Change is coming.

Change. Inevitable.Certain.Constant.....Necessary.

I need a change. Then again make that..many changes. I need to make a life-changing decision to change my life. But where do I begin? Many would say I have a pretty good life (from what they can see, that is). I have a god job at a big commercial bank, fully loaded with benefits and all. I live on my own in a neat little apartment which is centrally located and quite comfortable. I have my own car, a nice family....the list goes on. So what's my problem???! (that's what you are wondering right?). My problem is I need a change. Simple as that. I have never been one to be excited about change, but lately I have come to appreciate it tremendously. On the other hand it scares me to death, I won't lie. In my recent journey to see change as a positive thing, I have come to the realization that most people, myself included, misunderstand and in turn fear change.

Let me get to my point. I have been working in the bank for 10 years now. The first 6 years I was a teller. By about year 4 I was boooorrrred and yearning for a change. I applied for other positions all over. Anything I could find! Finally I got one.Jackpot!! Hooray..a change! Now I have been in this current position for 4 years.Guess who is bored to death again.Yup..ME. But this time I am not interested in trying to find a "new position". It just won't be enough. I need a change. A real change. Not a shift or a movement. A change. The kind of change that makes you forget where you were before it happened.Better yet, the kind of change that makes you not even care what happened one second before it began. That irreversible, can't look back, won't look back, not interested to look back kind of change. The problem is....very few people feel this way. Or maybe they do but prefer to ignore it. You see, to want change, this  type of huge life-altering, turn everything upside down type of change is perceived as an ungrateful act. How could I dare to want to leave my "good" job to want more? ...To be happy? ...what's that about? They just can't understand it. I used to fight with them and try to get them to see my point but I have accepted we are different. They have decided that despite being sick of their job, the perks and being able to pay the bills, the mortgage and drive a nice car makes them "happy".Or at least it doesn't make them sad. Yes I want to have a nice car and a house and be able to buy nice things....but the fact is I also want to be able to do those things and do something I like. 

Gasp!Blasphemy!

Yes I said it. I want more, but I want it my way. So I am making a change. It doesn't make me ungrateful for my job or anything I have accomplished. As a matter of fact I am most thankful for my journey because it has brought me to where I currently am.Where I should be.

It is sad that we have been molded into settlers. Persons who should just be grateful for where we are and not dare to venture the realms of what we could be. Persons who are realistic and logical and discouraged from dreaming. Slaves to our responsibilities and bound by our circumstances. Limited.Stuck. Suffocated by imaginary boundaries encrypted in our brains. When we were in high school we were told we could become anything we dared to imagine...but pick one. One path. One major. One career....one way to be "successful" and inevitably one avenue to "happiness".

I didn't choose my path...didn't go to college to pursue a major...and I don't have a career.For many years I was angry with myself for screwing up my life and missing my one chance to be successful, accepting I would never see happiness all because I could not choose my single focus. I made myself fit into the settler mold  just being content with the little I had and making it feel like much. That clearly didn't work, because here I am frustrated out of my mind, wiggling out of the mold I never fit in to begin with. In a boundary-free world where business partners are on separate continents and teleconference calls replace board meetings, why should I be confined, in my ideas, my thoughts, my aspirations or dreams?

I choose to make a change. I choose to dream. I choose to believe and let God do the rest.

I choose change.

A heavvvvvy heart.

I got one of those phone calls last night that everyone dreads. While in deep sleep I heard my house phone ring at about 11:45pm.."who the helll??". A familiar voice was on the other end, in tears, shock and fear telling me his cousin was shot, killed....the little one..the baby. Of a family of five kids this young man was the "wash belly" of the group. They used to play football together every Friday night religiously and communicated every single day, just to say hey or chat bout school, life, girls or some random shit. They were close. But now , he was being told his "blood" was lying on cold concrete, lifeless.
He had to go. He had to see for himself. "This cannot be happening" , I am sure he thought as he sped all the way to the scene. He was only 20 years old. A student.Handsome fellow. "Wouldn't hurt a fly", is what many would say.
A sudden chill ran over me as my brain rendered me speechless. What could I possibly say?? I listened as he frantically ran off the phone and prayed it was a mistake. I eventually fell back asleep, but when I got up this morning it was the first thing on my mind. Oh my God, what did I really hear last night? I don't think I have ever wished so hard for something to be a nightmare, but I did. Then it hit me.He said HE WAS DEAD.I headed to the shower running on autopilot, I don't even know how I got ready. We hear these tings all the time..well....e.v.e.r.y.d.a.y. but when it's right there,in your space,it sure is different.

I texted my mother and told her the devastating news, only for it to get worse. He was also a friend of my little sister. She knew him since prep school and now they were at university together....it doesn't end there. She saw him just yesterday. They hugged and chatted for a bit. What must she be feeling right now? What could I possible say to her?

My heart is heavy. Heavy because despite the millions of issues plaguing Jamaica right now I don't know what is going to happen in terms if violent crimes such as these. I don't know whether to be afraid or mad as hell. Afraid that one night I too may get such a chilling phone call, but more so mad that these "persons" if they be called such, have seemed to scared the Jamaican people into submission. It's like its their world and we all just paying rent until THEY  decide our time is up and we need to move out. Why should a 20 year old student get the news that yet another friend has been shot down. Why should kids be attending funerals.....one every couple months at that? As a people,we will soon have more black clothes than any other colour and eventually, it will only be funeral homes that have a booming business in this downhill economy. This grieves me. Lately, I don't see anybody expressing surprise when they find out a friend has been brutally murdered. BB statuses now read " Another one gone" or "God is recruiting his angels". What is really going on???

My heart is heavy.Just thinking of a mother who wasn't able to protect her youngest, a brother who could not  look out for his lil bro, a  father who won't  see his son graduate, sisters who communicate via email and haven't hugged their brother in while, a cousin who lost his Friday night football partner and confidante, a friend who held her long time friend for the last time and had no clue,she would not be seeing him again.

As if life isn't hard enough, then there are moments like these when people suffer at the hand of the wicked. When you are forced to wonder about life and your own existence, when you begin to question God and his plan for you, when you are angered by the imbalance of evil over good, regardless of how hard you try to maintain the latter..... when we remember and recite the 23rd Psalm.

As I pray for the family of yet another fallen young soldier, I cannot help but feel the extensive weight of my heart as I can only imagine what they are going through.Better yet..I cant imagine...so in the meantime, I extend my support and help where I can, but it doesn't change the fact that.....my heart heavy.

R.I..P Brian...

What's good on tv?

So it's 10:30 on a Saturday night and I have found myself in the same damn predicament I do every Saturday night...nothing to watch. I am convinced that the coordinating of the cable channel's line-up is being done by one bad-mind muthaf*cker whose longest workday is probably Saturday and just decided that he is gonna screw up Saturday night tv watchers everywhere, cause dis nuh mek no sense.


All week I find myself a box off work to come home and watch one bag o tings, or a pop mi neck fi leave work or some friend house or event to come home and watch a portion of things you have lined up. To the point where some days some a di show dem all clash and you find yourself either a flip back and forth or you haffi work out the opportunity cost of watching on versus the other based on how available the other is to stream online the next day.But Saturday night.....noooooooooooooooooooooooooo sah! Zip, zero, zilch , nada....NUTTIN! All Sunday night a do better than this to hell (likke Desperate Housewives, some Dexter or Shameless...throw een some Californication or sumn...seet deh ----> opitons).


Di ting serious!!! Mi shame fi say I find miself a resort to HGTV more time, a watch people a design and buy dem dream house or some "vacation home in the Caribbean"... and a badmind dem.KMFT!


I hope the TV Gods are reading this cuz the balance need fi shift. You caan have di whole a di good series dem a come on inna di week when people deh a work and a come home late, hungry and tired, berely a manage fi stay awake fi see di end and den pon Saturday when you don't have a r*ss fi do a soso HGTV and Friends re-run to di ting..Dat nuh stay good. Clean up your act and get right!


Phoenix signing out.

School is in session

So tonight was the season premier of Kartel's very own reality show " Teacher's Pet" and of course it was well anticipated ( I cussed off my friends for not informing me, but thank God for Zip).I am beginning to wonder if anybody was even on the road between 10 and 11pm tonight or if it looked like boxing day afternoon....*ghost town*.

So it starts off with us "meeting" the girls. They all have "pet names" and tell us a little bit about themselves and why they are here. First thing I wondered was ....weh di Jamaican girl dem? Anyhoo, there is a Russian girl (who look horny as hell), twins who come from Jamaican backgrounds bout live in NY - gangsta much! ,this curly hair girl whose accent I cannot even begin to recognise, a Trini ...in all there are 19 girls. Should have been 20 but Kartel said something about one girl being held by immigration.

True Kartel style.

So, there is this one girl, her pet name is Australia. I dont know where Kartel find this girl from but she is a true COKEHEAD! Jeezas, wha wrong wid da gyal deh????? She like bipolar-schizophrenic-pyscho wid a touch of ADD. Di gyal jus talk and talk and talk, she random as f*ck Den she go pick fight with the twins. Lawd have mercy! Smaddy couldn't warn her nuh fi mess with thick,black women with Jamaican blood and NY upbringing...is  a death sentence! One a di twins rush di gyal (who by now is literally running around the yard) and put on bout 6 lick in har face..proppa lick enuh! Is right side a one security guard Australia go buil' afta dat. Did I mention this was now 24 hours since they have arrived at the house and she still inna di same clothes? Oh,and that she jumped in the pool win those clothes the night before? Mi seh, di gyal nearly tek the girl fi a granulated punching bag.Too funny!

Needless to say, the teacha expelled her.

Listening to these woman speak about how they feel about Kartel nearly kill me.Russian say "Kartel is like my viagra (memba mi say she look honry all the time..imagine when she see him!) One girl simply said "real recognise real.....doh? One girl said "He is just sooooo sexy".But apart from Russian, there was one woman who said " mi jus love him....mi love him style, him music...mi love di slackness" <----- di yaadie, she SHOT!

Of course you know if you place 19...now 18 diverse females from all over in one house it's going to be draaaama every second of the day and man they did not disappoint! How di twins bad so????? Dem come een like a tag team pon WWF Monday Night Raw to raahtid.

All in all I am curious to see if the premier will be the only highlight of the whole season or if the show can retain the attention it got tonight.Guess we will see next week.

CLASS DISMISSED.

Hustle,Hustle, Hustle ......HARD!

Today I had the "pleasure" of visiting the U.S Embassy to renew my oh-so-precious visa. Why wasn't I warned about this? Funny enough I see now that the entire process leading up to physically being at the embassy is pretty intense but getting there was another story! I used to think that Jamaicans who ran away from their homeland into the arms of U.S Homeland security were  cowards but today I found myself on the outskirts of "American soil" about to beat down the damn door to get in!! What the hell is up with the Standpipe people that literally descend on the applicants at 7am in the friggin morning?
My mother dropped off me and my sister right outside the Embassy and immediately a woman walked  right up to the car door and was all up in our face.I swear she was about to jump in the car, she was THAT CLOSE! That intial shock threw my entire concentration, but I was in for a rude awakening. Upon joining the line in the boiling hot sun, armed with nothing but an envelope containing my documents, I looked up, down and across the street to see random people just standing around staring at the persons in line.

When I mean standing there enuh!!!!  The ones in closest proximity were like an arm's length away from you.If you sneeze dem get wet up. So by now there are two lines.The people who are actually here to enter the Embassy and the people conducting "business" who are right beside them(then the others standing on the median in the road and the ones across the road). Then I noticed that most of them had some clear plastic bags in their hands and I could figure out why, after all they were empty,what were they selling?. Just to see a lady two persons in front of me unload her cell phone and some other forbidden articles she had in her bag.The items were placed in the plastic bag and "safely" placed in the handbag of the temporary caregiver. W.T.F????  I mean these people are serious.Some of them are designated "parking attendants" and they also escort you from your car to the designated line, after which you are that persons full concern.They then tell u what you need to have ready, which line to join and what you are allowed to take with you. Sound like the embassy need fi hire dem, dont it?
When the actual security comes along now to check your documents, of course there is berely any space for them to walk or even talk to you as the "guardians" are all up in the mix. Funny enough they seem to just ignore them.

Out there was like a market place, right in front of the people dem big fancy establishment. Suppose you see man just a stand up and look. By time dem dun they should be able to tell you what size shoes you wear and if you have on a string bikini or thong.Jeez I felt like I was a canary diamond on display.Mi start sweat!!

Sad to say, I hear this is how it is everyday except when the police are present in which case they stand across the street and shout. SIGH.Why Jamaicans stay so? Have to hustle out everything ... down to the line at the U.S Embassy? Really? If I never really felt the need to have a means of leaving here once in a while...today I did, and now I can honestly say I ran away from Jamaica, if even for two hours into Obama-land.