is that you've been waiting. All you needed was justification. What you don't realize is that the tables have turned. Or at least they've begun to. The obvious secret at this point is to keep being yourself.


       Things get hard when you're alone. You have to figure out, night after night, how to entertain yourself in solitude. You've got to figure out something to do. At this point, many of us turn to friends --using them only when we need them. Then abandoning them once we think we've chained "love" to our beds. But what happens when your friends have their own things to do? Or even better, you've outgrown them? This is when mistakes happen. It's is the point where you scroll through the contacts in your phone and remind lonely men of your existence --not that you need to. The lonely men call every three weeks in a solid rotation. Then there are the blocked calls every night at 2:33am from someone who's losing sleep over you. But what happens when none of these can satisfy you? This is when you know that you've grown.

    This is the perfect time to improve YOURSELF. Pick up a book. Or a basketball. Or a pen... Or whatever it is that calls to you. If all else fails, ready the bible, man. Do something. We spend so much time trying to figure out what's coming out next season that we forget to upgrade the most important parts of ourselves: our minds. I can't deny having been there. I can't say MAC Cosmetics hasn't filtered hundreds of dollars from my account. Occasionally in a single instance. But I can tell you that as you fix your outsides, you insides slowly deteriorate.

     I won't bullshit you either. The outside matters. Your attire matters. Your shoe game matters. The quality of concealer matters. But all that means nothing if you're an ugly person on the inside. Can't no amount of money change that. I threw out my TV. I also forgot my charger in Philly. I'm almost completely detached from the "popular" world. It's just that no one can teach me anything anymore. No one but myself. There's nothing science fiction can do for me at the moment. People ask me how I can spend so much time alone and, honestly, it's not that hard. I bust my ass all day at work. I come home tired. & i can tell you from experience, I'm not ready to have a man PRESENT in my life. Right now, I'm tired. I come home and want to do nothing. A good woman would come home & fix dinner for her man. I understand that. But right now, I can't be that.

    Never promise more than you can come thru for --no matter how badly you want to do it. We lie. Not only to others, but to ourselves. We know what we can and can't do. What we do and don't have time for. But sometimes, we make exceptions. We convince ourselves to go along with it all in the name of love. All just so that we don't have to be alone. Sometimes, your feelings propel you faster than you can go.

Slow & steady. That's all we need to do. Keep it just the way it is. It'll be perfect when we get there.

-Sent from my iPad