5 posts tagged “life”
I remember laughter. The sound of it tickled my ears, reverberating a bitter-sweet after-taste of a memory. My smile used to woo the corners of my eyes into a joyous furrow. The warmth of its lovemaking left on my cheeks, a rosy stained hue. The unabashed candor of my steps, once a waltz I had thought would not end. It's destination humming a happily ever after. Then like an eerie sound of quiet, you clamor into my life. Your presence an inky blackness, wrapped around my neck, a snake in a choking coil. Your empty promises and whispers of love, weighed heavily upon my steps, a chain and ball to my dance. Time passed quickly. Life, a distant light in the grimy void of a tunnel. Into your bleak future, I am embraced. At last, your demise is complete. I stand before you, a broken mirror. Look at me. Am I what you wanted? Look at me. The shell of you. Written by: ~Mercy Brianne Luis~
If anyone was to ask me right now at what point of my life do I cherish the most, I would have to say my childhood. Not because it was filled with no cares and no worries, but because I spent that part of my life spending time with my brother, Drizt.
As children, Drizt and I were inseparable. Though we fought like dogs and cats, we always stood up for each other when needed.
As a child, you believe that the person you see everyday, you will continue to see them everyday for the rest of your lives.
I wish that were true. However, life has a capricious sense of humor and I haven't been able to see my little bro everyday. In fact, I haven't seen him in years. We do keep in touch from time to time, but nothing like when we were children. How I miss that with all my heart.
Without him, I would've had twenty voices talking all at once in my head. All of them would be my imaginary friends that i would've had to make up through the lonely years without a sibling.
I miss him and hope we get to hang out like we used to. Minus the dirt and the little stuffed toys.
Besides my husband, Drizt is a part of me.
These are the things that remind me of him: Funny laugh (sounds almost like someone with asthma dying slowly), his big smile, the numerous accents he had, the quirky mind that seemed to go everywhere yet....nowhere, the sharp wit that sometimes got him into trouble, his bad habit of allowing sarcasm to dictate conversations, and his open heart that always made me cry and smile all at the same time.
We had that type of bond that after every fight, we would fall into each other's arms and just cry. Through our sobs, we would try to gasp out our apologies and regrets, even though we would be bleeding and bruising after a beat down we would give each other.
During times when our parents didn't get along or times when there was conflict in the household, we would be each other's shoulder to lean on and have a good cry, all the while assuring each other that everything was going to be alright and everybody else could just kiss our asses.
I miss my brother. I'm tearing up even now just thinking about the good times.
But I know that when I do see him....
I'm gonna kick his ass for sitting on my head during our last fight! Payback is a Mothah!!!
And then I'll cry while telling him I'm sorry for kicking his ass....while sitting on his head.
All this I will do out of love.
Gotta love family.
~Mercy~
I believe that in any, if not all, relationships, there are habits we pick up. There are a lot of good habits and a lot of bad habits that we adapt to because it is so common, we are led to believe that it is "normal."
One of those bad habits is this: Thinking that when we get into a relationship, if you put in, we are going to make damn sure that the other half will be putting in as well. Not just any percentage. If I put in 30%, they either have to match that or do more.
This is the kind of thinking that most times will lead the relationship down a road that you were trying to avoid in the first place: D-I-V-O-R-C-E.
Unfortunately, I had to learn the hard way of how this way of thinking gets you into trouble. I believe that the media and the society that we are born into has planted that way of thinking into our heads. With all their romance movies, novels, etc. Based on those examples, we set standards that are so surreal sometimes that for the other person, it is just out of reach. Unattainable.
The world has taught me that in a relationship, the 50/50 percent rule is the only way that will guarantee true happiness.
Through God, I have discovered that there is no such thing as a 50/50 percent rule. If you find yourself in a relationship that you feel as if you are doing most of the loving, the talking, the supporting...and your other half isn't "pulling his/her weight," then so be it. True love is NOT about keeping score or trying to put a percentage on how much you have to love. True love is just loving without expectation, without the guilt trips.
True love is just that.
Love
~Mercy~
Have you ever been heartbroken? Ever been cheated on? Ever had someone throw away your love just because?
For me, I've gone through all three. More, in fact if you count the many verbal abuses I've had to go through during my first marriage. I'm now watching Diary of a Mad Black Woman and you know the part in the movie where he's telling her that she needs to get out of the house because he found someone else? The part where she threw pride out the window and threw herself at him, begging him to forgive her and take her back? Well, that was me about a year ago.
My husband, at the time, and I were hitting a lot of rough times then. It would make sense since he had been gone to Iraq for the Army and when he came back, nothing between us was the same. Not only did he change, but I knew I did too.
Before he left, he was the type of person who couldn't deal with a lot of change. He could not see himself living anywhere else except in Hawaii where it was safe and adaptable, no matter which island you went to, being from the small island of Molokai this was easy for him to do.
Before he left, I was so naive. Not only about love, life, etc. I was naive about myself. I had just been kicked out of the house by my parents and desperate to make a life of my own with the man I had thought that I was going to spend the rest of my life with. The naive me back then had so much dreams back then about how my life would turn out...I guess you can call it the "Nice-big-house-with-white-picket-fence" kind of thinking. It seems amusing now, but back then, it was all I had to hang onto.
As a wife, I was still really shy and meek around my new husband and when he wanted me to fold the laundry a certain way, I did. When he would get upset with me because I did something wrong, I would cry so hard because I didn't want him to leave me because I was such a lost cause. As the first year went by, it became worse. I started apologizing even if it wasn't my fault. The fear of rejection from him was so great, that I kept my mouth shut no matter what.
The first three years of our marriage flew by in a blur. Arguments and fights here and there, but as long as we were still together, it didn't matter that my pride, if it even existed at that point, was crumbling. Piece by precious piece I was slowly starting to forget who I was and how strong the women in my family had always been.
Then, they day came when my ex-husband got his notification in the mail stating that he would be shipped out to Iraq. I still remember how my heart had dropped into my stomach. The letter came at such an emotional time in my life. Two weeks prior, I had just discovered that I was pregnant again. Thoughts of having to go through this pregnancy by myself was so overwhelming and so depressing that I had actually begged my ex-husband to stay. He then proceeded to tell me that this move would benefit us all. He'd be getting paid really good and (this is what stood out for me during this conversation) you know that being away for awhile will make our marriage stronger because we'll be missing each other very much.
Well, obviously he talked me into it because couple months after that conversation, the Army shipped his ass to Iraq, leaving me alone raising a 2 year old and carrying an unborn one.
I can honestly say that this is the time in my life that I learned how to be a woman. During my ex-husband's time away, I started discovering the little things. I realized that I had a mouth and should start using it to speak up for myself because there wasn't anyone else around to do that for me. I started realizing that my ex-husband wasn't my life and my kids were. I started realizing that aside from the fact that I make a bunch of mistakes, I'm wonderful at other things. Like being a mother, a romantic and I had a lot of morals that kept me a faithful wife. Through it all, I started changing my mindset on how a wife's role in her husband's life should be.
When my ex-husband finally got back, everything is went well. Missing each other so much we tried to overlook the changes in each other. But sooner rather than later, the arguments got worse and my ex-husband finally came out and voiced his opinions. He didn't like my attitude, it had to stop. He wondered where was his old wife because he wanted her back. And a bunch of other annoying other stuff that basically stemmed from him not liking the "new" me. I told him that he will just have to deal with me being this way because I was not the girl he knew, but I am the woman he can get to know.
Everything worked out great in the end. He didn't like the new woman that I had become and went looking elsewhere, which was fine by me because I found a man that would appreciate the best quality in me. My dorkiness.
Sometimes I wonder why I rushed through life so fast. Right out of high school I got married, became a mother not even a year later and basically felt myself becoming, or at least, feeling like an old maid. I mean, I totally skipped over the college bit, I barely had a chance to enjoy the "dating scene," and on top of all of that, I found myself turning into my mother, which isn't all that bad, but when you are 19 at the time, you tend to look at your mother as if she's the wicked witch that you want to avoid becoming.
Suffice it to say that everything I have done thus far has been my choice. Still. I look back on it and wish that I had taken my time. I wish that I had, at the very least, gone to college and had gotten the chance to experience the campus life: the studies, professors, friends, parties, etc. Just a taste of it. Would it really be enough to have changed my mind about going back to school?
There should be no regrets in one's life. I don't regret the decisions that I've made and I really don't regret my children. I just wish I took the time to enjoy life. My life.
That is one lesson learned which is why I am now soaking everything in and really taking my time to enjoy and just live amid the helter-skelter that is my life.
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