mizChartreuse || redefiningSuccess

“Our lives are about not giving a fuck– and giving a fuck about the things that actually matter.” -Angelique K.

Yesterday was a big day in the collective consciousness of Chicago. I like football; it’s exciting. I enjoy basketball (at least watching the Bulls). It’s cool to see your home team represent and do well. I get into nail-biting games with close scores and “high stakes.” It would have been pretty freakin’ fun to watch the Bears go to Dallas and play in the Super Bowl. Fun.

But it ends there.

I worked at United Center in the club early in the morning for the 11:30 a.m. Blackhawks game. Most games start at either 6 or 7:30 p.m., but it’s pretty obvious that the NHL Powers That Be moved the hockey start time up because most people would be more interested in the biggest football games of the year– determining which teams went to the Super Bowl. So, instead of going into work at my usual 3:30 or 4 p.m., our report time was 8 a.m.

Earlier in the day, many people had inquired as to whether we’d keep our bar open a bit longer post-hockey game so United Center patrons could watch on our TVs. I can’t imagine a more selfish, inconsiderate, entitled thing to request.

I look at things from the employee point of view, not the crazed sports fanatic. These hockey fans wanted us to continue feeding them beer at the ice arena for ten hours so they could enjoy the convenience of experiencing one game and then immediately another. They make it seem as though there are no other television options at other locations like, I don’t know, your HOME, or an ACTUAL, STANDALONE BAR.

#stuffwhitepeopledo

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I of course am thankful for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and all the work he did for the civil rights movement, black people, and humanity as a whole. I especially love how 85% of my social media friends and followers Googled “MLK quotes” yesterday to update their statuses with something inspiring from inspirationalquotes.com. No, really, it’s cool, y’all.

Above all else, I love that MLK wanted us to be proud of who we are.

“Be proud of our heritage … We don’t have anything to be ashamed of. Somebody told a lie one day… They made everything black ugly and evil. Look in your dictionary and see the synonyms of the word ‘black.’ It’s always something degrading and low and sinister. Look at the word ‘white’ — it’s always something pure. I wanna get the language so right that everyone here will cry out: Yes, I’m black; I’m proud of it. I’m black and beautiful.” -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

He’s right. The very words that we use to describe people (and let’s not forget that the concept of *race* is false and doesn’t even biologically exist) are synonymous with either positive or negative things.

When I was younger, I tried to mask my ethnicity to “blend in” as much as possible– relaxed (more like fried and stressed) straight hair, extensions, colored contacts…at one point my nickname was “O’Reilly” for goodness’ sake. As I’ve written about before, going natural with my hair was the best thing I could have ever done for myself. I love who I am. Chocolate-skinned, big-lipped, nice-assed, giant-haired.

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Prompt: Try. What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did / didn’t go for it?

I have been saying I’m going to WRITE A FUCKING BOOK SINCE I WAS EIGHT YEARS OLD. Or maybe younger, but whatever.

My problem is, I’ve had a history of psyching myself out and getting scared of actually doing certain things even though I know I can. I know I’m powerful– sometimes I fear my own abilities. BUT, when I survey my life at this very moment, I realize I have created the perfect situations and am exactly where I’ve said I wanted to be years ago. I’m doing great. I couldn’t ask for anything more– I have more than what I need and even then, some.

As I’ve written about, lately I’ve actually realized how much my Intention is like a magic wand. I’ve been harnessing my power and accomplishing really great things, and I don’t feel the same debilitating depression bullshit I found myself caught in last winter.

So fuck me and my scaredy-pants ass.

There has been so much crazy shit going on in my family over the last two weeks that I’m convinced that I should pen a memoir before even finishing my The Fierce Entrepreneur: Redefining Success project that has been more or less on standby for the last several months. I’m not the best at focusing on one thing (because I’m a butterfly and do everything all at once), but I am good at talking about my family dramz.

But it’s not even just the dramz– there’s just so much to the story. It goes beyond just me and my mother not getting along. It involves me not seeing my incarcerated father for around three years and our eventual reunion. It involves a family dealing with the mental instability of its Head of Household. Our story is deep, heartfelt, and tragic.

We recently had the juxtaposition of the accomplishment of my mother completing her Master’s degree studies within the same 24 hours that my dad was released from prison and transferred to the custody of ICE, the ice-cold nazis of Immigration and Customs Enforcement– to be released three days later. The aftermath was intense, as well, and I’m getting emotional simply writing these vague, dry statements about our situations because this shit all just happened only a handful of days ago.

Some of these stories are absolutely devastating, but raw and real– the kind of stories that must be told. It truly breaks my heart to see where we are now as a familial group. My life, personally, presently, is not tragic, but I can’t say I’m not affected by the lives of those closest to me by blood. It’s constantly on my mind, and DAILY, I struggle to find the balance between managing my own busy life with the struggles of my nuclear family– and where I fit in. How much can I give? How much can I do? I’m so busy running my own life, but I can’t turn a cold shoulder to those who raised me and gave me the privileges I have here as an American citizen.

I think that overall, the US sucks. It’s a dumb, shallow, privileged, entitled, materialistic, prejudiced country– but by the same token, I am thankful that I can be here and have the opportunities to create my own life and REDEFINE SUCCESS. Even though I’m caught in the webs of Big Brother Watching and Fake Government Representatives and the Farce of Money, something about my upbringing has taught me to see through the bullshit.

I don’t take (pretty much) anything I’m told at face value, and I reject every notion of conventional thinking. Thinking, in and of itself, should be an individual experience. Sadly, too many of us in this country are programmed to believe that we all want the same thing– which no longer exists. I’m getting cryptic, so I should probably stop here for now.

Things are dark now, but I have the feeling the story has the potential to take a triumphant turn. I don’t know how, but we can’t be worried about the Hows, now, can we, brown cow?

I needa write this shit down.

Prompt: Lesson learned. What was the best thing you learned about yourself this past year? And how will you apply that lesson going forward?

At the risk of sounding redundant (I know these posts are completely the same thing over and over), I’ve learned that what you put out is what you get. Meaning, you create your life and your reality.

Somewhere in the midst of this month I watched Inception for the first time. People mostly loved it, but some hated it– tastes aside, if you thought it was boring it’s probably because you’re a shallow thinker. I was fucked up over Inception because I have quite vivid dreams and I believe my dreamworld is just a different reality. Story lines and time continue. I have a downstairs neighbor whom I often see (she’s very into gardening and has been teaching me about soil and water filtration– which I Googled in waking life and found out that these things do exist). But I’m digressing…

I actually want to blog, in depth, at a later date, about Inception and its relation to my life. But just know for now that that film really fucked me up. In the best way. I even felt anxious and weird all the next morning before going to work at 3 p.m.! But I felt enlightened. I felt more powerful. Something in my chemistry changed even more.

My point is that I’ve always been confident, but that I’ve realized in a HUGE way just how much control I have over my life. I work hard, but I party hard. When I’m in my Tremendously Lazy mode, it’s nice to be SUPER chill, but after a while I have to get back to DOING stuff or else I become a blob of Gak who just plays on her phone all day and drinks entire bottles of wine at night. Lame. (But I don’t really feel bad about that because sometimes you just need to decompress.)

I’ve just learned that I don’t need to do anything I don’t want to, and I can do everything I want to. It’s a new phase of empowerment, that I have actually manifested. It’s like I’m a wizard or something.

Prompt: Friendship. How has a friend changed you or your perspective on the world this year? Was this change gradual, or a sudden burst?

All of my friends are such cool, unique, wonderful human beings.

The two obvious ones I’m going to talk about for this entry: my A-girls, Ange and Allie (coincidence?). These girls have been my dearest friends for so long, but this past year has been amazing with them in the best ways.

Allie’s wedding was one of the best days of my life. The whole process of that wedding and the 24 hours leading up to it, especially, were such a great time. The night before her wedding to Tommy, most of us girls in the wedding party had a slumber party at the hotel. 5 a.m. on the morning of her wedding, the first thing Allie did was giggle in her sweet, delicate way in the dark. What a cute thing to do on one of the biggest days of your life.

She was a stunning bride, and the entire day was as beautiful as Allie is herself. After her move to Atlanta with her new husband, Sean and I took a super fun summer vacation to live with them for several days. I’m so proud of her accomplishments, and this year with her marriage Allie just took another step in making her life great. And she’s always done that since we were teenage girls working at Sam Ash Music. She’s a person who has had a very integral hand in my personal development, but especially this year. She just makes everything so easy…because it is.

Angelique is the same way. We’ve always just had an easy, fun, kick-it lifestyle. I love that we lived down the street from one another at age 13, and twelve years later, we still live just a few blocks away from one another. She’s probably the one person with whom I feel most comfortable talking to on every level, and referring to as “this bitch.” This is probably because our lives are so parallel in their own unique ways.

Ange just makes me better with her presence. I’ve had dreams in the past where I’ve been in a chaotic situation and she would come in the room and not even interact with me, but her just lying on the top of a bunk bed reading a magazine quietly was a comforting presence. And it’s the same way in waking life!

The most awesome thing about the above two ladies is the fact that they blend well together, and the three of us in one room is too much fun it would be illegal if the authorities knew about it.

They both are constant reminders that the world is your oyster.