#escapedgoat

[coconutlimeverbena]

There’s something so endearing about Lakeith Stanfield’s face. I think it’s his eyebrows/eyes.

[coconutlimeverbena]

I have this fear of baking, so I'm challenging myself to make one baked good per month. This is a coconut lime Bundt cake that I made a few days ago, covered in a coconut lime glaze. It actually came out of the pan properly!

[coconutlimeverbena]

Kendall without Kylie is like Puff with no Mase*

*still fairly successful and well known

[coconutlimeverbena]

I Like You.

     Being loved is nice. Hearing "I love you" is great. But "I like you" is so underrated, and yet, so important. I get a fuzzier feeling when someone tells me that they like me, than when they tell me they love me, and I realized that it's because of this:

     There are many people in my life that I love, but don't necessarily LIKE. Meaning, I care about them and their well-being, but maybe their personality or spirit is draining or unpleasant in some way. When you like someone, it means that you genuinely enjoy their company and who they are as a person. 

I see people on social media say things about their children or significant others and it makes me think, do you LIKE this person, or are they just a part of your life and you feel stuck with them?

Challenge yourself to do this: if you like someone in your life (could be your s/o or kids or whoever), tell them so. Let them know that yes, you care about them and their well-being, but that you also enjoy their company and who they are as a person. Who knows, maybe it'll give them a fuzzy feeling too.

[coconutlimeverbena]

Ghosted!

Ugggh. I haven’t posted here in ages because, quite frankly, Tumblr was one big trigger for me. Reminded me of too many things, too many people...so I stepped back a bit.

So. Ghosting. It’s the term for when you drop out of someone’s life completely and you’re basically unreachable. In some cases, it’s necessary, like if the person you’re ghosting is abusive or manipulative or downright awful in any other way. But a lot of times, it’s a cowardly way for people to walk out of your life without speaking to you directly or without allowing you to have a real say. The latter happened to me, in 2014.

I had a friend. We were cool in HS, but didn’t really hang out until a few years after we graduated (we were class of 2003). Our friendship was cool. We had a lot in common, personality-wise (we’re both Earth signs), similar backgrounds (both from West Indian families, well, half of my fam is, anyway), and both into arts, writing, etc. In the 9 years of our friendship, we never even argued. We disagreed on things, of course, but we never had a falling out. In fact, she would always tell me what a wonderful and great friend I was. In fact, a few months before she ghosted, she told me that whenever she meets new people, she compares me to them to see if they’ll be as good of a friend as I was. Pretty dope,  huh?

I ignored a huge red flag: her tendency to cut people off over the silliest, most trivial things. She was very good at cutting people off, and the reasons were never really valid. It’s almost as if she just enjoyed cleaning house. She cut off a mutual friend of ours for no real reason whatsoever, and even cut off her own sister. I should’ve known that ANYONE could be next.

In October 2014, she invited me to spend Thanksgiving with her and her mom. I was happy because my family dynamic was (and still is) lousy, and I didn’t want to spend the day with them. Then, a week before Thanksgiving, she canceled, claiming that her mom had “already budgeted for the food” and “didn't’ have enough for an extra person” (there were only going to be 4 people). I thought that was strange, but didn’t push the issue. I also noticed that we didn’t talk nearly as often as we used to. Also, any time I would mention anything like a potential job, the response was usually negative, like “are you even sure you’re ready for that yet?” 

Anyway, Christmas Day 2014, which was also my 29th birthday. She hadn’t called me at ALL. I went on Facebook and saw that she wasn’t even following me anymore. Then later that evening, she made me a birthday post on Tumblr, wishing me a great day and added a bunch of GIFs and pics of things that I’d shown interest in before. Sounds like a real friend, right?

Then, around 12-something AM December 26th, I get an email from her. I’ve since deleted it because I got so angry at the audacious bullshit in it that I had to get rid of it.

Basically, she said she was tired of being my friend. Tired of dealing with my depression, which, according to her, “didn’t seem as real as I said it was”. Said she was tired of me “talking about things that weren’t going to happen” and that she always felt that she couldn’t tell me good news because I wasn’t accomplishing anything at the time. The last one stung me the most because I always cheered on everything she did. I was always positive. Complimented her artwork (there’s a drawing she did that I STILL love), and actually talked her OUT of being too hard on herself whenever she would make a mistake. 

I’ll never know 100% what her ACTUAL reasons were, because, according to her for all the years we’ve been friends, I was the ideal friend. So either she was lying the whole time, or there’s some other reason she ended things. Who knows.

Fast forward to March 2018. I still have a hard time forming friendships. Still find it hard to open up to people. I always feel as if I’m bothering people. If I speak to someone and they seem distracted or annoyed (may not even be about me), I’m like “omg let me leave them alone, what if I’m overwhelming them or bothering them”. She did this to me. The after effects of this may go away, but they’re still here right now.

It took me years to write this, but I had to let it out. I got tired of keeping the hurt to myself (or just telling my counselor).

Moral of the story: "Ghosting” isn’t cute. It’s not cool, it doesn’t make you seem tough or “unbothered”. It makes you a coward. She is a coward (a coward who blocked me on IG recently, so apparently I am still on her mind). And unfortunately, a powerful coward, because this shit STILL has me fucked up.

Anyway, see ya.

[coconutlimeverbena]

I've never had an idol.

Since I was young, I used to fantasize about the future a LOT (kids who had a lousy childhood tend to do this almost obsessively. You're almost willing yourself out of the situation you're in). I had an idea of who I wanted to be and where I wanted to be. I remember my dad asking me what kind of car I wanted to drive when I got older. My response? "I don't want to drive, I want to be driven". Keep in mind that I grew up broke, so for me to have that way of thinking is wild.

There were people I respected and admired, but I never wanted to be THEM. My idol was me. My future self. The person I looked up to was the person I wanted to be eventually. So really, my only competition was, and still is, myself.

[coconutlimeverbena]

Happy New Year!! Here are some words of advice from my brain.

-Drink more water, even if you hate it

-"I'll sleep when I'm dead" is stupid. Get some rest.

-Don't apologize or be ashamed of seeking professional help

-Don't be afraid to ask for help or to say no if you're feeling overwhelmed

-Don't allow people to take advantage of you or your creativity by constantly doing things for free

-Forgiveness≠reconciliation. You can forgive someone for what they've said/done to you without feeling obligated to keep them in your life

-Make sure your weave matches your own hair texture

-Do "childish" things once in a while. Go on the park swings, go to the circus, jump on the bed, etc. Those things keep you youthful.

-Challenge yourself to read more

-Resist the urge to tear yourself down when someone gives you a compliment

-Try not to get so caught up in other people's lives that you fail to focus on your own goals/dreams/problems

-Don't brag about not having a filter. Grow up.

-Eat more fruit and vegetables

-Challenge bigotry (when safe/possible). Don't sit in silence.

-Try to be a better and more sincere person

-Get rid of frenemies. They're a waste of your time.

-Accept that sometimes you're the one that's the problem, not everyone else

-Give yourself credit for trying

[coconutlimeverbena]

I AM THIRTY ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I AM 31

Which I hate because it’s a prime number and prime numbers are yuck.

But still. I’m 31. Still here. Still being a fool on social media. Getting better at drawing (look here) 

Getting better at making ice cream (I created a list of flavors in 2013, but was too much of a punk to even attempt to make it until 2015). Made some pretty awesome flavors (Mango cheesecake, Sweet Potato pie, etc). Made a few mistakes. Learning that mistakes aren’t the worst thing ever (I’m a Capricorn, this is hard lesson) and that’s it ok to screw up sometimes.

Learning that I’m even more creative than I realized. And that getting back into drawing might be the best thing that ever happened to me.

Learning that I’m destined for great things and that I need to believe in myself more.

And learned that watermelons are technically a fruit AND a vegetable!!

So happy birthday to me. Here’s my wishlist here. I got a few things from my Amazon wishlist, which is so dope, #11, and  #3, but I honestly think that it was a piece of weave :((