the journey to me

100% Real.

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 09:04:33 -0400

I’ve been a tad MIA this weekend. It was just really busy.

My boyfriend moved into his new apartment with his older sister this weekend. I went over there last night to check it out and watch the Mavs kick ass. I had it set in my mind that I’d talk to him about whether he sees me with him when he envisions his future, but I chickened out because we were having a good time. My mother decided to tell me yesterday morning that she’d basically disown me in a way, if when I moved out, I decided to be with him (she still doesn’t know that we’re dating). So I have to make sure that this relationship is 100% real and going somewhere, especially since lately it’s been a little off balance. I believe in my heart that he wouldn’t waste my time and energy like this, if he didn’t see a future with me. He obviously knows and was there for all the drama when my parents found out we were together. So I know and hope to God that he wouldn’t do that to me. But nonetheless, the conversation has to happen to reassure me that I’m making the right decision by staying with him. I feel bad for him because there’s a lot of pressure to make this relationship work to prove my parents wrong in the end, but if he believes that I’m the one he wants, it’ll be fine. He always said in the past that he doesn’t want anyone but me.

I don’t know what’s going to happen and I wish I could predict the future, but we’ll see what happens with this conversation…when I grow the balls to bring it up.

Tired Of Hiding.

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 09:59:36 -0400

thoseways:

I’ve decided that a couple months after I move out, maybe august or september, I’m going to tell my mother that I’m dating my boyfriend. I have it all planned out in my mind.

Mom, I just want to let you know, because you should know, that I’m dating T. You knew that I would once I moved out and wasn’t under you hand anymore, I would most likely choose to be with him. If you can’t accept it, I will have to continue to hide my relationship from you, which I hate doing. You know how much me hiding things from you and you hiding things from me affects our relationship. I want to be able to tell you things and share my life with you like I used to, but I can’t if you’re so close minded. If you don’t want to associate with me anymore, that’s on you ultimately. That will just show me the level of maturity involved. I love you, but this is who I want to be with and have wanted to be with for a while now. I can’t stop loving someone because you don’t want me to, that’s not how it works.

It probably won’t come out as sophisticated and diplomatic as that. But I’ll try. I’m just tired of hiding my relationship and being unhappy in order to make someone else happy. I would like to control my own happiness now, please and thank you. It all starts with the move. 22 days.

Positivity.

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 10:20:54 -0400

thoseways:

I honestly believe that once you decide that you want and are going to be happy, it’ll happen. If you wake up every morning and believe that you will live this day to the fullest, you will. I mean, having a bad day is fine. Being in a bad situation is also fine. However, if you just look at everything under a negative light, everything will always seem and be negative for you.

Find some positivity in your every day. There is always a reason to smile.

Gone, But Not Forgotten.

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 10:20:13 -0400

I’m not going to be posting in this blog a lot anymore. My new blog, thoseways, is where I have decided to put everything. But I’m going to keep this blog activated because it holds a lot of memories, thoughts, lessons and experiences.

I love this blog, but I’ll most likely just be reblogging the personal posts from thoseways.

I Have Decided.

Sun, 29 May 2011 14:45:23 -0400

thoseways:

I have decided to not become a victim of my circumstances and negative experiences. There is a reason that I have been put into certain situations and I shouldn’t dwell on the bad things. I have decided to focus more on what I can do for myself rather than what others haven’t done for me. I have decided to focus on what I have rather than get upset about what I don’t have. There’s more to life than worrying about the things that aren’t really necessary. It’s just added stress and it’s not worth it, nor is it mentally and emotionally healthy.

I have decided to not bring past and negative experiences into new ones. The new experiences are new for a reason. No two experiences are exactly the same. I have decided to learn from the past and bad experiences, rather than bring them with me into the future.

I have decided that I am not a victim. I have decided that I am a survivor. I have decided that I will change my perspective on the past, in order to build a healthy future for myself. For the only person who can truly determine my future is me.

ATTN: Greater Toronto Area

Sun, 22 May 2011 18:23:00 -0400

thoseways:

I’m free all day tomorrow for anyone who is interested in booking a shoot with me.* I can fit three shoots into the day.

I’m charging only $60 per shoot**, this does not include a makeup artist. Email me at: martikagregory@gmail.com if you’d like to book one, or message me in my ask box.

*The location of the shoot can be up to you, however it cannot be in a studio.
**A deposit of 50% of final rate must be given at the time of the booking.

Official Website

- Martika.

Proclaimation.

Sat, 21 May 2011 10:22:44 -0400

thoseways:

Want to know how I know I love you as much as I proclaim?
When you call from a different phone other than your own, and I pick up not knowing it’s you and I hear your voice and I can feel my heart flutter and bounce around in my chest. It’s as if all the butterflies from my stomach flew to my chest and gave my heart wings, all because I heard your voice.

Departures.

Fri, 20 May 2011 20:06:30 -0400

thoseways:

There comes a time when you realize that certain people show up in your life for a reason and certain people leave you life for a reason. The ones that leave your life served their purpose. They taught you something, whether you acknowledge it now or in the future; whether it was a small lesson or a huge, life-altering lesson, they did.

This is how I am trying to view people’s departures from my world. They have served their purpose and have moved on to serve purpose elsewhere. Logical, I think. Sad at times, but logical.

- part two

Fri, 20 May 2011 14:14:35 -0400

I’m just really overwhelmed. I feel like I can’t breathe. Too many things have transpired within a small period of time. I’m sitting at work, trying to keep it together and it’s proving to be difficult. Too many feelings, too many conversations, too many people.

I need an escape.

-

Fri, 20 May 2011 14:05:15 -0400

My boyfriend and I are both going through an overwhelming time in our individual personal lives. We’re both in a depressive state, I think. Our issues are different, but we feel the same..

And that’s all I can write without tearing up.
Apologies, maybe later.

theways: You VS Them || Jhene Aiko

Fri, 20 May 2011 13:06:15 -0400

theways:

You VS Them || Jhene Aiko

He broke his phone yesterday, but he didn’t want to break...

Fri, 20 May 2011 09:35:13 -0400

He broke his phone yesterday, but he didn’t want to break our morning tradition.

HBD.

Thu, 19 May 2011 19:08:30 -0400

Today is my father’s birthday. I’m not calling him though because he failed to call me for mine. We haven’t talked since our big fight in September or October. Anyways, I wouldn’t be able to call him if I wanted to. I deleted all his contact info the day after my birthday.

Happy Birthday…Dad.

Insecurities.

Thu, 19 May 2011 09:48:27 -0400

Just like anyone else, I have some insecurities. Surprise. However, I choose to ignore one particular one because I get told I’m stupid for having this insecurity. I don’t tell anyone about it. Only three of my friends know, and now my boyfriend knows. I wasn’t planning on telling my boyfriend because I didn’t want him to think I lacked self-confidence, because I don’t. I just have this thing that I don’t like about myself sometimes.

And thing is: I don’t like my body shape. Let me stop you before you start. I know I’m skinny. I know this, trust me. I’m told all the time. But I just wish that I could be more shapely. I don’t have any qualms about my breasts (I’m a 34C); if they were any bigger, they’d be too much for me to handle. However, it’s my lower half that I struggle to accept. I’m naturally thin. I don’t have hips or an ass that I like. I don’t want a huge ass, mind you. I’m 5”3, so I don’t want to look abnormal. I just don’t like the skinniness.

I had to tell my boyfriend about this because he put up a picture of this half naked girl as his bbm display picture; she had a small waist, wideish hips, big boobs. It wasn’t abnormal looking, she just looked really fit and shapely. Exactly how I would want to look. I’m not the type of girl who cares if my boyfriend puts up pictures of model chicks. I don’t care. It just bothered me out of nowhere. I couldn’t stop looking at the picture and it just kept eating at me. So I had to tell him. He felt bad and I felt bad that he felt bad; he didn’t know after all.

It doesn’t help that my family pokes fun at how skinny I am and my mother has asked me, seriously, if I have an eating disorder. Now, they don’t know that I sometimes feel this way about myself, but it doesn’t make me feel good, you know?

This is why I rarely post full body photos of myself anywhere. I know it’s stupid to wish you looked different than you do, but I do sometimes. I would never unnaturally modify my body or anything. It’s just a mind thing. I’ll eventually get over it. It’s just bothering my nowadays more than it usually would or should. I think it’s just a product of the stress that’s been building lately.

Ours.

Sun, 15 May 2011 21:48:06 -0400

My future roommate, Chanel, and I went house hunting for the millionth time today. We saw four places in total and loved two of them, so we filled out applications for them. When I got home, I got a call from one of the places we loved and they told me that they want to rent their apartment to us! I’m so excited!

The apartment is in a basement of a cute house in downtown Toronto. The location is really great; it’s close to everything. The price is great too! The only utility we have to pay for is hydro and I think that’s because we have our own laundry space in the apartment (which is super rare in apartments downtown, we definitely lucked out).

Ugh, Chanel and I are so happy and excited. The thing we keep talking about is decorating it. We have the same taste in everything and it’ll be so much fun to make the apartment “ours”.

She moves in June 1st and I’ll most likely move in at the end of July. If I’m able to transfer downtown or find a new job downtown, I’ll move earlier. I’m hoping to get a restaurant job, the tips would be super helpful.

Suck It Up.

Thu, 12 May 2011 19:03:11 -0400

I feel like my relationship with my mother won’t get better in the way and at the pace she wants it to. She’s too concerned about how my stepfather feels about everything to show that she cares about how I feel. I can’t even count how many times we argue about my stepdad. For example, she told me that he feels left out from this whole me moving out process and she told me that I should invite him when I go view houses on Sunday. I then told her that he hasn’t said one positive thing about me moving out since I brought it up; it’s always been about how he thinks it’s such a bad idea and that I’ll fail. So of course I don’t involve him. I don’t even think he wants to be involved.

Anyways, the point is that I always feel like I have to subject myself to negativity in order to make her/her husband content. It just sucks because I feel like I’m always the one who has to accept how they feel and disregard my own feelings. My mom says that he’s just concerned, but so is she and she’s not being continously negative about it. Making me feel like shit about the decisions I make, doesn’t help me. When I make a decision and it ends up being a good thing for me, I don’t look back and say, “Thank goodness, he was such an asshole about it. I wouldn’t have made it this far without all that negativity”. No, I’ll probably look back and be thankful for all the support I’d recieve instead.

My mom argues that this is just how he is and I know that. In other words, I should just take it for what it is and suck it up. What she doesn’t understand, no matter how much I try to explain it to her, is that sucking it up is emotionally draining for me.

Worth It.

Fri, 06 May 2011 20:54:53 -0400

The most difficult thing about having a secret relationship is not being able to physically be beside that person whenever you want to. Whenever I want to see my boyfriend, it has to be planned. We rarely have spontaneous chill sessions. It’s especially difficult when either of us are having an emotionally hard night and all we want to do is be beside each other, and we can’t. It’s very hard to say “what are you doing right this second, I’m coming over”. I have to plan: what I’m going to tell my parents, where I’m going to park, what I’ll say if my parents call while I’m at his house etc. And I’m a natural over-thinker, so all this “planning” makes me anxious and a little paranoid too. “What if someone sees me driving to his house?” “What if someone sees my car parked in his area?”. Stuff like that. But it’s in the moments where I’m sitting at home, wishing I could be with him is when I decide that this is worth it. He makes me happy and this is just worth it to me. It hurts sometimes, but I know that once he moves into his new apartment in June, and I move downtown in August, everything will be a bit easier for us.

All of this is worth it. He is worth it all.

The House.

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 23:45:13 -0400

One of my future roommates, my Mum and I went to go see the house today and we absolutely fell in love with it. It’s a really old house by Chanel, my roomie, and I think it has so much character. The area is awesome too and the house is right across the street from the subway station, which is so convenient for all of us. Because we loved it so much, we gave in our rental applications and the landlord said he’d give us a call next week to let us know if we’ve been approved. We made lots of conversation with him and he asked us a bunch of questions to get to know who we are as people. My Mum said that he told her that we seem like well-mannered and responsible girls, which we are, so that’s great.

It’s looking like I’ll have a new house by June (I won’t be moving in until July/August though. Chanel is moving in June). We’re so excited! Fingers crossed.

Unhealthy Thoughts.

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 01:33:06 -0400

I realized that I take forever to verbally express how I am feeling because I fear that how I feel will make someone angry or hurt. I’m used to getting in trouble for how I feel, or not having my feelings acknowledged. So I take so long to finally say what I feel.

I feel bad because my boyfriend is so good to me and yet I find that I’m always trying to find reasons for him to leave me. I think that’s mainly because, in my life, people always leave. Even the most important people who promise that they wouldn’t abandon me, have. It’s like I have it in my mind that if everyone else could leave, why couldn’t he, right? So I get scared and I find reasons to basically prepare myself, if he chooses to leave me. Ugh, these unhealthy thoughts. I don’t feel this way all the time, only when I have my over-emotional and over-thinking moments. I trust him, which is also scary for me…but I know can’t plan for an ending if I don’t even know if there will be an ending. The whole point of relationships is to take risks with your heart, right? It’s hard when your heart’s been played with by many.

I love him enough to try to heal the way I think. I love me enough to try to heal as well. It’s too unhealthy.

Thursday.

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 22:26:00 -0400

Things are looking up. My future roommates and I are seeing a house to rent on thursday (downtown), which is in the exact area that we want to live. It’s a pretty good price, and from the pictures it looks like the bedrooms are pretty spacious. Being a photographer, I instantly think of what my bedroom would look like in a photo; if I’d use it as a space for photo shoots as well. I can’t wait to see it in person, if it’s actually a nice house. We’re crossing our fingers for it to be nice; if it is, we’ll most probably take it. I’m super excited. We’ve been slowly planning and talking about this for a couple months and now it’s all coming together. I just want to know where I’m going to be living, so I can daydream properly until the move in date. Fingers crossed.