Always A Friend, Never A Girlfriend

As I mentioned back in January, I've been working on a book titled: "Always A Friend, Never A Girlfriend"

This book is about my life experience with being single and how I started out in High School as the home-girl to most of the popular guys in school. My cousin Nek was actually the person to bring it to my attention that she noticed how close I was with all the guys back in High School. I remember some girls even using me to get to guys. I don't think I've ever given much thought to the kind of position I was in. I think during that time of my life, I just enjoyed that I could hang with the guys and they talked around me freely as if I was one of them. The only time it became a problem was if I became attracted to one of them. That's when I learned that in most cases these guys could only see me as a friend and never a girlfriend. The older I got the more annoying this became. I'm thankful that I have a personality that most guys love about me, but it sucks when they can't see past that. The typical line I hear after spending some time with a new guys is " Terrica your hella cool, I've never kicked it with a female like you and had such a cool time and wasn't annoyed by you, Your like the lil sister or home-girl I never had"

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad these guys feel this way around me, but after a while of ALWAYS hearing this, it becomes really annoying. I think I'm developing a phobia. When I meet a new guy that I may be attracted to, I'm terrified thinking that he's only going to see me as a friend. I've never been a tomboy so I'm not sure what it is about me that guys find so home-girly lol. Lets see, my favorite sport is boxing, I love movies and have a DVD collection over a thousand. I'm a social butterfly and love being goofy and silly at times. I like to make people laugh and always want people to feel comfortable around me. To me these sound like normal characteristics. One of my guy best friends Justin told me that when a guy meets me and sees how cool I am to be around they don't want to destroy our friendship by trying to date me. But I say to the men...."Wouldn't you want the best of both worlds?" You could have your cake and eat it too. So through-out my life there have been a few guys I met, and in the beginning I was immediately attracted to them, however the put me in the friend zone an kept me there. So I decided to write a book to tell the tale of Terrica Shervon Smith and her amazing life as the HOMEGIRL. It's pretty funny and even sad at times. I just hope it doesn't take me forever to finish it. Writing a book isn't easy. Its a lot of work and requires a lot of time. I've never done this before but I have a good feeling that this book could turn out to be pretty good and maybe become a movie some day. So keep me in your prayers my friendly readers. See ya back her next week.

Sleeplessness

Most of my family and friends know that I struggle with sleeping. What they don't know is the effect that it has on me. So I've decided to let you in on what I experience pretty much EVERY night.

Since I was a little girl, maybe about 6 to 8 when my mother use to make me and my siblings take naps at 12 Noon, I had always struggled with sleep. My mom would make us lay down and and said we had to sleep for at least 2 hours. Can you imagine what its like for a 6 year old girl to lay in a bed for two ours, tossing and turning? Words can't describe how I felt lying in the bed wishing I could fall asleep. My twin sisters and younger brother didn't have this issue. They would be out in seconds, but not me. My mom knew this because she would walk into the room about every 10 to 15 minutes and say "Terrica you better go to sleep or you not getting out of that bed!" And trust me she meant it. So I had to pretend to sleep. I would just close my eyes and wait till I heard my brother get up. His room was close to mine. We only took naps in the summer. I think this was a way for my mom to clear her head for the day and get things done without 4 kids nagging her all day. I remember thinking how sad I would get when it got close to noon because I knew it would be time for a nap. I even recall crying in the bathroom once because I didn't feel like laying and pretending. Sometimes I fell asleep while I was pretending but most of the time I didn't. I can't remember too much of how I slept at night. My memories for night sleep come back during my years in Jr High and High School. My mom was always strict about bed time during my years in school. 8:30 was bed time for us. In High School I finally got my own phone line and to me it was sort of a life saver. Because I didn't worry about tossing all night, I usually always had a friend to talk to over the phone really late at night. Of course I had to be sneaky because my mom didn't allow me on the phone after a certain time on school nights. My old high school best friend Johnny B use to stay on the phone with me all night. We even fell asleep on the phone. He snored but not really loud, but something about having the sound of him sleeping in my ear help me fall asleep at times. Time went on, I got older and falling asleep got even worse. I started buying sleeping pills over the counter but those would only help for so long. I would end up swallowing more that 12 pills at a time before I would feel sleepy. I knew that wasn't healthy so I would stop buying them for a few months then start back up again. Then I started doing research on my issue when I noticed how traumatized I would become when I knew the day was coming to an end and that it would be bed time soon. I would get so depressed thinking about how I knew I would'nt be able to sleep. So I did some research on the internet, and took a few sleep classes. I tried everything they suggested but nothing worked.

1. Making sure I went to bed at the same time every night
2. taking my TV out of my bedroom
3. not laying in bed all day and only getting in my bed when it was time to sleep
4. taking a hot bath before bed
5. drinking warm milk
6. reading a book
7. crocheting
8. stretching
9. meditation
10. counting
11. noting eating sweets or food a few hours before bedtime.
12. not drinking wine (which by the way I use to have a glass at night thinking it would help but read its the worse thing you could do before bed)
13. Listening to soft music (jazz, sleep, Cd's etc)

I can go on and on. Just because you don't see it listed doesn't mean I haven't tried it. NONE of these things ever helped. Maybe it helped for a few days but it never lasted and I could never figure out why. Its one of the most annoying issues I've ever had to deal with in my life. Its so depressing when your up at 4am in the morning and you know that most of the world is sleeping. At the times that I was in a relationship and living with a guy, my sleep sort of improved. I slept better when I was cuddled up with my man. When the relationship ended and he was no longer in my bed, sleeping became difficult again. My doctor has prescribed sleep medications but they are all addicting. You have no idea what it feels like to come off a medication and go through withdrawals. It's a horrible thing to experience and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

I've done things like:

1. Bye a new bed
2. bye better pillows

But that only helped for so long too.

On average I sleep about 2 hours a night. On a good night I may get 6 hours of sleep, and that's probably only twice a month that I get a good night of sleep. I even have gone 2 days with no sleep at all. I would be at work and feel so drained and tired and the minute I get home and lay down I'd be wide awake like a freaken Owl. I know I'm reaching the point that not sleeping is effecting my health, my only other option is to talk to my Dr about it once again and get back on medication which I fear doing. Today I came into work at 6am my normal start time is 8:30. I couldn't sleep so I figured I might as well go to work. And now its 7:18 am and I'm already feeling drowsy and tired. I've yawned so much my jaws are sore. But I'm familiar with this routine. When I get home I'll try to keep busy till about 8pm and lay down and go to bed, but then my mind will be all over the place and I'll be wide awake, tossing and turning. This is my life, this is what I experience every single day. I can only hope that a solution comes soon. Keep me in prayer readers.

What's A Date to You?

Ok I wasn't going to blog until next week, because I've been dealing with a migraine, writers block and all this other stuff but I changed my mind and I'm back. 

What's A Date To You?

For me there is really only one thing that makes a date A DATE to me lol. And that is.....the guy picks me up from my house. Ok now before you get all crazy on me, If your a guy that has taken me out, please don't think that because you didn't pick me up from home that it wasn't a date. I'm simply trying to express that I've never been picked up for a date. I know that we live in different and dangerous days than we did back in the 50's and 60's. Back then, you could meet a stranger and give him your address and didn't fear for your life, that he'd stalk you, rape you, or even murder you at your OWN house. But sadly today, this is one of those things we have to worry about today and you know WHAT?? That freaken sucks big time to me. Because that means I will never have what I consider to be a real date. I want to know what its like for the guy to knock on your front door with flowers and ask you if your ready to go. he walks you to the car and opens the door for you. You arrive at your destination and he gets out and run to open the car door to let you out (by the way that part of chivalry went out the door decades ago lol).....lets fast forward....you arrive back home and he walks you up to your door and you have that awkward moment of does he deserve a kiss on the lip, the cheek or worse.... the hug or hand shake. It makes me sad to think I'll never have a real date anymore. Every date I've been on, I ended up driving and meeting my date at the location we agreed on. That's ok, but for once it would be nice to experience that old school chivalry. What's A Date to You? Leave your comments below.

V Day....Dead Week

Glad Valentines Day is over. All the Facebook updates from friends and family made me sick to my stomach. I'm getting over a 3 day migraine. So I'll post next week.

Picky Picky! But not anymore

This is a post long over due and I've dreaded even putting it up because honestly I don't care to hear too many opinions on it. But here we go....

I have been told that I'm too picky when comes to dating a guy and I would have to disagree. About 5 years ago I would say that anyone who said that to me was probably correct...because 5 years ago I was picky. Here was my criteria for the type of guy I wanted to date 5 years ago:

He had to be light skinned (I was only attracted to African American light skinned males and didn't date outside my race)

He had to be taller than me (I'm 5 feet so the idea of dating someone my hieight or shorter was out of the question lol)

He had to have because color eyes (hazel, green...it didn't matter as long as they were colored)

He had to have a nice body (I don't even have a great body, what the heck was I doing saying someone should have one lol....Oh well....my mistake lol)

He had to have a decent JOB (As long as it wasn't working at McDonalds at the age of 25 and up it was ok)

He had to have a NICE car (I didn't care what kind, just as long as it wasn't a bucket)

He couldn't have ANY kids (I didn't even have kids)

He had to have some type of college education, some goals and dreams (something that let me know he wasn't a complete idiot)

He had to be a christian and go to church

He had to have a good relationship with his family

He had to be at least my age or maybe 5 years older. No more than 5 and he could only be 1 year younger.

He had to have his own apartment (I was ok with him living with a room mate but not staying at moms place)

I could go on and on. I was VERY picky back then. I guess I figured if I'm going to date, then why not date exactly what I want. But I was young and dumb. The older I got the more I realized what world I was living in and it was the land of Terrica gets what EVER she wants lol. It was the real world. So today this is my criteria for the type of guy I want to date:

He has to be a christian and go to church (Its difficult to date outside of my religion and it can cause problems down the line so I get this one out of the way first)

He can't be 6-10 years younger than me. (I'm currently 31 and my sister tried to hook me up with a 21 year old) I've dated men younger than me and none of them worked out, so lets just say warning comes before destruction. I can do about 5 years younger but no more than that. As for older my limit is 45. My mom is currently 50 anything near her age is just too weird lol.

THAT'S IT (Now is that picky?) If your answer is YES...then bite me!

I will say a lot of those other items still pop up every now and then but it changes as I meet different guys. I'm a lot more understanding. Although I would like to date a guy with no kids its OK that he has children as long as he wants more with me because I don't have any. I can manage a man living at home with his mom (But it better have a GOOD explanation behind it lol) I don't care what kind of car he drives anymore. If it gets him from A to B that's alright with me. Times are hard and not everyone can afford some fancy expensive car. I use to never be interested in dating outside of my race but that's no longer an issue. Having a job can be a problem, especially if he can't take me out or if I'm always the one paying but like I said, times are hard right now. Jobs are very hard to find so I'm more understanding in this area. I don't care about the relationship he has with his family as long as he's a decent person and treats people with respect. As for his looks, that topic can be a bit tricky; however as long as he's sexy in my eyes I don't care what anyone else thinks. But he does have to appeal to my eye. I can't really say anymore, I just know when I'm attracted to a guy. I'm no longer picky on body size (However he can't be 400 pounds over weight and bound to his couch at home....by the way that has happened to me before lol meeting a guy over the internet...that's another story) So I don't consider myself picky anymore. But everyone has to agree that we all have some standards. Because of how this world is, we all have a different opinion on what's beautiful or ugly to us. I wish we all could see ourselves and others the way God see's us all which is Beautiful.