The impact of societal ingrained toxic masculinity

Today, I interviewed two men on the impact of societal ingrained toxic masculinity. Being born in an African home, especially, is always your first experience and entrance into the world of misogyny, patriarchy and toxic masculinity. It is almost like an undying culture, so to understand and shed more light into this, I interviewed two men, asking almost the same questions to see their views on these issues. 

Interview 1

First I have with me Abdulmalik, please introduce yourself:

My name is Abdulmalik, I’m a software developer and a student of UNILAG. 

Also a poet and a tech bro, a fine boy but my head is quite big.

Lol, a tech bro, amazing. Welcome Abdulmalik. Thank you for agreeing to do this with me. As you know, the topic we’d be speaking on is the impact society has on toxic masculinity. What would you say is the reason some men fight against the destruction of toxic masculinity?:

I would say it is because toxic masculinity is given to men like a bomb wrapped in a nice package, so they don’t see the negative impact of it in their lives. It is painted as this thing that makes them superior, like they are alphas and they are in charge, so to men, toxic masculinity is a good thing, it is a proof that they are men which makes no sense because nothing decides what you are literally by birth. And society rewards this toxicity, the society actually makes you feel more important if you are a toxic male and why you’d see that it’s not just men that fight it.

Yes, there are also women that fight against the destruction of this system, it is disturbing really. My next question has to be at what point does toxic masculinity begin? The things we are told as children shape up our mindsets. What is that one thing you heard the most as a boy child that you believe contributes toxic masculinity?:

I would prefer to tell a story, growing up I was always the star student, there was this one time in jss2 or 3, we had this civic education teacher that was always on my matter so one time this lady Fatimah came first in class and he shamed me for it, he shamed me that I let a lady beat me in class, he made it seem like it was even worse, that it was a lady that came first instead of me.

Wow, there was a Twitter discourse recently on this and hearing you mention it reminded me of how many tweets I saw complaining about this same issue. It also sprang up conversations about male privileges, are there any privileges you in particular have realized being a man gives you?:

A lot, an instance would be that no one would question my success as a man, even if in the real sense of things, I slept my way to the top. No one would question it, I have a higher chance of getting into higher positions at work, in things like politics than a woman would have because people have been led to believe that men are better leaders, even though history has shown us otherwise and even now, we are seeing that it is simply not true.

This is such a well thought out answer, thank you and I do agree, women are given lesser chances in places of governance and it is disturbing. Every system put in place to oppress a minority eventually hurts those that created it, is there anyway misogyny has affected you as a man?:

To be very honest, misogyny is disgusting and it has affected me in the sense that when I go online and I read things that happen to women because of misogynistic men, in a way, I start feeling bad that I am a man. I feel like I am part of a group of people who cause a lot of harm and I could also be a threat unless it is proven otherwise and while I understand that, it makes me feel bad as a person that just walking behind a woman at night could cause her to be so scared. 

It is really bad but this is what men have reduced what it is to be a man to. 

That sounds really depressing, it must be hard living like that but yes, it is very scary having a man walking behind you at night and I am glad you acknowledged that. Is there anything you wish men were told more often as children?:

Yes, I wish we were told that it is okay to be vulnerable. I wish men were raised properly and not made to believe that women owe them something just because they are men, I wish men were taught respect and empathy. I wish they’d be given more love and told that it was okay to show love, that they didn’t have to be so hard on themselves and to not see themselves as objects of success. They are worthy, irrespective of their current financial status.

Gosh, I might be tearing up a little, lol. I hope the upcoming generations of men are taught this. My final question stems from the fact that your answers have been progressive. I believe society puts men in a box, are you working on breaking out of the box? And if you are, how has the journey been so far?:

It has not been pretty to be honest, there has been a lot of internal conflict between who I was before and who I am now becoming and it is crazy because I never realized these things and how much misogyny and toxic masculinity has been normalized in our society. Not until I met certain people and I had arguments with them a lot in the past, I started to unlearn my bias and learn new things and the peace that came with it, it was so much better. I feel better because it feels like your mind, soul and body finally align with the things you are saying and the things you believe in. 

It hurts me that we have to end this interview here, it has been so insightful. Thank you so much once again for honoring this invite and for your brilliant replies, I learnt something and I hope everyone that reads it takes a new knowledge away from it. 

To be continued. Thank you!!

Love languages, self love and its other intricacies.

Hi guysssssss

I’m back, lol, again. In my defense, I had one post last month and now I’m writing for this month, somebody say progress? Yayyyyy.

Today’s topic is a bit emotional for me, it’s a lot honestly. To prepare myself for writing this, I asked questions on it and this is what I got from people, the topic is love languages, self love and it’s other intricacies.

Love languages far too often have been classified as just “acts of service, physical touch, quality time, gifts giving” and all that but I asked because I wanted to know the other languages of love that are personal to people, without the cover of a broad definition, with the answers I got, it was clear to me that love languages are beyond something that should be explained away with just broad terms that supposedly work for everyone.

If someone asks me what my love language is generally, I’d pick one or two from the general terms but if I had to actually discuss it, I’d say my love languages are books, no, not being given the books, talking about the books, having an avenue to discuss said books without feeling like I’m not being heard.

My love language would also be music, I say it a lot that if someone listens to a song I like because of me, I would feel loved, that in itself is a form of love for me and asking people what their personal love languages were felt like looking through a glass, I don’t think people realize how one little thing or maybe a big thing someone did for them becomes a language that describes how they love/want to be loved, for me, books were my dad’s love language for me and I learnt to speak it well, fluently too.

Books transferred into words, I learnt that my love language was in writing out my emotions, to people and most importantly, to myself, I need to be able to talk to myself to function well and that leads me to the other part of this blog, self love.

I heard it somewhere that when we think of the people we love, we never think of ourselves, so I ask, if you were asked to name the people you love the most, would you mention yourself? We speak about having love languages that we practice on people and want them to practice on us because it makes us feel seen and loved but do you ever do that for yourself? How often do you make out time to write yourself love letters? How often do you buy yourself that thing that you like people buying for you? How often do you make yourself a safe space for you?

Do you ever think, “oh, I should give myself this love I’m always giving everybody? I think the problem is, people fail to realize that self love is not the absence of other forms of love. I think, with having other forms of love, comes the even more urgent need to love yourself so that you don’t lose yourself, so that you are constantly reminded that you are enough. I don’t think we realize how easy it is for people to make us feel small because we do not actually like ourselves.

For the longest time, when people would say things about me, I’d be so hurt, I never took time to get to like those things about myself, so when people called them ugly, I’d agree, until it wasn’t, until I fell irrevocably in love with this body that embodies my soul, my favorite Poet Ijeoma Umebinyuo said “You are not holy water, flawed as I am, I am not sin” she also said “You are too full of life, to be half loved” I think that translates into, being loved by others is half of the love you deserve, loving yourself is another half that completes the puzzle.

Yesterday when I asked if people practiced their own love languages on themselves, most people didn’t, I wanted to know if people actually took time out of their lives to know the language of their love because to love or be loved, to feel complete, you need to know what love looks like to you, what love should feel like to you because it is you that’ll need to go that love when you need warmth.

That’s it lol, I hope people learn to pick themselves first, to know that you are not cheating anyone by loving yourself and you are not loving people any less when you think “oh, I’m the first on the list of people I love the most.”

That’s all guys!! Thank youuuuuuu, love yourselves!!

Song recommendation: idol (love yourself) by BTS💜

Byeee

Chapter 20, the highs and the lows, hello 21

Chapter 20, the highs and the lows, hello 21.

Hi goizzzzzzzzzz!!!!!!

I thought a lot of what I wanted to write as a welcome back speech for my blog and I was sitting and this came to me, spiritual stuff lol. A few days ago, I turned 21, the journey to 21, especially the weeks before it were so tiring, there’s this pressure that comes with aging, I was not prepared for it, I hated every part of it and I cried a lot. Chapter 20 was truly draining and this blog will be a long one, get your popcorn and drinks.

I want to say with all my heart that I hated every part of being 20 but I’d be lying, the early months of being 20 were the best, I found friendship with amazing humans that felt like home, I ticked off life goals, how many 20 year olds start up an helpline with their friends? I did and I felt and still feel very fulfilled, it was truly the highlight of being twenty. 

I think I truly found myself at twenty, I learnt things that I liked, I learnt new things about myself, coming from 19 to 20 was like taking off a ripped shirt and then putting on a clean one, it was like I’d be living with so many versions of myself at once and 20 was me finding the version of myself that best suited who I was. 

Towards the middle of this year, things started to crumble around me, I learnt how many times I could crash and burn and still stay standing this year, I was terrified and I cried a lot this year, the thing with growing is how easily you learn to allow your emotions, I had to let myself feel because on a lot of days, I knew if I didn’t, I would break into a million pieces.

Twenty taught me the importance of friendship, people say that love is a beautiful thing and I think that love between friends is genuinely the most beautiful one, I’ll never for a day pick romantic love over the ones me and my friends have for each other, there’s a joy and comfort in knowing you have humans who you are not related to that are there to support you and cheer for you at every stage of your life, it’s heart warming. 

I got closer to God, this was truly a special part of 20 for because for the longest time I felt so lost, like I was missing something and I needed to remind myself that talking to God calms me, I found myself whispering to God about every little thing at every point of the day. I held prayer marathons with my friends and I learnt to listen more to the Holy Spirit, it was a lot of unlearning and relearning and I enjoyed it. 

Chapter 20 taught me that I’m really scared of consistency, I tell myself that I want to be loved but the truth is, if I got into a relationship now, I’m scared I would hate it. I would constantly want to take breaks and I wouldn’t know what to do with having someone I’m supposed to be so consistent with, I want to blame it on the fact that I’ve never been in a real relationship or been with someone that’s been consistent with me so my phobia is high.

Twenty broke me in ways I didn’t realize I could be broken, I broke so many rules I’d made for myself and shattered my own promises, the thing with growing up is, you’ll shed parts of yourself as you grow older, you’ll find other pieces of yourself to warm your soul with and you’ll live through hurt and yet still do things that may lead to your hurt.

I think the craziest part of turning 21 for me was realizing that I actually survived 20. Anyways, I’m the Queen Atty, writer, feminist and famous safe space/light house and in Jola’s words, the bounce is back💜

Growth

Hey guysssssss!!!! I’m backkkkk!! I feel like I say this every three to two months lol. I can’t say it’s for real this time because I really just write whenever the inspiration comes and today is just another one of those days, so hi goizzzzzzzz! How have you been? Answer me in the comment section o, I want to hear all about how you guys are faring cause I’m going to gist guy about how I’ve been and this relationship cannot be one sided. O wrong. 

Today I’ll be speaking on growth and not in the most serious way cause that’s not my style but just in the way I’ve been since I’ve been away from here, lately I’ve been protecting my mental space and for someone as empathetic and sensitive as I am, it’s a very tasking thing to do, from the month of March, I promised myself I was going to do my hardest to be happy, everyone else be damned and the old me would have given up on that half way cause I would see a post online and get worked up about it, I’d be so involved in it that it would ruin my mood for days and sometimes I’d cry over it, if it was extremely sensitive stuff.

It also affected how I viewed my friends/friendships, I expected such much from people cause I was willing to give so much and the thing with the growth I’ve attained now is realizing, people can only choose to give you what they can and sometimes, what they have is not a lot and you can’t fault them for that. Just because we love people doesn’t mean they have to love us the way we love them and maybe it’ll hurt, it should hurt, it’s hard to give and not be able to receive but at the same time, it is your choice to give and it is also their choice to not give back. It is only up to you to to know when to draw the line with how much of yourself you give.

Also this month, I learnt how to be selfish with what I allow in my space, this is something I’ve had an issue learning how to do for as long as I remember, this month, I was able to practice allowing only what I wanted and vetting out what would hurt me and honestly, it’s been very helpful, I’ve let go of a lot of hurt and the burden on my shoulder feels letter. I’ve gotten a better hold on my anxiety and my mental health went from -80 to -30 and honestly, these days I find myself outgrowing a lot of habits and it is refreshing.

So this is my welcome back post, it’s a lot of something and plenty of nothing. So guys!! Don’t forget to tell me what you’ve been up to this month.

Song for today is Ultraviolet by Freya Ridings. Bye guys, until later!!

Love in my generation

Holaaaa mi Corazons! 

I’m back!!!!!!!! Can’t lie and say it doesn’t feel good to be back so soon. I love this consistency and pace for myself. It feels really good😌

Today’s talk might be a little long and well, subs will be thrown ear and dear, if the shoe fits, you can be Cinderellas🥂 Let’s get right into it! I’ll be speaking on love in this generation.

Recently a friend of mine spoke on it, (Malik) went on a full rant on his status actually and I couldn’t help but agree with him. He said in this generation we are always “doing this or that” with love. I’ll explain. In this generation, before we fall in love, we tell ourselves “I have to be really rich” “na mumu dey fall in love when money no dey” and maybe you’d feel more secure having money to gift your partner presents randomly, the idea of feeling like you don’t have a right or aren’t allowed to be in love when you are broke is just honestly disturbing.

People spend so much of their time chasing after money and forgetting that in truth, money is nothing without people that love you. Money is nothing without people that love you regardless of how rich or poor ou are because if you base your worth off of how rich you are, then you also base the existence of people in your life on how rich you are, does that then mean if you ever lose all your money, you’ll die lonely? Cause no one truly loved you, only what you and your money could give to them. Don’t get me wrong money is very important but not above love, never. Money would buy love for you but love would get you happiness, fulfillment and believe it or not, love would get you money. 

Let’s leave money aside, this generation has a terrible habit of placing the essence of love on fragile things, it is alarming. It’s why we have men cheating on their wives with the excuse “because her body has changed shape after child birth”. Again, don’t get me wrong, be physically attracted to your partner but attaching the basis of that love to physical features is just vain. Sometimes I feel as though no one in this generation truly know how to love/be loved/be in love. I’ve asked people what they loved about their partners and eight out of ten times, it’s always something that has to do with their physical features. I’d always tell my friend Ire, I’d say “I don’t want to fall in love with how someone looks, I want the sight of him to set my skin on fire,yes but more so, I want his existence to set my soul on fire. I want the mere presence of him to make me feel like summer in autumn. I want to know that even if a fire burnt his face and he lost his ‘Physical qualities’ that I’d still love him regardless because I didn’t fall in love with just one part of his being, I fell in love with him in his entirety and when his smile stops being beautiful, I want to still find his laugh the greatest sound I’ll ever hear”. 

Sometimes, I think I’m a little selfish for wishing people saw love the way I did but even more so, I realize that we are so vain. Humans are so vain, heck, if love smacked right into some people’s faces, they wouldn’t see it because they are busy starring at abs or big boobs. Other times, I blame society because society made us believe we’ll never be good enough if we are not close to perfection and somehow, we find ourselves looking into people’s eyes and bodies to find that perfection forgetting or not even seeing the beauty in imperfection.

My generation bases love on fleeting emotions, emotions that cannot withstand the test of time. A lot of times, I realize it is why we have so many broken hearted people running around. People that have lost their souls and joy to people that didn’t love them enough or should I say people that didn’t love enough of them. Broken souls trying to fix broken souls but only leaving more cracks. A broken generation with broken emotions.

I think I’ll stop here. I’ll be starting a poetry series “For broken souls” and I’ll be adding lines from it on every post. Not today though, from the next post.

Song of the day is: Say you won’t go by James Arthur. Fav line: “I wanna love you even when we are ghosts”

Until next time y’all! 

Body shaming

Hey goizzzzzzzzzzz!!
I’m back! Again. I’m still finding my feet with this consistency thing, I haven’t even figured out my days for posting yet but we’ll get there.

Last week I spoke on Confidence, today, I want to speak on the reason my confidence/lack of it exists. The aftermaths and well body shaming in general!

I think it’s safe to say, all my life, I’ve been body shamed. All my life I’ve had to deal with the comments and the jabs, for as long as I can remember, I’ve hated my body. These days, I fluctuate between hate and love but there’s more hate in my soul than there is love for myself/body. We more often than not just believe body shaming starts from strangers but the most hurtful ones come from your family and maybe they don’t do it to hurt you but it starts from there. Growing up my aunts would constantly call me demeaning names like “toothpick” “chicken legs” and lots of other things that I hate to remember. At first, cause I was so young, it was so easy to overlook these things, I didn’t know better after all but as I grew up, I constantly compared myself with girls my age. All around me, my friends were having hips, ass, boobs and there was me, “the skeleton”.

When I started getting body shamed in secondary school, it was so easy for me to hate myself and believe everything they said because I had grown up being treated that way by even my family. If and when anyone said anything to me, I soaked it up like garri in water or bread dipped into a cup of tea. Like I said in my post last week, I hated mirrors, I couldn’t look at myself without seeing every imperfection people constantly pointed out. All I saw when I looked at myself was reasons why no one would ever love me or think I was beautiful enough. As a growing teenager at that point, those thoughts hurt a lot, for the better part of my life, I stayed away from boys because I knew, I told myself, convinced myself and believed so much that no one would like me. I didn’t/don’t have curves like other girls, I wasn’t as pretty as they were, no one would say they liked me and truly mean it.

The thing about body shaming is, you never really recover from it. You think it goes away because you start loving yourself but it doesn’t. One minute you are fine and the next minute, you are spiraling down another dark hole. Picking apart pieces of yourself before anyone can do it. I tend to tell people, fall in love with someone that likes you, not just a phase of your beauty. Someone that likes “You” because you can love yourself all you want and if someone you love doesn’t feel the same way, slowly and surely, you’ll begin to hate those parts of yourself that they don’t love.

Body shaming is so systematic. The way you look affects how people treat you. Humans are very vain, we try to cover it up with love but in truth, we pick and choose what we want to love. So when humans see that you love a part of yourself they do not believe is okay, they’ll tear you apart till you begin to see what they see and you never truly heal from that. But like I said, it is okay to take time to love yourself, it is okay to not feel so confident everyday. You are not going to heal ten years of body shaming, insecurities by giving it two years of love. You are still healing, still unwrapping wounds you didn’t even know existed. Give yourself time.

Today I’ll leave y’all with lines from my favorite anthology “Questions for Ada” by Umebinyuo Ijeoma

This one is called confession.

I came to you
as a wildflower
as a woman who has passed
through different stages
of her womanhood
to know not even the
sweetest man
deserves my silence

you are not holy water.

flawed as i am,
i am not a sin.

You are beautiful
like yourself

Song of the day is Perfect by Anne Marie.

Until next guys🤍💜💚

Living with anxiety and suicidal tendencies.

Hey goizzzzzzzzzz! I’m back again!! Yayyy to consistency, I think.

Today! I’m discussing another sensitive topic or two sensitive topics. Living with anxiety and suicidal tendencies. Grab your hot coffee/tea and biscuits or ice cream and chocolates, whatever you fancy. I pray you don’t cry reading this as much as I will writing it.

Let’s go! 

First, anxiety, I’ve had anxiety for as long as I can remember. I don’t know if it stemmed from the years of body shaming or maybe my parents marriage, all I know is I’ve been living with anxiety for the longest time. My anxiety comes with a severe amount of panic attacks, self doubts and more often than not, overthinking. When people say they have anxiety, you think it’s just them being nervous or shy but I promise you it is not, anxiety messes with your head, eats you up from the inside. Tears you apart, little by little till even the little things make you jump in fright. 

Anxiety is worse if you are an empathetic person. You develop breathing difficulties, migraines and sometimes, you get delusional at the thought of your loved ones or just humans in general being hurt. It is one thing to worry about yourself, it is another to have the weight of the world on your shoulders. I think I realized how bad my anxiety was on the day I published my first book. I’d given it to a couple of people to read and they’d all promised that it was amazing, a day before, I was confident, I told myself that I’d done great but on the night before the day I’d publish, I started crying. I didn’t want to publish anymore, I felt crazy, my head was hurting, hands shaking and I couldn’t breathe properly. I remember talking to a couple of my friends constantly till it was time to publish because I was so scared that if I stopped talking to them, I’d self harm, just to look for a way to distract myself from the voices in my head.

Anxiety looks cool on paper until you are dealing with it and you feel like clawing your eyes out because you feel like a disturbance to the people you love. There’ll be days when you feel like you are being stabbed from your insides and you’ll just find yourself shaking in tears because of the pain you feel from scenarios you made up in your own head. Living with anxiety is like breeding your own demons. You birth them, feed them and even encourage them to grow because how else would you survive without them? 

I think my anxiety birthed my suicidal tendencies. A lot of times, people would say “oh, suicide is not an option” maybe it’s not to you but in that moment, to someone who craves the peace death will bring, it is the only option. You’ll never understand the mind of a suicidal person until you have been in their shoes. You can’t wear Cinderella’s shoes when you are Belle lol.

When you are suicidal, time and time again, you pull yourself away from the edge, you are constantly close to ending it because the voices in your head are loud as hell and the only way to silence them is to just end it all. If I had a penny for how many times I’ve starred at a knife for too long, wondering how easy it would to stab myself or a bottle of pills and thought of how slow and easy it’d be if I overdosed. One thing about being suicidal is, you never really refrain from it because of people. I mean sure, your love for the people you’ll leave alive if you kill yourself is a catalyst for you to not end it but in truth, you only stop yourself because you want to live. 

When people get to the point where they actually do kill themselves, they have probably tried it a couple times and brought themselves back from the edge, whatever words of encouragement you want to tell them, they have told themselves. It becomes a battle between them and their demons and lol… I’ve written last notes so many times, I’ve been so close to it and when I don’t do it, I go back to those notes and I just try to work out how what emotion pushed me to it, why and how to live through it. It works until my demons come to play again.

This is getting too long so I’ll probably just continue next time. If you are living with anxiety and or suicidal tendencies, I don’t want to be like the motivational speakers so I’ll just tell you, there’s always one reason to live. No matter how tiny or miniscule it is. Last night I was at the edge again and I stared at the smiles of a few of my favorite people and I just didn’t want to do it again. You are not alone, everything you feel is valid. God, I know it hurts like hell and it is overwhelming but you have to find tiny reasons to survive. Suicide might be an option in those moments but living is another option, fighting is another one, loving someone enough to live because of them is another option. 

Most importantly, you are not a lost cause, don’t give up on yourself. 

Song for today- Grand piano by Nicki Minaj. Till next time Mi Corazons💜🤍

This thing called confidence

Heyyyyyyy guyssssssssss!!!
I’m back!! No, I won’t apologize again this time. I have come to terms with the fact that I only post when the inspiration really hits me and that’s okay.

Today, I’m going to speak on a topic very sensitive to me. Confidence. You’d wonder why confidence is sensitive to me, well I’ll get right into it. Growing up, I was body shamed a lot, I went through several severe stages of self hate. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror and smile, being skinny in this part of the world, being a size that society doesn’t agree with in general is pain.

There were days when all I wanted to do was just overdose, so I wouldn’t have to deal with how much I hated myself. It’s one thing for people to not like how you look, it’s another for you to not like how you look. It messes with your head. I constantly heard things like “don’t you eat”, “you are so skinny, the wind will blow you away”, “skeleton”, “bag of bones” lol. I used to be a tough child, I pretended the words didn’t hurt me but Lord knows they did. I’d get back home from school and start stuffing myself with food. I’d eat enough for three people and pray to God, that it would show on my body when I woke up the next morning and during the weekends, I’d stare at myself in the mirror, hoping and praying that I had looked any less bony and when the result wasn’t what I wanted, I’d cry and cut myself. I had and still have a lot of self hate.

I want to put a pin on the time when my confidence grew but I can’t say I know because even now, when I can take pictures and post, I still struggle with the urge to tear myself apart and I want to break down and up until last year, I’d call myself weak for being so spineless, for hating myself so much but I realized something recently, confidence does not mean your insecurities completely fade away completely. Confidence means, even with your insecurities, you still push yourself to thrive. You still push yourself to love your body, to be better even if you cry after it.

In regards to hating my body, picture therapy keeps me sane and when I post pictures, I realize that everyone thinks I’m so confident but in truth, on a lot of days, I stare at the pictures and cry because in my head, I am tearing myself apart and in my bid to love myself, I sometimes forget that I am only human. That I have only just started living and loving this body I was put in after years of self loathing, I have to remind myself that it is okay to breath. I am only human. One step at a time.

We often forget that our insecurities exist and we try so hard to ignore them but they are there, ever present and we have to remember that we are humans and humans hurt, humans cry, it is okay to not feel so confident everyday. So, if like me you have spent years hating your body, it is okay to know that you cannot love your body within ten months or what not. You are unlearning and relearning and that takes time. Give yourself time.

You are beautiful, God made no mistakes. Remember that, always.

Thank you Kafie, for giving me the motivation to speak about this.

Song for the day is Human by Christina Perri.

God when/God never

God when/God never.

Hey goizzzzzzzzzz! I’m back and this time, I want to gist you guys about a couple of things that I’ve realized about myself. This was motivated by a conversation I had with my friends (Shout-out to Siren women).

So I’ve been single for the better part of my life😂not that much of a big deal, I’m just 20 but yeah, it’s no news that teenagers fall in love and fall out of it or to be correct in my case, love people but not be in love with them. I’ve had a lot of that and I think I’m just now understanding the difference but that’s not the topic for today!!

The topic is God when/God never. So as an unserious soul that I can be, I say God when to a lot of relationship posts, most times, I know it’s just for the fun part. In my head, I’m actually countering it with God never. I see a lot of relationships and I realize, I never want that. As someone who is extremely indecisive but also very strong willed when I want something, being single has taught me not to settle. I’ve seen a lot of people claim to be in love/relationships and still be moving like they are single, it’s very off putting. Especially when they excuse it with “it’s just cruise” “it’s just harmless flirting”. What is harmless flirting when you are in a relationship? Flirting is flirting in my opinion. You could say “I’m just joking” but once flirting is in the equation, there’s nothing harmless about it. You are simply being disloyal.

I’ve also realized while being single, that the idea of sharing, it really doesn’t appeal to me. It bothers me. I don’t want to share the person I love with other women all in the name of cruise. I tend to focus on one person when I’m in a relationship, as it should be. It’s just you and when I see people moving from that, it confuses me. I think my generation has normalized a lot of weird things. I’m not asking that you let me be over possessive and all that but please, allow me/people know you are with me. I don’t know why people do not understand these things. 

I also always say that we only allow what we want. I think that during the talking stages, you find out characters in people that do not sit well with you and you ignore it because you believe they’ll change, or you think you can handle it. For me, I’ve been consciously unlearning that habit. Once I see deal breakers, even in the talking stages, I immediately back off. I cannot compromise on these things. I know what I want in my head, I know what I deserve. I’m speaking what I truly want into existence. I’ll not take anything less. If it’s something I feel like talking to the person can fix, I try to explain it and see their reaction, if it’s not, I simply close the door to that chapter. I have 

promised myself not to hurry. I’m really not in a hurry, it’s a God when thing, not God never. I find comfort in knowing that I am happy by myself and whoever decides to love me will not be doing me a favor. We won’t be doing each other favors. We’ll be two souls complementing each other. 

Lastly, I think I’ve realized that every other time I have been private about who I love, it has been because unconsciously, I have been scared that it’d end but the next time I get into any relationship, I have promised myself that I’d do it wholeheartedly. I refuse to love half heartedly. I’ll post the person I love everywhere, I’ll obsess over him and I’ll give him all my heart and if it ends, I’ll hurt as openly and console myself with the beautiful memories we made. It doesn’t always have to be forever. Sometimes love comes and goes, we have to learn to be okay with that. 

Alright, I think I’ve ranted too much but I just had to get that out. It’s crazy how we normalize toxic love in this generation, I don’t want to inherit that.

Also music recommendations for today

Because it is love by AILEE

Freya Riddings the Freya Riddings album

Young and sad by Noah Cyrus 

Conor Maynard Waste your time

Bye guysssssss!! Until next time🤍

All my Love🤍

Muchos gracias

My top 20 books for 2020

Hi Guys.

Happy New Year!!
Long time no talk, right?
I missed doing this but I’m glad I took the time off it cause now I have a lot of content to share with y’all.

So with the whole pandemic/lockdown and well, for us under ASUU, the strike, there wasn’t a lot to help take your mind off things. For me, books and music were the top two things that kept me going. I think the main reason I didn’t lose my mind was cause I could disappear into the world of books and music, so this week I’ll be giving a review into my top 20 books in 2020 and I’ll add a few song recommendations to it too. I’ll be splitting it into two posts cause it’s a lot.

So here goes!

First on this list is Twenties girl by Sophie Kinsella: This book was a huge highlight of my year, I have an habit of sharing books that I love a lot to people cause I can’t keep so much goodness to myself, no? Sophie Kinsella took her audience back in time while still leaving a huge dose of the present. This book has all the feel good energy you’d need. It is a story of love between not just a man and woman but between a ghost, yes I said it, a ghost and great niece. When Lara’s great aunt dies and she attends the funeral with her family, she is sure she has lost her mind when she begins to see a ghost who claims to be the younger self of her dead aunt and so the adventure begins. If you need to laugh, this book is highly recommended.

Second on this list is Stranger in the Mirror by Sidney Sheldon, I got this a late birthday present sometime in December and wow! If there’s anything about this particular author, it’s how he draws his readers in with little bits of information that you never truly expect and in the end, these pieces of information become something really important that puts the book together. Toby and Josephine the two main characters had a lot of character build up and their ending was truly unexpected, this one is a most read for suspense lovers.

Third on this list is Remembrance by Danielle Steel: For someone that has read quite a couple of Danielle Steel’s work, it’ll never not amaze me how detailed she is and how much attention she puts into the life of each and every character. One thing about Danielle is also her flair for tragedy, I literally cannot say I know any other author who writes tragedy as well as she does, it is both scary and amazing. In this book, she took us into the life of a young girl that grew into a beautiful strong women, Serena was dealt with a lot of sad times in her life and an ending even more sad. Reading this book, I had tears in my eyes and I read it two times more like I need to absorb its every essence and the ending was only but a little consolation. If you are not ready to cry, don’t read this one.

The fourth book on this list is The Origin by Dan Brown: if you already have doubts about your religion, I advice that you steer clear of this book becauseeeee!! This man made such convincing points against religion as we know it. If you are a Dan Brown fan, it’d be hard to believe this man is not in a cult because the knowledge he has on these things is unreal but that’s just good research speaking. For sci-fi fans, it’s a good read.

The fifth one on this list is Zikora by Chimamanda Ngozi: This book made me feel a lot of things. For a book so short, it was extremely educating and so beautiful to read. As always with her, Chimamanda she tables down societal issues in delicate yet strong stances. This was a beautiful read.

The sixth one is Omertà by Mario Puzo: if you are a fan of mafia books, this one is top notch. This book made the law and rules of mafia seem so intriguing. This is a must read for anyone who has read The Godfather.

The seventh on this list is the Crossfire series by Sylvia Day: this is a series so I won’t go into an in-depth explanation into it but this book explores into the very very dark sides of BDSM. The stories that make a character become so damaged that they crave control, so much that it rules every part of their being. If you’ve read the Fifty shades trilogy, you’d love this one too.

Then there’s

8. The Sicilian by Mario Puzo
9. Vanished by Danielle Steel
10. Chasing Red by Isabelle Ronin which I’ve read countless times.

These are the first 10 on the list and I’ll post the rest by the ending of these week. These books were a refuge when life was trying to drain my sanity, so I hope you enjoy this review and hopefully the books when you read them.

song recommendations are Grey Area by Grey and Sofia Carson, broken by Isak Danielson. Broken ones by Illenium and Anna Clendening.

Until then Ciao my lovelies! Have fun and stay safe. Don’t forget to wear a mask and wash your hands. 🤍