At 10 I was sexually assaulted by a neighbor. At 16 I watched my father fall and die in front of me. At 26 I was a single mother of 2 small children, At 28 I left my mother for 45 minutes and came back and found her dead. At 41 I found the man that I gave my heart to had HIV and Hep C and hid it from me the whole time we were married. That same year I had 2 cancer scares. My back was bent to the point I though I would never stand again but I stood up. I am 44 and still believe in love and my destiny of a happy life. As long as you breathe their is hope for joy.
Category: All About LuuLuu
Today is Dec 2nd. I know to all of you my statement is obvious but for me to state this date on the 2nd is significant. Because for the past 15 years I always lose this date. I remember the date days in advance but every year I lose the dates and am in a blur until Dec 5th. So for the first time since 1995 I remember this date. The day my mother died. Oh I will always remember the day like it was yesterday but to make it through my mind has always blurred to ease the pain of that awful moment. I still miss my mother terribly and cherish every moment I had with her but now the pain has eased. My fog has lifted.
So instead of crying about my loss. I will celebrate her life. I will celebrate her giving spirit. I will celebrate her generous nature. I will celebrate her teaching me to love the world. I will celebrate her smile, her spirit. So today I ask you all to cherish the loved ones in your life. Don’t be afraid to help a stranger. Give love unselfishly. Ask for nothing and give freely. Celebrate Sally’s spirit…LuuLuu
Okay I cannot believe it that I have made 7 days of cleansing. I am proud of what I have done but had a few weak moments. The call of Brown Sugar Bakery cupcakes is in my head. I resist but wonder is it because I haven’t faced the temptation or am I truly getting stronger?
The Physical - Cooked this evening for family and the willpower involved in cooking for others while denying yourself was interesting. It was the first time I cooked meat without tasting to make sure it was seasoned properly. The first time I made pasta and didn’t put on my plate and sprinkle with cheese. Still barely exercising due to knee pain but feel an end in sight so will begin slowly tomorrow.
The Menu -
5 oz of homemade snack mix (cashews, pecans, sunflower seeds, peanuts and dried fruit) $4.00
16 oz grape juice $1.00
1 lb baby carrots $1.60
2 cups sauteed vegetables (broccoli, spinach, red and yellow peppers, zucchini, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes) $2.00
40 oz of water free
Total $8.60
The emotional – A very quiet day, read for pure pleasure. Next on agenda creating a vision board need to visualize what my next moves will be.
The spiritual - Beginning to understand where my spirituality lies. It is not a Bible thumping, holier than thou place I seek. I long for a connection again with God. I don’t know what that means. Will I join a church? Will I explore different religions? I will let the spirit take me where I need to go.
One full week and I have not broke. This is the longest I have ever stuck to a healthier regimen. I now must decide how to progress after this month. This cleanse must be the first step in changing patterns of a lifetime.
I think it is time to explain my drug of choice. A few have decide I am addicted to sex. That is not true. I pick and choose my lovers and not everyone gets to sample my treasure. My drug of choice has always been wielding the power of pleasure. My get off is knowing that I can charm men into doing what I want and need. My appetite is varied and so I have sometimes pushed men beyond their limits. I enjoyed making them want me. Please understand that sex was not always necessary. I have had men pay bills, send me flowers weekly because they enjoy talking to me. Because I listen and give what a man needs. I rub against their leg and purr in their ear just to watch them shiver. I stand with my hips to the side to call attention. A man looks my way and I pout my lips just a little to see if he looks. When a man gets close I dazzle him with my intellect letting him know I am not just a pretty package but a force to be reckoned with. My mother told me once that I have a natural gift for reading people and understanding them and she was right.
Between my time with my children’s father and my soon to be ex-husband was a time when I tested everything and everyone. Yes I admit there was a moment of curiosity about women. I wondered if I could wield my power the same over a woman and the answer is yes. What I found is that I love men. Women don’t do it for me. If I had no other choice I would make do but I love men. Especially tall, chocolate, handsome Black men that have a certain power of their own. My preference is usually a man in upper management or an entrepreneur is perfect. (oops I digressed) I found myself more involved with the game and lost sight of the men. If they didn’t dance to my tune. I stopped talking to them. I had no patience. If given a chance I would push a man to his limits make him admit to fetishes he didn’t know he had. I was so dominant that a man 20 years my senior couldn’t handle me and walked away after sending me presents from around the world. The things I did, the people I met a long the way could fill a book.
I say this to say that now as a single person again I feel the call of the pleasure pulling me again. I know that the kitty was sleep and now she is ready to awaken. I felt myself contemplating and planning the way I did in the past. This part of me if given free rein could be bad. Don’t get me wrong my kittykatt is not all bad. If the right person strokes her she will purr only for him. She will learn what he needs on all fronts to keep him happy. If he loves her with all of him. She will love and adore him completely. That is the kittykatt that I want to become not the panther of old that licked her lips and was ready to pounce and devour. Always looking for power within pleasure.
Sometimes I find myself looking at the world through a frown. I squeeze my forehead and see the lines slash my forehead with anger. It is a face not of strength but secret weakness. It is moments of unsureness and doubt that create these lines that I struggle to smooth. It is a life that has overwhelmed. A life that needs correcting. A life that showed the falseness of my security. A life of a closet full of secrets. The door has opened and left me bare.
I remember the easy days of laugh lines and dimples, of eyes that held mischief. I recall contentment in my life. I cannot forget it is possible. Of course I found out that life was built on narcissism, cynicism and subterfuge. When it ended it wasn’t a trickle of knowledge but a flood that laid my life to waste. It made me mute. It made me long to become deaf so my ears didn’t have to to hear one more truth. I wished for blindness to keep from seeing the barren landscape of my life.
Even though the passing of that life was painful. I know it was a death that was necessary. It has created the possibility of a new life. I must take this beginning as a rebirth and nourish my person with a mixture of strength, purpose and love. I will cleanse the vestiges of the past and create a blessed future.
In living life you make choices. Some choices that once made can never be undone. As I unravel the blanket of my life. I am finding places that still can give chill bumps and make me think what if? Where would my path lie today, would my success be more sweet, my regrets more sorrowful? I choose to stop regretting and start rejoicing. I am willing to admit my mistakes but I’m willing to no longer let them hold me down, to stop me in my tracks, to keep my life from blossoming into a fullness, a richness.
Choice #1:
I was just turning 19 and found myself pregnant by my first love. He had a certain volatility to him, a weakness. I didn’t know what to do. I turned to my mother and my mother who was 41 years older than me. Who grew up in a time where this choice was not legal told me we were not ready for parenthood. She told me to look at the man he was and be honest. I looked and she was right. So my mother and I went and aborted the baby. It was horrible. I opened my legs and life was sucked from me. I cried. I continued to date my first love and even though my heart regretted, my head knew I had done the right thing. He became a serious alcoholic and eventually cheated on me and we parted. Later I became pregnant again, the timing wasn’t right I found myself in a clinic again preparing to do the unthinkable. I paid my money and I waited to be called. A friend came with me to take me home. As I waited I looked around and every fiber in my being said this is wrong. I couldn’t breathe. I felt the tears stinging my eyes. I got up asked for my money back and prepared to be a mother. Twenty years later I look at my daughter and am certain that my choice to leave was the right one. 
Choice#2:
My daughter was 1 and I was in love again. We were not ready for children so I got on birth control. I loved and trusted him enough to not use protection. One day I was exercising at home stepped down wrong and my knee twisted. I was rushed to the emergency room in so much pain I couldn’t lift my leg. After x-rays and MRI the specialist said my knee was flipped and locked in place backwards and I had tore most of the cartilage in my knee. Surgery was scheduled. I took the tests to prepare and got a call back saying I couldn’t have surgery. I was pregnant. I was stunned I was on birth control. Apparently it didn’t control much. As I stood on crutches I wondered how I was going to make it through pregnancy in this state. I talked to my love and decided to not have a baby right now. I needed the surgery right now. We went together I had the surgery. I could walk again. We mourned what we had loss. July we were out of town and as my love kissed me, he looked in my eyes and said “let’s make a baby” and I opened my legs and we did. My handsome son’s smile is the product of that choice. 
Choice#3:
I had left my love and was raising my children on my own. I decided that I needed to finish my undergrad degree for myself and my children. A man came in my life and even though a tightness came in my belly when I met him, I didn’t listen and began to date him. He took care of me, gave me rides to school, an allowance so I could work part-time and a host of other things. Slowly I began to see signs of a neediness I was not ready for. He began to accuse me of things, seeing people, I found him following me to places and watching me when I came out the door. I began to pull away. He began to stalk my every step. The last time we had sex he sensed the finality and after we were done, he whispered in my ear “I took the condom off and now you will have my child and I will be with you for the next 18 years”. I prayed this wasn’t true. I hoped that he was playing. I was wrong. Six weeks later I found I was pregnant and knew that there was no way I could have this man attached to me for the next 18 years. I faced the clinic again and did what I had to do. I was neither happy nor proud of my decision but 3 weeks later when the man tried to climb through my window and charged at my door with a crazed look in his eyes, I knew I had made the right choice.
Life is not over for me. Choices will come every day. I prepare myself for the onslaught. Some choices are temporary and can be fixed easily. The choices that change your path forever must be tread upon lightly until you feel the weight of it in your feet, will the ground crumble beneath you and make you fall or bear your weight and keep you upright and walking forward?
I was going through a box of pictures yesterday and stumbled upon a picture from when I was 10 years old. Every time I find it I always wonder why I still have it. It has traveled with me for over 30 years from home to home, decade to decade, relationship to relationship. Every time I look at it I think in my head I should throw it away and yet I still have it. This small little picture is the face of my innocence. It was before I knew the boogeyman was real. This picture was taken by the man a few weeks later would go on to sexually molest me. When I see that picture and hold it in my hand it brings it all back to me. I feel myself rushing back to the night it happened.
We lived in rows of 4 townhouses that faced each other. They were the new people in our world 2 girls a little bit younger than me and a son. They lived with their step-father that owned a candy store and in a child’s world it was the jackpot. Their house was like heaven to all the kids in the neighborhood Now-A-Laters, wine candy, Jays potato chips and big color tvs. As an adult I understand it as the pedophile trap it was.
One night the girls came by my house and told my mother that their mother was on the way to the hospital and could I come over and spend the night. My mother was skeptical but they said their father would be home soon. I begged because I wanted to be at that house of unlimited junk food (my mother would barely let me have) and color tv (my mother wouldn’t get one said it was hard on the eyes). Finally my mother relented mainly because they were 10 steps away from our house and if we needed her she could run over. So I went.
The girls and I played and around 10pm he came home. He told us to get ready for bed. When we got in our pajamas he told us he had a treat for us. We could watch Saturday Night Live in his room in his big bed. He turned on the tv. We got in the bed. He gave us some chips and he left the room. I felt safe. Later we all fell asleep and I awoke to him carrying one of the girls to bed. I got up to go in the other room and he told me to stay and watch TV. He came back and he laid down next to me. At this point I was not scared, this was an adult I trusted. He was always nice to me and then things began to change. We were talking and my back began to itch. I tried to scratch it but couldn’t. He said turn over and he would. I laid on my stomach and he began scratching my back when all of the sudden he pulled down my pajama bottoms and my underwear and rubbed my butt. I can still feel the fear that ran through me. I grabbed my pants and yanked them up and flipped over. He asked me why I turned over. Didn’t I like it? I was so scared and had to think fast so I said my chest hurt to lay on my stomach. (I was just beginning to grow breast and they were tender.) He then reached under my shirt and started massaging my chest and asked me did it feel good. I was paralyzed and knew I needed to get out of this house. So I said I had to go to the bathroom which was near the stairs. My plan was to run down the stairs out the door and to my house. However when I got up, he got up and walked me to the bathroom. I closed the door and used the bathroom and tried to figure out what to do next. Then I looked up and saw he had cracked the door and was watching me. At that moment I lost hope. I opened the door and he walked me back to his bed. I got back in and he began rubbing me again and talking to me. I could feel his excitement. I knew what was coming next because my older sister had explained sex to me but at 10 the mechanics didn’t make sense and all I could think is this man is going to rip me apart. I began to cry. My tears saved me. When he saw me crying, he stopped and asked me why I was crying. I was too scared to say anything. He then went on to say I know what you think I am doing and I am not. I still didn’t speak and the tears kept coming. He said again I am not doing what you think, then he paused and said but don’t tell your mother. He rolled over and went to sleep. I cried and went into the other room. The next morning he acted like nothing had happened. I left and went home. A week later I told my mother.
As I rehash in my mind the life I had with, as they say in the Harry Potter books, “he who will not be named” I must admit for a time, a very long time I was happy. Happy in love. Happy with life. Sadly, happy in my ignorance. I spent 9 years living with my husband and and for 7 years to be honest were very happy. My happiness was such that everyone around me saw my happiness and was happy for me. I wouldn’t have stayed if I had been miserable. He taught me many things about relationships and many stay with me because he was right. Oh in the end he proved to be filled with deceit but in the beginning he gave me exactly what I wanted and needed.
The Good – My husband gave me a simple worship that made me feel special every day. I never felt unattractive in his presence. He always made me feel sexy and beautiful and I was secure in our relationship. He believed in my dreams. Any scheme or plan I had he supported because he respected my intellect. He never tried to change me. He accepted me for the person I was. He taught me so many things along the way. He taught me to watch what I say. Before him I would say exactly what I thought but he helped me see that not everything needs to be said. (hmm looking back I guess that was how he justified his deception) Sometimes when people ask for advice, all they really want is an ear to listen without judgment. He taught me that love does not have to be filled with possession. You can love another and still respect them enough to give them the freedom they need.
The Bad – Of course I will not go into the level of deceit my husband practiced for years, to this day I still do not understand it. The bad was bad and ugly on so many levels. He taught me that people do not always practice what they preach. He made me see the error of my ways of speaking without thinking but the first knife was a careless comment that snowballed into an avalanche of words. As we lost the love he felt the need to say some of the meanest things imaginable to hurt me and I must admit he was successful. He showed me what the words of the New Edition song “Can You Stand the Rain” was truly about. My husband was loving and caring until crisis hit. Crisis brought out the mean vindictive man that lurked beneath the surface. I had seen glimpses of this person but never thought he would turn him on me. I learned that as completely as my heart was breaking that didn’t mean he felt my pain. That empathy is not a given but a bonus. I found out that at the end of the day the game is not fair. While I tried to salvage something, wanting us if we had to part, to part as friends. My husband was making it his business to ruin me from the financial to my reputation to even my career. (He took my resume and created one off of my work experience for his as he called her “future wife”.) It wasn’t enough he had broke my heart, he needed to break me in all sense of the word.
In retrospect the first seven years of that life taught me what I need to be happy and hopefully how to make another happy. I know that in order for a relationship to be strong it needs to have people that truly care about each other and gets the other to survive. It takes laughter and commonality but it also needs separation. The ability to let your partner have interests outside of you, to have friends and activities that are not centered on the duality but the single. It will make for a richer life for the both. I know I need the romance of a man that wants me happy and I in turn will do anything to see him smile.
The last two years are the weight that I bear today. I no longer trust completely. I have no faith in my judgment when it comes to men so I shy away from any form of intimacy. Sometimes I feel the anger wash over me like a shower. It blurs my vision and can take my breath away. Sometimes I look at my future and feel sadness and the tears fill my eyes with thoughts of maybe I am better off alone.
As I type these words I feel the truth in them at this moment. My hope and prayer is that the day will come when I can release this sorrow finally and get on with the business of truly living. I can return to Me, a Me of butterflies and laughter and softness. I want the brittle to go away. I want the ice I feel to melt.
copyright Louise Caillouet November 2009
I am falling in love. It has taken a long time of searching. There were moments when I thought it would never happen but I have found the perfect one. My love is special. My love supports me in all my ventures. My love bolsters me in time of need. My love thinks I am beautiful on my most ugly days. My love is wonderful and beyond compare. I have had the privilege of falling in love with ME!
You may laugh and think this is a silly statement. You’re thinking LuuLuu you love yourself. Look at the pictures. Read your words. You are filled with self confidence. You know who you are. I say to you that it I like myself all the time but love is not always the case. You now say “I love myself” but let’s examine do we really and truly love our self? Do you look at yourself and notice every flaw? Do you agonize over every past mistake? Do you worry that you are not worthy of love? Then you do not truly love yourself.
I am not totally in love yet but every day I love myself more. I strive to be more comfortable in the skin I am in. It is not an easy process. I am learning the path to love begins with our self. How can I expect someone to value and cherish me, if I don’t cherish myself? It is not an easy process. It takes much unlearning.
I must love myself from the outside to the inside. The inside is easy. I can embrace the good and the bad of me. I love my dramatic nature without it I would not be me. So what if I see life as theatre and I am the star? Seriously in order to love myself I must be willing to face my faults and accept them and change them into strengths. My impulsiveness can be tempered to a zest for new experiences. My impatience is changing into a driving force to achieve. Demanding is a step away from persuading. There are more faults to deal with, in time I will conquer more.
Loving the outside of me takes courage. Our society places so much importance on the way a person looks. Recently I made the decision to let go of my hair again. This is nothing new to me for 9 years my hair was short and blond. I grew it out to try something new and found out that I like the old me. The day I cut my hair off for the first time in 1996 was the first step in my journey of self love. It forced me to not emphasize my hair but to look myself in the face. When people see me they see my face and if I am not proud of the beauty God gave me it will show. Next, I had to accept that I would never look like a model. I am 5’1″ and all hips, thighs and butt. I could spend my days dreaming of liposuction sucking the fat out of my less than fabulous spots or diet and exercise into a frenzy but it will never change my body type. I have hips! Whether I am a size 4 or 14, they will be big. So as the saying goes “I shake what my momma gave me”.
I am now working on another step on the road to loving myself. That is, seeking out what truly makes me happy. The pressure put upon us to live up to the status quo is enormous. Get an education, pursue a career, fall in love and marry, have kids, make tons of money, it is enough to make any sane person give up.
Happiness is individual. It cannot be based on what everyone thinks should make you happy. People who know me look upon my business goals as an anomaly. They ask about career goals, introduce me as their friend that doesn’t like to work and wonder when I am finally going to get a job that lives up to my career potential. The crushing weight of their disbelieve can sometimes make me doubt myself. I cling to my dream because I know in my heart this will make me truly happy. It also helps when respected businesspeople in the community encourage me to not give up.
The road to self love is a long and arduous journey. It takes being honest and not sugar coating the real you. I have many more steps to take before I am through. It will take my lifetime. It would be so easy to give up but every new revelation adds a ray of joy to my life.
For years I have been told by both men and women that I am a bitch. I first took offense and wanted to refute what they called me. Trying to prove that I was a nice person, a good person and yet they persist on calling me a bitch. Well after reflecting on the reasons why, I must concur I AM A BITCH. That’s right I said it. I AM A BITCH. I say it without regret or reserve and with pride.
If my confidence is mistaken for arrogance. Then call me Bitch.
If my intelligence is seen as a feeling of superiority. Then Bitch I am.
If my believe in myself is considered false pride. Then the Bitch fills me.
If seeing beauty when I look in the mirror means I am vain. The Bitch smiles.
I refuse to allow another person’s insecurities to become my problem. I will be me for good or bad. I will stand straight, walk proud and smile with knowing. The Bitch is back. Watch out!
