A Letter to Tiffani (1996)

Dear 15 year old Tiffani,

I'm writing to you, because the you from the future, me, needs your help. I think, no, I know that there are things you can do now, that will make us a happier Tiffani later on down the road.

I know right now, you think you have it all figured out. You think, you don't need a lot of friends, because your most important friend, is going to be your husband someday. You think that having a baby, with this boy, is going to make you the most important person in his life. I need for you to understand how important it is for you to stick to your goal of attending St. Francis College, and playing volleyball there. Make friends. Make lots of friends. Understand that although "he" feels like the greatest thing that has ever happened to you, you need to learn other people, and establish long lasting relationships with, other people. Enjoy college life, it will shape you into an incredible person.

Right now you're thinking, that you can do it all. Go to school full time, work full time, be a mother, and a wife. I bet it hasn't at all crossed your mind, that one day your body will betray you. You will have pain in places, that right now you take for granted. You will gain weight, you will inherit stretch marks. Be kind to your body. Start now. Eat properly, exercise regularly. Love your curves, and don't be so concerned with what other people think about them. Your body is for you. Your temple. If you take care of it now, it will take care of you later. Volleyball, is great. And you are great at it... But when you make the decision to join the track team, stick to it. Run baby, run. Not for medals, accolades and awards, run for you. 

Right now your thinking, that you can't do anything with out the help of your father.  I'm telling you now, you won't need him as much as you think. He's given you a very important piece of education. He's laid the foundation already. He taught you how to be an independent woman, how to survive without a man, how to do for yourself. It's going to be a long and hard road doing it by yourself, but you most definitely can. Nothing can break you, you are the most resilient person you know.

15 year old Tiffani, don't be in such a rush to be a mother, enjoy your twenties, travel. Learn to love yourself and cherish yourself, before giving yourself over to someone else. Your sanity and well being will be better off. Remember that in order to shape and mold anybody else, you yourself have to be whole, and in love with the person you are. 

Use these things that I've told you. Remember , marriage, your marriage, is a beautiful part of your life. It will be the greatest decision you ever make, but 1st, YOU have to learn to be the best version of YOU, you can be. Learn. Live. Laugh. Love. 

See you in the future!

Instagram...High School Continued.

I temporarily disabled my Instagram account. It was starting to contribute to my already scattered and ambiguous perception of my life. I was slowly turning into a social media private investigator. Sewing together images to create, at most times a fraudulent idea of what "my friends" are doing, or feeling, or thinking. I've spent hours, convincing myself that my [fake] altruistic behavior was excused, because "these are my friends"... Right? I should be interested in, what they are wearing, how their hair looks today, what restaurant they are at, who they are with, do I know that person, how come I wasn't invited?. Instagram quickly became a reminder of my high school social status.

The Cheerleader, The Jock, The Geek, The Comedian. None of these were a clear representation of who I was in high school. Instagram creates a whole new level of classificatory characterizations, which I still don't fit in. The popular girl, the one that's where everybody is. The girl that seems to be invited to everything. The Fun Guy, that's friends with everybody else. You can identify him by post that he's been tagged in. The "Mom", she loves everything about her kids. They are the greatest gift she's ever received. They get straight A's, on the honor roll, always look so darned cute, and never ever, stress their "mom" out. There is the "Instagram Comedian" who seems to find the joke in any scenario. Death, rape, kidnapping, everything is funny, and it's never too soon to laugh. The "Sex Deviant", every day is hump day for this character. There's so many characters, so many personalities on Instagram. My mistake, was lumping the genuine and the concocted into one cesspool of wonder. 

Instagram turned me into a crazy person. Wanting what others had. I seemed to have forgotten, how even when I would post something as silly and simple as a "selfie", how long it took, how many shots it took, how many different angles it took, how many different *gulp* filters it took, to look Instagram ready. I was starting to think everybody else's real life was perfection. All this based on the smallest image of what someone WANTS you to see. As if in this, smaller then a post-it size, picture you could see "The Popular Girls" desire for a stable relationship, or "The Fun Guys" stack of final notice bills sitting just to the left of the frame, or "The Mom" who's kid is having more sex than she is, or the "Instagram Comedian" who thinks laughter, and prescription drugs are the best medicine, or "The Sex deviant", who wouldn't know where to stick it, if it came with directions. 

Pictures say a thousand words right? I temporarily disabled my Instagram, so I can re-enable what's good, what's right, and what's beautiful about real life.

If you're  looking for me, look up from your phone and I'll be there.

Deuces Tiffani D.

Positively...Annoying

Positive people, who see the cup half full, always see the silver lining, find the window behind every slammed door, or are just happy to wake up every morning (in my sweetest most sarcastic little girl voice) make want to blow chunks.

When I'm having a moment... I mean a really dark moment...Wait, let me just paint the picture for you.

Currently, I wake up and go to sleep every day with a headache, I recently had to quit the VERY part time job that keeps me from drowning in bills every month, I can no longer make it to the gym due to my kids crazy school schedules, My daughter is 9 going on 19, my sons teacher has informed me that he is "the bad kid", my husbands and my idea of a date these days is falling asleep in the same part of the apartment, and to top things all of, I think my car has emphysema.

Now like I started to say earlier...When I'm having a moment, the last freakin' thing I want to hear is: "Don't worry the glass is still half full". Clearly you can see that what ever tinged substance was left in the said glass, has been, gulped, gargled, and swallowed by the HA HA Your Life Sucks And Now Your Thirsty Too Fairy

I really don't mean to be the Negative Nancy, right now, or better yet negaTIFFANI, but being knocked unconscious really doesn't sound that bad. Sleeping for a few extra hours, a few extra days if your lucky, sounds A-W-S-O-M-E. Giving the body a chance to catch up to the brain might be just what the Dr. ordered. Slip in a free mani and pedi while I'm stretched out on the hospital gurney, and I could totally see this being the newest trend in spa vacations.

Ok, Ok this blog is starting to sound a little suicidal. All I'm saying is, sometimes it gets so crazy in life that it's hard to see a break in all those dark clouds. When things have been continuously arduous, reassuring words sound more like annoying little fallacies.

*sigh* Well don't let me be the bearer of bad news... You guys keep pushing and keep your heads up......UGH now I'm doing it too.

Deuces

I might possibly be a stalker!!

Celebrities have never really.....done it for me. I've never been the type to care what the latest Hip Hop sensation was wearing, or what new drama the "it" Hollywood couple was up to. And baby bumps? Please. I got my own stretch marks and two knuckle head kids to look at. Keeping up with the Kardashians or any other celebrity news, gossip, or fashion, was something to do when I sat on the toilet.

However, over the last year or so I have joined the celebrity bandwagon. My wagon of choice? Beyonce Knowles. I love love love Beyonce. She is the epitome of everything I wish I could be. She's always such a lady, even when she's rocking out to her boo; Jay Z's, hood anthems. I think she is toothache sweet with her modesty, and how much she adores her fans. She and Jay Z, truly bring out the romantic in me, as they continue to keep the most juicy parts of their marraige mysterious. By being vague when when asked about one another, and keeping their public displays down to a bare minimum, it intrigues me even more. If ever I decided to grow up, I want to be just like them.


However, I've come to realize that my new found admiration for BeyBey (my nickname for her if ever we were to become bff's. We would be great best friends:)is actually an antithesis to the real issue which is... I WANT HER LIFE. She can sing... I can hum really really well. She can dance...I can electric slide. She's married to entrepreneur, business man, rapper Jay Z...I'm married to high school sweetheart, father of my children, NOT a rapper, K(ay)D. She shops at Bergdorf...I shop at Thrift Sores. She's gorgeous inside and out....Hell..... I'm...Tiffani.

Though clearly there are many differences that separate me and The Queen, we actually have a few things in common. This year we both turn 30. She's been with her man for 10 years, I've been married to mine for 10. She writes songs about the love of her life, I blog about mine. Both of us feel that there is no greater power then the power of a powerful woman.

I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that someday my ambitions of being as powerful a women as Mrs. Knowles-Carter is superseded by the actuality of it.

Pray for me!! I promise I'll break you off a piece of my celebrity money!!
Deuces :)

Tiffani's Turning Thirty

For any of you that don't know but care to, in a few short months I will be turning Thirty.. For some, this milestone could be a reminder of how little in life has been accomplished. For others, turning 30 may solidify the fact that their membership in the fabulous 20-something club has been.....*gulp* TERMINATED. Goodbye to the days of fornicating for fun, and not minding the fact that our private parts feel like they've been wiped with sand paper. Adios, to eating what I want when I want, and not having to worry that my ass has become an obstruction during high peak traffic times.
For all those who join me in turning 30 this year, and are ready to except that the 20-something party cruise has officially crashed, sank and burned; I welcome you. I want you to share in my excitement, as we gladly receive our new found fondness, of the smell of that stuff you rub on your knees when you stay out past 9:30pm. Let us revel in the fact that we can still be fashionable (thank God) by wearing all the billowy tops that are, thankfully "in" right now. These tops allow us to skip the dreadful gym and continue enjoying our new favorite pastime...SLEEPING.

I don't know about the rest of the female population, But turning Thirty has somehow managed to make me feel like an Uber-Adult. It's great! All the gulit of struggling to fit into the 20-something ideal, has quickly diminished. No more anguish over the fact that while....*clears throat* pleasuring the hubby, I'm also redecorating, making a grocery list, and planning the weekends activities. I'm over the pressure of feeling like to have a "good night" out at the club I have to drink drinks that come to the table somking with flames and a cloudy residue. I'll take one glass of red wine any day of the week, because truthfully anything past one glass and the title of this post would have to be changed to Tiffani's Having A Baby...At Thirty.

With that said. I hope there's a few out there who, with me, roll their eyes when they hear anyone even whisper the words "Thirty is the new twenty". Hell no it ain't...especially over here *points to self*. Over here Thirty is just one more year older then 29, and excited to no longer have to fake the young people funk.

Deuces ;}

Damn Damn Damn...

Damn Damn Damn....I've done it again.

It never fails. I am convinced that I am the best at nothing. No one can beat me at that. Since my last post on this blog I have attempted several other things that were supposed to have thrust me into fame and fortune. Keep on reading for a list of my most current failures.

Besides my NormAnomaly blog I have started a YouTube channel called SideBar Thoughts with Tiffani as well as a book blog called The Book-Lyn Project. All of which I have sadly done a less then mediocre job at. I just don't get it. I'm supposed to be raking in the dough right now, have my own television show, brand of soda, and a pretty awesome vehicle whose name sounds like something similar to the sound you make right before you hawk up a loogie.

So with these newest additions to add to my list of derelictions, I have come to a conclusion. The improbable, feeble, and simply put....lame attempts I have made at reaching my dreams and aspirations have been dependent on what I have finally figured out to be my one true nuisance....POPULARITY!!

Ugh!! As the feelings of JHS/HS days come rushing back to me. I have always been that girl who everybody knew....but didn't know well enough to give two shits about. I was the one in high school who started the trend of wearing stockings with two different colored legs. For several months I rocked my half white half navy blue stockings, not caring who thought it was a fashion cry for help. When I finally got sick of my mother yelling at me for ripping up all my stocking I stopped. To my dismay, one of the more popular girls (who will remain nameless), with her cheerleading ass picked up where I left off, and the one white leg one blue leg trend began.....AGAIN.

That story pretty much sums up the crap that I call my life.

Anywho, keeping this short and sweet. Stay tuned for more failed attempts at being something great.


Dueces

Until very recently, I've found myself unafraid of most things. Not too many things have ever made me anxious to the point of sleeplessness. No scary thoughts of death, tragedy, or disaster have ever evoked within me feelings of dread. Lately however, I've been bombarded with articles, television shows, and conversations on the topic of teenage promiscuity and pregnancy, and suddenly, life no longer seems filled with rays of sunshine, singing voices, and little birdies fluttering about. Suddenly, I'm terrified.

As you all know I have a 7 year old daughter (she turns 8 on February 5th this year). She is a very smart and inquisitive little person. She asks questions when she doesn't understand something and she is at her best when she has the attention of a whole room.

Before this week, I thought of these qualites as endearing and very innocent. Before this week - before the articles, before the conversations - I was not worried that my child's precocious nature could be the start of something I might actually lose control of. However, after reading an article entitled When a 13-year-old delivers a shock and watching last night's airing of ABC's Private Practice, where one of the character's 15 year old daughter becomes pregnant, I am now fueled by fear that my daughter could too fall through the cracks.

Society is making it increasingly hard to trust that our daughters will make the right decisions concerning their bodies as far as sexuality goes. Music videoes, movies, and even the latest best sellers all paint such vivid delusions of sex and what it is to be sexy. As parents how do we compete?

Though my daughter is only 7, I hope that I have begun to lay the foreground to a trusting and open relationship between the two of us. As her mother, I need her to love herself enough to understand that life is not about following what everyone else is doing, but rather about being an individual. Life is about making decisions logically for yourself, even if that means you have to go against what everyone else is doing. I want to be able to trust her and not lock her in the house for the better part of her teenange years. I need to intsill in her that love is so often complicated by feelings of lust and acceptance by peers, and that having sex does not make you sexy.

My children, both my son and my daughter, are two of the most important people in my life. To me, failure would be raising a son who thinks bedding females is a sport and/or a daughter who thinks she was put on this earth to entertain men. This is a battle I refuse to lose.