Oh You Bring - Hillsong United Miami Live New 2012 (Lyrics/Subtitles) (W...

Oh You Bring - Hillsong United Miami Live New 2012 (Lyrics/Subtitles) (W...

Time out starts in 4, 3, 2...!

A lot of times, we go through life so 'empty-headed' that we are barely aware of our comings and goings.

It's mostly because our lives are made up of daily routines - or in some cases - we live for everyone else but us.

While watching Good Deeds the other day, it hit me that most of us live by the society's rule book; we are born, we attend pre-school, then primary/elementary school, then high school, then college, then get a [good] job, then get married and have kids with someone we have probably known all our adult lives, then get old and die.

With this kind of 'routine' (if I could even call it that), we end up with so many 'default behaviour'. The kind of behaviour that are predictable to everyone around us. The kind of behaviour that instill a certain level of fear of the unknown whenever we want to try something new.

Take Tyler Perry in Good Deeds, for instance. Dude had been groomed to take over the family business since he was five. He lived his parents' dream all his life and was to marry the girl whose mother had been his mother's friend for like forever! Then dude meets a "normal" woman, a baby-mama who's been through it and back and isn't scared of sending even "the white old dude named 'Deeds' to hell" for being a jerk. Dude soon realises, through this lady, that it's time he lived for himself too...

Point is, we all need time out.

There are times in life that I haven't been aware of my comings and goings 'cause I didn't pay attention to the inner me. And then there have been times when I've sat back and watched the outside me tear the world apart and did nothing to stop her.

While speaking to the VVIP the other day, looking for inspiration to put this in black and white, it dawned on me that I'm not as okay inside as I thought I was. I realised that I have kept my emotions shut to the world for the longest time and it's time I changed that for mine and my baby's sake.

Thing is, I have always preferred to keep my emotions wrapped in a tiny little gift box and hidden in an abandoned haunted house in some place no soul would ever find it. Reason? Well, because it has always been easier to go through my daily life not giving two rat-asses what goes on around me. But the problem with allowing myself to feel something, anything, is that now my emotions are all over the place!

Nothing's wrong with that, says the VVIP (very very important person).

But we differ in opinion when it comes to this because I never allow myself to break. Can't break now more than ever, I tell him. I mean, I've got to be strong for my little girl. I'm all she's got here, for Pete's sake! How would I cry in front of her, huh?

You need to crack sometimes. You're allowed, VVIP beseeches me.

So I sit there, my cell phone pressed to my cheek, fighting back tears 'cause my little girl's sitting right beside me, concentrating on something she's watching on the laptop. I cannot shed a tear.

For starters, I'd risk being vulnerable to the VVIP. Secondly, it would make my little girl sad to see me sad. So I fake it till I feel it.

I need time out, it seems. I'm holding too much inside and I need to let it out before it destroys me, I've been told. Turns out that I need to take a day or two off; cell phone off, no internet, no book, away from everything I know... and just space out. Doc also says it would do me a whole lot of good, but I don't know.

I mean, show me any sane single mom who can decide to leave their baby with someone else for more than 12hrs in the name of "taking time out"? Really, show me.

It's almost impossible because we (single moms) worry. We are always out to get whomever tries to hurt our babies. We're always out to protect our babies from the cold, hard world. We always think nobody's good enough to be there when we need them to... and, and, and.

Bottom line is, we all need time out every once in a while to find our sanity, to find ourselves [as the VVIP likes to put it]. And no, I'm not gonna sit here and lie to you that I ever find time to do that myself. What I can tell you though, is that it would be good for you right now to do as I say and not as I do. I mean, you know what they say; professors' kids aren't the smartest on the planet and neither are preachers' kids ever close to holiness of any sort.

Truly, you need time out. Doesn't need to cost you an arm and a leg. No. You really just need to take even just an afternoon off; away from any kind of technology and everything else you know and just think, meditate, pray, do some yoga or whatever it is you think would relax your mind, body and soul. Do it for you and do not apologize for it.

I'm gonna heed my own advice pretty soon, and when I do, you'll be the first to know.

Till then, reach out to the inner you. You need to be in contact with him/her, believe me.