VernetteOutLoud

Ice Cream Again!

Tuesday 18th May, 2010

It just dawned on me the ‘coincidences’ of today. I’m having some sort of epiphany. Today the Daily Om Inspiration spoke about how God doesn’t bring you to it, if He’s not going to bring you through it. And then I’m sitting here re-reading Tuesdays with Morrie and I realize that He’s been preparing me mentally since the first day I took my first hesitant step away from my mother.

All the books I’ve consumed lately about living in the now: The Power of the Present; Randy Paush’s The Last Lecture, all prepared me in some way for the journey that began on Monday.

My Father in heaven has been preparing me since the day I went to kindergarten for the first time. When I started primary school and by half day I was in the class a year ahead with the older kids…going home my very first day of ‘big school’ with a gift for my mother that read ‘My name is Vernette and I am in Second Year’ it started at the top of the page and went straight across to the bottom. (She still has it)

When I sat my first major exam and my mother wasn’t there to hold my hand or help me solve the math problem, I had to do this on my own. I had to draw from all the knowledge I had in me and with her voice calming me in my head reminding me to pray. I was able to do what I had to.

God was preparing me the day he formed me in my mother’s womb. The very act of being born, is the first testament to letting go. He was preparing me the first time I was conscious of going to church. I remember it was just during Lent waaaay back when my biggest concern was how she was going to comb my hair for church and whether my sister and I would get to wear our favourite socks. You know the kind when you turn it down there is a cute lacy frill at the edge?

It is this faith, cultivated by mummy over the years, that I draw upon now. It is this lifetime of being prepared mentally and emotionally I draw on for the strength to let go. My strong, vibrant and in my eyes – my very own goddess of Love…My mother.

There are many things I can say about life: That it is about living and not existing. Treasure your loved ones. Love them to life as my sister and friend Giselle says. But none is more important than living in the NOW.

Now is all I have with mummy. Now is all I need. To love her to life to ensure that she lives and not exists for the rest of her life. However long that turns out to be.

Saturday 7th August, 2010

Mummy died today at 1:58 p.m.

Monday 23rd August, 2010

Came out to work today and it’s like I’ve stepped into another world. I think the hardest thing about all of this, is acknowledging that life goes on. For everyone else this is just another Monday. For me, everything is different.

I’m different.

Can’t the world see that?

I’m trying to see myself through her eyes…to grow into someone she would be proud of. I want to live my life in a way that honors her memory. I still cannot believe that my mother is dead. She was here alive and cracking jokes just last month. I keep thinking she knew…she knew! She knew all along. From the day she asked Father to come give her confession. She knew. She must have.

I want to be home.

Monday 13th September, 2010

Fucking ice cream again. All I seem to be craving is ice cream. Kanye is toasting assholes and scumbags; Willow is flipping her hair. And all I want right now is the sweet comfort of Belgian Chocolate creaminess on my tongue and in my tummy.

I can feel the warmth of a tear slowly leaking out unto my face.

This is an excerpt from the journal I kept during the months before and after my mother’s death on August 7th 2010.

I will…

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

As 2012 draws to a close and I look to the bright future of 2013 so pregnant with promise, I want to take a moment and say THANK YOU to all those who found my blog, stayed a minute, shared their thoughts and allowed me to share my light and love with them. Thank you for being a part of my wondrous journey.

My 2013 Manifesto

My 2013 Manifesto

In this New Year:

I will expect miracles.

I will LOVE. MORE.

I will LOVE. Hard.

I will laugh.

I will forgive.

I will walk, speak and live my truth.

I will cry when I need to.

I will make mistakes.

I will fail. A lot.

I will try. Again.

I will try. Harder.

I will sign my own permission slip.

I will experiment.

I will define my own success.

I will push past my comfort boundaries.

I will share my light.

I will live.

I WILL!


Always bear in mind that your own resolution to
succeed is more important than any other.
– Abraham Lincoln

Again, thank you for ALL your support this past year
and here’s to wishing you
light and happiness
in 2013!
Cheers.

LOVE LOVE LOVE

…and that's a wrap!

I’m still here.

While I didn’t believe for one second that the world was gonna end yesterday, I chose not to make jokes about it. I believe that yesterday, for some people…for far too many people, their world did end. Loved ones died, parents were burying children far too young to be put into the ground and someone, somewhere found out that it is in fact cancer. This is the world we live in. It sucks ass more times than we feel comfortable admitting.

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly. – Richard Bach

Many times this year, I thought my world had ended.

Lesson learned: I. AM. A. SURVIVOR.

I’ve learned that I am more than I think I am. I can go further than I think I can. I endure. I rise above. I move on. I try again. I learn. I grow. I evolve.

Caterpillars don’t just enter the chrysalis and sprout wings, you know. Before they become butterflies, they essentially become bug soup, dissolving completely before being reborn as something new and beautiful. – Lissa Rankin

The caterpillar’s world has to end for the butterfly’s world to begin. The butterfly knows patience. The butterfly trusts that everything is happening as it is supposed to. The butterfly arrives right on time.

Patience. A year of patience. I wanted to fast forward the healing of my broken heart. I wanted to skip the hard gym days and go straight to the me who is now 18lbs lighter. I wished my promotion would just hurry up and be official. Needless to say, nothing happened before its time. The lessons were in the details. If I’d skipped the “hard” parts, I would have missed the experience of the journey.

I’m sure I will have more lessons in patience. Letting go of the outcome and trusting that everything is happening as it should, is going to be a recurring theme because I’m still pretty selfish and I want everything now. I’m still learning that the best part of delayed gratification is the delay.

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds. – Bob Marley

Failure is slavery. I can be controlling. This can be problematic when it comes to real life. One cannot control everything. Therefore when things fall apart, when the world as I know it ends, I tend to trash talk myself. Learning to reframe failure into just an experience to learn from has been freeing. It means that there is no right or wrong path…there is just a path. I live and I learn and I grow.

What is to give light must endure burning. – Viktor Frankl

It is said that the cracks in a broken heart allows light to shine through. My heart must look like a disco ball by now. That’s the thing about human beings and all the relationships we find ourselves in….someone is going to break our heart. Mother. Sister. Brother. Husband. Friend. That’s the risk of “relating”…of loving. This has been a time of releasing those who hurt me. It’s been hard. Some of the hurts I’m still not over but by acknowledging it…releasing it, I am now free to connect with those who can fill those holes.

The way you treat yourself sets the standard for others. – Sonya Friedman

We teach people how to love us. This is one of my favourite posts, because this is the standard I set for myself this year.

When, I moved into my apartment last year, one of my first guests said, “You know, maybe your mum had to leave this world, so you could finally find your place in it. So you could grow up.”

At the time, I was like…wait what?! But my world as I knew it, ended on August 07th, 2010…a little before 2:00 p.m. and all this time, I’ve been trying to work my way out of the cocoon.

I’ve done a lot of growing up in 2012. I have a long way yet to go. I am grateful for all the love in my life, for the people who love the work-in-progress that I am.

Light, Love, Passion….and coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.…and that’s a wrap!

It began with Red

When I saw this week’s writing challenge I thought to myself, here is something I can do. I’m from the Caribbean, colour is in our blood, I could really sink my teeth in it and give it a go. So I started with the ending in mind.

It began with Red.

I knew I wanted to end by saying: I’m red-hot and full-hearted and something about passion. But working backwards all day, I couldn’t come up with anything coherent.

My first thought walking to work this morning was writing about red wine. I wanted to expound about the fact that I love red wine and prefer it every time to white. That the first sip of nicely chilled, dark red, full-bodied wine, is sometimes the absolute perfect end to my day. The best way to unwind and relax from the crap I have to deal with at work. Or I could get a little more personal and say one glass is nice but two glasses…well let’s just say, red could take on the sexy shades of passion. But who really wants to put all their business in the road? Right?!

Then I thought maybe I could talk about my short fuse, kinda like a bull seeing red. But again, we’ll be stepping into some personal territory not to mention the fact that it’s so cliché and I still am not sure where this post is heading. And do I really want to talk about how I can go from 0-60 in two seconds flat – red-hot anger, razor-sharp tongue capable of decimating everything in my path with red lasers shooting out of my eyes and then once I’ve calmed down which usually takes about the same amount of time…I’m back to being a kitten? Man, do I really want people to see me as a kitten though?

Maybe I should talk some more about red wine.

Or I could take it in a whole other direction and talk about blood. That the sight of it completely freaks me out, a trauma I go through every month. I could share about how, I want sons someday and that I already have a little speech planned for them when they are old enough to understand that mummy will cry harder than they can at the sight of blood. Should they ever get a bad cut or break any bones, the go-to parent would be their father, because mummy will not be able to help them.

Hmmm, I’m pretty sure at this point that I’m not doing this challenge right. Now I’m thinking about traffic lights and that the red light means STOP and maybe I shouldn’t even publish this. Maybe I would have done better choosing green or even yellow. Yellow reminds me of that Coldplay song though.

It’s hard corralling my thoughts, being Trini is not helping me one bit and I’m back to thinking about wine again. Maybe if I were home, I could have a glass of wine and the words might just pour right out of me. Or maybe not.

When in doubt…Google it! Here I learned that there are 285 shades of visibly different red to the naked eye, for a person without any colour blindness and 20/20 vision. Of these we have:

Scarlet. The colour of our national bird the Scarlet Ibis. Scarlett. The name for the female lead in one of my all time favourite novels, Gone With The Wind. And one of my all time favourite quotes, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

Maroon. The descendents of Africans who refused to live in slavery in Jamaica from as early as 1655 and to this day, are to a small extent autonomous and separate from Jamaican culture. According to Google, the name Maroon is the British corruption of the Spanish cimarrones, meaning wild or untamed. Also the name of one of my favourite bands Maroon 5. I love you Adam Levine.

Crimson. Aaah blood again, only this time I’m thinking about Dexter and True Blood. Funny, they are two of my favourites despite all the gore!

Ruby. Makes me think about ruby slippers and yellow brick roads and finding my way to a cohesive post and a bombshell ending to rather scattered thoughts.

Wine-Red. Taaah dah!!! Need I say more?

Cheers!