What I Lost, What I Gained, What I Learned…My recent experiences with life, love and success…

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged mainly due to me working so hard on my one woman show and my screenplay “Who the Hell is Nikki Love?”  The hard work has not come without sacrifice, I haven’t had much of a social life since I’ve started and I’ve had to face some dark moments as I progress.

I’m still in mourning after losing one of my dearest friends, Rod Pitts, back in March of this year.  Not only was Rod a talented filmmaker with an extremely bright future he was one of the most loyal people you could ever know.

However, overall, 2012 has been a lot of better than 2010 and 2011.  For the first part of the year I was in a relationship and although it didn’t work out, I have no regrets and enjoyed it for the time that it lasted.  As many have professed when a relationship comes to an end – I learned a lot about myself.  I saw some ways I had progressed and some things I needed to still work on.  I trusted my instincts much more and set firm boundaries that I was non-negotiable on.  And when we both realized it was not going to work, I didn’t try to force it to work, I made peace with it and let it go.

So You Love Yourself? Really? Part II

(Continued from Part I of “So You Love Yourself?  Really?”)

Most of my 20’s was spent chasing up behind some dude trying to validate my own worth. And I remember thinking, “How the hell could they have validated me and they, themselves, didn’t think they were shit?”  Their own feelings of unworthiness was projected onto me and my feelings of unworthiness was projected right back at them.

I’ve always been a pretty ambitious woman, but also held a part of myself back, fearing that if I shined too brightly I would be ridiculed and lose people, mainly men. And that is what happened. Over and over and over. I had such a deep self-hatred and such shame about who I was, that I clipped my wings before I even let myself fly. I unconsciously selected men who I thought I could “rescue.” Because if I could save them, then they would love me, never leave me and then since I had that base, that foundation that I so desperately needed, I could save myself.

As you may have guessed – that never worked. I was never satisfied with them, especially when they didn’t do things to my liking and eventually the relationship would break. I would fall into this darkness and chastise myself for not being good enough, plead with the Gods for him to come back, try to make myself change to what they wanted so I wouldn’t be so hostile and even the few times where a reunion did happen…it didn’t last.

Be careful of that drama…it could be taking you away from your dreams…

I made a commitment to heal myself without any excuses over two years ago.  I’ve been on this path for a number of years now but decided to go full throttle following some very tragic circumstances in my life and things have slowly but steadily been improving.

One thing my life coach always emphasizes to me is to stay the course even in spite of drama.  I didn’t fully understand that in the beginning but started to understand it as I continued to live.  Last year, as I was planning a tribute for my late dear friend Rod Pitts, I got distracted with an email from a person whom I loath.  Over the next four days, I spent the energy that I could have been putting into my tribute responding to her and blogging about it.  Although the latter really did help me release a lot of energy around it, I always wonder how much smoother things would have gone if I didn’t respond at all.

Other “drama” reared its head, much of it was not even my own, I just chose to include myself because it affected people who I care about.  In the end, those situations worked themselves out and I wonder if I had just stayed out of it and put that energy into focusing on my career, how much further I would be.

Whitney Houston – Enough is Enough. Let This be the Last one to Succumb to Addiction

I was in the car on my way to the New Edition reunion concert.  My sister and I were frustrated because we were only two minutes away from the exit that would get us to the Desoto Civic Center, but we had been basically sitting in the same spot for close to 30 minutes.  We couldn’t believe how far traffic was backed up.  Apparently, New Edition still had it.

Then I got the text.  A very blunt, straight-forward text from a good friend of mine who was already at the concert and waiting for us to get there – “Whitney Houston is dead.”  That’s all it said.

For about ten seconds, I just stared at my phone.  Then I covered my mouth and said, “Oh my God!”  My sister turned and looked at me and nervously asked, “What is it?  What  happened?”

I looked at her and said, “I don’t even want to say.”  Knowing how she idolized Whitney Houston, remembering it was my sister who played her album repeatedly introducing me to her.  I knew this was not going to go well.

“Whitney Houston is dead.”  I blurted out.  My sister just stared at me and then asked me who sent the message.  I told her who and she dismissed it saying that it was just a cruel joke.  I felt initial relief trying to make myself believe the same thing.  Or maybe he just heard a cruel rumor, but I couldn’t shake it.

“I don’t think he would joke about anything like this.”   So like so many others and with only 10% power left on my cell phone, I googled “Whitney Houston.”  And that’s when I saw it.  The ABC News Headline read, “Whitney Houston Dead at 48.”  I looked at my sister and said, “It’s true.”

Sometimes Rejection Can Be the Best Thing That Can Happen to You…

All rejection and conflict is not necessarily a negative thing.  I remember last year thinking 2011 was going to be my year.  And it was, just not so much in the way I necessarily wanted starting out.

As I already chronicled in this blog, I temporarily lost my vision, illness hit my family left and right, old drama revisited my life and some of my friendships and family connections ended.

Yeah, that was definitely a way to start out the first six months of the year.  However, as I’ve often stated, I continued to do my work and although I had some stressful situations happen, I also had some very positive things happen as well.

Now looking back, it was actually as if the negative things happened for a reason.  The old drama that flared up in early spring put closure to something I had dearly wanted resolution on.  It put someone whom I once considered a friend in a more truthful light and any doubts that I had about how repugnant they really were, was put to rest.  And although I felt deep sadness about how deluded and cowardly they had become, I felt thankful knowing that was a connection and a situation I know longer had to deal with.

You Never Know Where it’s Coming From…You Never Know Who You’re Going to Love…

Over the past couple of years, my life has taken many new twists and turns.  Some very painful, some very surprising and some very joyful.  As I creep closer and closer to another birth anniversary and closer to a new year, I’ve looked back at my entire life as if it was someone else living it.

I have had some lows, some things that didn’t happen the way I wanted them to, some things happened just the way I wanted them to and many things remain in the abyss of the unknown.  Some major things I did not expect to happen was going through probably the worst betrayal in my life, filing bankruptcy, temporarily losing my vision in my right eye, illness continuously striking my family so much so, it never seemed like it would end; watching one of my dearest friends go into full paralysis in a matter of hours and learning that my dog more than likely has canine breast cancer.  Yes, life for me over the past couple of years (probably a little longer) had not been a crystal stair.

But I fought hard for myself.  I went and sought help when I felt like giving up on life.  I decided to return to something I’ve always enjoyed doing – martial arts.  I’m also slowly returning to what I love doing the most – performing.  And I got busy and learned how to market myself and my work and work every single day on living an honest life with complete integrity.

Some days I didn’t know what I was doing all of this for, but for some reason, I couldn’t stop.  I still meet weekly with my Life Coach and have been doing so for two years.  I’ve been practicing martial arts for over a year now and although I went through the bouts of a broken toe, have continued to get better and better.  My sister’s Youtube presence is quickly growing due to the videos and concepts we produce and I am gearing up to do the same as a way to expand my platform and brand.  My film “Tricks” is still selling and I am finally at the point that I can make a major push online with it.  Something I have been wanting to do for quite some time.  And as I develop my other scripts, I now am armed with much more knowledge, innovation and dedicated drive.

I honestly don’t think any of this would have been possible if I hadn’t gone through everything I went through, even the things that didn’t seem to directly connect.

Probably one of the most surprising turns in my life, one I totally, without a doubt did not see coming is that I met someone very special.  I was quite reluctant initially when we first started talking.  I was very honest with him about my past relationship (he had been reading this blog anyway, so he already had a clue, lol) and gently explained that this was an area that I tread very carefully in.

The Evolution of Royal’T TopMC a.ka. “The boy”…

Well, this week seems to be all things T.J. a.k.a. Royal T’ Top MC.  For all my faithful readers who may not know who I am referring to, Royal’T TopMC is an up and coming rapper in the Memphis, TN area. He also happens to be my nephew.

This week, his remix of Jay-Z and Kanye West’s extremely popular song, “Otis” debuted on Youtube and has been getting a lot of love, he also was interviewed in The Commercial Appeal and the Memphis Flyer and made a debut on the highly coveted Live From Memphis “60 Seconds.”  Links to all of this are below.

T.J. and I – where can I start?  I was there at the hospital when he was born.  I was thirteen years-old, had stayed out of school that day because my sister was in labor (I was also a little sore because she choked the hell out of me during one of  her labor pains).  When they brought him out of the delivery room he wasn’t the first thing I saw, it was actually my sister’s after birth.  It disgusted me so badly that I vowed never to eat chicken soup again (yes, that’s what it looked like to me and I didn’t eat it for almost 10 years).   But when I did see him I was excited and nervous as the same time.  What was it going to be like with a baby in the house, I thought.

Well, although it was different, it proved to be a lot of fun.  Deneka, my sister, was extremely protective of him (which hasn’t changed much in the past 20 years) and I just enjoyed being an aunt for the first time.  Over the years as he grew, we had our ups and downs.  His mouth would prove to be one of my biggest pet peeves but his sincerity, loyalty and passion more than made up for it.  And our bond deepened because when I would baby-sit him, we often played pretend.

We would create the scenes in these far away places and let our imaginations go there.  When he was bored or wouldn’t stop crying, Deneka would put on at-home concerts and sing her heart out.  So he got introduced to entertainment very organically.   His grandmother is also a singer and is grandfather (whom he affectionately calls “Big Daddy”) loves to sing and loves all-things Temptations.

I featured T.J. in some of my student projects while I was in college and he got to work on the sets of movie projects I would produce.  “Tricks” was a turning point not only for me but for him as well.  He was just starting to come into his own with his raps and it also helped that his mother, Deneka, who is also a professional singer, gave him his first performance set when she let him rap on some of her songs that she’d do live.

During the time of “Tricks”, I had come up with a song idea after listening to Bootsy Collins’ “I’d Rather Be with You.”  I wrote the hook and then Deneka and I wrote the rest of the song but we had no idea who to go to produce what would become “Tricks” theme song.  Our budget was small, my real estate business was starting to get hit hard due to the recession and I just didn’t have it like I once did.  Furthermore, we couldn’t find anybody who we could afford to produce it the way we wanted it done.

The One Life Lesson that My Dog Taught Me…There is No Excuse…

I would be lying if I said this has not been a tough couple of years.  I often post how I overcame an obstacle and many I have, but there are also many I still struggle with.  Sometimes I feel angry, bitter, confused at why I have been dealt certain  hands in life.   Sometimes I get angry at myself for not being more aggressive about my dreams and letting so much time go by in between my projects.  Sometimes I feel frustrated that I still work at a job where I have to deal with people who have issues with me because of who my grandmother is.  It angers and saddens me that they meddle in gossip and have this hidden hostility that comes out in foul ways because they view me as someone who believes I can do whatever I want.

Sometimes I feel sad that I have yet to find true love, and sometimes, I wonder is there something wrong with me.  I’ve asked myself why do I seek out mates who betray me so deeply towards the end?  Is there a part of me that is mimicking the relationship my parents had.  Am I trying to find the validation in my relationships that I really crave from my father?

Sometimes I feel angry at God for what happened to my friend Rod – how he went into instant paralysis a year ago and still remains that way as of now.  Uncertainty has been the staple point in my life for quite a while.  From betrayal and being sold-out to having to file bankruptcy to dealing with illness amongst my friends and family as well as myself and to say that I feel overwhelmed sometimes is an understatement.

After showing a man “How to Love”, she felt a little “Motivated”…

Hey There Gang!

I hope everyone is doing well! Just letting you know that Deneka’s 3rd video is out – Kelly Rowland’s “Motivation”. This was by far, the most fun we’ve had shooting these YouTube videos. When she decided to do it, we brainstormed to find out a way to stand out from the many covers of it on YouTube and that’s when it came to us – the Stone. If you don’t know who I’m talking about, Travis Stone is a local actor and musician with a serious acting/musician credit underneath is belt. He was one of the guitarist in the film “Ray” with Jamie Foxx and he also had a cameo in “Tricks. In addition, he plays with his own band. He even inspired me to want to learn how to play, which is something I’m going to start doing next month.

Deneka has always had an affection for rock music, so we decided to add that element to this cover. I really enjoyed it and also want to thank all of you who forwarded the “How to Love” cover! It’s been picking up steadily and she told me she got quite a few emails about it from women thanking her for articulating how they felt. Wow! And be on the lookout for my very own YouTube Channel coming shortly. It’s in the serious works. You guys will get a taste for who Nikki Love is as we go into development 😉

So anyway, without further ado, here is Deneka’s a.k.a. Lottalox’s rendition of Kelly Rowland’s “Motivation.”

 

I Thought I was Dying, but I was Just Starting to Live…

Last week was one of the scariest times of my life.  I had been in a great degree of physical pain and when I looked up what could possibly be causing the pain, every site I went to uttered the big “C” word – cancer.  I felt sick to my stomach.  Cancer?  Me?  At my age?  Was it even likely?  If I did have it, what was the prognosis?  So I looked that up to and while most of the information I found suggested I would be in a higher recovery zone, I read some of the sadder stories, about women my age who did not make it.

I was terrified.  And deeply saddened.  All I could think about was, “So this is how my life may end.  All this work I’ve put into myself, this is how life rewards me, by giving me fucking cancer?!”   A part of me became very angry.  Angry that so much misfortune had seemed to be dealt to me and those I love in such a short period of time.  I watched one of my closest friends deteriorate from a mysterious illness that affected his brain.  Right now, his future is in limbo, because it is not clear why in almost a year, he is still unable to move.

As if that wasn’t enough, this past winter, I woke up one morning to find that I was partially blind in my right eye.  It literally happened over night.  I figured whatever it was could not be serious because of how quickly it happened.  I was nervous, but told myself that it was probably allergies.  When I went to the doctor, I learned that I was displaying symptoms of multiple sclerosis and what I thought was going to be a one visit incident turned into a two month ordeal full of testing, MRI’s, and spinal taps.  Thankfully, my vision returned in about six weeks, and although my optic nerve suffered some damage and my vision in that eye has been slightly compromised, I can see again without any problems.  I also learned that I tested negative for M.S., although I have a slightly higher chance of getting it in the future due to what I just went through, but if I take care of myself I will be able to reduce that chance even more.

I felt so overwhelmed, and now here I was once again,  having to be tested, poked, prodded for something else that I viewed as much worse than having M.S.   I called my mother almost daily in tears.  She reassured me that she didn’t believe I had it, but to go ahead and get tested so I can rule it out.  She also was very adamant about me staying off the internet looking it up because it only made me anxious.  When I talked to my Life Coach he said, “DeAara, all the work we have done, you aren’t using it in the time it will benefit you the most.  I can’t tell you whether or not you have cancer, what I can tell you is that you can definitely change your attitude  about it and allow SELF to make room for the unexpected.”  It took that a minute to sink in.

And although a part of me was still sad, angry and terrified, I decided to face it head on.  If I had cancer, I had it.  And although I didn’t want it, although I knew I was going to go through a period of grief and shock, I knew that I would be able to fight.  Why?  Because I’ve been dealt unexpected blows before in my life that initially felt overwhelming, the pain so intense I found myself questioning whether or not I even wanted to live, but somehow, I got through it and healed from it.  This was no different.  AND as much as there was the possibility that I had it, there was also just as much of a possibility that I didn’t.  I wouldn’t know until after I had the medical procedure.

Yes, facing my mortality at my age was something that was tough for me to comprehend, but it also forced me to start the process of making peace with death.  I don’t know when it is going to happen.  I don’t know if I will be young or old and I don’t know what comes after that.  All I know is that I am here now, in this moment.  And every moment that I am here is a chance that I can change my life for the better.  It is a chance that I can grow and more than anything just enjoy being.  It is a chance that I can forgive, that I can love and just be in peace.  Every day I take a breath, every moment, I have the power to do these things regardless of my diagnosis.