Category Archives: love

Cute With Bad Qualities

Cute With Bad Qualities – An Understatement

Screenshot 2018-07-21 14.27.35I don’t know how many times I tell people with children to stop coddling them. Introduce them to the real world and tell them how shit really is. If you put your children in a bubble, when they go to college, they wild out. This movie here is a straight up proof of how it normally goes, because its not always black and white, its grey areas in between.

Her mother waited until she was an adult, and heading to college before taking to her. Something that should NOT be a last minute conversation. This is something we should talk to our daughters now in elementary school, to build them up as women and let them know that everything that glitters ain’t gold.

Screenshot 2018-07-21 14.28.09Cute with Bad Qualities – I thought in the beginning was a horrible title, but I get it, Donovan was the “cute” one, and his qualities were horrible. Her being a “caged child”, she was easily open to the first guy that gave her attention. Her friends had a bet on how long she would be cool until she wilded out. It clearly didn’t take long.

This girl made a 32 on her SATs (not an accurate score, thats more an ACT score, but I’ll leave that flaw in the script alone… No I didn’t). Although she stayed in her books, but she became all about this man. She didn’t follow up on his story he told about Sheena, which lead to Sheen being shady to her, not her fault and continue to sleep with him behind her back.

The tagline “If he shows you who is he, believe him.” Was perfect, because as a woman, this was something that was always told to me. As a mother of teenage girls, I let them have boyfriends, explain to them the horrors of sex and people who don’t mean you any good. I also tell them the importance of looking at every angle and being true to themselves. Never letting someone dictate their lives or tell them what they can and cannot do.

Screenshot 2018-07-21 14.27.08This man disrespected her mother when he first met her, telling her excuse me, but me and Mya are grown, when she told him to take her straight home. And instead of taking her back to her dorms, like her mother asked, he took her back to his place where there was a bra in his bed, which he hid. They didn’t have sex that night, he played the role of the gentlemen, sleeping on the floor.

Screenshot 2018-07-21 14.28.58In the beginning, Mya, played by Samantha Smith, was a quiet girl who was a freshman in college. She was a private school girl who was raised in a strict religious home. She saw this boy and literally ran into Sheena, who invited her to a party that Donovan, Tasmin Williams, was supposed to be in attendance.

She showed him in the beginning that he could run her, because he told her to call Sheena back when she called to check on her. He told her not to be friends with certain people and she was all about listening to him. It was like she had no mind of her own and let him check her. Which, he took every moment to brag about to his friends.

When her best friend came in town, he was all about getting to know her friend on a deeper level calling her friend fine and flirting across the table. He kept looking her friend up and down. Her friend saw him for who he was, someone sneaky.

When he was injured, she told him to get seen and he blamed her for not getting medically cleared. Then when he found out he had DBT and couldn’t play he went off on her blaming her for him not being able to play. He broke up with her.

Unlike other stories, Mya and Donovan got married but not because he loved her, from the beginning he was telling his friends that she was a gold mine. He made this big marriage proposal after leaving her for a month. A virgin and a woman who will make money, but he quickly tried to make her his woman who did what he said.  This is not a love story, not a story of romance, its a story of being entrapped, feeling like you have to hold on because he’s your husband.

Screenshot 2018-07-21 14.28.26When her husband told her she was getting fat, she went to the doctors office and found out she was pregnant. He told her she should go and get an abortion. Something he knew she would not do, because she is very religious. In the next several scenes, you can see him celebrating graduation and hanging with friends while she goes to doctors visits and has the baby. He refused to even help out with the baby at night.

He starts spending time with Sheena on the side, and hanging out without his wife at certain events. Sheena recorded their conversation on the voicemail to their house. To him it was never about making her happy or even comfortable in their marriage, when she brought up him cheating, he just went to bed. Didn’t even try to explain, because he knew she wouldn’t go anywhere or do anything. She being still in school and having a baby. What could she do?

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Photo by Sydney Sims on Unsplash

It took for her to realize that she married who she picked and not who she was supposed to marry. It took for her to stand up for herself and realize that she was fighting for a marriage on her own. We have to understand what love looks like, we are responsible for our children knowing that so that they don’t repeat the mistakes we have made in our lives.

 

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Jay Z, Jay Z, Jay Z… Boy You Still Got It!

Review Time!!!!  Review - Wooden 3d rendered letters/message

So after debating in my head since the debut of 4:44 whether I was going to redo my membership for Tidal, Facebook made me aware that Jay had snuck his new album to iTunes this morning. Best part was, my Apple Music Membership covered it! 

Let me tell you, I have been a Jay-Z fan since I was pregnant with my youngest daughter Screenshot 2017-07-07 20.33.16in 2001 and even before. So my review is probably biased. Not really, cause if Jay would’ve come out with something whack I would’ve called him out.

But this man doesn’t know what whack is, unless you are him describing how he almost pulled a Eric Benet and lost his woman. Now that was indeed whack.

See most people only hear that he admits to all the things that Lemonade was talking about, but they missed the greatness of his album just as they missed the best parts of Beyonce’s albums.

He starts with Kill JayZ spitting on how theres no healing what you hide. He spoke on every rumor and every bad thing he ever did, how he couldn’t take it if he wound up like Future watching another man play ball with his son.

But that wasn’t the best part of the album and if thats all you heard, then you need to listen until you hear the rest. JayZ spoke up on how it doesn’t matter how rich you are, what complexion you are that we are still niggas in their eyes. He talked about how OJ said he wasn’t black he was OJ and how quick they brought him back to reality.

How our so called leaders are dealing with crap like Bill Cosby being held on charges instead of them saying NBC wasn’t for sale. Look at Al Sharpton on IG taking selfies in the mirror, what is he fighting? He’s given up. (Of course you have to look up what Al Sharpton had to say in return.. all I can do is roll my eyes. He always has so much to say but still saying nothing, but thats a different story.)

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My jam is Family Feud, because in this song he speaks about how nobody wins if the family is feuding. He’s not speaking about his family, he’s speaking on our Black family and how we are at each others throats, drinking alcohol that we know is not ours.

He also spoke on how all these “new” rappers/niggas is starting to sound alike, taking pics on IG with money and guns that don’t belong to them. Hanging with chicks who look the same or are the same. How now we in the game of telling on ourselves and it really don’t be about nothing.

He talked about having credit is better than balling out, how you need to put money away for your family and invest in black owned businesses and stop working for everyone else. Like honestly, why are yal still signing record deals like you haven’t seen what they do to people. Stop making other peoples pockets fatter while all along you hungry.

He also spoke on deeper issues about him growing up with a mother who was living a life where she was hiding who she was. How you should your life to make you happy, no matter who doesn’t like it. He even called out the jewelers on how they are robbing people and don’t care even if its blood money, long as its money.

He wrapped it up with a song called Legacy and a shot out to his roots Marcy Me.

JayZ is back yal! He’s a grown man and is ready to face his responsibilities like a man and make his woman happy. He sees his flaws and his imperfections and hopefully will learn from them. Because as he said no loss is a loss its a lesson and appreciate the pain because its a blessing.

Lets hope this album will be the turning point that will allow him to keep that superhero mask on for his babies. Good Job Jay!!! This is now on my favs list. Whats your favorite JayZ album?

Parenting tops EVERY horror film.

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Having children is scary, I mean worse than any scary movie you can watch scary. Its a different level of scary, not like you have a nightmare and the world is ok when you wake up scary. I mean scary because it makes your mind think of off the wall things that can happen and how to prevent them.

As I sit here trying not to panic with my six year old who has a deep cough, and a runny nose. Something normal right? Except when you factor in asthma and a possible allergic reaction to the cough medicine I gave her. Her and any medicine thats “natural” never seem to work. I am scared as I watch her chest rise and fall, as every deep cough and snot shoots out her nose. I am scared because I want to make her feel better with the snap of my fingers.

Having four girls is a nightmare, and not for the reasons you may think. I want to protect my girls with every inch of my soul. I never want them to experience any of the heartache and pain that I ever felt. I want to put them in a bubble and hope nothing every pops it.

I want them to have the lives we see on movies, where by the end of the scene all of their problems are solved. The “simple” worries. Its harder now than when they were babies because now, besides my six year old, I have two teenagers and a pre-teen. With those ages comes crushes, heartbreak, and the reality of true disappointment.

Now I have always been real with my girls and never made them believe that life was about rainbows, butterflies and cupcakes. I have told them about being aware of their surroundings and to not trust every smiling face. I told them that stranger danger is real and that monsters look like regular people.

So yeah, being a parent is scary. You have to raise these little people who completely depend on you and make sure they are tough, but compassionate; Smart but with an edge; Honest, fair and safe. You have to protect them from everything without smothering and sheltering them. Its an equal balance that no one ever gave you a manual for. There is no how to do books because every kid is different. What may work for one, may not for the next and DNA has nothing to do with that.

Now to go back and cuddle with my little one as she sleeps soundly. I know I won’t sleep because I will be listening to every cough and jumping with every movement. Being a parent may be scary, but I couldn’t imagine life any other way.

Review!!! Thursday Special

Review - Wooden 3d rendered letters/messageMe Before You… I Cried Real Tears.

As I watched this movie the song “Why I Love You” by MAJOR played in my head, and as I write this article this song is on repeat, bringing tears with every note.

“I found love.. in you.. and no other love will do… every moment that you smile… chases all the pain away… forever and a while… in my heart is where you’ll stay..

This song wraps this movie up in the exact words and emotions. When I first heard this song, I realized that this is the kind of love that I want, the kind of love that will show no limits and no restrictions. The kind of love that will push you to love yourself beyond all measures and love life. The kind of love that makes you wake up ever morning smiling because of the possibilities.

This movie was all about fate. Lou Clark lost her job that she started six years prior on a dare. It was at a cute little coffee shop where she was amazing with the patrons. She was matched with a job, from the Career Center,  as a caregiver for Will Traynor, a bad boy turned paraplegic, who only wanted to give life a six months trial period after a horrible accident. What happened in front of my eyes was a love story, without all the glitz and glimmer, without the happy ending, but a true love story in itself.

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Will had a very fulfilling life before his accident and a very bland and meaningless life afterwards. When Lou came around in her crazy outfits, bad jokes and bubbly personality, she showed him what life could be like while making the best out of a bad situation.

His parents thought it was enough for him to give life a second chance, and Lou, unbeknownst to her, fell quickly in love with him. He fought his pain for her, just to see her smile. He gave her a different pep in her step and a greater sense of self-esteem.

Love wasn’t enough in the end for him to stay in pain. His love for her was great enough that he didn’t want her to be stuck living a life surrounded by taking care of him. He went to another country to die peacefully all of course with her in his arms.

I cried at the end, but not the ugly, life-is-not-fair cry, but instead a peaceful cry of new beginnings. What Lou had now was a new sense of life and a new path to explore. Yes of course, like with all of these movies, he had money and she didn’t, but that was overshadowed with the genuineness of the movie, the softness of Emilia Clarke’s acting and the gorgeous smile of Sam Claflin.

So I play Majors song with a movie in my head, with a picture, to me of real love. Love to me isn’t the fairy-tale that everything is going to be perfect and harmonious at all times. Love to me is completely unconditional, completely selfless and pure. You have to love beyond all the good things about a person. You have to love the ugly, the impatience, the stubbornness; you have to love that person hard enough through times when they may not necessarily love themselves.

Now I could love this movie so much because it was 3 am and my heart was broken. It filled a void, but thats what a movie is supposed to do. Make you feel like you found the emotions that the movie is portraying. In my heart, the pieces have been mended and I feel as if I see life a little brighter, at least until the sun rises and reality sets in.

I have to say this movie is amazing and I am definitely going to read the book by Jojo Moyes.

Check out the movie trailer and music video by MAJOR!

Movie Trailer: https://youtu.be/T0MmkG_nG1U

Song (Why I Love You by MAJOR): https://youtu.be/FqiVMKJxWK0

Fences – a poor example of Black Families

Family

Fences was not as good as I thought it would be! Wait, hold up, let me give Denzel and Viola their props, they played the hell out of their roles and deserved every award they earned. So let me explain what I mean by that.

See every movie about black families and marriages always include some kind of games, unfaithfulness, abuse and/or alcohol. How do we expect black families to be successful if all we see is black families falling apart? What happened to the Huxtables? The Martin and Ginas? The Winslows? The Evans?

“Some people build fences to keep people out, and other people build fences to keep people in…”

All Rose (Viola) wanted was for Troy (Denzel) to build a fence. A fence that visually in her mind made her feel would keep her family together. What she had was a husband, who paid the bills, but cheated on her; a son who wanted to protect her but was forced to respect and fear a father who showed him no affection; and a daughter born from the dead mistress of her husband.

When Troy said he was unhappy with Rose and how he felt after eighteen years he was still sitting in the same spot, she spoke up about standing there with him. This woman abandoned her dreams and goals to be everything this man needed her to be. She cooked every time someone walked in the door, kept a house clean and prayed over her household.

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Black love = magic

In the era of Black Girl Magic I feel that although this was a good movie, it should be accompanied with other movies that show black girls to follow their dream.

Do you know that in the last 100 days, under the new administration hate groups have gone up? Not just against blacks, but against every non-white Christian group. A lot of the progress that the Obamas made are swept under the rug as if they never existed.

So I say again, Fences wasn’t as good as I thought it was, because to me it was sad. There are so many other ways to make relationships last, there are so much more to the black family and we should never have to give up our dreams or who we are to be with anyone. If anything, your kids suffer because they feel like life is all about settling.

Its Not Their Fault


I have been a single parent for almost 12 years now, minus a few “situationships” along the way, but  I’ve been mostly on my own. I had almost forgotten how hard it is in the beginning it is when you realize you’re doing it on your own until today.

Today my niece came to pick up her children from me. She had just left work and she was tired. She was complaining about all the things she had to do because “he” didn’t do any of it. Listening to her sounded so familiar, I heard my story.

I was her. I was a young mother of two children, both still in diapers. I worked a full time job where I commuted to work 45 minutes on the highway after dropping the girls off at a daycare 30 minutes out the way. I would come home to a husband, fresh out of jail, who didn’t know how to lift a finger to clean or cook. Yet he knew how to disappear.

I remember one time he left to go get milk for the kids cereal and came back 3 days later with no damn milk. Imagine how frustrating that is? Like why do I now have to call someone else to come get me to take me to the store, because you cant comprehend that the corner store is at the bottom of the neighborhood that you passed as you left. What did you have to go feed the cow and process the milk yourself. Its really not that hard.

Ok I’m getting sidetracked.

So anyways I remember being so frustrated and angry with him that the girls and I quit coming home. We would go to my Moms house, where he would follow, so I could have some help. I used to e so angry with everyone because here this low down bastard could help me take care of the family that he wanted to create.

I remember my AH HA moment. I was driving back to my moms house. It was late, and I was furious. My (then)husband had gotten himself arrested. He had dropped the girls off with his folks while he ran the streets, when he was supposed to take them to doctors appointments and spend time with him. Here I was late getting off due to a project at work, and I had to go find my children.

On the way back to my my Moms house, snow still on the banks from the blizzard and I was listening to Destinys Child’s new album – Destiny Fulfilled. (It was 2004). Their new album, in order, talked about a relationship from first flirting to complete failure. Somewhere between the song If and the song Through With Love I realized it. I was not his fuck up.

Now I dont think it was too much of what D3 was saying but more so the feeling I got when Michelle sang her verse on Through With Love. It made me realize that I was on my own and it was time to get over it. I couldnt let my happiness be determined by how he treated me. Hell he was happy, he was doing whatever he felt like, whenever he felt like doing it. I was the only one moping, but I was not the only one affected. I had two little faces that depended on me to tell them that life was going to be ok.

I say all this to say that we can’t control how someone treats us, but we can control how we respond. There is nothing harder than having to take care and raise children on your own. You will have other opinions to dodge, having no rest, cleaning and repeating yourself daily, but thats all part of being a mother. What difference will it make to complain? To be angry? You still have to do it. All I know is that at the end of the day I want to make sure my four little ones know that I am doing all I can for them. Because in the end, they are the only ones that matter.

Forgive But Never Forget

Life has given me plenty of ups and downs. Plenty of moments when I have been the victim. I have been hurt so many times, it’s like I expect it. My Mom says I always give second chances. No matter how much someone could drive me through the dirt or hurt me I always let them come back. Why? Because I believe people change. I know that I am not the same person I was two years ago or even two days ago. I am always evaluating who I am as a person and growing. I wouldn’t want someone to judge me or base their entire opinion on me based on mistakes I’ve made in the past. So why would I do that to someone else?



The problem is I forgive and forget. You should never forgive and forget. You can forgive but forgetting gives them a chance to repeat the same routine they did before. Maybe that person did in fact change but out of habit, getting back around you things begin to feel familiar. For example, a drug addict can’t go through rehab and then go back to the same things they were doing before they got clean. Familiar scenery are grounds for relapse. 
That’s the same with behavior. Knowing this makes so much sense to all my relationship issues (friends and family included). I need to learn to let go. As the late great Maya Angelou used to say “when someone shows you who they are believe them the first time”. 
Frankly I’m tired of being hurt, and it’s time for me to take a stand. Along with all of you. Sometimes we have to take responsibility for getting hurt. It’s not always the people around us that we can point the finger to. We have to look inside us and inside our behaviors and patterns. Why do we continue to LET people hurt us? 
So put your foot down, be strong and realize that life is too short to waste time being miserable, being scared, being depressed and not happy. Take the time you need between relationships and heal. Putting a bandaid on top of a wound and keep moving doesn’t always work. The bandaid will eventually fall off and show your scars. But if you let them heal internally, you can remove that bandaid, proudly own the left over marks and move on with peace. 
~Love Tichelle 💋

I Need Help This Time

           

            It’s over. The one relationship that you thought would never end, it was different than the rest. Although you said that before, this one was different, or so you thought. Now here you are again. Picking up the pieces of your broken heart and trying to find a way to put it back together. But just like every other time, there are pieces missing. This time even more than before. What’s next? How can you come from this? How can you move on?

            To be honest, I don’t know. I know I usually have an answer for everything, but I really don’t know how to heal from a broken heart. My heart has been broken so many times that I don’t think it will ever fully heal and believe in love again.
            For example, I am in the middle of a brutal break up. I thought I had finally met someone that truly loves me for me, and will be there to support me regardless of what I am facing and I was wrong. I am back where I started, heart broken and feeling like I wasted time. The worst part, the part that makes this one hurt far more than any other break up I have been through, is that I really opened up and talked about things I never discussed with anyone. Now I feel like I shouldn’t have. Like I never should’ve opened up.
            Ok this wasn’t supposed to be about what I am going through. I wasn’t supposed to talk about my heartbreak. I was supposed to talk about how to get over it, how to heal from it. But now instead of giving you all advice, I am asking you all for it. I need to know how you all move on. I already know the standard general responses like pray about it, take your time, ya, ya, ya… I don’t want to hear that. I want to hear about the stuff you do when you first decide its over, or when you first get dumped. The way you get rid of the overwhelming feelings of loss and betrayal.

            I was going to put a disclaimer for my ex or mutual friends but you know, I hope this is read. I hope that maybe my pain will be seen, because I’m not always the best at verbally expressing my feelings. Then again, I am trying to learn to not care. Smh… I really need help yal.

Unrequited Love

That amazing feeling you have when your every thought is of that one person. You catch yourself smiling for no reason about them. They can touch you and your whole body turns to mush. You tingle from a simple gesture. You’re in love. Not the puppy love where you are drawing hearts and doodling their name and yours together, but in love where you pray for them before you pray for yourself, the type of love where you want to give yourself up completely to them.
And then the unthinkable happens; you realize the love is not returned. You are putting your time and emotion into someone who does not feel the same about you. Maybe you were the rebound, maybe they NEVER really put their heart into it, or maybe you fell to quick. Whatever it is, you realize that you are the only one who thinks this is a good thing.
What do you do? So many people are so quick to judge and say you should move on, but what if you have really invested your time and feelings into this person? Shouldn’t you try to fight for something that feels right to you? Shouldn’t you try to find out why this person doesn’t see in you what you see in them? Why should you just walk away?
SO YOU DON’T GET HURT! So many are willing to put the

ir feelings aside for someone else. Don’t try to be everything for this person, because if they don’t see it, they never will, and in the end you will be mad at them for wasting your time, when really you can’t be mad at anyone but yourself.

The person that is right for you will not make you feel like that. You will know that they feel the same way without any hesitation, without any doubt.
Now how do you move on? These have always been my ways of moving on. They work for me, and I hope they work for you.
1. Stay away from them. Any contact with them will make you weak and fall back for the very things that make you fall for them. Trust me they are not worth your time.
2. Stay away from sad love songs. Play songs that talk about self-strength and moving on or self-love, nothing that reminds you of him/her.
3. Do not drink alone. If you do drink, drink with someone that will take your phone and keep you away from “drunk texting”.
 
4. Cry. Let out the emotions you feel so you can release them and move on.

Last but not least…

5. take the time to heal. Do not start talking to someone new until you have completely closed this door. Or you will do to the next what this one just did to you.
Love Yal… lovetichelle

What Do You REALLY Expect?

Be honest when you get in a relationship what do you want? Many will answer this and say someone with their life together, a good job, their own place and a vehicle of some kind. Now that’s all good, but what about the person? What do you expect from the person for you to remain happy with that person? Not the normal, communicates with me, makes me laugh, faithful and honest. But what about the deeper things that you need to feel secure in your relationship?
Many people don’t think about this until they are stuck in a relationship that isn’t working. Maybe your girlfriend is too flirty and you can’t take that, or maybe your boyfriend is a little too friendly online. What is it that is dire in a relationship that you wouldn’t think to question until its too late?
For me its security, I need to know that not only will I be physically be safe with you, but I need to know that emotionally I will be safe with you. I do not like to be made into a fool by other people. I like for our problems to be our problems. Don’t get me wrong, I have my people I vent to (all close friends that know how I am and gives me honest views without judging) and I expect the person I am with to have the same. But I mean social media shouldn’t know our problems, ex-girlfriends shouldn’t have the opportunity to comment on our issues via Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
I also need to be given attention and affection. I am a very affectionate person. I know that everyone else is not as affectionate as I am, but I expect to be shown how much I am appreciated through a kiss, a passionate touch or even a sexy glance. I am lucky to 
What about you? What do you appreciate or disagree with in a relationship? These are the things that you should inquire about when you are in the dating stages. That way you know that you will be fulfilled in all aspects of your relationship. There is nothing worse than someone who has a good man/good woman but drags them hell because they are not completely happy.

Just note every bad relationship teaches you a little more about what you want from a relationship AND helps you to appreciate the one when it comes along.