my name is rinelis .

i'm on the brink of crying as i start off this entry. i'm not sad, however. ever since i was twelve years old, i've lived my life hopelessly searching for love. i didn't know it then but i do know it now. when i was twelve, i fell for an eighteen year old boy. i knew nothing about love, it just sounded good when i heard it coming from the opposite end of a telephone. i only saw the boy once. we lived thousands upon thousands of miles away from each other. he filled my head with beautiful words, hopes, and dreams yet i was the crazy one. at the time, i thought i was perfectly sane but as i look back at myself then, he was right; i was so far from it. one summer my cousin had asked him why i seemed to be so strung out on him. he told her he had absolutely no idea why because he had never done anything for me to have such a far fetched idea. that very same day i told my cousin i hated him when in reality, i hated myself, and i cried myself to sleep that night. i went on hating myself until this very moment.

i hated myself for being so damn naive to think an eighteen year old boy could ever love a twelve year old he only saw once and genuinely being surprised when i found out what he had told my cousin. i hated myself for acting like i wasn't hurt when he called me a few months afterwards and pretended as though i had no idea of what he had said; i believed him when he told his friend i was going to be his future girlfriend that very same day. i hated myself for falling in "love" in the seventh grade with a boy who flirted with me almost uncontrollably but wouldn't ask me to be his girlfriend because i was what he called prude. i hated myself for telling him i wasn't when i knew i was and he still ran off with the next girl who would make out with him on the back of the school bus on the way back from a school field trip. i was on that bus.

i hated myself for wanting to be wanted and dating someone my freshman year in high school i didn't even like. i convinced myself that saying yes to him would make me like him but instead i avoided him until i finally just broke it off. i hated myself for having my first kiss in the tenth grade at my high school's bus loop to a guy who didn't even have my number and never did... he was my boyfriend. i hated myself for dating my best friend and pushing him far enough away for him to hate me and emotionally abuse me until the point of me not even being able to take one look at him without crying. i hated myself for leaving a good boy for a bad one who only wanted me for one thing and entertaining him just a few weeks ago thinking maybe he did want to genuinely be with me. he didn't.

i hated myself for falling in love... real love this time... and thinking everything in the world was wrong with me when it all fell apart. i believed him when he said he loved me and that we would one day get married. when he broke up with me, i felt as though i had done something wrong when in reality, all i had done was given him the best of me. i hated myself when i found myself saying i could possibly love someone i was involved with for a long period of time who i never even went on one date with. i don't even know his favorite color. i hated myself for running to fetch my headphones so that i could hear your music just the way you had wanted me to. i hated myself for pretending it didn't affect me when all i was listening to was you rap about how she's the dopest girl you've ever met and naively wishing you had been talking about me.

all of this time, i've hated myself for so many things and all of those things point to the unhealthy fascination of needing to be needed... wanting to be loved by seemingly all of the wrong people. my father loves me, i've always known it but he was never there for me the way i wanted or needed him to be so i grew resentful. i sought after the attention from other men in order to replace the longing i had for his attention. my father loves me he just has his own way of showing it. i've let countless of people walk all over me and i cried over men countless of times when i had absolutely no reason to. i gave them all i could give them... i gave them me. i've now come to realize that when that isn't enough, that person is in no way meant for me. all i can be is me. i can't try and listen to all of the music a boy likes hoping it'll get me that much closer to being with him. i can't pretend to be this emotionless creature. i can't act like i don't cry at movies and television series. i can't buy a cd, i can't write e-mails, i can't draw pictures, i can't write letters, i can't do anything to attain someone who ultimately doesn't want to be with me. i can't control how another person feels and when i ultimately meet the person i'm meant to be with, all of the things i did for all of those men that went so unacknowledged will then actually matter and life will be that much sweeter. i have no doubt in my mind that that day is going to come.

i refuse to keep restricting myself from finding who is right for me by letting my path be chosen by all of these others who aren't. my name is rinelis and after this, i can look in the mirror and genuinely say that i love myself. i have a wonderful family, even with all of its imperfections, and i have wonderful friends. i'm single and that's perfectly okay because i won't be forever. i'm going to make mistakes and i'm going to stumble along the way but in all reality, who doesn't? will i let those mistakes and bumps along the road keep me from being happy? you bet your ass i won't because one day i'll meet that person who makes mistakes and stumbles along the road as well but doesn't allow it to deter him from being happy and we'll be happy with each other.

may you all have a blessed night and many more blessed days to come.

w'happy mama . enlighten yourself .

people say women are purely driven by emotion and well, i'm the perfect example. i'm not ashamed of it because to be ashamed of the fact that i'm one of the most emotional people i've ever known would be to be ashamed of myself. i rather explode with emotion than feel none at all.

the world is cruel and cruel things build bitter hearts. take a look at the picture above. " you change your life by changing your heart, " a to the men. harboring negative thoughts/emotions/etc creates a negative atmosphere. you find yourself thinking about more and more things in your life that could be better when you should really just be focusing on the good you already have. i have this problem all of the time so believe me, i'm struggling right along with you. then i find pictures like the one i've posted and realize that i'm the one with the power to change my own life. i choose my attitude, i choose my emotions and damn it, i choose to be happy.

i choose to take a look at myself in the mirror and no longer feel like a fat cow. i choose to stop letting things i can't control control me. i choose to get over the fact that not everyone in the world is going to like me. i choose to stop dwelling on all of the bad things that have happened to me in the past because i know nothing but good things are coming my way in the future. i choose not to believe that the world is going to end on december 21, 2012. i choose to let go of all the extra baggage in my life (preach erykah).

Lord knows i've seemingly been to hell and back more times than i can even count but if doing so continues to lead me to all of the goodness i keep stumbling upon and the ability to touch people with the things i say and/or write, then i say bring it the hell on. nothing brings me more joy than putting a smile on someone's face and/or making someone laugh. i've always believed i have been put on this earth to help people and with every obstacle i overcome, i grow stronger and stronger; strength i exert to relate with others... strength i exert to maybe help others learn from my mistakes. knowledge should never be kept to one's self.

the world is yours for the taking .

. smile amidst your sadness and you shall find peace .

Smiling is infectious,
You can catch it like the flu.
Someone smiled at me today,

And I started smiling too.

whole heartedly, a gift from me to you.

how many times have you heard someone say: " he or she completes me, " a lot, right? i have too and let me just say that it's probably one of the most ridiculous things i've ever heard. i'm sorry if you've said this in your lifetime.. i don't mean to criticize anyone or anything like that. you still have time to learn to grow out of that awful habit.

i believe a lot of the trouble people have with love comes from the preconceived notion that we have to find someone who makes us whole. take a second to travel through my thoughts with me. you want to give everything you possibly can to that one special person you love, right? well, if you're not "whole" then where in the equation are you giving him or her your everything?

in a lot of relationships i've seen go sour, there seems to be one major thing in common and that's one person (or even both) letting past relationships get in the way. why? because those said persons haven't given their heart the ample time it needs to heal. i've seen people jump from relationship to relationship cursing each and every one they break off from. never have i seen these people take responsibility for what they could possibly be doing wrong. they're breaking heart after heart without even knowing let alone caring. fast forward. pause. play. that good person you rushed to be with genuinely cared about you and because you were too selfish to figure out what it is you REALLY want in a relationship before getting into one, you've now left behind a wound in his or her heart; a wound that will take time to heal, time they could have spent being happy with someone who was more than aware of what they wanted, knew how amazing of a person he or she is, and would never even think of causing him or her any harm.

bottom line, you wouldn't want someone giving you their heart half-assed so don't do that to someone else. wounds take time to heal as does a person's heart. you're the only one who knows what it is you have to work on, don't go putting your burdens on someone else. they have burdens of their own. don't bring your past relationship experiences into your present ones, it won't do you any good, trust me. learn from your mistakes and most importantly, forgive those who hurt you. if you don't have confidence in someone to know they would never purposely hurt you, he or she isn't for you.

love takes time.. lots of it. good, lasting relationships are never rushed. take the time to get to know that special someone inside and out. don't force your feelings on someone else, he or she will flee. keep in mind that not all relationships end up working out how you necessarily wanted them to.. it's okay to let go. don't try making someone happy at the expense of your own happiness. you'll end up miserable and hating yourself and/or that person for it. if a person you are interested in has told you they're not ready for a relationship, trust and believe them. if he or she means that much to you, you'll wait and you'd be surprised at how much you'll be blown out of the water when they finally are and the person they're meant to be with is you.

inhale.

i have finally found not only the time but also the energy and stable state of mind to sit down and write. lately, my mind has been all over the place and people say i feel too damn much!? pft, try taking a trip through my mind on a day where not even a lot is happening.. let alone on a day when some drastic shit happens and lately, drastic shit has been happening to me left and mothertrucking right.

sometimes i sit down and wonder why my major isn't psychology. i've always been fascinated by the human mind and my curiosity goes beyond our solar space. why does this person act like this? why does that person think like that? these are a couple of questions out of many i ask myself on a day to day basis. friendship, such a vital thing to me yet something many people could care less about.. or should i say true friendship? yeah.. that.

my true friendship is unbiased and nonjudgmental, loyal and trustworthy, understanding and forgiving. i'll bend over backwards and give up the very clothes on my back to make sure a true friend is okay but to my dismay, this kind of friendship is hardly ever reciprocated. just when i think i've found it, i get down right slapped in the face. then i look down at my head, as illustrated in my entry picture, and wonder what the hell i was thinking. how do you cope with putting all of your trust in someone and finding out there's major things in their lives they're hiding from you? hell, not even major but MINOR things as well. why am i obligated to let you know everything going in my life when you don't even do such a thing?

friendship. just one of many things which makes my head spin all the way around and back again. i have had such a hard time focusing lately.. enough to self diagnose myself with A.D.D. i've been finding it rather difficult to retain information, not just in class, but all around me. i can barely even focus on one thing, let alone all of the million things life has been throwing my way lately and my memory? it's been in shambles. it doesn't help that i can't find anyone who's been able to help me. i always get the shrug of the shoulders and the "well.. i don't really know what to tell you," followed by several uncomfortable laughs, so i'm left to fend for myself, try to stabilize an unstable mind with.. an unstable mind. [insertfakelaughhere].

i'm not afraid of letting the world know i'm having some trouble. frankly, i'm tired of fear. tired of the internal and external battles i fight on a daily basis over love, lust, friendship, success, good and bad decisions, others passing judgment on me and what have you. i'm tired of being stuck in this perpetual state of trying to be perfect in such an imperfect world. it's suffocating and i need to breathe again.

spontaneous combustion...

it feels like i'm going to explode at any random second and that explosion would look just like the picture to your right. my heart (literally) is average sized or small if you will but (figuratively, metaphorically) it covers the world not once but two, three, four, five... an infinite amount of times. i call it my beautiful disaster. you might be asking yourself what would bring me to call it such a thing? well.. i've loved a lot and have suffered a lot.

i love a lot of things in life and a lot of people. i love waking up in the morning to the sun shining through my window. i love "good morning" text messages. i love holding hands with a special person. i love listening to a person's heartbeat. thump, thump, thump. such a powerful, underestimated, hardly ever acknowledged sound that the most powerful organ in our body makes. i could be angry, sad, hating myself for feeling all of these negative emotions towards things i have no control over.. things which keep going wrong no matter what i do, but all i have to do is be still, be silent, and listen... listen to the heart that keeps on keeping on no matter what life throws my way. i could want to punch a hole through the wall or through someone's face for that matter but my heart knows better so therefore, i know better.

i think with my heart. i've doubted many of its decisions but everything happens for a reason and i'm still breathing. my heart is still beating. that has to count for something, right? sometimes, i catch myself wishing i was someone else. an imaginative figure who doesn't feel any emotion, who goes throughout life taking care of business, doing what needs to be done to survive, and "get his/hers." then i open my eyes and realize that's no way to live life. people will let you down but many others will do right by you. people will break your heart but others will nurture it back into good health. every time i'm upset.. i close myself off to the world knowing that to regain some happiness, even in the slightest amount, all i have to do is pick up my phone and make one easy phone call. i realize now, at this very moment, that i need to stop doing that for my own sake. dwelling in misery isn't going to get you anywhere, it isn't going to change anything. have the courage to stand up to negative thoughts, emotions, etc. and say " i'll never let you get the best of me because i'm better than that.. better than this.. "

" first came the hurricane then the morning sun. " - lil wayne
the sun is always rising in the sky somewhere. don't ever feel like you're alone in this world, something i have felt one too many times until this very day, there's always someone out there who cares about you, wants to help you, and is more than willing to do anything in their power to make sure you're okay.

you can call me.

laughing at yourself is good for your soul. you can laugh at me, too.