take care of me

there were several interesting sounding parties and events to go to yesterday. friday night in los angeles. even among friends at church, it was a high social time. but not for i, said mark. i took my butt home and went to sleep, for this week has been one of the single most difficult of the entire semester for me. with drama on top of work on top of fatigue on top of frustration.

to make a long story short, last weekend, i pushed aside all of the duties i had to take care of to visit my immediate family in my hometown. while the visit was almost all pleasant, just in the last minutes of my visit, my i had a disagreement with my mother which, though i concluded the trip without incident, resulted in me weeping incessantly for the first two-thirds of my already-rainy 90 minute trip home.

i tried to confront the situation with my sister (who was the only one awake), which lead to her being so frustrated that she started crying too... which lead to my mother being pissed off at me for making my sister cry... which compounded further my frustration about her being generally apathetic and invalidating towards my feelings. this is the short version of the story, told chiefly from my side, but the gist is, i've spent most of this week praying to God for answers about the fairly crippling bitterness i feel towards my mother, her house, and the entire city it's in.

after 6 hours of sleep, my face was swollen the next morning. i looked like oprah winfrey as sophia just fresh out of her jail. it was a wreck. i couldn't get a breather though. i had things that had to be taken care of at church, and obligations that had to be taken care of at home. i got what sleep i could and then tried to plug away at it. i didn't make my deadline, but fortunately my client was understanding (and God knows i needed the grace).

i showed up at my day job for 4 hours on monday so they wouldn't think i was completely abandoning them. and then i was on my way to preparing for the next day's trifecta of graphic design presentations in three different classes from 11am to 9pm with only two hours in-between. i didn't make it. i had absolutely nothing to show. which hurt the worst in my evening graphic design class where the critique had to go on without me. keep in mind, that i had worked on and revised my piece for like 2-3 weeks, sacrificing from other classes to develop it more, and in the end, i missed the final showdown. and you better believe i was fighting a whole train of resentful thoughts towards the people who distracted me for this weekend when i should have been taking care of me.

i got reprieve from a couple teachers on tuesday, and then i called my boss and told her i wouldn't be in on wednesday, and i began trying to make my way back to the land of sanity and control. i actually took 2-3 hours to go shopping for clothes. this seemed to stimulate my keenness on color while designing last week, so i decided to try it again as opposed to wracking my brains in my little cubicle at home. so when i finally got moving, i worked around the clock until about 6am the next morning.

i slept for 2 hours and then crammed 15 minutes of study in for my astronomy midterm starting at 9:30am. came back home at 11, threw together drafts for one of the classes i missed, went back to the campus at 3, left the campus to print the project i'd worked on the previous night, came back to the campus and spent a couple hours assembling it, got to class and tried to stay awake for the lecture.

i thought i'd have come straight home and collapsed after that class, but somehow i got home and was wide awake. so i proceeded with my previously abandoned plans to see amel larrieux host bliss live night at the temple bar in santa monica again. God told me it was ok to go and things worked out. a DJ friend of mine worked it out so i didn't have to pay to get in, and i still got to chat with amel briefly, which is honestly all i wanted. what an honor to be able to just go in and see her, then go home and go to sleep. God is amazing.

i had a recollection though. after the amazing grind i went through on thursday, i was still willing to drive a half-hour to a bar, just to see amel larrieux. a very illuminate individual, obviously amel larrieux does something for me. 'cause i should have been asleep. bakersfield however does nothing for me. i believe maybe it might have been God trying to tell me that instead, perhaps, my purpose in having to keep making these trips is to do something for them.

one last hurrah on friday, i had a 2½ hour astronomy lab, and i was free. a friend of mine invited me out to parouse a record store in hollywood, which sounded like a good idea. and then i thought better of it. all though this is one of my boys that i always enjoy hanging out with, i recall once shirking what i really felt lead to do in favor of going out and doing something else, and surprise, surprise... i ended up not enjoying the time at all. i politely called and excused myself. “thanks, but you know what? i don't want to go anywhere. i need to turn off.” i needed not to have an obligation to fulfill for once this week. i needed to recharge.

so i got in my car and went to the barbershop, got beard and moustache trimmed. stopped for a few hours at my pastors' house and just spent time laughing and smiling with people i like. people who don't particularly want or need anything from me at all. oh.. 'twas a great, great feeling. i went from there home and just slept. i didn't set an alarm, i just slept. and when i got up, late in the night, i took my time. and when i got done, taking my time, i leisurely worked on some music. and when i got done with that, i took myself a long hot shower, washed my hair, oiled it, and retwisted it.

and this afternoon when i woke up, i looked like i hadn't been through hell at all. didn't smell like smoke anymore. people, it's a wonderful thing to have peace. if i could, i would say yes to every obligation, every possibility, every opportunity, and save the day for as many people as i can. but that job first and foremost belongs to God. i'll let him be everybody else's hero, 'cause have limitations. mad limitations. i can't even do what i can do for anybody else if i don't take care of myself, because if i don't take care of me... who else will?