BE READY!!!

The reason for this post is to simply say, that just because you are not signed to an agency don't stop taking pictures, just because you do not have a recording contract don't stop singing, even if you do not have a publisher don't stop writing. Everything that you do prepares you and helps you to be ready when the window of opportunity opens up for you.

I would like to thank Deonte Keller of DTK Photography for always placing me in front of his camera. Together we have grown as a photographer and a model.

CLEAN THIS MESS

Many people have different sayings about certain things to do and not to do when preparing for a new year. I have heard things like having money in your pocket or not letting a woman come in the house before a man, but the one that seems to be effecting me the most is not having an unclean house. I knew the new year was coming and my room was a mess and the day I should have been cleaning it I decided to get a manicure and pedicure instead. Now I know this may sound silly, but I feel that it is really representing something. I chose to take care of something that everybody will see on the outside instead of taking care of things behind closed doors.

We have completed the first week of the new year and I still have not touched anything in this room other than some laundry because my favorite draws were dirty. I look at this mess everyday and cannot muster up the strength to put things in their proper place which I should have done last year 2010. I allowed this mess to pile up and carry over into the new year.

Well what do you know, my personal life seems just as cluttered. There are some things I knew I should have put in their proper place last year and I did not. I let them sit and continue to pile up into the emotional mess I have today. I know what I have to do, but I have not done it. I am tired of looking at it. I am tired of feeling it. I am tired of expecting some miracle to make it something that it is not going to be.

The sooner I deal with reality the better everything will be. No one is going to come clean my room just like no one is going to clean my life.

"TWO CENTS TUESDAY" 11/2/2010

"I have an acquaintance who constantly fiddle/scratches her earlobes and then cleans under finger nails. She does this repeatedly during casual conversation and even when food is around. There is a part of me that believes that this may be a habit from childhood or a fidgety-response to anxiety. I have contemplated bringing it to her attention because it makes her appear unsanitary. While it grosses me out, my purpose for telling her would be to make her cognizant of her behavior. Perhaps she is unaware. What would you do? Would you bring it to her attention and if so, how would you start the conversation?"

-5footer


Dear 5footer I would very casually mention this to my friend. Like you stated she may be unaware of the fact that she is doing this. We do a lot of things out of habit that don’t really register as being present in our minds. Scratching an earlobe or digging wax balls from her ear are two different things, but since you didn’t say the latter I am going to just stick with the scratching.

So just bring it to her attention and you could be very helpful to your friend or you may even learn something about her. She could be allergic to her earrings which cause her lobes to become irritated. Consider the other gross habits she could be doing in front of others.

That's my Two-Cents!

"TWO CENTS TUESDAY" 10/19/2010

“I have some really good friends. I am also investing a lot of energy into my growth and development. The growth I am experiencing is causing me to out grow some of my friends. There is a part of me that has been resisting this reality. In some cases, it makes conversing challenging because I find their views so narrow - not different. How do you have a transformational experience and keep the people you feel close to in your life?”

Life is all about growth. We grow into some things while growing out of others. The thing about growth is that it happens to different people at different times which can be what is causing you to feel what you are currently feeling. I do believe that there are certain people that are placed on our paths in life that are seasonal. They have a specific purpose for a specific time and once that time is up that relationship will seem to fade.

However, real friends are forever. I am not one to subscribe to the idea of out growing someone that I authentically call friend. Friends are people we can depend on through the hardest and happiest of times. Friends are those people we can keep it real with and not feel judged on how shallow our views and ideas may be. Friends are those people that are patient with you throughout whatever process you are going through without making you feel invaluable to the relationship.

Perhaps this change that you are experiencing is not as metamorphic as you feel it is. Perhaps the conversations are becoming difficult because you have been over analyzing your experience thus shutting off different views. Perhaps you should do a little more investing in the friendships so that you can learn your friends a little better. Every conversation is not for everyone. You have to know who to discuss what with or who to share what experience with. Talk to colleagues, co workers or even try blogging to share with random people. The reason we take everything to our friends is because underneath it all we expect them to agree.

I hope I am not sounding harsh here, but I am very passionate about friendships because I have grown to understand the value of real friends through the years. I have over 15yrs of vested time with my friends and we have all grown and are growing, but we never stop loving each other. At the end of the day, you know who you can call at 3 am in the morning if you needed to no matter how narrow their views.

What I suggest is that you step back aND take a look at yourself. It is highly possible that you are pushing yourself away from your friends because you may feel that they will reject your new space without giving them a chance to fully embrace where you are. I would also suggest that you have a talk with your friends about what you are experiencing. You never know, it may cause them to begin their own personal journey linking you all back together.

Be blessed and know that in order to embrace you must start by being open.

DemondMaurice

Scattered Pieces

Have you ever come to a place in your life where everything seems scattered? It seems as though all of the pieces of your life are at different ends of your personal world and out of grasp; while reaching and trying to claim one of the pieces other pieces float beyond your reach. So no matter how hard you try to gather everything there is always something beyond your reach. When you think about it you’re almost like an astronaut floating in space with no sense of gravity.

You are not alone! I have struggled with this for so long and it’s exhausting. You reach for love as your personal goals move further out of reach or you reach for spirituality as your career moves past you. You spend so much time and energy reaching and never ever really connecting so you grab what you can for as long as you can and just sacrifice while the other parts of your life float around you. For example, when most people get their hands or arms around love they tend to be content; not realizing they are squeezing the life out of it ( LONG PAUSE………………). Everything else can be a mess, but as long as we feel that we have love it can fix everything. Love alone does not balance our lives. It is not until we lose our grasp on love we realize the other parts of our lives have been totally neglected.

As I am writing and thinking it is coming to me that the reason for this flotation of pieces is due to our EMOTIONAL WEIGHT. We become so heavily invested in one area of our life that when we try to reach for the others we tilt/ shift our atmosphere; we lean too far to the left or too far to the right; we reach too high to the top and too low to the bottom and all the while everything else is being constantly shifted. You/I weigh too much! We carry around too much emotional weight on a daily basis because we forget to exhale every now and then. The more we inhale and exhale the lighter we become and the lighter we become we can begin to find an emotional balance.

Finding our emotional balance requires that we be still; stop reaching. Whatever it is that you have both hands around at the present time let it go. There is a high probability that whatever is that you are holding so tightly is keeping other things out of your reach. You have to realize that if it’s meant for you to have then it will come back to you because you will attract it.

Instead of this constant reaching we must balance our lives. We must poise ourselves like a dancer and find our center. Once we find our center we then can begin to strengthen our core which is the most important part of who we are. In this position we will begin to create a focused and balance energy that will allow us to reach with both arms in opposite but balanced directions. We can even extend our legs just the same as long as we are focused on balance.

I believe that what will surprise us is that we will discover that we do not have to reach as far or as high as we once thought we did. I believe we will witness the magnetic force of everything we need and desire gravitating towards us.

DemondMaurice 2010

IT COULD HAVE BEEN ME.......

Over the past few months we have lost so many teens to suicide from being bullied because of their sexuality. My heart goes out to the friends and families of those that decided that suicide was the only way to have peace. I am saddened that they didn’t get a chance to live and discover that there is a peace that comes with loving yourself and accepting yourself for who you are. I am saddened that they didn't live to experience the peace that comes from our creator. I am saddened that some of them didn't get the many messages saying "It's get better."

Hearing about suicide always creates an anxiety within because I remember as a teen I wanted to end it all. I too thought that the only way I would find peace is to rest in peace. I was constantly picked on for being different. I was called names that at that time I didn't know the meaning of. As a sexually inactive teenager, I didn’t know what being gay meant. I didn't understand how people thought they knew something so intimate about me when I didn’t even fully understand it.

I would be totally telling a lie if I said I didn't already have these feelings and curiosities from my earliest memories, but I never acted on them and tried everything in my power to resist them and be as normal as I knew how to be. Matter of fact, I resisted sex all together because I knew there was something more to it than just doing it. I remember people thinking that I was shy, but I was trying to be invisible to keep from being picked on. I thought that if I didn’t talk, walk or play with others no one would notice I was around. I am thankful that I had plenty of cousins to play with, but even within my family it wasn't always easy so I stuck close to my grandmother's side.

Being with my grandmother kept me in church every Sunday and to my benefit Jesus revealed himself to me at a very early age and somehow I knew everything would eventually be alright. No matter how hard it got I always knew it would be better, but as time went on and I began to attend church less I became overwhelmed and one day after a really hard week in Junior High I sat down and wrote my mom a long letter basically telling her that I was tired and I didn’t want to live anymore. I was planning to jump off the bridge near my house just to be done with it all so that people could move on to the next person and leave me alone.

I think writing the letter instead of a suicide note helped me to exhale a little bit and once I saw my words on paper I began to pray that God would fix me because I didn't want to die. I had dreams I wanted to accomplish when I grew up and if I committed suicide I would never get to accomplish them. I thank God for answering my prayers because he did indeed fix me. He has never let the thought of suicide enter my mind since that day because that was the only thing that needed to be fixed at that time.

People say that you can't be gay/lesbian and be a saved Christian, but let me tell you, yes I am, yes I can and yes I will. Now we have worn purple for those victims of suicide and it was a very touching day of unity, but from what I know to be true, the color purple does not prevent suicide, the color red does not prevent HIV and the color pink does not cure breast cancer. It is time we start reintroducing people to a God that accepts and embraces us all. There is no way that I could have made it to where I am today without his love and his grace.

For what I suffered through for most of my childhood and all of my teens there very well could have been a story on the news about my body being rescued from the river, but God rescued me first.

IT COULD HAVE BEEN ME................

Let someone know that it gets better not easier because we weren’t meant to have an easy life. Everyone has their own unpaved road to travel on and while Easy Street does not exist, Grace Lane is just around the corner.

God Loves You

TWO CENTS TUESDAY 9/28

"IS WATCHING PORN CHEATING?"

Like I have said before, in relationships we to have set our own realistic rules. I feel that what others outside of your relationship consider cheating may not necessarily hold true for your situation. We have to learn to handle the issues that arise in our relationships on an individual basis and not go with the popular public opinion. Sandi Jackson, the wife of Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., was just quoted when speaking on his affair by saying “it’s amazing how what you once thought was black and white becomes variations of a color called gray.”

If watching porn is your guilty pleasure and your mate is uncomfortable with the activity, it is only fair that the both of you consider the feelings of one another. Is porn more important than your relationship? Maybe you can come to an agreed scheduled time of when it is acceptable.

Most importantly, you should assess your reasons for watching porn. Many people have undiagnosed addictions to porn that are simply overlooked because there is no controlled substance involved, but countless hours of pornographic activity is very controlling and time consuming. Subscriptions to several porn sites that cost money can be a problem that translates into your mate’s issues with porn. Are you watching porn because of the lack of sexual activity in your relationship? Do you feel that you have watch porn in order to be fulfilled sexually?

Acknowledging the issues some people may have with their partners watching porn, I personally do not feel that it is cheating, but I am not in a relationship with you. I also feel that it is something that should be addressed up front before entering into a relationship. The same time everything else is being discovered about one another like drinking, smoking, partying, and etc.

“Starting the conversation can lead to the resolution”
DemondMaurice