Hot Mess

This blog is where I found peace and solitude for all my middle school problems. I'm hoping that this summer, I can find it here again. My worst fear has come true, and I'm back in the same position that I was in May 2015 and December 2017. I have spent the better half of my life pursuing a certain field. How did I come to dedicate my life to this major? My parents always instilled in me that school was important. They believe that the key to a successful life is studying a field that has ample opportunity. They loved the healthcare field as I do. I like the healthcare field because you can find jobs anywhere you go. I liked the amount of zeros behind every pay check I would get. I didn't want to be poor. I wanted to live a nice lifestyle and support my parents. More than everything else, I wanted to make my parents proud.

Now I'm here. Again.

In Limbo.

Not knowing whether or not they will let me continue.

I do not like idly waiting for things to happen. I was this close to applying to 2 or 3 positions that caught my attention online today before I realized that would be opening one book before the biggest book in my life was closed.

Fearing the unknown. What if this is the end of any chance I had at success. What if all that awaits me is a low paying job and struggling to pay for an apartment month to month?

Thoughts about everything else I want in life. I have always wanted to find love and family. Maybe this chapter is ending so I can open the other chapter. Maybe I can take the love I have and hold so dearly and turn it into love in the physical form. Maybe I should have a baby. I've wanted a baby for so long. My womb yearns for it.

But am I selfish for wanting to bring a child into the mess I have made out of my life? Am I selfish for wanting a child while still being a child in the many ways that I depend on my parents? I know the answer to all those questions is yes, but if my heart wants something this bad it might be a sign. It might just be what needs to happen right now.

Or maybe I am looking for the wrong signs and the message about my birth control being ready for pick up is the real sign.

I guess when it comes to my thoughts about wanting to be a mom I have to think of it this way. I want to be the best mother can be. I want to be like my mother. My mother is kind and walks with God all the days of her life. (check. I think I'm there with this one). My mother has always been financially stable. Since I was born. (Not there with this one). I'm just going to stop there because financial stability is key. After this month, no more playing around with my birth control pills.

Keep in mind I safe that often then end up skipping anyways. Then my protection method turns into a mixture of that and the calendar method. Then I go into fears of kids not being part of God's plan for my future at all.

My life is many fears. All of it is fear of the unknown. I know that the faith of a mustard seed can move the mountains. But sometimes I worry my lack of faith isn't even the size of a mustard seed. I have struggled to talk to God through all of this. I missed two Sunday's at church which doesn't help. I missed the Sunday two weeks ago for studying and this Sunday for a friend's graduation. But missing two sunday's shouldn't be a big deal. My faith should be so strong that I view that as nothing.

Basically I'm a hot mess again. I think I'm going to relax. Work. Do things I love and wait for this dreaded dismissal email.

I can't even relax long enough to finish my post and gather my thoughts from it.

But this is where I am now.

Lost and then confused, I pray God finds me. Finds me with some good news.

"On the first page of our story, the future seemed so bright. But this thing turned out so evil, don't know why I'm still surprised"

Signs My Relationship Isn't Healthy Anymore :

1. I yell things that are going to be hurtful way more often then I should. I've called him a "Piece of Shit" at least 5 times this week.

2. Helping him isn't something I do out of the kindness of my heart anymore. I do it bregrugingly, because I don't like being with someone that isn't financially stable and can't stand on their own.

3. I don't acknowledge anything he does. He always point that out to me and it's true. But every time we go on a date, all I can think is "he's wasting his money and I'm going to have to pay his phone bill, so is it really a treat? Or is it hurting me in the long run?".

He has changed a lot since I've met him and God heard my prayers, but he was at rock bottom. Even after making progress, he doesn't seem far ahead or even where he should be. He expects me to respect him for paying $385 rent at the Reserve every month. This is an apartment shared by 5 sometimes 6 people and 3 dogs. The people that live there are filthy. I hate sitting on the couch, because there is dog hair. I hate washing my clothes, because there's dog hair in the dryer to fine to be removed by all the other lint. I hate using the kitchen, because I'm germophobic and they use our glasses and utensils. Its always dirty and the sink sink and fridge have a foul odor.

Mind you, when I met him he was homeless. So this is progress, but its not something I would consider progress. It's just basic.

4. I no longer find peace in the idea that if I get my Pharmacy degree, he'll be spending my money. It's so backwards to me. I was always the girl who wanted to marry someone and spend their money. I worry that if I Become successful then he'll stop working and just live lavishly off of me.

5. He no longer wants children with me and continues to make that very clear. He says its because we're not financially stable, but I feel like it's because he's not so sure we'll end up together anymore. He says the same thing about marriage. All long term commitments have been completely pushed back.

6. I can't help but think he's cheating. He lies about people he hangs out with (lesbian girl and the Texas woman he chats with on the internet). That means he might be lying about a whole lot more. I know how he is with woman. He basks in their attention and reels them in with his sob story. He likes to tell jokes and make people laugh. Regardless of what he says, it's flirting. I don't want a boyfriend that flirts with everyone. Way too friendly.

7. It's gotten to the point where I don't really care if he's cheating. I just want to catch him doing it, so I don't have to live in this constant place of limbo where everyone sees something that I don't.

8. I can't tell anyone about the situations, because its too embarrassing. I'm ashamed of the way I've behaved in the relationship and I'm ashamed of the way I've let him behave as well.

I know that he met with our pastor after our fight this morning. If he told him everything, then I know there's a good chance the pastor told him breaking up with me would be the best choice moving forward. Our love does not resemble the christian romances or my idea of a christian romance. I feel like they don't fight the way we do. They have too much respect for one another. Our love isn't patient, kind, or slow to anger. It doesn't always delight in the truth. Instead of moving towards that kind of relationship, I feel like we're moving away from it.

I would be heartbroken if he chose to break up with me tonight. I really do love him and care or him. We've had good moments and been through a lot together. More than I've been through with anyone else. I've been stuck on this article about how you have 3 loves in your lifetime. I can't tell if he's number 2 or number 3. I hope God continues to open my eyes and show me the things I need to see.

2017 : A Year in Review

January 

As we know, January 2017 was a month that changed my life. A little after midnight on the 1st, I met my boyfriend and the man that I will be with the rest of my life. God brought us together in the weirdest of places, but we were meant to find each other. Ass Jamz is where our love story began. The first two days of our relationship went without a hitch and he texted me super cute good morning messages, called at 7:00am, and just did all the right things. Before the week was over, things fell apart. He found out there was a warrant for his arrest and it completely changed the course of our relationship.

I got to meet his family and he got to meet mine. I thought it was going really well at first. His mom was opening up to me about things I didn't think she would. She told me about the town A grew up in and about her family. She told me about her own struggle with love. It was clear she was devoted to her granddaughter and went to the library to get her new books and movies. They read Dr. Seuss books before bed and when I told A's niece that A Wocket in My Pocket used to be my favorite, she knew exactly what I was talking about. It was going well. His sister's was different. She stopped whatever she was doing every hour or so to smoke. She had a friend over with her child. I happened to know her friend from middle school, but didn't know whether she would recognize me or not. I didn't talk much there. Just whispers to A. We took the five love languages quiz and got the same results. We ate cupcakes and watched the episode of their cousin on Murry or Jerry Springer.

With the warrant hanging over his head, A considered running away. He had a ticket and everything, but the night before he left I begged him not to leave. His mom pleaded with him as well telling him that he has nothing to worry about and won't be found guilty of a crime he didn't commit. He chose to stay. He says he stayed for me. That really changed our relationship. I realized that I was important to him and that what he had with me was more important than anything else going on in his life. He was arrested shortly after and a lot of family drama arised. I stuck by him through that and even assisted in the process of bailing him out. He promised me he would change. In some ways he did, but in other ways he didn't. He was a work in progress and homeless. I let him secretly stay with me and he spent a couple weeks sneaking through the window until we finally got our financial situation right and moved into a new space.

My friend and I fulfilled our dreams of going on a double date together. It actually went well. The night started at Applebees and we each got the 2 for 20s. After Applebees, we went over to her boyfriend's apartment and hung out a little longer. All of them smoked and I didn't.

February 

I don't want to make this whole blog about bae, but he was a big part of everything. I got to experience my first Valentine's Day as a taken woman. Bae has no patience, so he gave me my gift the day before. I got flowers and chocolate cake. I got him polo socks and his favorite candy (skittles and starburst). He also took me to see 50 Shades of Grey. I returned the favor by taking him out to dinner. We tried to go to Longhorn at the Legends, but the line was way too long. We ended up settling on Yard House and had some delicious chicken and potato dish.

I started experiencing a lot of drama with my newly initiated sorority sisters. Me and the other older girl in the chapter were over everything. We had given the sorority way too much. I showed up 20 minutes late to a meeting one week which put everyone on edge. Me and the other girl didn't go to Meet the Greeks. I didn't think it would be a big deal since all of the women had attended the event before and I provided them with all the supplies they need. One girl ended up crying, because she looked up to me and felt that I would be a guide to her in the chapter but wasn't. I never apologized for not attending the event (because I didn't feel bad). Our relationship was never the same and the whole sorority was rocky after that point in time.

March

This was a good month, because I felt like I could finally start doing things for myself again. I got my hair braided and attended a male pageant. I also got to celebrate my little cousin's sweet sixteen with her. I went out to a club and went to a couple Karaoke Nights. Karaoke night was legendary, because I enjoyed hearing J sign Big Green Tractor every. single. time. Sometimes we would sign the cheetah girls as a group or anyone who really called our names. It was free spirited and I preferred the crowd to the Saturday Night people.

Bae participated in his first karaoke moment. We sang Dilemma together. You couldn't really hear us, but we had a good time together and that's all that matters. His case was dismissed and we believed that this would finally be the end of all those nerve wracking court dates and meetings with the lawyer.

I watched the movie Fences. Went out to eat with my high school friend group a lot. Went to a probate. Basically, I dove back into my regular pre-stress life and things were going fairly well in my relationship. Life was beautiful.

April 

I started off April by meeting the great Nikki Giovanni. It is absolutely amazing how many great opportunities KU has provided me with. In my time there, I have seen former presidents and countless notable people. I enjoyed hearing her speak and learning more about her. I also had the honor of a special sorority sister moment with her.

My lover and I discovered our love for bowling and went often. We also went on a memorable date to Dave and Busters.

I celebrated my friends 23rd birthday. I took a whole day off work and skipped school to watch her sky dive. It was a very exciting experience. I did my best to make sure she felt special and knew that had my undivided attention that day. Following sky diving, she was really excited to post the video they made for her. It was in a weird format, so we had to go to a library in the KC area in order to convert it. It took a long time, but I was right there with her while she did it. We then went to Boling's and I paid for her birthday lunch. We shopped around a little at Zona Rosa and then met up with our other friend J (not big green tractor J, but blue J). We ended the night at the Cheesecake Factory and I was exhausted. She had wanted to go clubbing, but I told her from the beginning that I likely wouldn't attend that. All her other friends bailed as well and she was upset. That's when she went off about how it isn't been a good day. She said that I spent the entire day talking about my boyfriend and she didn't like that. It hurt me, because she was the only person I was sharing my joy with regarding the relationship. It also hurt me because I spent the last 3 years listening to her talk about the same man for hours at a time. For me, that was one of the big moment where the friendship changed.

I celebrated my third deltaversay.

We lost Chapter of the Year to my enemies the year that I was president. I'll never get over it. But we had a successful delta week.

May

By the time finals week had arrived, it was clear that my grades were not what they needed to be. I was in trouble. I hadn't been putting in 100% and had some bad professors. I was trying everything to not end up on academic probation that semester. I believed that if I met the cumulative GPA then the semester GPA wouldn't matter. I was wrong and placed on academic probation.

GRADUATION!! I feel like I didn't even get time to soak in the joy of this big accomplishment. I celebrate the completion of my Bachelor of Arts degree in Human Biology. While I still had 2 classes to go, I was close to the finish line. I got to celebrate this momentous moment with my cousin who has been by my side since kindergarden. It was a very proud day for our family all around the world. My parents came to America so that their kids could have a better life. We fulfilled their dream. We worked hard and took the steps to make a better life for ourselves. I thank God for guiding me. The degree represented the end of a dark period of time for me. When I was kicked out of pharmacy school, I had no idea what I was doing with myself. I didn't know what to enroll in. I found myself in a mixture of courses for a bunch of different majors. I had two new jobs. The blessing was that 3 of my courses were with one of my new coworkers. In casual conversation, I asked her what her major is. She said her major was Human biology and I decided that mine would be too. Who would have thought that I would stick with it and complete it.

It wouldn't be my life if there wasn't a little drama. My friend made a scene and upset me by throwing it in my face that she came to my graduation. I know she meant well, but she didn't want to share her time with my boyfriend. It was quickly turning into a me vs. him thing that never should have started. He chose not to attend my graduation. Ended up getting hungover one of the days and working the other day. It broke my heart, because I had been there for him through all the highs and lows and he missed the moment that will be my pride and joy forever.

A got in legal trouble again. I can't call him bae when I'm upset with him. I was called into the police station and so was he. I realized that maybe everyone was right and people really don't change. I started to fear for myself, because I didn't want to interact with law enforcement. It changed the whole course of our relationship and year. This was the dark cloud that hung over us.

I started my internship. It went well, but I was tired and my feet hurt all the time.

Top 15 Songs of 2017

Hello loves,

It's been awhile since I wrote on here. My last few posts were coming from a place of anger and insecurity. I'm glad to be coming from a better place. Although it still feels like my entire life is crumbling apart, I'm more optimistic than ever. My faith in God lets me know that everything is going to be okay. He has a plan for my life so big and grand that even I can't mess it up.

1. Despacito by Daddy Yanke ft. Justin Bieber
2. It Ain't Me by Kygo & Selena Gomez
3. Say You Won't Let Go by Jame Arthur : It was the 2nd or 3rd day of my relationship with Antwane. I was at work filing and discovering new music. I texted him this song and told him to listen to it. He said he liked music like that and was willing to watch romantic comedies. Lets just say the first time we watched the notebook he fell asleep. When we went to 50 Shades for Valentine's Day, he fell asleep again. It wasn't really his thing.
4. Perfect by Ed Sheeran
5. Wild Thoughts by DJ Khalid ft. Rihanna
6. Push It On Me by Chocolate Droppa ft. Trey Songz
7. Do I Make You Wanna by Billy Currington : This was my song on the drives back and forth from Johnson County Community College. It was 2 hours Monday - Thursday. I would play this song and sing along to the radio at the top of my lungs. I also played this song when making drives to  visit A in Leavenworth.
8. Madiba Riddim by Drake : I loved, loved, loved the South African Beats. It was everything.
9. Sleep Without You by Brett Young
10. In Case You Didn't Know by Brett Young : These words described the love I felt throughout 2017. I had found my other half.
11. iSpy by Kyle ft. Lil Yachty : "I ain't been getting high. Well maybe a little baby, I don't want to lie. I know when you text me that I don't always reply. You know you're not angel baby, you can't even fly...fly". Can't count how many times me and bae sang this song through the year.
12. The Cure by Lady Gaga
13. I Could Use a Love Song by Maren Morris
14. Ride by SoMo
15. Still Got Time by Zayn


Praise and Worship Songs that encouraged me this year:
1. I'm Getting Ready by Tasha Cobb
2. Break Every Chain by Tasha Cobb
3. O'Lord by Lauren Dagel
4. Old Church Choir by Zack Williams
5. In Control by Hillsong
6. What a Beautiful Name it is by Hillsong

The Song I Re-discovered This Year :
Feels like Home by Chantal Kreviazuk : This song made me sad every time I heard it for years. That was because it was in the last beach seen of My Sister's Keeper when the mother finally accepts that her child will die and does her best to enjoy their last moments together. I was at El Potro with A and this song was someone's ring tone. I couldn't contain my excitement, so he took the phone and asked Siri what song it is. It ended up being Feels Like Home.

Top African Songs

1. Marry You by Diamond Platiumz ft. Neyo
2. Bank Alert by P Square

Honorable Mention
1. Cool On You by Ampichino & Berner : A and I listened to this song all the time in the beginning of our relationship. The beat is so catchy even though the words are questionable. I suggested BS listen to this song. She ended up trying to listen to it at work and quickly had to turn down the volume.
2. In My Feelings by Kevin Gates : This song is currently A's Special ringtone for me.

"Sometimes I'm lazy I get bored. I get scared; I feel ignored"

I'm in a relationship, but continue to feel alone. There is truth to what people say about having to be whole within before you pursue something with someone else. I met my boyfriend during what was the beginning of a new me. December was when I had stopped talking to everyone I was serious about the previous year. I was having extremely casual conversations with some men in greek life and guys I met on app. I was finally not trying to go crazy with my hair and make up. I was natural a majority of the time. I was just me. But honestly, a couple weeks probably wasn't enough time to become as healthy as I needed to be for all the problems that came our way.

Yesterday, the child was born. The child that may or may not be his. Believe it or not, that caused nothing but problems. I thought we had until the 29th before all of this became a reality but life doesn't work like that. I was upset, because my boyfriend was 20 minutes late picking me up from school. He had claimed he was "on the way" way before that so I sent him a test that said "the lie detector test determined, that is a lieeee". In my mind I was thinking of Maury and Jerry Springer when I sent it to him but didn't realize our real life Jerry Springer episode had begun. He said, "I may not have passed that test, but I passed another one?". I asked, "did you pass your driving test?". He said "No". I asked "which test?" and he said "this one" and showed me a picture. The picture was of a tiny baby that the girl who tried to burn the bathroom down in 7th grade had. This girl is who my boyfriend was fucking right before me. According to him, the baby was white and had blond eye brown hairs which means that it could not be him. I couldn't find the blond eye brow hairs in the picture. I sent it to my cousin, and she couldn't either. In that moment, I really wished I had my old friend back because we could have examined the picture for hours and determined whether there were similarities or not. But she is going through a lot of drama of her own also involving babies. Plus I don't feel like talking to her about my life. All that it would do is prove that she was right about everything. That I settled for less and would deal with the consequences of settling if I stayed in this relationship.

The possibly good news is that the mother of the child did not contact him to tell him she was going into labor or to tell him that the child had been born. She also blocked him from Facebook so that he couldn't see her page. This girl has an extremely low IQ and is immature. It's possible that she just didn't want to have the difficult conversation with him. The one where she would explain that the baby is not his and she's known the entire time based on when they last had sexual intercourse. I just want the whole thing to be over. I've wanted it to be over for a long time now. The only way for it to really be over is for him to take a paternity test and for the results to be negative. He called the local hospital and they said he would have to schedule a paternity test. The results would not come in for 4 weeks. His friend told him it could be longer than that. He wants me to let him handle it. A majority of how he plans to handle it involves him getting to win against his mother and his sister. That's all he really cares about. Revenge against them. I can't really understand, because I was blessed with a mother who has shown me nothing but love.

In the midst of all of this was a lot of fighting between my boyfriend and I. Lots and lots of fighting. He still sees me being upset by the situation and wanting him to take a paternity test as me not trusting him and thinking the baby is his. I think that me not thinking the baby is his AND not thinking the baby isn't him is the smartest thing to do at this point because we don't really don't. If you ask me, babies don't really look like anyway. They're all cute and pinkish. Just because the baby is lighter than they would have expected it to be doesn't mean anything. I trash talked the women, and he got upset saying that I was really just mad that they had sex. He got upset because I ask too many questions and can't let things go. All he wants to do is stop talking about it. How the hell do you stop talking about the fact that you might be a father? That there's a little girl with a ratchet name and mama that might be stuck to you for the next 18 years. To make matters better, the girl is homeless and her mother is homeless as well. The mother was kicked out of her apartment. These people live the bottom of the barrel lifestyle.  A kind of poor I know I'll never have to know (In Jesus Name. Money come to me now). He still refuses to talk about it. I'm sitting in a room with him right now. He's eating cereal and playing NBA 2K. He literally gets mad at me for talking. Often. He doesn't want to talk. He also doesn't want to cuddle as much as I do. I want to cuddle every day and not just in bed. I feel like cuddling should happen often. I want kisses and hugs and so many things that he gives but not often. He doesn't need any of those things.

Don't even get me started on how far in debt I am because of this man. My life is bad. I can easily see leaving and finding someone who has more money and is uglier. Then they would be more grateful to have me and wouldn't always silence me. Maybe they would try to give me the things that I want and say I need. I just don't have that with him. When I remember the decent times I want to stick with it. I still feel in love with him. Maybe men just suck and this is as good as it gets. At least he wants to commit to me and wants a monogamous relationship with me. I haven't had anyone else want that before. I'm also extremely fat now so that minimizes the people that would come my way anyway. So basically, life is a big pile of shit. That's all. Pray for me or don't.

Song of the day : Ordinary Girl by Hannah Montanna

quote of the day : Most importantly love like it's the only thing you know how. At the end of the day, all of this means nothing. This page. Where you're sitting. Your degree. Your job. The money. Nothing even matters except love and human connection. Who you loved and how deeply you loved them. How you touched the people around you and how much you gave them.

"People got, they got me questioning : where is the love?"

Feelings, emotions, the work. All of that is what I bring and pour out here. I'm happy in a relationship. Really happy. My boyfriend makes me happy when skies are grey. We've almost been together for a year and overcome every hurdle you could ever imagine. The things that I for sure thought would break us didn't. It gave us a strong, loving relationship that I thank God for. He's my everything. The cream to my oreo cookie. The frosting to my cupcake. My light in the darkness. The only one I never get tired of spending time with. The person I love waking up and falling asleep next to. My everything. I'm so happy I found him. With feelings of love as much as these comes a protective side that I could have never imagined. I don't want him to get hurt or messed with by other people at all. I know what he's already been through and the thought of him going through more breaks my heart. What sucks about this particular situation are the people I feel I have to protect him from are his own family members. Family is everything to me. I have a pretty tight nit family with my parents, brother, aunt and uncle. There are lots of cousins that are basically family. All my aunts and uncles are people I can be real with. They know me and love me just the way I am. I understand that this kind of relationship is hard to find anywhere else. You only get one family and those are the people you want to be with. Because that feeling is something everyone needs. Not to mention the holidays are coming up. I know he wants to be with them for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I would love for him to feel like my family is his family, but I can tell that thats just not there yet. He isn't extremely comfortable around any of my family members. It also doesn't help that we're African. There will be no dirty rice or stuffing at our Thanksgiving dinner. He'll be lucky if there is macaroni and cheese or mashed potatoes.

When I think about holidays and things like that, it becomes clear that he needs them. I get it. But every time he trusts them or lets them in, even when he thinks they're not the enemy...they become that. They prove him wrong. He breaks because it hurts more when the one who hurt you is the one that is close to you. His brother recently stepped back in to his life. He claimed that he wasn't associating with his other family members either, but I knew in my soul that that was a lie. I had the opportunity to let it play out and make him learn from himself, but everythings on facebook. I couldn't help but get the answers I need. Within the first post, it was clear that he still had a relationship with them. Because his family members are the kind of people that put everything on social media, it's easy to see what they're up to. I decided to send him what I saw, but have mixed feelings about it. Maybe I was wrong for doing that. Maybe I should have let him try it and find out what it really is for himself. Maybe I should have just not said anything and he could go on building a delusional relationship with his brother but at least feel like he has family or someone he can lean on close by. He hasn't responded to my message, and I am incredibly worried that I interfered with family stuff that was none of my business. But I would want someone to do that for me. Make me see the obvious. I lost a friend the same way trying to make her see these things about her baby daddy. Now I don't say anything. I saw that he was in town and don't know if she knows, but just didn't say anything. I let it be. I build a lot of friendships and relationships because I'm a good listener and here all the stories. But then knowing all this stuff makes me protective of them. I just don't want to cross the line or appear to be the women keeping a man from his family.

He got invited to his nieces birthday party. He wants to go. Do I want him to go? No, because his other evil family members who talk behind his back and smile at his face will be there. Also because his family members haven't said the nicest things to me. They've hurt my feelings to the point of me crying plenty of times before. There are also at least 2 women my boyfriend has sex with on the invite list. Both will likely come, because it's rare they get invited to anything at all. We should really say 2 and counting, because he was with his fair share of people before me. I just don't feel comfortable around those, excuse my language, bitches. But I would never keep him from it. I would give him a ride and help him pick out a present. His niece is the high end of what I think is the perfect age groups with little girls. They start to appreciate purses, lip glosses, and Claire's club stuff while still loving dolls and everything that makes kids kids. So if he goes, I get to pick the gift and wrap it. I will definitely be praying over the entire situation. Thank goodness for an opportunity to put my thoughts into the world. This blog gives me life.

Kids Say the Darnest Things

Adulthood is weird. It's the weirdest part of my life so far. I've always known that people put an emphasis on how honest children are. I never really stopped to think that that emphasis exists because most people aren't so honest. This is one of the first years that I've experienced how closed off people are. It's the first year that I've become semi closed off myself. I experienced some life changing news and instead of turning to my friends or texting people around me right away, I've kept it to myself. The only people that are aware are my boyfriend, aunt, and parents. I've managed to stay relatively fake in all other situations, but I am avoiding some things. People from school keep wanting to be friends and I'm not interested. Like I want to work on school stuff together and help each other out, but I hate that that means having to listen to them talk and complain about their personal lives. The experience I'm having with the classmate kind of just emphasized my decision to keep more things to myself. Everyone is carrying a burden of some sort. Sometimes the burden is too heavy for them to carry theirs and yours. Sometime they don't know you well enough to be able to give you the honest truth, opinions, or really do more than just listen. That's what I mostly do. Listen and respond with positivity whenever I can. I do this, because I know how important it is for people to have someone to listen. Everyone wants someone who can understand. My classmate and I have being a first generation American in common. To be honest, it's not something I think about that often. I feel as American as everyone else most days.  I love my african culture and it's a big part of me, because I chose to make it a big part of me. A lot of my counterparts choose to ignore their heritage. They don't speak the language or learn about where they came from, because their roots are here. I can completely understand that. I definitely relate more to people here than there. I relate to first generation africans the most though.

I got off subject but the point was I feel like adulthood is full of a lot of lies. I know for a fact my friends are going through some things and they don't really feel comfortable talking to anyone about them. It makes me sad that they don't see me as someone they can open up to. Mostly because them closing off makes me closed off too. But this is out of my control. I have to learn to be independent. I'm very friend dependent. I always like having people to lean on and share my life with. Experience things with. But at the end of the day it's my life. I'm experiencing it. No one  else is feeling what I feel or seeing the world through my eyes. So I have to be okay with experiencing it as just me.