Life After College

Lately, I have been an emotional rollercoaster still adjusting to life after college and what it means to be an adult, a woman, and every thing in between.

Struggling with not feeling close to my family and at the same time distancing myself to ease the feelings of not being supported, cared about, invested in, and invisible.

While I acknowledge that people show love in many ways, I wonder if I am the only one who has really considered that love should be shown and given based on how others need it. I believe it is our duty to love one another. I question, if you are not receiving love can loving others feel that void?


Not only have I been going through those feelings, but I have been trying to answer the questions I have about life, my future and so much more. There is so much I don't know about how the world operates, how I operate, and how things are supposed to be. I feel like I should be 10 steps ahead of where I am now and I am constantly trying to figure it all out.

From love to what I want to do with my life. Friends, family, what I enjoy doing, what I want, my relationship with God, how to carry myself as a woman, and contemplating living life on my own in another state.


So much of life that is left... knowing where to start to live it now that friends seem to be scarce and fun for others is getting drunk every weekend. I'm just going to start because I don't want to be 50 looking back at my life wishing I had done more. I'm just going to have to push pass all my thoughts and get to going on this journey of life after college.

Is There a 3 Step Program for Forgiving?? I Desperately Need It

The last week has been trying! I'm tired and worn out. Stressed and angered. More importantly, I find myself struggling with forgiving others. Especially, when they know what they are doing and do it anyway. I try hard to forgive people who spitefully set out to wreck havoc in my life or inflict pain. Only at what costs?


You aren't any happier than you were before your brought your wreckage my way, but due to my continuous prayers during your wrecking that God give me strength, wisdom, and understanding in my reactions, actions, and words at the moment... you didn't get the response you wanted.


I really don't know if God answered my prayers or if I leaned on my own understanding of pacify and desist is the fastest way of ending a tirade. I think the worst part of any argument that is one-sided is when the person asks you to participate in the one-sided argument as if you are psychic to know how they would respond or could forsee the future and know if you would act or feel the same way. Antics in arguments that really make me only listen to cue words of when to say, ok, and alright. I naturally tune out, but even though some people know this is not the way to get their side heard, why do they still employ this technique???


Baffles the hell out of and makes me furious that miserable people want to make me their company. Then, get mad when I dodge their attempts and refuse to give in.


For instance, I have been ignoring my calls lately during class time because ummm I'm studying for a test that will dictate what school I get into and how much money I receive. The message got to me anyway through a birdy in my house. I return the call the next day during my free time only to hear an exaggerated what if that it could have been an emergency. Like this was about to lead into a full blown argument on her side.



I really think people are not used to other people safeguarding and protecting their time. Regardless of many attempts to trespass on my time by others recently, which has really angered me that people cannot take a freaking hint that I am on a mission for the next three weeks turned four years... It is hard to forgive miserable people who try their darnest to make me their company.


I guess knowing that misery loves company and hurt people hurt people, I am a little more inclined to forgive, but grown people know better. Or maybe, that is just an presumption on which I have. You don't know what you don't know. So, I will make a better effort and forgive the many miserable accounts that misery has tried to make me front seat passenger in the form of family and friends. I'm sure they don't really mean it. I am a progress in work.


Letting go as I exhale and forgiving everyone who tried or did hurt me. Woosah! (Wish it was that easy though, but it has to be done or else I get stuck and won't move forward.)

Who Can I Depend On?

I have always been one that didn't like asking for help. See, I grew up with a single mom who did everything. Naturally, I thought I had to do everything too. Occasionally, I am reminded of this very fact when I do ask for help or depend on someone and they fail to do what they said they would. I'm not sure if this made me a stronger woman for it by default having to do things by myself sometimes or a little resentful on the inside because I couldn't trust anyone else.


A friend of mine told me once during my Junior year of college that I could not do everything by myself and needed to learn to let other people help me. Ever since she said that I have been allowing myself permission to let other people help. No matter how much help I requested or allowed myself to receive, I don't get it. I rarely ask for help from friends, besides my best friend, but when I do, I legitimately need help. It is frustrating to not receive the help you need and then having to figure out a plan B because someone you thought you could depend on just showed you, you can't.


I'm the same way with money. I don't like to borrow it because when things were gifted to me when I was growing up it was always thrown back in my face or used to manipulate me. I think that's the reason why I don't hold on too tightly to objects and if I want something I rather get it myself. I don't mind working hard, I don't mind putting in the extra hours, if it is something I really want. Plus, it takes away the chance that someone can tell me that they bought that or that it belongs to them not me.


I just wish there were more people I could depend on to help me. More people I could count on. That number gets smaller and smaller every time I look around. I have no faith in people any more. I guess that's God's way of making sure I only have faith in him. He's the only reason I didn't fail any classes although I've been really close several times in undergrad.


Fact of life: People are not like me. I can not expect them to keep their promises, keep their word, and do what they said they were going to do.


I'm not perfect, but one thing I do my best to keep are my promises and my word. If I say I'm going to do something I try my darnest to do it. Even if I want to take it back! I feel compelled to stick to it and see it through. If I don't I feel terrible as a person and since I like dodging unpleasant emotions and experiences, I rather just keep it at all costs. So, I really don't know Who I Can Depend On!

Fatherless..

 
I grew up not knowing my father and to think of it, I have only spoken to him on the phone maybe 3-4 times throughout my life. The last time being more than 5 years ago. I remember promises of Disney Land and hearing that I had a sister and a brother. He was married and has since remarried. When I was 4 or 5, I remember crying at night wondering why my daddy didn't love me. It still hurts to ask that question and not know the answer. To wonder why wasn't I good enough to call at least once a year on my birthday. Why wasn't I worthy of him being around? What did I do? I had all these questions at 5.


I will never forget that night because as I cried my heart and soul out, I remember not wanting to share why I felt so hurt, unloved, and sad to my mom who only found out because she threatened to beat me. I look back and I can not understand how in the back of her mind she thought threatening me was a better route than just holding me, telling me she loved me, and whatever was hurting me would be okay. I don't fault her because it made me want to be a better parent to my kids.


I have dealt with the pain and thoughts of not feeling worthy of love many of times. My failed relationships with men and being misused by them has left me still longing for love, love of my father, and still in a rebuilding phase of me as a woman and that little girl inside who still cries when she thinks about her daddy not loving her.


17 years later, I still cry when I think about it. I pray for forgiveness and I continue to pray for help to forgive him. I have been praying for years now that I can let it go. Growing up, I had so much anger. Thought about suicide so many times. It was only until I thought about who would find my body and the tears that would ensue that I put the knife down. At 10, I already knew to cut along the vein. I didn't want to be tolerated any more while everyone around me was being loved. I didn't want to be forgotten and pushed to the side while my daddy had a new life and children who got to see him everyday, and my mom was busy mothering my cousin, and I was busy trying to escape my life. It's painful to even write the truth of how I felt. To admit that I wanted to die. I felt ugly, fat, friendless, unloved, uncared about, and I was expected to feel the opposite of all of these things. I was expected to be happy when I wasn't and couldn't be. I was always scorned for crying, but I needed to release all of the pain inside.



I cried many of nights. Cried my eyes out. I don't think people realize how blessed they are to have a father. A dad! I remember interning last semester and at the end of my internship, one of the older men who I had spent a great deal of time with gave me a giant hug. The Senator I interned for gave me a kiss on the forehead and a hug. This man was tough on me my entire internship, touch love! But later on, I realized that I had discovered what it felt like to have a father. The love that I had missed out on. The stories. The tough love. The interrogations of boyfriends. The feeling of being protected from harm. I missed all of that and I don't know if I will ever experience it. That hurts!



Every fatherless child's experience is different. Coupled with other circumstances some prevail. Others fall victim to life. The feelings that I had when I was 5 still sit with me today. I struggle with them, but I am surviving my battle. I fight every day to become better. To love with all my heart and know I am worthy of all the love I am to receive. To enjoy life and not focus on the pain. Laugh. Smile. To know and understand I am worth more than rubies, gold, or oil. I am priceless and the value of my worth can not be monetized.


Fatherless.. I have struggled for too long with my demons. I will win. I am winning. The fight is not over, but the battle I will win.


So, when you see me and I look sad, mad, or have a frown. You now know that it is from the sadness and the unhappiness I fought with as a child. To be happy when my world around me wanted to repress my happiness and told me happy didn't exist for Black little girls like me. Doesn't mean I am not happy on the inside, but my frown is permanent and I wish I could change it. Maybe, surgery. (I kid!)



The revisiting of this pain comes  from meditating on a facebook message that was sent to be my father that simply said: "When you're ready, call...." I was ready all my life, but after reading that message I'm not so sure I'm ready any more. 20 years later and you reach out now. After all these years, now you want to talk, but why should I as the child I have to call the parent. I'm not even sure how to feel about this. I have no idea at all where to even go from here. I just don't know anything anymore. I don't know.



This is my life as Jackson.

Love & Care: Just Wish... One Day

I can admit that over all of my years of life I have struggled with the feelings of being unloved and not cared about. Mostly, feeling unloved by family and not cared about by so-called friends and other people in my life.


My mom has never been one to say I love you besides in a card and rarely said it aloud to me. Never really did hugs and kisses except on special occasions and any closeness in public is usually accompanied by, "Stop! People are going to think we're gay."


Now, I understand that knowledge releases people from ignorance and produces understanding. So, I don't fault her for her insecurity about people's perception of her sexuality, but I do not condone it either.


With that said, I rarely receive a hug unless it is church or I hug my godsister or my girls I mentor. Sometimes I desperately need a hug, but I have no one at home to hug. My so-called friends forget to call, text, or email me and results in my reaching out to them. Rarely, am I asked how am I doing. Most of the time, I am doing the listening to other people about their problems and their situations. Only to find myself thinking, I know someone worse off than you and that they are the creator of their situation.


Often, I feel like the Black Sheep in my family. Criticized for my faults, yet admired for my education that now I am supposed to have all the answers.



I think my biggest struggle, no I know my biggest struggle with feeling unloved and not cared about is the lack of support in my pursuit of my dreams. I could ask for the smallest thing and either receive no assistance or very little. It hurt when my mom and I got into an argument last month where she called me selfish and told me that I basically had to walk alone. Told me, "It's not all about you." While she said it out of anger, I have used her judgment as one of inspiration to remain conscience and move forward with my life remembering those things.



What hurts the most now, is that as her fiance pursues his new dream, she is probably supporting him emotionally more in his pursuits than she ever did in mine. I love my mom and I know she loves me in her own way by providing for me and doing all. I am not ungrateful that she put me through college and supplied all of my necessities by the grace of God. I just wish I had more hugs, more kisses, more I love you's, and that her as well as my family and friends were more invested in who I am as a person, my dreams, and my life goals and growth.



Some people will participate in my life and others will watch from the sidelines. It hurts that people who are not my blood relatives are eager to participate and my family/friends doubt me and rather watch. The pain I will learn to cope with, but the memories will sting forever.



It will not define me though. The story of my life is on and one day it will be the show they wish they starred in rather than being a guest star. One day, I will matter. I just hope it's not too late.

Finding Inspiration Anywhere

Monday as I was driving into work after a week off, I was dreading the fact my vacation was over, hating the fact this cold would not go anywhere, but excited that I have a job!


Let me tell you! Taking 2 months off from not working for the first time in maybe 5 years, it was really a breather. To do nothing, but what I wanted. Not having to get up for classes or head to work or both classes and work. It was the break I needed. I didn't see the blessing in having a source of income before until I had no income and was living off my savings. Now, I am blessed that I reached out unofficially and said I would be willing to help and my confidence to do the work they needed if a position was open. The next week, I had an interview and the week after I started working. See how fast God works. I had the option between two jobs. I love my old supervisor, but the leadership sucks. My Monday thru Friday LSAT class played a major part in the decision since at that job I would be working evenings. So, that was out.


Back to the story, I was driving to work and I looked up and saw a Coca Cola billboard. The billboard read:

"Be an Overachiever. Stay Extraordinary."


I find inspiration everywhere. I have been one in past years to bite off more than I can chew, but still it all worked out in the end. Overachieving in everything I do and since graduating I calmed down, but its not the same. So, I've been thinking of picking up a few things lately. Taking on a lot of different projects. The challenge of balancing everything pushes me to see how much I can handle. What amount of pressure will make me crack. My faith in God and reading the bible for the first time ever is teaching me Philippians 4:13 and 4:19.




So, I dare to be Stay Extraordinary and Be an Over-Overachiever :)




- Sunday night, I attended Mayor Vincent Gray's Inaugural Gala. Decorated beautifully, had a good line-up of performers, but the layout and overall presentation was not up to par. All were invited and under the amount of people in attendance I can understand what led to their decision of seating. How the place was arranged however pretty much sent the message: "If you are somebody then you are "IN", but if you are nobody and you came for free, you are "OUT." To have a VIP section right roped off in front of the stage so big that even standing by the rope wearing glasses and I still could not make out the details of  Raheem DeVaughn's face is ridiculous! So, looking at a screen for all the performances did not sit well with me nor did it make me feel apart of a significant event.

I sat there detached, apathetic, and bored out my mind besides when taking photos. Let's do better next time with that!




Now, to battle this remaining cough before the conference this weekend.


And let me just say, I cherish the friendships I have. My male homie brought me dinner on the night that was the peak of this cold after his date. Yes, after his date. Then my best friend brought me lunch two days later and stayed over to have some girl time even though she knew I was sick and germs were floating everywhere. I cherish and love them dearly. Thank you!

Foolish Foolish Girl

"I'm a work in progress" is a statement many have used, but at this very moment I truly believe. Spent the last 3 hours praying, talking to GOD, and reading the bible.


Revelation: I have been a fool. 


There have been many times, especially recently, where I thought I was right, and that the opinions of others were wrong. I did try to deconstruct them and see what advice was useful and what wasn't, but in hindsight and after reading the bible I realize how foolish I have been in that area.


There are many others, but that area rings loudest right now. As I have been searching for a mentor, seeking advice from people to help me navigate this time in my life, I keep coming back to feeling like I just have not found it. The advice I wanted I didn't get or it wasn't what I wanted to hear and the people I thought would be good mentors, sucked!


Everyone wanted to tell me what I should do instead of providing me with my options if what I could do.



I've been foolish. Thanks to God & the book of Proverbs, I know that my understanding is not sufficient, God's, however, is necessary.


Oh, that's formal logic bow chickawowow! lol  0 : )
If you don't get it, it's probably because you have never even researched the LSAT or what is the required knowledge/skills needed for it.

Leaving People Behind

At one point in my life, I used to drop people like bad habits. Or maybe my clothes on the floor after a really fun night that ended at 6 a.m. Now, it seems hard to let go of people who have been in my life for so long or who have done so much for me.


I grew up an only child, so doing what is best for me has normally been easy to do, but why has it always been hard to let go of people who take me forgranted, offer nothing but pain, headaches, tears, and drama, and who don't have my best interest at heart.


Typing this makes the ultimate decision easy to do, but my loyalty to friends who became adopted family... back at square one.


So, what am I to do. I'm not the type of person that just blindsides people, I tell them upfront that I have a issue with something as a warning that further action on my part may follow if left unchanged.



Looking back, they never worked on my exes lol But I told my sister that I'm tired of always coming to visit her, always being the one that has to take time out of my schedule to drive over her house, spend time together, to only have that time interrupted and co-shared, and then leave. I'm also becoming aware that my relationship with my brother may have ran its course.



I have a issue trying to make reason and seasonal people into lifetime people. Learning to know the difference is something I have to ask God to help me with.



It hurts to think about letting these people go, but when asked what do they add to my life now? I really can't answer that question any more. I don't get excited about sharing the details of my life with them any more or my dreams and aspirations. I count the seconds and minutes to the end of our conversations. I feel horrible even admitting that, but it's the honest truth.


The nature of our relationship has changed and simply put, 2011 will be a new journey that may go on without them. At least, without them on my starting team. Decision made.


If people don't value you, value yourself and bounce. I think I'm amazing! Actually, great! lol So, valuing myself more and my relationships with the people who equally value me.

The Start of a New Beginning: 1.1.11 at 11:11 p.m.

As the new year begins, so is the onset of a new mentality and challenging myself to face my fears. The idea of being judged, the fear of not being accepted for who I am, and the frustration of being misunderstood has always ate at my true desire and nature to be open, honest, forefront, and happy as me.


Life As Jackson is the blog of C.C. Jackson, Ms. Chanelle, Ms. CC Jackson, Jackson, and Ms. C. Jackson.


I am all of these names and all of them are me. So, I will be open to the emotions I feel and let it all out as I travel a new road to accomplish many of my goals.


This is my life. This is me. This is a look into the Life As Jackson.