Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

So I have been gettin my hustle on, seriously. Steal from Peter to pay Paul, naw, even that wouldn't help. It's funny cuz I am so busy worrying about Tomorrow and how I'm gonna pay this bill and that bill and get this and that for MY CHILD or wondering why Yesterday i didn't do what I was supposed to do so that Today it wouldn't be so hard for me or on me. And it took the cable guy to drop some knowledge on me:

I was telling him how I was just tired, tired of everything and how I needed to catch a break cuz I was catching hell and then some and I was running outta creative ideas of how I was gonna make it and seeing that he was the only person I knew who out-hustled me, I was trying to see if he could hip me to a part-time hustle that could give me some much needed income. He laughed and told me that he was just thinking about what other hustles he could pick up. Well somewhere in the convo, we started talking about Gerald Levert and how I was still in shock that he was dead and just how i could chart my life on his songs and his concerts. So, CG was like that's why we have to make plans, so our life can be better and I was like, naw, not really, cuz life is not as concrete as a plan. I should know, I was the queen of making plans and would go ballistic if things didn't go accordingly. I was trying to explain this to CG and he wasn't getting it so I was like tonight, Gerald had plans, he was supposed to be performing in the Chi with his dad for Thanksgiving, but look what happened to his plans now that he dead. Plans are okay, so you can have a layout, a blueprint, a roadmap to where you would like to wind up, but in life you will find out that there are many paths, bumps, detours, and unexpected construction that you may have to endure before reaching your final destination. I said when you in the game of life, you learn that to understand life, you have to live it...and right now I wasn't really in the game..i was like the 12th man, i got in for a few seconds to give the stars a chance to take a pee break but just when i was getting some rhythm, i was back on the sidelines watching

So CG tells me that what I just said sounded like what Bill Cosby had said in this movie he was watching...he said that Bill Cosby had been saving all of his life to buy a house so that his wife and kids would have somewhere to live and to call their own, said getting a house was like his only goal...once he got the house he would be satisfied because they could live better. Well when he got the house, he found out his son was sick and was going to eventually die so he told his son, "son, there are three types of people in this world, there are yesterday people, your grandfather was a yesterday person, he was always talking about yesterday and trying to hold on to the past, which prevented him from realizing his future, and me, i used to be a tomorrow person, always saying what i am going to do or want to do in the future, and how things going to be in the future, but starting right now, i'm gonna be a today person, so what do you want to do today?" (well, it may have been off some cuz it was like 11:30 at night and i was half asleep, half sick, and half crying, and i'm half death and CG's jamaican accent is so thick that about time the words came through the phone to me, it sounded like i was listening to french while i taking a nap in a pool of running water)

and it was like someone had made him go to the dollar store and buy that movie and watch it just so that he could tell me about that part of the movie.... because i had been sitting in my house meditating, wondering why it seemed like i couldn't catch a break, or when it did appear i was on the way up, i find my face back down in the mud. and why am i always the one face down in the mud, cuz if i am the only one playing this game, how in the hell do i keep falling? and i guess it's because i haven't learned my lesson.

i need to stop looking at what everyone else has and comparing that to what i have or do not have because God has truly blessed me and he may stop blessing me if i do not take time to (1) recognized that i have been blessed and (2) to appreciate and enjoy the blessing.

see, stealing from Peter to pay Paul WOULD NOT HELP ME, especially seeing that i have $10.95 in my account. that's not enough to get me a half of tank of gas. that's not enough to get me a bus pass for the week...that's not enough for me to do a lot of things, BUT it is enough for me to make ten trips to Mickey D's and get MY CHILD some "dolla fries" to reward him for good behavior or just because i know that Mickey D's fries has a way of putting a smile on his face the way a brownie fudge sundae puts one on mine.

So today, I am going to work on being a today person, which means, i can't beat myself up about not being able to write consistently any more cuz my life right now isn't allowing it, however, maybe if i focus on the tasks i need to do today, tomorrow, i will be able to write like i used to..

I Can Do A Lot of Things But I Can't Do Everything

"Well, I don't really have an excuse, except that I am a little overwhelmed and sick with pneumonia, which I got from MY CHILD, but couldn't be hospitalized because I didn't have any place for MY CHILD to go, so I got to go home on meds, which I don't think are working, but...."

So this is what I told one of my professors as the deadline to a very important assignment was quickly approaching, a deadline that I was in no shape or form to meet. And in my mind, I really didn't have an excuse, well a valid one to offer up as to why this deadline was going to pass and I would not have anything of substance to turn in. I was just tired. My body was drained and even though for the past 2 weeks I had gotten up at the crack of dawn to work on this assignment, I still had nothing to show for my "early bird gets the worm" methods. The only thing i did accomplish was determining that my left side is really jacked up since my accident. I can't sit for long periods of time (like 10 mins) without moving or it will go to sleep...I can't continuously move that side or it will swell up...so i have to move, sit still, move, sit still, move...ain't life grand.

So, I am prepared for my professorto treat me like the MightyOne and others have been treating me and tell me that I have a problem, or that I am making BS excuses and that I need to get my stuff together, or that I need to stop being lazy, or my absolute fav "I am too blessed to be stressed, ain't I a Christian?" But to my surprise, my professor dropped some knowledge on me, she told me that I could do a lot of things and have accomplished a lot things, but, I can't do everything....that i need to realize this, because there is only one me.

And you know what dang it, she right, I ain't superwoman, that cape was snatched off or flew off my back a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time ago. My body can't do or take what it could 5 years ago, let along 10. I can only do so much and though I tell myself this over and over again, I still try and do it all. Why? Is it because I am a control freak? Naw, i think it's moreso I don't trust anyone to do it right, or to do it when it needs to be done, and if something going to fall through the cracks, I would prefer for it to fall through from my hands.


So, I knew deep down after sitting in the hospital for another week with MY CHILD who had a fever that kept rising without explanation that I was too pooped to do anything. I mean even before the hospital ordeal I was drained from doing school, doing a 12 hr externship and doing a 16 hr internship that I had to work to try and keep a roof over my head. So now upon his release, with me feeling sore and achy, lungs hurting when i breathe, sides hurting, throat hurting from the persistent dry cough, i knew i needed someone to help me out, at least until i got better so that (1) my child didn't recatch the virus and (2) so my child didn't get his feelings hurt because i wasn't in the mood to be bothered.

BUT: who was i going to get, seeing if I had someone in mind, i could have been hospitalized and received the only pampering i am probably going to get before the year's out. I mean people just don't care nowadays what they expose their kids to, but i do. I mean I went over a mutual acquaintance's house and the mama was rolling a blunt in front of her kids talking about "my kids know what i do, they know i get high" WTH? i knew my parents had sex, don't mean they did it in front of me. Or, the associate who lets her drunk boyfriend disrespect her in front of her child and whoever else is present. or my gurls who still don't understand why a "little ice cream" will do a lot of harm to their brother. I mean if I was going to have to worry about the safety of my child because of the type of environment he may be exposed to, I might as well watch him myself. The only person I thought who would be able to do it, my classmate, was under doctors care also because my child had decided to be extra generous and give him viral pneumonia, also.


so yeah, i knew i couldn't do everything i was supposed to do feeling the way that i did, but what was i supposed to do? send my child off so that i could rest up and hope that he didn't come back saying, "puff, puff, pass?"