Handwritten Journals

Love Future

In recent days, I have found myself contemplating what I will do next in life. I have this pulsing desire to leave this current situation behind. I want to put so much distance between me and all of my past romantic relationships and scratch out a new existence all by myself. I know I will not do it all by myself. My family and friends are so much a part of my transition. But I feel the need to be all by myself in the world. As crazy as that sounds, I need the peace and tranquility of being alone to find ME again. I need to stretch my legs and gather new experiences and remember the girl I was and figure out the girl I am going to be.

Much of my adult life has found me searching for true love and seeking to find that spark, that magic, that fire. In recent months, I straddle this line between rekindling past love and all of the history that comes with it or should I move toward something brand new without any history or pain. The pattern I find myself in is that I want men that don't want me. Well they want me or they think they want me but they have no idea how to fulfill my needs. They don't pursue me in the traditional way that I dream of, the way I saw my father constantly court my mother or the way I watch my older brother with his wife. I have such beautiful examples of love, unconditional, all around me. How is it that my selection in men is so poor that they always find a reason to leave me?

I have buried two marriages in my short life and right now, I cannot love like that again even though I love being in love. There is no better feeling than the butterflies that arise in my belly when I am in love. There is no better feeling than to be desired by a man that I am absolutely head over heels for. And yet, I have not clearly defined in my head how I want the next relationship to look like moving forward. I would agree with anyone who says that right now is not the time to look for a new love. And yet I feel the stirrings in my belly again. I feel the magic of explosive new love and at the same time, I feel the burn of old love and my mind cannot decipher which is the right way to go. At best, the right way is to sit in stillness and not choose a path at all. The path that is beckoning to me is the one that puts me above everyone else. I cannot live my life for another and neither can they live for me.

Just recently, I started watching the TV Show THIS IS US. The writing is so fabulous. The story line so real and the actors and actresses that bring it to life are stellar. The most recent episode I watched, there is a particular scene where one of the main characters is prompted to seek out his one true love. Kevin shows up at Sophie's door unannounced after not having seen her in 12 years. She was once married to him and he left the marriage. He tells her that she's the one that got away.

Side Note: Every single episode of THIS IS US is chock full of raw human emotion. Love, hate, resentment, anger - it just covers so many emotions and I cry with every single episode.

When Kevin shows up at Sophie's door and reveals his regrets, it instantly reminded me of my own failed first marriage. Everyone has a first love - the one they gave their entire heart to. My first love was also my first husband. I have written about our relationship several times before on this blog and in my handwritten journals. At the end of that marriage, I never quite moved on. It's like he took the biggest piece of my heart with him when he left. And what was left for my second husband was a tiny fraction of my capacity to love and yet there's no denying that I did love my second husband also. This recent break up with him has brought all of the pain and loss of both marriages to the forefront and I grieve. I still sob when I think of the loss of the two great loves in my life. This prompts me to want the magic and electricity of new love. I don't want to dwell on the pain of the past. I have been quite successful at burying the pain and pushing forward without addressing the wounds. But now, now is the time to purge and let it all go once and for all.

I don't know what my love future looks like. What I do know is that I love the bliss of a love without any pain associated with it. What I do know is that magic can happen at the craziest of times and under the strangest of circumstances. What I absolutely know is that synergy and pure, raw attraction is alive and well in me. What I know is that I don't want to label or define the old or the new because it changes it, whatever IT is, and turns it into something I may not want. As I progress through the changing landscape of my life, I will do so with my eye single to my goals. I love to be in love but first I must work on me and that is exactly what I am going to do. God-willing, all of my passion for writing and all of my creative pursuits that make me feel so alive will be realized and love will find me, either way.

Ya Girl NeenaLove

The Fading Night

I love to wake up in the early morning while it's still dark out. I brew a cup of coffee. Dark. Black. Stout. I sit on my balcony and wait for the sun to rise. The world is so still and so quiet. Only the breeze through the trees can be heard and the sound of the waves crashing against the shore. The roosters are just about ready to begin crowing but not just yet. Sometimes, on a night where the moon is full, the early morning is awash with moon beams. It casts an eerie glow across the landscape. And when the moon is absent the sky is littered with millions of stars, twinkling and shining it's dim light upon the earth. The scent of the ocean and the smell of white and yellow ginger wafts its way through the tropical air.

This is the most peaceful time of my day. I sit and ponder my mood and the ever changing circumstances of my life.

Most times, I think, "There has to be more to life than clocking in everyday."
"Surely, I was NOT born on this planet to push meaningless paperwork."

I was born to write and to create art with words on a page. I say that with extreme confidence that I am here to tell the stories that are inside of me. I was born to share my hurts and my pains, my struggles and my triumphs, my happiness and my joy. And I was made to do it in a way that is captured so genuinely and arrives on the page from someplace deep inside me, touched by the goddess within.

Every morning is like the previous, after the darkest night, the cock begins to crow announcing the imminent arrival of the morning sun. Both near and off in the distance, the rooster's bark pierces the silence of the morning. My coffee has cooled to a comfortable warmth and its stout bitterness is actually sweet on my tongue. My peaceful meditation returns to thoughts of the precarious situation called my life. In recent months, every pondering has become a struggle to understand the many changes happening to me and around me. I am in a position to make my life everything I want it to be. As exciting as that may seem, it frightens me. It calls for me to be more courageous than I have ever needed to be. The changes force me to stand erect and move in the direction of my destiny, alone, with no one to hold my hand through the painful process of CHANGE.

Seconds turn into minutes. Minutes into hours. As I look toward the east, the dark of night begins to vanish. Slowly, ever so gently, the heavens illuminate the coming of the sun. I can see a glowing ball of fire slowly breach the ocean horizon. The sun's rays turn the heavens into brilliant hues of pink and orange against the purple of the fading night. I am always silenced and awestruck by the beauty of the rising sun upon the Pacific horizon. Even as a young girl, my summer mornings were spent waking early to witness this event. Every day I knew the sun would rise and the darkness would disappear.

The world begins to come alive with sound. Several varieties of birds chirp and sing in a loud array of harmonies. They share beautiful songs of gratitude to accent the awakening earth. Ocean breezes stir the palm trees. Humans begin to stir as I start to hear the whirr sound of cars on the road. I hear my neighbors bustling in their driveways as car doors begin to open and engines start revving. And the light chatter from sleepy children and sleepier parents add to the sounds of the awakening world.

Today, unlike any other day prior, I can see my purpose so clear. It is a brand new day and a new era in the world of NeenaLove. My soul can feel my ancestors gently prodding me into the light of the morning sun. Previous lifetimes have groomed me for this moment and I welcome these changes with new courage. The heartbreak of my past will fade like the night and my sun will rise in glorious brilliance on the life that I was destined to live.

Independent of WE

No one sees my mind the way you do
You see into my soul
Into my heart

Above all, I can be me whenever I am with you
The me that no one in the world can see but you
There are no misconceptions of who I am
Because I am my most genuine when I am with you
I hide nothing

Even now as we traverse separate trials
Our honesty with each other
Our vulnerability
Our connection
Our concern for each other
Our genuine affection
It is all very important to me
And so precious

Yet our symbiotic relationship is just that - so intertwined
And I have a difficult time hearing my own voice
Hearing my own thoughts that are independent of WE
And however I move forward
And however you move forward
Must be independent of WE

WE will always have this connection
And maybe one day we will find each other again
In love
In passionate love
It will be the right time
Without the hurt of our yesterdays
creeping up into our todays

But first, I will work on me
You will work on you
Independent of WE

Missing Him : Angels Cry Edition

I have been missing him so much.

My longing for him came out of nowhere. I thought I had conquered our divorce and yet memories of the good times crept up on me the other evening.

I cried myself to sleep thinking about how much love we had between us. I am still in shock and disbelief that we walked away from 13 years of marriage. When I give my heart away, I love so hard and I am so loyal. Even now, I find myself traversing the single life but longing to be with just him. And yet I know that he and I will never be again. I am trying, with much difficulty, to even want to be single again. Dating and getting to know new people is difficult when I have come from a relationship that was laden with trust, respect, and love (minus the year before we divorced).

My dear father has been priceless in my transition from married woman to single. He is so wise even though he is a man of very few words. I can hear what he doesn't say based on his reactions to my ramblings. He reassures me that I made my ex a better man.

I stood by him when he deployed to the Middle East. I wrote him every single day and sent him care packages the whole time. That's my duty as a wife, right? No one else wrote him. When we parted, I took all those letters back. Those are my words. I stood by him when he was doing battle with the U.S. Army. I tap danced to his beat; whatever he needed me to do I did without questioning him. When he finally separated from the military, he wanted to move to Hawaii and I wanted to move to Georgia. Guess where we went? Hawaii. I assisted him through his Bachelor and Masters Degrees. I take no credit for the work he did -- it was ALL him but I do acknowledge that I stood by him through it.

Why does a man walk away from a woman so loyal? Maybe I'm a little too "alpha" for him. Did my behavior or actions emasculate him in some way? I don't know. I will never know. What I do know is that I cried myself to sleep the other night just missing his presence. His beauty. His strength. His quiet confidence. His warm body next to mine. I tear up when I think of all the beautiful things he was to me. I don't know what I did wrong and it messes with me because he is the second man to leave me. It stirs up old feelings of inadequacy that happened with my first marriage. And I, for the life of me, cannot figure out where I am going wrong in a marriage.

I don't want to be bitter. I don't want to say that I will never love again because I will and I want to love again. What I don't want is to take any of my current baggage from both marriages into new love. Perhaps I am much stronger than I was before my heart was shattered... twice. But maybe I'm way more cautious or suspect of men who desire my attention and affection. I don't want to be that bitter girl that questions a man's intentions toward me. And maybe some are just getting at me to be a convenient physical companion and that's okay, I suppose. But my body is just the bonus because my real value is in my soft heart, my ever-curious mind, and my deep-seated soul. Maybe some will dig and stick around long enough to explore me but most will not. Yet I will remain who I am and become the best me in every single moment.

As I traverse single life, I want to proceed with wild abandon. Even though I miss him and the memory of our love crosses my mind often, I have to look forward to new love and new relationships. God willing, it will be a love so magical and filled with genuine and sincere affection that it will transcend lifetimes.I would have never chosen to split from someone that I had spent so much of my years with. If it were up to me, I would have remained loyal to him all the days of my life. True love is a gift.




I couldn't have prepared myself for this fall
Shattered in pieces, curled on the floor
Super natural love conquers all, remember we
Used to touch the sky
And lightning don't strike
The same place twice, when you and I
Said goodbye I felt the angels cry
True love's a gift,
But we let it drift in a storm
Every night I feel the angels cry 
-Mariah Carey