Honestly...

So I'm writing this after watching an LMN movie that was very interesting to say the least. Tonight was a bad night for me. There were moments of absolute confusion and hurt with my fiance. It is on nights like these I wonder how persons who are married survive. Cause being engaged is no picnic.

Yet tonight was also a good night. I got to chat with an old friend until 2:30am about some stuff that had made me very depressed for so long. Honestly, I should be over it but I needed to vent without feeling like I was stupid to still have issues.

Over 2 years ago, a battle was waged on my mind and heart in earnest. The weapons used against me were the words of my friends. I spent many nights crying & worrying about the way my friends & others view me. To one of my friends I was manipulative, to another I was pushy & aggressive, to others I was plain selfish & always a victim. I just didn't know how to take it but as truth. Honestly, I felt like I was not fit to be a friend to anyone.

It was painful for me as I went through those months. At times also very lonely. I found that even though I was finally coming into my own as it related to my love life my friendships were falling apart. My friends had always meant the world to me. I really needed the to remain the same but God in His wisdom said no.

God pruned me so much until all the friends I had thought I had were almost gone. I never felt as alone as I did then. God and my writing were my only constants. Church turned into a chore because I was constantly reminded of what was before & what I now had before me.

For the beauty of a lily to be appreciated it has to bloom in dirty areas. In this period of ashes my beauty emerged. I had started to give myself meaning by who my friends were & who we would become together as a team. We had such high hopes & goals. To someday co-own a chain of small Bed & Breakfast's, invest together in our communities, travel the world as Best-selling authors, artists and professionals. But it seems that we were all too much alike.

After my friendships fizzled away, for a long time I hid from everyoneso that I could heal the hurt. I gave up on the idea of a circle of friends I could trust to keep me accountable. I did not want to deal with issues resulting in me being held accountable by my friends, but them not wanting to be held the same way by me. I had always dreamed of the closeness that I saw on the movies with women. But for me it could neverhappen. I was just too much drama- not enough friend.

The thoughts my friends had about me  started to play out in other areas of my life. I second guess everything I do now. My fiance gets annoyed cause I will ask him a trillion times if he is ok with whatever we agree on. I have a hard time asserting myself as I had done in the past. I am constantly hiding my light/knowledge for everyone around me.  I also find that I get angry or hurt so much more quickly when I am criticized. Mostly because I was tired of being told that to be who I was is annoying.

Praise God that through time my wounds have begun to heal. I have finally opened my life & heart to new friends. In this venture I find myself straddling the line of self reserve & timidity with periods of excitement & pure joy. I am a long way from being that skinny girl with smiles & an encouraging word. But by God's grace I will get there & actually someplace better someday.

Written: 6/12/2010- 4:00am

Hair

So it has been almost 3 weeks since I did the big chop. The week after I got it I was able to get some Bob Marley Braids placed into my hair by my sister. She is really good at catching even the shortest of hair- like my TWA (Teenie weenie Afro) and getting them into the sexiest of styles.


I love the way it looks- but my hair has been growing like a weed. Tonight I plan to wash & condition my hair in the braids. Then after this I will blow dry it & set the braids with my perm-rods so I can do something other than a bun for work.

Reactions to the big chop were varied & funny but the one I think is funniest was my fiance William's. He was in awe of how I looked (to say the least.)

But then after he got use to how I looked he loved the texture. It is incredibly soft. I am so excited about my hair & this journey. I have yet to find my own regimen for my hair but I have been reading up on it & I know that my hair will be ok.

Until next time keep Romans 5:8 and II Timothy 1:5&6 in your heart & Spirit! God made you special & He loves you very much!

The Diarist.
[For every moment was meant to be taken in & reflected upon]

  

The cutest Planning Coordinator in the Bahamas!

Beholder

Beauty is something that a lot of persons search for within their selves, their mate, their children & the things around them. Beauty in mainstream media is something that is constantly changing- I remember growing up seeing & hearing about the "in-ness" of the waif thin model. I grew up in an era where women were constantly being told to buy new products to make them appear beautiful without much effort. A lot of the things I grew up hearing & seeing dealt with the outside never truly the inside.

The women around me I watched grow steadily more skinnier, more dolled up, more eerily perfect while I was always on the outside. When I tried to compare myself to others I always fell short. To make matters worse I grew up in a country where being of Haitian parentage made you ugly in the eyes of your peers. The things I found to be beautiful always seemed to come across as ugly.

For years I had a difficulty accepting my uniqueness, my individuality or my beauty. I could not fully understand that beauty was in the eye of the beholder. What to others was trash- God had created a treasure. One that was hidden in an earthen vessel not for me or my beautification/ edification. But for God & God alone. (But we have this treasure in clay jars to show that its extraordinary power comes from God and not from us. 2 Corinthians 4:7)

Beauty to many is the outside things, a smile, skin color, hair, the facial features- but for me daily it has become about the inside. For me to be beautiful I have to start from the outside & work my way out. It is hard to not allow myself to be swayed by the thoughts of others on how I should look, act, speak, walk, or dress. But I know that the outside is fleeting- it will come & go- but what I do for God is lasting.

I have now accepted the beauty I have in being nerdy with my glasses, the beauty I have with no make-up, the way I look in a t-shirt & jeans. To you who maybe viewing this blog beauty may not mean the seem things that it does for me. But I hope that you are happy in your definition & that it truly is yours & not the definition of someone else that you are wearing.

Keep Ecclesiastes 3:11 in your heart & Spirit.

The Diarist
{For every moment was meant to be taken in & reflected upon.}

Flowers

One of my favorite flower is the rose. I have always found varying ways/reasons to compare myself to the rose. But as I started to work at a Destination Management Company in Nassau- I learned about varying types of roses and flowers to fall in love with.

Flowers come in so many varieties: vibrant colors, muted colors, with some being short, others are tall & willowy. I love the fact that flowers are so unique even withing the same classification. Looking at flowers I look at people in general. God truly is a creative God. No matter what- there will never be another you. There will never be another me.

Yet in today's society & church we have seriously tried to create carbon copies of each other- when it is in our diversities that there is strength. I cannot be like my sisters, my friends, cousins nor my co=workers. I can only be myself. Natasha. There will never be another Natasha like me. Yet society will try to tell me that who I am is not enough. But who I am is. I can only live my life for me. My flower may be brighter, taller or thornier than others, but God loves it.

I have seriously been trying to find what my brand or uniqueness is within this past year. In this time I have started shopping for items that are seriously unique to me & my tastes. If it moves me I wear it- if not I'll forget it. I've also been seeking to renew & re-create my insides. I have been letting God be the gardener. He has seriously been renovating my heart.

As I leave, I want you to keep in your hear & mind Matthew 6:28-30. Consider the lilies- know that God loves & cares for you better than any flower!

Love ya!

The Diarist
{For Every moment was meant to be taken in & reflected upon.}

Love

I am engaged! I have been engaged for approximately 5 months [I'll blog about the proposal another day.] With the engagement came lots of drama with family (our parents) & even friends. It has been a lot of hurt feelings & egos in this whole episode. In my mind an engagement was the time where we both got to seriously know each other and make a choice as to whether or not we should continue this journey or call it quits. Since we got engaged there have been more call it quits moments than ever. But it normally has not been about us and how we relate to each other- it was always our two warring families.

We went to counseling Friday night & one of our counselors made the joke that we were being tugged like Romeo & Juliet. He was right. Yesterday I found out that my dad refuses to come to the wedding because my fiance and I are of different faiths, different cultures & he doesn't like him. My mom is just like in her she wants me to marry someone who is of Haitian descent. To add drama to it all his parents think he's too young and that I (independent, anxiety prone, older child that I am) will need him to take care of me. Seriously?

Marriage is not something anyone should enter in lightly. Like our counselors reminded us- this would be the beginning of a whole new life- where we would have to forsake all others. I love him a lot- but honestly do I love him enough to forsake all others on both sides? All of the opinions, all of the issues, all of the persons with their own agendas? Sometimes I really feel like no I cannot deal with it.

Then I look at him & I realize that I love him even in the midst of all of this craziness. It's like how God still continually chooses to love us even after others warn Him against it. We do not deserve it- not with the backgrounds we came from. There is so much about us that God can walk away from- but then He remembers the love He has for us & the sacrifices He made to love us & He chooses us again.

Today I choose Him again! I choose to love God freely. I choose to love my fiance freely. At times I think honestly for us to marry & be happy without anxieties and issues we may have to elope or move away from everyone. But then again God never promised we'd have love or life easy.

Loving life, loving God, loving my family & friends, Loving my fiance with my all! Keep 1 John 4 in your heart & Spirit.

The Diarist
{For every moment was meant to be taking in & reflected upon.}

Chopped!

Ok. So I did it last night. I went from being permed to natural. (Again!) lol. The hair feels so good & I feel so light & excited. I am on a goal to re-organize my home, lose 30 pounds & truly learn to love myself for all that I am.



For many years I love myself for how others saw me. I tried to do things to please my family & friends because realistically at heart I am a people pleaser. I love being loved. When friends walked away, when family turned their back I was left like a ship without a rudder- but now I am challenged to fin who I am without them & with only God as my guide.

I am so excited & hopefully soon I can blog about the big chop & how it felt. But for now enjoy the before and after photos. :)

The Diarist

Renewal

In about a week I will be renewing my walk with Christ through re-baptism. I am a Seventh-Day Adventist Christian which basically means that we do not believe in once saved always saved.

In the Bible days persons would have their feet washed when they got into a house after a journey because of the dust and dirt the accumulated. This is what communion was for me. Normally when I have stumbled along the way I would use communion as a way to renew myself. But when you get dirty- like dirt caked all over your body & clothes dirty- you have to be re-baptized. This time I fell straight into the muck & mire and the only way I can be clean again is to bathe.

Renewal for me is a time to seriously start afresh with my Daddy. I am also looking forward to some seriously fresh things happening in my life. Daddy also knows there are some things I am praying that He will allow to happen for me. So pray for me as I get re-baptized, as I begin a new hair journey and also as I in the next year begin a new life.

The Diarist
For every moment was meant to be taken in & reflected upon...

P.S. This blog will be getting a lot more traffic from me :)

Beauty

So I am here today thinking about the beauty that is in my life. At this moment I am so excited and happy about life. I remember that for a long time I could barely say that I was this way. I am also loved by a very wonderful man of God. I hope that I can blog on this site more often.

The Diarist