Hey Y’all!

So. Clearly I’ve taken a SERIOUSLY extended vacation from writing. And before jumping into the opinionated and “weird stuff that interests me” kinda posting that I’m known for, I feel I owe my readers an explanation as to why I’ve been gone so long. And why I think now is the right time to come back.

For those of you who sent emails actually asking if I was ever coming back and why I left, hopefully this is a good start to some of those answers. Hopefully as time unfolds, the other little tidbits I drop along the way might create a clearer picture if this isn’t sufficient. And as always, I answer comments as soon as I get them.

Shortly before leaving on hiatus, I had written a post on having writers block. At the time, I believed that. I had simply run out of opinions. My life wasn’t big enough anymore, I was so stuck in my boring, lifeless role as a sickly bedridden chick that the only opinions I was qualified to give anymore revolved around whatever TV show I was watching. And I seriously hate writing about the daily life crap. Primarily because I seriously hate reading it (Yeah, now you know why I’m never on facebook…I don’t care that your dog played in a box and your kid threw the peas on the floor for the third time this hour…or vice versa). Now, I look back at that thought process and have to giggle at my own lack of self-realization. Because the truth is that you could bury me under a rock in a cave on Mars with my eyes covered and cotton in my ears for the next 50 years and I’d still manage to come up with an original thought or opinion on some thing or another every hour. And because I’m a millennial (BARELY), I absolutely think that all of my opinions are not only entirely valid, but definitely fascinating and interesting enough to share with the world. And the world will only be so lucky to stumble across my profound, often prophetic-level ramblings.

Now in retrospect I can recognize that my inability to write something I could consider above the level of useless drivel had much more to do with WHAT I was having opinions on and my whole writer identity than anything else. You see, I was surrounding myself with people and situations that were EXACTLY my kinda material. Like, I could have written about 20 posts per day and still would not have covered all of the strong thoughts and opinions that were bouncing around the walls of my mind. But….and here’s the but. This is Classic Ruby: Unadulterated. Not Classic Ruby: Watered down to not hurt, offend or betray the people I’m closest to, even if I’m SCREAMING inside to get said message out.

In short, to maintain many relationships in my life, I had to hold my tongue, tread lightly, turn a blind eye, hedge…While I would never compromise myself and the own standards I set for my own life and the direct relationships to me within them, I long ago realized that if I held everybody to the standards I hold myself to, I would be a lonely, likely hated, person.

My pursuit of an education and career in clinical psychology likely helps with this personal dissonance. More often than not, I’m better equipped to remove myself emotionally from situations with my friends and family and rather than even try to engage emotionally, I’m far better at treating it like a psychologist/client relationship. Honestly, I have always been that person that just knows everything about everybody. And likewise, I’m that person that nobody really actually KNOWS anything about. It’s a subtle thing and people don’t often notice it. What people know about me EVERYBODY knows about me. I’m an extrovert when I’m not being an introvert lol. And I’m not particularly shy about voicing my thoughts or opinions about myself.

What people don’t realize is that just like everybody else on the planet, I have things that are secret too. I go through things too. They just don’t realize what, when, or how. And they don’t realize that our emotional sharing and bonding was entirely one-sided and always has been specifically because they walk away from our conversations feeling understood, validated, and with a sense of a closer trust. Funny the way humans are though huh? Because we have those little psychological blind spots. Because think about those people who only go on and on about themselves, hardly leaving you room to get a word in edgewise…next time you see them approaching you in a party you pretend you didn’t see them and make a quick exit to hide behind the potted plants and hope they catch the eye of some other unsuspecting poor soul.

Anyway, point being is that…like a psychologist I couldn’t break client privilege. And even without using names, I didn’t want to hurt or offend those people. To be honest, it’s unlikely I will break confidence now. However, I’ve also done a lot of changing and spring cleaning in my life since last I wrote. I’ve distanced myself from, broken up with and dropped a lot of friends, excised all of the AKA leeches. I’ve adjusted the amount of access and sacrifice I’ve been willing to give to one-sided relationships. I began putting my own life first. And so, I’ve also adjusted the level to which I’m willing to compromise my own happiness and personal expression to placate and kid-glove everyone else’s feelings.

This will mean that on occasion one of you may be a little pissy after reading a post. Although I never use names, and rarely use a post just to rant about a specific person or situation, rather preferring to use a particular situation that comes across my door to highlight a point of view…it doesn’t mean people don’t recognize themselves in the story. I’ll take the time to apologize now. It’s incredibly unlikely that I will in the future, so I’ll apologize in advance for the lack of apology you’ll receive in the moment lol. But I will no longer allow myself to be censored. I have so very little of my old joys to revel in, and my life is more difficult to cope with than most people can imagine. Having chronic pain and illness can in fact be incredibly isolating.

I first started this blog, back under a different name, when I first started University. I felt so isolated, so lonely, and it was a huge adjustment after the high school-like experience of college. It helped, immensely. This blog is like….my friend, my medicine, my company. My entertainment. My mental exercise. I’m taking some advice I received a few months ago during a mini meltdown I was having while planning my wedding and having everything that could go wrong go wrong in both the wedding planning and my life in general. My husband’s best friend told me that I need to find a hobby, a social thing, SOMETHING….and she was right. I just forgot that I already had one, waiting on the back burner for me…until I was finally ready for it.
So, happy 2017 everybody! For me, this is definitely a year of new beginnings, and I can’t wait to see how 2017 shapes my thoughts, opinions and feelings on life, love, relationships and how I will grow and change throughout it all. Hopefully you’ll be along for the ride.

Cheers

The following is a tl;dr version of “here’s a video from a chick from YouTube that motivated me to stop being stuck and just get a move on and post the damn first post I wrote 3 months ago”. If you would like to read it, you can, or you can skip down and just watch the video.

Epilogue

I wrote this post a few months ago. But old habits die hard, and I was too used to just not posting and so I never followed up after writing this to actually post and begin my blog adventures again. What truly inspired me to begin writing was my introduction into the YouTube world. That’s right. You heard me. I NEVER got into YouTube. Ever. Until a month ago. You see, between December and present day I have been PLAGUED non-stop with wicked bad illnesses. Like, flat on my back in bed can’t move can’t live sicknesses.

In conclusion I ran out of shows on Netflix. Seriously. I even ran through my back up back up BACK UP selections. Somehow I wandered onto YouTube, wanting to play with this magical YouTube directly on my TV thing.

Anyway, point being is a stumbled across a few great content creators on there. But I have to give shout outs to Lovely Ti and her channel Lovely Ti News Network. I will forever have Ratchet Ass Florida and Trifling Ass Texas burned into my head. LOL. Anyway, it’s not that I always agree with her, and it’s not that I don’t flat-out wanna SCREAMMMM at the TV sometimes when she says something I consider SO ass backwards that I wanna shake her cause like OMG WTF?!?!?! (More on my answer to some of these issues on future posts…yeah, I wrote some of those too already lol).

BUT here’s the thing. I respect her. She isn’t trying to just jump on trends, come up with click bait material, or be inflammatory. And she is consistent throughout the years and the videos on her belief system and her morality. She’s not hypocritical either. And as anybody who personally knows me or has followed my blog for any amount of time will know, the one thing in the world I have ZERO patience for and can’t stand is hypocrites There’s so few people out there doing commentary that aren’t just there to jump on the bandwagon or to be inflammatory or to be cool and get followers and likes.

She, and the Advise Show and the Truth show have been my staples, simply due to their obvious lack of attention-whoreishness and their obvious desire to propagate honesty, truth, respect, integrity and critical thinking. It made me want my gosh darned platform back. Not to speak against their voices. However, I find that sometimes my opinion differs in a radical way. Or in an important way that adds to the discussion. Or that I focus on things, topics, issues and questions that are brought up as unanswered questions or misinformed answers either within their videos or in their comments sections. So even if only 2 people ever get to hear my 2 cents on the topic, it’s worthwhile that I share it. And hopefully others with something valuable to say can be inspired and start sharing their opinions and voices and putting it out there, if not on a blog like WordPress then on YouTube or anywhere else that values and allows for open communication of thoughts and ideas.

Anyway, I thought I would just post a lil’ rant I came across from LovelyTi during my sick days that I feel is somewhat relevant to my “welcome back me” post. Stay tuned for an original Ruby Rant coming soon!

I watch 2 of her channels, my favourite being LovelyTi News Network. That channel features a bunch of ratchet, trifling and outrageous news stories from around America primarily. The second would be LovelyTi 2002, and that channel features all things celebrity news and pop culture. Personally I’ve never been a fan of, well…celebrities or anything like that so the fact that I actually watch the LovelyTi 2002 channel all day tells you how highly I think of her skills and entertainment levels. I learned things about the world and about the celebrities I never even knew existed. Like that Eddie Murphy had a brother at all. And that that brother died (RIP).

The Advise show covers many of the same types of news stories, but also covers other types of things, and I find has more of a slant towards deeper social commentary and justice issues. But it all ranges. His opinions are VERY clear and are delivered straight to the gut. His willingness to cover such topics as Creflo Dollar in depth and interviewing previous members, and to not pussyfoot around or go soft cause “Creflo is MAYBE not full of it and so is MAYBE not a lying hypocritcal heathen is why I will keep tuning in.

He also addresses controversial race issues again without being hypocritcal. Which means he doesn’t just demonize white people while glorifying or justifying the actions of black people. He calls everybody out on bad behaviour period. Same thing as women versus men. And he makes sure to separate the bad people or the bad behaviour from the general population. If you like a controversial video, live stream, or interview, he’s definitely one to watch. I’ll post a video of a newly created series of his to give you an idea.

The Truth Show I find again you find a variety of topics covered, and even having watched LovelyTi or the Advise Show coverage I’ll still check out what he has to say. It’s his lowkey super chill vibe combined with the “don’t tolerate that kinda BULL” attitude and perspective, the way in which he addresses and calls out people in the most respectful of ways, while still making the called-out person look fully dressed down, that keeps me coming back. You feel the “good guy” radiating out of his pores. Really. When the YouTube ad fiasco was going on and content creators were turning to subscribers for support, and black content creators were upset because they were getting  a fraction of the support that white content creators with less views and subscribers had, the Truth Show spoke out about it and explained and appealed on the behalf of the other content creators.

Despite the fact that he neither now nor EVER has had a patreon or paypal donation fund set up. He just spoke out in support because he felt it was the right thing to do. Even though one way or another it didn’t impact him in the least. Here’s a vid to illustrate my point.