The Product of a Broken Heart

by Crystal Ismael

  Next, I began to change my environment. Changing my mind about certain things eventually drove me to change my environment. Trying to grasp hold of change while still doing the same things nearly drove me crazy. I was still trying to go to the clubs and hang out with the same old friends. Somehow, that didn’t work out. It didn’t fit into the vision I had seen, so hanging out with these ladies and attending the same places became very unfitting to what I was trying to achieve. “Oh, it won’t be so bad if I go drinking with him,” I would tell myself. One time won’t hurt. Oh, silly of me. Doing all these things slowly pulled me back into situations I was trying to rid myself of.

  I slowly began to change my environment, instead of The Margarita Shack, I went to Starbucks. Instead of going to the club on a Saturday night, I went to go see a movie. I started to laugh a little more. I started to dance a little more. I started to spend Sundays with the kids at the park a little more, which turned out to be my favorite thing to do on Sundays. I had to completely change my environment to become healthier new me. I couldn’t just dip in and dip out when circumstances allowed me to. To change, I had to totally change my mind and how I viewed life! I had to understand that I can’t go through life half changed. Is that even a thing? Some people go through life telling themselves that they are half over something. It’s like if I told myself that I was half over drugs. Either I was over it or I wasn’t.

  Either I was going to change for the better or not. If I thought that everything was going to be okay, while doing what I wanted to do without boundaries and standards, then I would quickly have found myself getting sucked back into the things of the past or adding to the trouble I was trying to leave behind. I was either going to change or stay the same. There is no in-between. If I would have tried to change and continued to do the same thing, I would see the same people starting to come back around. The same poor decision-making will start to sprout back up, and I will soon find myself back in the same place I tried so hard to run away from.

  Until I no longer desired to do those things, then and only then did things begin to flow naturally. It felt good at the time to go to the clubs when guys use to rub up on me while getting me drunk on tequila, filling me with drugs, and with plans of how my night would end up. Dressing half naked so I can appeal to what I thought I needed. All that felt good because I got attention. I attracted what was in me and how I felt about myself. I got smiles and likes, and in some strange way, it boosted my self-esteem. I didn’t have it within myself to boost myself, so I looked for others to do it for me. I was feeding the hurt and the pain with what I thought I needed. The people I associated with were the people who confirmed what was going on within me, but when my desires changed, so did everything in me and around me. I am a firm believer that I cannot do anything by half doing it.

  I had to eventually learn to deal with my self-esteem. It’s something I give myself, something that is found in me, rooted from within. A study showed that someone with low self-esteem can be deeply rooted with origins in traumatic childhood experiences, such as prolonged separation from parent figures, neglect, emotional, physical, or sexual abuse. How I felt about things and how I acted toward certain things all derive from deep issues from within. Self-esteem is the matrix through which I think, feel, act and determines our relationship with ourselves and others. My low self-esteem caused me to allow others to treat me like I was nothing because that was how I felt about myself. I felt like I was nothing, so I allowed others to treat me as if I was nothing, and my choices provided evidence about how I felt about myself.

  When I obtained a healthy self-esteem, I didn’t allow myself to be centered on externals such as status or income or use drugs and alcohol or even sex to feel appreciated or loved. I had to be able to accept what happened. Stop playing the victim and ultimately dealing with my issues. I wouldn’t be able to change if I didn’t acknowledge what needed to be changed. If I had never gotten to the point of recognizing and acknowledging what was wrong with me, I would still be addicted to drugs and alcohol, working and working with no career, no vision, and no goals, spinning my own wheels. I would still be buried under all the garbage I decided to bring into my everyday living, bringing my fatherless issues, my molestation issues, my homeless problems, my mother problems, my drug problems … my me issues, and never taking the time to deal with myself, setting up myself and everyone I approached for a complete disaster.

  When finding out who the real Dana is, I realized how much I liked writing, how much I liked sitting in the park on a fall morning, or how, when the breeze of winter hits my face, I light up inside. As I dealt with myself, I started to discover things I didn’t know about myself that were buried under all that baggage, the garbage I carried with me year after year.

  I started to cut the onions to put on the chicken, forgetting how fast time has flown by. What I thought was going to be an easy task turned out to be thirty minutes of prepping, which included a few calls down the hall at Amanda and Jordan. As I placed the chicken into the oven, I was reminded of the rule of inhaling and exhaling. No matter where I am in life, I had to remember, I must exhale. Dealing with myself takes time. I can’t tell myself that I want to change and the next moment become a finished work. Dealing with myself is a lifetime commitment and process. Reminding myself I cannot overturn years of damage in one day.

  To this day, I am constantly dealing with myself, trying not to view people or situations through the lenses of my past. Even though my decision to change took place due to the awakening and willingness for something new, I still have a propensity to act out of my experience. I remember I had trust issues for the longest time. It still sneaks up on me. If you looked like you were not telling the truth, I would consider you lying. Everyone was up to something, I use to think. I would misplace something and think someone stole it. I found out that most of the time, the people I blamed were telling the truth. I was seeing them and the situation through my old lenses.

  It’s funny how the eye doctor tells me to come back and get my eyes tested in a year or six months. That’s because the way I am seeing this year might not be the way I see next year. I could no longer wear lenses that I had years ago, and see functionally with them today. They no longer would work.

  That’s not to say those triggers won’t pop up every now and again, but I know how to adjust my lenses and keep moving forward. My past always presented itself when people began to get too close to me. I always questioned what they were up to. Oh, they are just setting me up for heartbreak. Oh, they just have to be up to something, I would think.

  I chuckled to myself as I thought back on the time after I had the twins. Christian was in and out of my life, and the future I wanted with him became a complete blur. So I tried moving on. I had still not dealt with myself at this point.

  There was this guy named James. I remembered the chills I had when I saw him come into my drive-through at Long John Silver’s. I must have thought I had a second chance at this thing called love or whatever this world had to offer me at the time. I handed him his fish basket, as he smiled and looked at me. It felt like every hair on my body stood up as he drove off. I stood there, not moving, and couldn’t say a word. I just stared at him as he drove off, as if he would come riding back on the white horse like in every fairy tale ending.

  This was a small town. Everyone who was someone knew of someone who knew someone. Luckily, I was friends with his cousin Jessica. Yes, she would put the word through for me. She would let him know exactly how I felt. And Jessica did just that. After a few conversations between Jessica and I, James fell right into my hands. Then it all began—the roller-coaster of insanity.

  I was trying to start another serious relationship with the same mindset, seeing out of my old lenses. James was a little different. He actually tried being in my life, but I had luggage from my past and tried to make it exist in my present and future. I had brought my trust issues, my father issues, my mother issues,
my me issues. If he told me he was in one place, I would call him a liar and say that he wasn’t. I was operating out of my issues, seeing him through expired lenses. This relationship had so many fights and arguments, all because I didn’t take the time to deal with myself before adding blocks to my life. I was not ready to have something I was not prepared to handle. This went on until the relationship spiraled out of control. I made it into something I so desperately was trying to run from. There I was, left alone again.

  I didn’t want to, but subconsciously, I was acting out my past, and I didn’t even know the damage I was causing others, damaging one relationship after another as I went. I had let my past interrupt my present. I had to learn to cut the problem at the root. It’s like if I tried to watch a movie with lots of noise around—people yelling, kids running around, dishes being slammed. I soon, will take my attention off the movie, which was the main focus, and put it on the distractions that surrounds me. That is how it looked when I tried to deal with myself with distractions around me. The distractions will become the main factor and what was needing to be the main event is pushed aside so the distractions can take the center stage.

  I didn’t like being by myself because that was when I began to think about my issues, to look at what was wrong. I had loved people around me. I loved clubs. I loved drinking and drugs because they silenced the real problem that screamed out in my tranquility. I had to get to a point where being by myself was a gift. It’s a time to find out who I was, my likes and dislikes, and to understand that being alone doesn’t mean I was lonely. While going through the healing process of my issues, it was a must that I learned to be alone.

  That doesn’t mean being separate from the world. It doesn’t mean that I stopped going to the spiritual awareness meetings or stopped having fun, but I learned to enjoy my alone time, being pleased without always having a crowd of people around me. I Learned to light a candle and buy flowers for myself. Sit in the park and read a book by myself. Go to the movies and laugh by myself just as I would if I had a crowd. I had to Learn why I do certain things, why I snap at certain things, what triggers what. I had to Learn what I like and what I don’t like. I had to get to know myself all over again!

  To enjoy the ride, knowing that every day won’t be perfect. Learning to take the same smile and joy I have on a good day with me on a bad day, until every day is a good day! No matter what I went through, I will have joy that should not be taken away by things, situations and people. Every day I wake up is another opportunity to learn about myself, to seek higher, to dream bigger, and to love harder.

  That took me a while to do. That kind of living didn’t happen overnight. I used to be the one who thought that people who were always happy and laughing were strange. I would look at them and ask myself, what in the world is wrong with them? It’s not that much joy in the world! Can’t they see the economy is jacked up? Don’t they see that three women yesterday, right down the road, were murdered? What in the heck is so funny and happy about what is going on in the world? But the process taught me how to keep my joy in the midst of chaos.

  Chapter 10

  “Dana, I am glad you enjoyed the meeting. I knew that you would,” Chasity said when she showed up for work the following day.

  “I really did, Chasity. I hope I can continue in the new me that I have found.”

  Before I could finish, she blurted out, “Dana, if you want to continue in the new you, you will,” and she smiled as she always did when she finished a conversation, smiling as if someone just told her to pose for a picture.

  She had the prettiest white teeth. I’m sure she goes and gets her teeth bleached, I thought to myself as I glared at her.

  I went back to my job, smiling and ready to see what the future had in store for me.

  “Dana! Dana!” my friend Jasmine called out from the living room as I was getting dressed for work the next day. “Are you going out tomorrow night?” she asked, walking up to my room. “There is a party in Freeport,” she continued, disregarding the fact that I was getting dressed.

  Thinking about what she had asked, I shrugged and tried to ignore the ridiculous look she was giving me with one eyebrow raised and her hand on her hip. I rolled my eyes and slipped on my uniform top, knowing I just wanted to stay home and maybe run to Blockbuster and grab a movie or two, for I didn’t have the desire to do what I was doing before. Also, I did not want to see Christian any more than I had to, and I knew he would be there. Somehow, he always made time to party but never had time to spend with his kids, I thought as I ran my hand down my uniform, in hopes to knock out a few wrinkles.

  Exhaling a deep breath, I slowly said, “I don’t know.”

  “What you mean, you don’t know!” she asked sharply, as if my answer was incorrect, as if it wasn’t the answer she was expecting.

  I wanted to scream out, what does it mean to you? Instead, I said, “I just want to stay home tonight!” I was trying to brush off the fact that she was completely irritating me as she concerned herself with the fact that I was not going to some stupid party seeing the same old people which were doing the same ole thing.

  As I went into the restroom and applied my makeup, I looked in the mirror and saw Jasmine as she paced the floor with her cell phone to her face, slowly walking into my room and then flopped on my bed, folding her hands slightly on her chest.

  She softly yet with anger asked me again, “What do you mean you’re not going?” as she started to twirl her phone around in her hand.

  “Exactly what I said, Jasmine,” I said, looking her in the eye so she would know coming into my room uninvited was not going to change my answer. “I just want to stay in tomorrow.” I was irritated that she kept asking the same question.

  She gave me a smirk and walked off. “Girl, you sho’ changed after that little near-death experience you had. Now you don’t want to go anywhere or do anything but run up to that building up the road with all those people who claim they’re “woke.” She said as she motioned her hands.

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I wished she would shut up, or more than that, I wished she would just leave.

  “Girl, you just became an old lady overnight,” she stated as she was gathering her belongings. Then she turned around as she walked toward the front door. Opening it, she asked, “What happened to the fun Dana, the happy one, the one that didn’t give a care in the world?” She stared at me and then gently shut the door.

  What did happen to me? What is wrong with me? I wondered as she left. I didn’t want to do what I did before, and I didn’t know entirely what I was doing now. All I knew for sure was that I was not that same Dana anymore. I shrugged in irritation at Jasmine’s words. She was supposed to be my friend, I thought.

  I had stopped receiving calls from the hook-up guys, I had stopped drinking, and most importantly, I had left Christian alone. Too tired to deal with whatever Jasmine tried to dish out, I finished up the last of my makeup and darted out the door.

  As I was walking up to the door of my job, part of me felt irritated at Jasmine. “Who is she to tell me that I had become an old lady overnight? The nerve of her,” I said, talking to myself as I went into the building.

  “Dana!” Chasity called out as I swiped the time card, startled as she interrupted my thoughts about my so-called friend.

  “Hey, lady,” I replied, smiling at her, thankful that at least I had her on my team, rooting for me. She gave me a tight hug with a gentle rub of assurance on my back. Chasity was a bright lady; when I say bright, I’m not talking about skin tone. It was her presence that was bright, even though she always wore the most colorful clothes and eye-catching earrings. Her personality was just the icing on the cake I thought smiling back at her.

  “Are you going to the meeting tomorrow?” she asked, standing there in her bright yellow and pink uniform top with her yellow and green earrings dangling back and forth. She swayed back a
nd forth impatiently, waiting for me to respond, which was a shock, because she usually would have answered for me.

  “Yes,” I responded, looking at her giggle.

  She gave me another hug. “You seem like you need that,” she said, turning around and walking off, smiling from ear to ear.

  Forgetting what happened with Jasmine, I quickly put on a smile, letting go of the fact that who I thought was my friend just called me an old lady and that I was not the girl I used to be. As I walked down the hall, a slight smile slipped onto my face. I am not the same, I began thinking. I am not the same, I repeated to myself, then I started to laugh as the thought began to resonate in me …

  Thank goodness the rain had finally passed, I could open up the windows and allow some air to flow through the house. The breeze felt good as it blew through the window I had opened while I did a little cleaning around the house. I laughed to myself as I went through the house, collecting clothes from the children’s rooms that did not fit them now. How quickly they grew, I thought as I picked up some pants from Christina’s room. It felt as if I had just purchased those particular jeans last week, I said to myself while holding them in the air.

  As I threw the clothes in the bag, I thought back on that period in my life when I decided not to hang with the same crowd I used to and how I decided not to expose my body anymore, the moment I said, “This is it.” I realized how quickly my life began to change. It seemed like it was just yesterday when I was sitting in that spiritual awareness meeting, listening to Mr. Ben on that fully packed bench. I thought about that period when my closest friends became what I felt like my enemies overnight.

  It was at that point when I had to understand the difference between a chicken and an eagle. A chicken’s mentality versus an eagle’s mentality was crucial in my overall success and my process of attaining anything I wanted out of life. If I want nothing, I will never push for anything—a chicken’s mentality—so I will remain in the same position I am in, flapping my wings, hopping up but back down I go. Years and years go by and wonder why I’m not happy and satisfied with myself.