I really like it when I stay home on a Saturday night. I remember when not going out on a Saturday night made me feel like I had failed at something, like I was loosing out on something. Now, if I don't go out on a Saturday or Friday night, I feel like it's ok, like I am still happy regardless, it really feels good.
I am finally happy. I really do believe, that when I used to go out every single weekend, I would go out, to try to fulfill something with in me, because I always felt like something was missing. I could not understand why? To go out and drink and party, made it feel like I was filling a void. Except the next day, all I felt was hung over or tired and then I would feel like I was loosing a whole day because I would be to tired or hung over to do anything else. So ultimately, I wasn't really accomplishing that which I wanted to, at the end of the day, I still ended up feeling un fulfilled.
These days, if I go out, I go out because it's a choice and not because I HAVE TO, to feel happy. If I go out now, it's because I get in the mood to do so. I am happy with my life, I don't need to drink or party to feel happy, I have found internal happiness and fulfillment. Of course I am not saying that I don't have bad days, or that I don't have days that I feel down. What I am saying is, that happiness is not something that you can find by doing an activity, in my case, by partying. Happiness is something you have to find inside yourself. Something that is within us that we all can have, if only we stop looking to others and to activities and material things to feel it. I think I'm on my way there and this makes me feel well....... Happy!
Anyway, the best part of it all, is that I feel good and ready to start another day. No I am not saying that I will not party again, I still love too, but I don't NEED to and that is where I feel that I am succeeding. Partying does not describe me as so many have judged me in the past and labeled me "party girl"
I just woke up and saw my notebook from my writing class on my night stand and it called my name. So I figured that I would start my day by doing one of my favorite things to do. I grabbed my book and turned it to a random page and decided to continue to log my very short stories that I wrote during my 5 week creative writing class.
I told my teacher that I wasn't really big at writing fiction and that I wrote a journal. He told me that even with writing a memoir, you could still get creative with it. So for this one class, to accommodate me, he asked us to write down the names of all the people we ever knew and then pick one of them and write about an experience we had with them.
I wrote down the names and then chose to write about someone, that I have not heard from or seen in many many years. I don't know what made me choose him, it was just a random choice, or maybe it was because all the other names I wrote down, I couldn't at the time think of something that would be good to describe. I would always feel like I had writers block when I would be at that class.
My teacher told us that memoir's don't have to be accurate, because after all, they are events that already took place. The whole point of this exercise, was to enable us to be specific with details of the setting where the conversation or event took place. I'm really bad at that stuff, but, you know what they say...... practice makes perfect.
The below story is a factual event that took place about 11 years ago at a restaurant the I went to with some friends and family, the day of my first ex husbands wake. At the time of his death, him and I were no longer a couple, but we had become really good friends. This conversation that I am writing below, is the conversation I had at the restaurant with his best friend.
I am finally happy. I really do believe, that when I used to go out every single weekend, I would go out, to try to fulfill something with in me, because I always felt like something was missing. I could not understand why? To go out and drink and party, made it feel like I was filling a void. Except the next day, all I felt was hung over or tired and then I would feel like I was loosing a whole day because I would be to tired or hung over to do anything else. So ultimately, I wasn't really accomplishing that which I wanted to, at the end of the day, I still ended up feeling un fulfilled.
These days, if I go out, I go out because it's a choice and not because I HAVE TO, to feel happy. If I go out now, it's because I get in the mood to do so. I am happy with my life, I don't need to drink or party to feel happy, I have found internal happiness and fulfillment. Of course I am not saying that I don't have bad days, or that I don't have days that I feel down. What I am saying is, that happiness is not something that you can find by doing an activity, in my case, by partying. Happiness is something you have to find inside yourself. Something that is within us that we all can have, if only we stop looking to others and to activities and material things to feel it. I think I'm on my way there and this makes me feel well....... Happy!
Anyway, the best part of it all, is that I feel good and ready to start another day. No I am not saying that I will not party again, I still love too, but I don't NEED to and that is where I feel that I am succeeding. Partying does not describe me as so many have judged me in the past and labeled me "party girl"
I just woke up and saw my notebook from my writing class on my night stand and it called my name. So I figured that I would start my day by doing one of my favorite things to do. I grabbed my book and turned it to a random page and decided to continue to log my very short stories that I wrote during my 5 week creative writing class.
I told my teacher that I wasn't really big at writing fiction and that I wrote a journal. He told me that even with writing a memoir, you could still get creative with it. So for this one class, to accommodate me, he asked us to write down the names of all the people we ever knew and then pick one of them and write about an experience we had with them.
I wrote down the names and then chose to write about someone, that I have not heard from or seen in many many years. I don't know what made me choose him, it was just a random choice, or maybe it was because all the other names I wrote down, I couldn't at the time think of something that would be good to describe. I would always feel like I had writers block when I would be at that class.
My teacher told us that memoir's don't have to be accurate, because after all, they are events that already took place. The whole point of this exercise, was to enable us to be specific with details of the setting where the conversation or event took place. I'm really bad at that stuff, but, you know what they say...... practice makes perfect.
The below story is a factual event that took place about 11 years ago at a restaurant the I went to with some friends and family, the day of my first ex husbands wake. At the time of his death, him and I were no longer a couple, but we had become really good friends. This conversation that I am writing below, is the conversation I had at the restaurant with his best friend.
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We were all sitting at the restaurant, I can't really recall who exactly, but I do remember that one of the people was my cousin (who I will refer to as diamond) and my ex husbands best friend who I will call (Jimmy).
The restaurant was packed with people chatting away. We had just come from Ron's wake, all dressed in black our eyes swollen from crying. The smell of different foods being prepared in the kitchen filled the air. It almost gave the place a serene feeling, we sat and waited for our food to be brought out. We all felt so extremely sad and shocked at what we had just been through the last few days. Jimmy and I, began to reminisce about the days when I had been married to Ron, how I would get so mad at Jimmy, because he would always cause Ron and I to fight. I started reminding him, about the time that him and Ron had lied to me, so that the two of them could go out to a strip club and how I had later found out about it and when I had confronted Ron about it, Ron had made up this whole big story blaming Jimmy for taking him. We began to laugh at the fact that Ron was really good at story telling and how I would always just get so confused by his stories, I would ultimately just believe him and fall for the lie.
We laughed really hard not only at the fact that Ron was so extremely awesome and funny and a damn good liar, but at the fact that I was so very naive sometimes. The waitress came with my plate, that was filled with rice, beans, steak and eggs and yellow fried plantains. The smell was so delicious and the variety of colors on the plate so inviting, yet neither the color or the smell, made me feel like eating. The sadness I felt in my heart for just having lost a good friend and someone who I had spent 3 years of my life with. I could not believe he was gone. I had no appetite at all.
I started to eat almost against my will and continued the conversation with Jimmy about his and Ron's many adventures where I almost felt like I had been the victim of all their fun. And all of a sudden, without even hearing myself say it, I said something like.........Maybe if you would of realized back then, that he was a married man and that you needed not be so needy of him, and would of allowed him to spend more time with me, instead of always trying to drag him out of the house to be with you all the time, doing things he shouldn't be doing, maybe that would of helped my marriage to him last longer. I always felt like you were so present in our lives, that you almost broke us up. And for what? so you could continue to hang out with him, partying being with different women every day, and using drugs to the point of his death?
As the words were coming out of my mouth, I was almost in disbelief that I was saying them. But the truth was, that that is exactly how I felt. This man sitting before me, sipping on his beer, had in my mind caused my break up with Ron.
When I was done saying what I did, it almost felt like the whole restaurant had become silent and I was looking straight at him with no expression on my face. He then came back at me. He was infuriated, he put his beer down, looked at me straight in my eyes with a look that said, I want to choke you you bitch! but instead of chocking me he began to raise his voice as he said the following.......
You fucking cheating hoe! if it had not been for you cheating on my friend, he wouldn't have been out partying and doing drugs. Don't fucking blame me for his death you slut! because you know very well, that you are as much to blame in all of this, as I am. How fucking dare you, blame me you bitch!
At that point, we just continued to stare at each other in complete silence. We were both so angry. At that moment my cousin Diamond began to talk about the fact that Ron's baby was going to be raised without a father. Jimmy got up, his beer began to spill on the table, the waitress came running to pick up the mess. Jimmy stormed out of the restaurant. My cousin Diamond moved her chair closer to mine to hug me as I I began to cry......
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As a side note, I have to say, that when we loose someone we love, we tend to begin to blame ourselves and others for it. What if?
When I walked into the funeral home on the day of his wake, I will never forget that his sister started yelling at me telling me that had I stayed with him, he would still be alive. She said, you were the only one that was able to control my brother. I don't believe that a wive's job is to control her husband. Being Ron's wife was really hard.
The story is very long. Some day, I hope to write my book and when I do, I will tell the story exactly how I remember it. At the end of the day however, a few days before my friend Ron left this world, he came to my house hugged and kissed me on the cheek and told me he loved me as a person and that we were friends. And many times he acknowledged to me that he was aware that he had messed up on me. Ron and I had made peace with each other and we had both acknowledge our wrong doings. We were at peace with each other and that is ultimately what mattered to me.
I think of him and miss him often. I will never forget him... May his soul be in peace.....
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