Note to Self: A Twisted Lesson Learned

This was it! It was the day I’ve prayed long and hoped for. A moment I could only dream of since as early as I could remember. I was finally going to be performing my first debut album, “Note to Self," center stage. It speaks about the lessons I’ve learned being a vessel during my life experience, and I artistically take my listeners on my journey through music. The album is a mixture of music compositions, spoken word, and interludes of me talking about the wonders of life. I used my obstacles, challenges, and my rewarding adventures to be a guide for those that walk a route behind me regardless if they’re generational acquaintances, peers, or descendants down the line that comes after me who haven't yet met the progression I was currently in at the time.

So you see, I’ve prepped for this show for years. I looked at myself in the mirror while practicing moves and recorded myself countless times to make sure everything was right. I was looking sharper than a tack! No one can tell me anything energy was at an all-time high. My team had upbeat instrumentals playing as we prepared for the show, which had me gyrating, juking, jerking, jiving, and spinning all around the room. I had a Motown's time era press and curl hairstyle with a light blue skintight turtle-neck wool shirt and some khaki slacks which had the audacity to be hymned, starched, and pressed so smooth it could slide into anyone's DMS and sell you a knock off more expensive than the actual product. I was looking slicker than Rick. I was definitely somebody’s full course meal, and I was ready to feed the crowd my artistry and have them vibing along with the messages I have to share.

Although I’ am an over-thinker and highly self-critical when it comes to myself, so all of my ducks must be in its row; it has no right to not be. I must keep myself gathered for the crew on the outside, but my mind is running a mile a minute on the inside. Its internalizing multiple ways on how things may go wrong and how to be prepared to fix them. What if the audience doesn’t respond the way I would like them to? What if the music won’t play or the set workers mess up my set? What if I forget the words or fall off the stage like Michelle from Destiny Child’s? Even Michael Jackson had stage issues, and I am no Michael, so man, am I doomed. I often must shake myself out of these limited thoughts because of one of the Universal Law’s concepts, the law of attraction. The law of attraction means that we are always in control of the energy around us. It’s based on the belief that positive or negative thoughts bring positive or negative experiences. We are the creators and directors of this reality, so in other words, whatever we give our attention to is drawn towards us. The universe only knows how to respond to what we want and not what we do not want. If we focus on failure or accidents, that is what we are attracting towards ourselves.

I usually would meditate before any performances and speak wellness over myself with some mantras or affirmations. Still, the pressure was on, and I let the self-hindering beliefs overtake me. I remember franticly saying, "Don't forget my mic," to my manager as I paced the room back and forth. I have a special connection with my mic; I named it Prosper. We have a built-in bond that I cannot get with any other microphones. I have meditated with it, cleansed it, built energy into it, and I know how to profoundly create the sound I want through it. Only I have used this microphone, and I have a pet peeve of using a microphone someone else has used, and no one can ever use my mic as well.

I can hear the crowd as I stood near the doorway, but it almost sounds like whistles and a howl being mixed into the sound of an enthusiastic crowd. After peaking and seeing the crowd that came to support me, a small amount of nervousness came over me. It was a full house! All these people came to support me, and I was astounded, but then out of nowhere, a small burst of pain in my lower stomach and groin area came over me. One of the set producers came into the dressing room and told me that I will be on in 5 minutes. Before I knew it, a more extensive spasm took over my balance and made me stumble. I felt like I had something growing inside of me at a rapid pace. I was walked over to the sofa to have a seat, but attempting to sit only increased my tension. I remained standing up and asked to be assisted while I walk it off a bit to ease the pain. I started to feel slightly dizzy, and my breathing began to elevate as I felt like the massive growth inside of me was pressed against my entire digestive system. I thought that I had to vomit, so I walked as fast as possible to the nearest restroom, which was only a few steps away. I wasn’t arriving at the bathroom fast enough, but when I did arrive, the nauseous feeling overtook me, and I began throwing up as soon as I slung the bathroom door open. Unfortunately, on the other side of the door was someone using the restroom, and I threw up all over them in my attempt to use the toilet to capture my anxiety. It was the most embarrassing situation of my life. Not only did I throw up on someone, but their naked body was also exposed, and vomiting did not stop the pain from settling into me. We were both in an assed out situation.

My anxiety skyrocketed like a firework missile. I began blaming people for giving me food poisoning. I became afraid that it’s going to happen on stage. How can I perform now? I was thinking, I am such a disappointment, I don't deserve the spotlight; look at how I crash under pressure. My thoughts were all over the place, and the room started to spin as I began to lose control of my mind and the aggressive spasms I was enduring in my stomach and groin. The voices began to grow louder and louder in volume. I wanted to stab my eardrums out to relieve myself from the agony of self-infliction I am conveying over myself. I dislike disappointing my supporters and loved ones, so I ended up pulling myself together and marched on stage.

I grabbed Prosper, my microphone, and then walked out on stage as if nothing was wrong with me and allowed the voices of the crowd to drown out all the nervousness and voices that wanted to destroy my image. The lights dimmed, and I was able to see every face in the crowd staring at me as I positioned the stand. I greeted the crowd with a few jokes to relieve my tension and waited for the cue to begin. Control your breathing, I told myself. Take your time. You are worthy of joy and happiness; this is your time to shine. I worked the stage, and the energy that was present in the room, like no pain, was plaguing me. It’s all in my head, I was thinking. What was I so fearful about? This was what I worked so hard for.

Everything was going well, but then in the middle of a dance move, the wire coming from my microphone wrapped itself around me and tighten my legs together. I began trying to free myself, but the wires started to wrap around me as if it was operating independently and I was not in control of it. My microphone, my own microphone, is turning against me. Prosper, how could you? I began to think as I heard a loud devious chuckle in the deep depths of my thoughts. My microphone is the only thing in the world I thought wouldn’t disappoint me tonight. I struggled to free myself, but no matter what I did, I was not being released from these wires, and no one was coming to assist me. They were getting tighter, and all of a sudden, they started squeezing all of my insecurities, pain and limiting beliefs about myself out of me, and it leaked out onto the stage as the crowd awed, screamed, laughed, and pointed. I tried to continue the song, but I was beginning to experience shortness of breath as the pain in my groin and stomach area increased as if the mass was swelling into a balloon size. The wires were getting tighter and tighter, and emptied everything out of me. The howls from the crowd started to grow louder and intensively annoying, agitating me until the agony from the howls and wires pained me so aggressively that I ended up screaming from being tortured and then combusted onto everyone in the crowd. Immediately I woke up from the dream and yelled Shut up, Beaux! Beaux likes to howl and wake the whole house up at the sight of just a tiny amount of sun.

This was it! It was the day I’ve prayed long and hoped for. I am now running my own LLC chef catering business, and today is the day I am to present this menu I’ve been working on for weeks. I checked the time and quickly threw the covers from over me, exposing a naked canvas to a 62 degrees temperature of cold hair to my quivering body. I don’t usually sleep unclothed, but I wanted to feel a sense of freedom from having clothes on behind my own bedroom walls this particular night. After getting dressed, I walked over to the mirror and pictured myself with the press and curl Motown look and laughed at myself. Okay, slick, I said to myself in the mirror. You got this!

Beaux is downstairs, still whining and howling, wanting me to attend to him. I went downstairs to attend to Beaux and my other puppy Khan by letting them out into the backyard. I then went back upstairs to put on some music to help me shake off the feeling of slumber. I started to gyrate, juke, jerk, jive, and spin throughout the house as I continue my early rising routine of brushing my teeth, stretching, taking a shower, and having a nice workout in the gym, all awhile mentally preparing for my workday. I had a busy day ahead of me, and so far, I was prepared to be on schedule. While in the bathroom, I began to feel some lower back pain. I’m thinking maybe I shouldn't go to the gym, but then I was thinking perhaps it's a pain from working out and that I need to push through it and stick to my plans for the day that I’ve set. I started to stretch and flex my back, but the pain seemed to intensify and then moved to my groin and testicle area. I was thinking maybe I’ am constipated due to someone feeding me dairy on the slick even though they know that I’m a vegan. Someone put some bad juju on me. I’m going to have to cancel my pop-up. I don’t want to disappoint my supporters. Someone just doesn’t want me to be great. Little did I know I was that someone I was referring to. These were some of the many thoughts that were going through my head at that time. I often think about the worst-case scenarios, which isn’t good because we attract what we think about. I try to remember the documentary The Secret, which talks about the Law of Attraction. Sometimes, when the moment is severe, it's challenging to recall ways to relieve challenging thoughts.

Within 10 minutes, the pain had reached an extinguished, new level of pain that I’ve never experienced before. I ran hot bath water to bring me some relief, and I thought maybe the hot water would stimulate a bowel movement. I don’t know at this point I wasn’t able to think clearly nor walk too well. I was slumped over and feeling pain in my abdomen, lower back, upper thighs, groin, and testicle areas. I decided to grab some frozen vegetable bags and my heated neck massager to use each item to bring me comfort. No mattered how I lay, I felt no comfort; whether I was laying down, standing up, or upside down, it all felt the same. I ended up slumping my body with my buttocks in the air, with the heated massager stimulating my abdomen and the cold vegetables pressed between my legs. It was the most awkward position to be in, but it relieved the pain, so I thought. Not to mention I was undressed at this time because I didn’t feel like getting dressed after the bath. I was making a lot of moaning and groaning sounds from the pain I was experiencing. Still, anyone out of the room would probably think I’m having relations by the way I have the bed squeaking, and from the moaning, groaning, and gasping sounds as I was beginning to feel a shortness of breath from the sensations of something growing primarily inside of me.

My mom busted into my room as if she thought she was about to catch me in the act. Still, all she saw was her son's buttocks meeting face to face with her. She witnessed her frozen vegetables on my testicles, a massager with heating capabilities caressing my abdomen, and also tears coming from out of my eyes from relief and pain at the same time. It’s been almost an hour now of feeling like death was over me and my scrotums. She says, "What's wrong with you?” I told her that I needed to go to the doctor asap because my scrotums were in excruciating pain. She stands there for about 10 seconds in silence and then says, why is it hurting? What have you been doing? If you stop gyrating and showing your tail around here, maybe it wouldn’t be hurting. I responded back to her in the most aggravated tone, What?” She has a response to everything. It doesn’t even need to make sense. She’ll say something just to make herself seem in control of the situation. After reading my energy, she concludes that I'm seriously in pain. She says, never mind, then leaves out of the room to get dressed.

I make my most robust attempt to get dressed as well to rush to Urgent Care. I have so many thoughts attacking me now. Lord, I was exaggerating when I said to hell with those kids. I really do want to be a father. Now I’m going to be known as one nut even though no one has to know. I started googling testicular cancer, how life would be with one testicle, how can I grow a new testicle in less than one week. But as I was stressing myself out trying to self-diagnosis my symptoms, an alert from one of those motivational apps came through and said that everything will be okay and to watch the limited beliefs about myself because I am owed joy and happiness. What you believe is what will manifest in your reality. It was hard to get that to stick at the time because my mother was hitting every bump, she could which was interrupting my mantras. She was driving like a bat out of hell, and every bump was sharpening the pain. I could almost jump out of the car if I could after taking that ride. I was nervous yet relieved to have arrived, but also the thought that I may leave out with no trace of my manhood haunted me as well.

The workers seemed unbothered by me coming in there with my theatrics. My pain was on the scale between overly painful and just rip my whole lower body away from me. The way the medical assistance team was reacting at the check-in window was non-responsive to my emergency. The energy did not match at all. The nerve of them to make me walk across the lobby not once but twice, and they could see that I can barely stand up. I can feel the attitude as if they are saying, man up! I wouldn’t wish this experience on my worst enemy. I take that back, actually; it is revenge-worthy. After the medical assistant made me do a catwalk fashion show across the lobby to do check-in and to get my blood pressure checked, I was finally able to go to the back room.

The doctor swiftly glided into the room right behind me. Yes, he glided into the room behind me, all slick and smooth, and said, "Okay, I'm Dr.Dundle; drop the draws, let's see what needs attention. In my head, I’m like, sir, don't walk into this room like I hired you as a sex worker or something, but on the outside, I'm like yes sir, and I slowly pulled down my garments, trying not to excite the pain in my body. He took one look, and I’m like, it's cancer, isn't it? I knew it. I started thinking about natural herbs I can heal myself with. Who am I going to say goodbye to first? How am I going to urinate now? I thought being vegan was going to be healthier. I was ready to sue everybody for selling false advertisements about the vegan diet. I am going to die young, and it's all because of the plant-based diet.

Dr. Dundle feels around to get himself acquainted during this one-night stand of ours. After observing the problem, he orders an ultrasound. After Dr.Dundle leaves out, the ultrasound nurse walks in and greets me. She walked across the bed, swinging her hips extra hard so her butt can wiggle more noticeably as she crossed in front of me. In my head, I'm looking at her in frustration. Ma'am, please just observe my problem and get out of here, I was thinking. She sets the machine up, hands me a towel, and says I am going to turn my back so you can cover your man parts but leave the testicles out for the ultrasound. Then she says, “I hope the towel is big enough for you, and don’t be telling me to turn around all early on purpose now.” She wanted me to tell her to turn around early, obviously. At this point, I wanted a male medical practitioner because I’m just trying to save my planets down there. I just started whining on purpose because, at this point, she thinks we are playing house, and I' am over here worried about if I’m even leaving out of this room with parts to play with!

After dropping my pants and exposing my body for the 4th or 5th time, we began the ultrasound. It was the most painful few minutes of my life. The gel was cold, but the device was barely touching me, and it felt like she was crushing it onto me. She kept telling me to hold still, but the pain was unbearable. I kept begging her to take the device off of me for a second, but she just kept saying not yet, most sensually and seductively, while I ‘am groaning in agony. I felt like she was having the time of her life over there fantasizing this scene like it is an erotic massage therapy session. It felt like 15 minutes went by as she was fiddling with my male parts, but it was probably only 3 minutes tops. Upon completion, she begins to pack up her devices to leave out of the room. Before leaving, she says that she hopes I feel better and to take care of myself. It would be a shame to see a part of me go to waste like that. I responded back with, please get my doctor.

After observing the results from the ultrasound, Dr.Dundle walks back into the room and says it looks like your testicles are tangled. He then tries to give a medical explanation of how it happened, but I had to stop him and plead for him to correct the situation. He begins rotating them back into position, and I remember feeling instant relief as if I were being choked out by some sort of an oppressor, and they have finally let me go to breathe. He explained that I may have moved around obsessively in my sleep, which caused my testicles to tangle amongst themselves. I'm still attempting to grasp the feeling of breathing again and grateful to feel comfort as the sense of something growing inside me has dissolved. Dr.Dundle then says no surgery is needed but take this as a twisted lesson learned. If you would’ve waited to come in, you would probably be out of a testicle. The ultrasound showed that you had no blood circulating to your scrotums. Thank yourself for listening and jumping on the situation but also stop overthinking so much. Everything isn’t always what it seems. Some things are easy fixes, especially if you act out on the issue before it becomes more extensive than it needs to be. Control the problem, don’t let the problem control you. He then says he will send in the nurse to run another ultrasound to make sure everything is going well. I suggested to him to please do not send the same nurse.

When the doctor left me in the room alone, I began to ponder on my dream from the night before. My experience in my awakened state and in my dream state was highly in sync together. I came to realize that sometimes life puts us in the strangest situations to teach us lessons about our inner well-being. That day I learned that my overthinking and the way that I process information hinders my manifesting mind. Responding to the situation instead of reacting allows me to control the outcome because a stable mind creates adequate results. I learned that everything does not go as planned, to let life run its course, release control and be attentive to the thoughts that come up because the energy of fear can only exist during short-term thinking.

I am constantly fighting the limiting beliefs about myself, which stops me from making the movements that I need to make. As strong as I perceive to be on the outside, there are still forces within me, or should I say, voices within me from my earlier life trying to tangle me into thoughts of worthlessness until I combust if I let it take me there.

What makes us strong is the fact that we have the capability to fight and defeat these thoughts on a daily. I said us because there is no difference between the experience of what I go through and what others, both younger and older, live with and struggle with. If you live with this same experience, I hope this can bring light to your situation. You are enough, and you are beautiful inside and out. All your desires are tangible and painted perfectly by the thoughts we embody, negative or positive. Great rewards come out of positive thoughts, actions, and spreading love. Uplifting others return the love back towards us. The gifts are endless when we choose love over suffering, and that is why the universe gifted me with the funds I need to move on with my journey. As I left out of the hospital, I became a new being ready to walk my new life untwisted and untangled.

This was it! It was the day I’ve prayed long and hoped for. I am free, and I am healed.