Keep your love and your light.

I am well aware of how pessimistic I sound on this blog, but I am truly the brightest star in the atmosphere if you’re lucky enough to catch me outside of my apartment!

Now, with that being said, this notion of only projecting love and light is a load of bullocks, and I’m here to tell you why.

Your favorite I-Like-Art type girls are always on your favorite 280-Characters-Or-Less social media site imploring you to only accept and project love and light. They tell you something about karma and how you have to protect your energy, and that to do that, you MUST only be nice, positive, and of light. And that’s cute, it really is. They also tell you to forgive, to love away the hate, and to be the one who your ex can call to get bonded out in the middle of the night even though he colluded with another girl that resulted in a pregnancy on you. Still cute if that’s what you’re into.

I’ve tried to subscribe to this narrative MANY times with no success. I’ve willed myself to be positive, to take deep breaths when people are trying to go there with me, and I’ve scolded myself when I’ve failed in these attempts. I’ve apologized to God countless of times for thinking negatively about people, for falling short of his mercy on a daily basis. I’ve also felt a very moderate amount of shame when I could not live up to this perfect image that the Love and Light Girlies constructed, and from this shortcoming I deduced that I would never receive all of the blessings I’ve so fervently prayed for in life because I simply was not love and light enough.

I am usually filled to the brim with positivity for others and I will not run dry when tasked to think of the best and most probable outcomes for their success. I will lather them with compliments, encouragement, affirmation, and hugs, and pray just as hard for their hopes to come into fruition, and if God has chosen for their dreams to come true a little later, I pray for their comfort and peace in the meantime. I try to do this for myself as well, but that doesn’t always work out as I plan for it to. Anyway, I am a bumblebee filled with honey, and my sweetness is unparalleled.

Still, I am rude. I get mean to myself and to others with equality, and I am selfish. I will devote time to finding something wrong with another woman when I am feeling insecure about myself, and while I am smiling and singing your praises, I am definitely asking myself, in my head, when the conversation will be over. I don’t like when people touch me, and I will visibly show it. Sometimes, I think I’m better than other people. Sometimes, I tear people down in my head to make sure that they are not better than me. Sometimes, I text people back. Most of the time I ignore them. I am lazy, and I want nothing to do with the outside world unless I’m getting paid. I hold grudges, I act on resentment at times, and I say the n-word (because I can).

These are parts of me that I have tried to will away and pray away and “love and light”" away. I have tried to ignore these sides of me with fervency, and I have felt disgust with myself at the fact that they exist and persist. I have been so blessed to have been with me for 27 years, and while there are more good parts than bad, I have exhausted myself in attempts to disregard the bad as opposed to… maybe… accepting them. In this year, my 27th year, I’ve decided to concede in the fight of not liking the “bad” parts of me. Yes, I drink wine before noon and yes, I own three vibrators. I am struggling with my knack for projecting blame on others and rolling my eyes when it’s inappropriate, amongst other things. These parts of me, however, the “bad” parts, the parts that religion tells me that God hates and that I should change before I bust hell wide open, are my parts. They are a part of my being — my dual being — and to hide them away in shame is to perpetuate the notion that only my good parts are deserving of love. If my good parts are the only parts that are deserving of love, then that is projecting the notion that I, as I am, am not lovable. It’s casting the idea that I am only lovable in parts, in pieces. That unless I want to be accepted, I will have to ignore and protect my “bad” parts and amplify my good parts at an almost annoying rate. I am projecting that I am not worthy of love as a whole because I have not accepted myself as a whole: I’ve only accepted the parts of me that I can show at church, with my family, with my friends. I’ve only accepted my acceptables, so I’m only offering my acceptables. And I’m amazing, so that’s not fair to me or the people who I indulge life with. In maintaining this posture, I am telling myself that people only like me because of my good side and that if I show them my “bad” side, they will abandon me because I am not good. And then I fulfill this prophecy, because when I do things that are a part of my nature, but that I have also filed into my “bad” compartment, I immediately withdraw myself from others out of fear that they will not like me anymore, because I have shown them my “bad.” In reality, when I only show them my good side, I am deceiving them and almost inviting them to only accept the parts of me that I am willing to show. And if they do that, I cannot blame them.

I am deserving of love in totality and as a whole. My “bad” parts are not bad at all; they are just another layer of me that I’ve subdued out of fear. They’re Spicy Shon, that’s all. Everyone who matters loves spices, anyway.

Of course, I will not rent out a billboard and broadcast that I have parts of me that I have hidden out of shame, but I will be more concerted in not denying that these components of me exist. Do you like to drink, Shon? Yes, I do. Do you curse? Sometimes. Do you wish bad on people? No. Do you think you’re better than some people? All the time. I’m also working on these parts of me. I understand that I should not simmer in these exclusives, but I also should give them some credit while they’re here. I do not want to live in a cave that is absent of love any longer. I want to love myself in totality. I want to revel in my duality and accept myself into an understanding, into a wholeness. **

To be of love and light is fun, I would imagine. And I’m very happy for those who have reached that layer of higher thinking (?) or whatever you call it. I, however, will still work through (Not struggle. I had “struggle” typed out, but I backspaced it because this is not a struggle. It is a privilege.) my spicy side, and I will love it. I will love it so much until it is ready to evolve into a more mild palette, if that’s what it wants. And if that’s not what it wants, that’ll be cool, too. I will work through these things until l have loved myself enough to not have to. Duality, indeed.

** This, also, is easy to do since Jesus has already loved me in totality, my good and “bad,” and is just waiting for me to catch up. A race worth running.