Monday, April 18, 2016

Blog 122: Goodbye Tenderloin

Blog 122: Goodbye Tenderloin

I did it…after six years…I have left the tenderloin.

I didn’t know how different it would feel not being in the tenderloin. I did not understand the added weight on my shoulders living there….the darkness that clouded over me.

There was a couple things that triggered the move which all happened in a few days of each other…the crackhead grabbing onto my gate while they squatted and took a shit was a huge motivational moment…I mean can we wait for all of us to have coffee before we see that…wow.

The night the little kid got run over down the street, was the same night this creepy guy followed me to my doorstep from a restaurant I had just left and I thought all this was “the usual”…and then I realized my tenderloin “norm” was not okay.

But when one of the owners of the bodega down the street where I received my “street cred” many years ago was shot and killed…I knew…I had to move…if the peeps that keep me safe could not keep themselves safe…I was in trouble.

When I was talking to my parents about moving my dad told me, “I am scared…it keeps me up at night…you living here…all you have to be is in the wrong place at the wrong time…”

I had no idea how free I would be…I didn’t know the gravity of Sodom and Gomorra was so severe.

There is a heaviness that comes with not being able to look up…a shutter that happens ever time you see crack being smoked…a shiver and pain when you see someone shoving a needle into their arm, neck, foot, boob, etc….a hopelessness that is debilitating…

The feeling of helplessness is over powering…I want to do good things in my community…not hide…I want to look up and have the sunshine warm my face…

I have seen too much. I have witnessed things that no one should see…that should not exist.

I have seen pain, addiction, sin, death, shit…so much actual shit…I wish I could forget it all…wipe my memory clean of it all.

It has shaped how I view myself socially… it has turned myself inward and kept me introverted these past few years. I used to feel so outgoing...

It has morphed & evolved my feelings on drugs…I can’t party like I used to, I have a hard time seeing almost all drug use…I think because I have seen daily how far people can slip…and never get up.

In the beginning I felt so tough and hardcore being able to live in the tenderloin. I felt like a needed to prove a point.

Well the point has been proven…I am one badass bitch that you probably don’t want to mess with…but it has come at a price.

I don’t think the best of man…I think the worst…granted this means I ain’t never going to leave nothing in a car cause I know someone will break into it…but sometimes I wish I could bring back the softness…the purity…the naive thoughts of how we are all awesome and good…I wish often that I could forget the horrors that I have seen…but I can’t…they are burned into my being…branded into my brain.

I can only try to right the wrongs, fix the things that I can…and accept the things that I cannot…and move forward with the lessons that I have learned…and the exactitude that stands before me.

Let’s be honest here peeps…I ain’t no princess…I am a mother-fucking Queen.

It is time that I acknowledge that…understand that…and hold myself accountable to that standard…and walk towards the sun’s shinning light and do all the good that I am capable of doing…because this is my path.

Even the acceptance of destiny comes at a price…a sacrifice…a burden of truth.

To change the world one must change from within and encourage their illumination to be a beacon for those that desire transformation and growth.

It is my obligation as a Queen to do good…it is our obligation as humans to do good.

So goodbye Tenderloin…goodbye Diaries of a Tenderloin Princess…goodbye darkness.

…Hello Light…



Dance Move of the Week:

“It Don’t Smell Like Pee Anymore” Dance

Where I live now…DOES NOT SMELL LIKE PEE...IT IS AWESOME…so why not do a dance about it…

Start the dance move by swinging your hips back and forth and holding your nose in the air…sniff a couple times…ohhhhhh man it smells like Tenderloin Piss…that is the worst cause you know it ain’t all piss ☹ Breathe through your nose a couple times but keep those hips moving…grooving…you have grooved along far enough that you are going to try again, free your nose from your fingers and sniff some more…what is that…Jasmine…hmmmm…smell again…take another deep deep breathe and take it in…huge smile on your face…it don’t small like pee anymore…the hips never stop moving.

This is also a great dance move to sniff people and make sure they smell good (cause smelling good is important!!!!!) and for sniffing out the good weed…cause you know that always smells good…

I personally would use the "Pee Smell" for peeps that smell bad & the "Jasmine Smell" for peeps that smell good.





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