Words of Advice

This past Sunday me and my homegirl went to a neighboring casino to watch the Ravens/Patriots game and I was wearing white Jordans/Knicks sweatshirt/Knicks hat. This 60 year old, light skin, Black man was sitting by me and he started talking to me randomly. He stated, “your tall and I’m scared of you.” LOL Then he proceeds to say, “Your dominant…I bet you control your man.” LOL I say no, “I’m a nice girl.”  He says in a nutshell, “No, your friend is nice…your tough and controlling..I bet with you it has to be your way all the time and if not then you get an attitude..why are you so angry? Let me tell you to give that man a break and not be so angry, I guarantee he will love you more for it.” Then he walks off. I was in total shock because I’m like this random guy does not even know me but was on point about it all. I took it as a sign!!! I need to be a lot calmer and nicer, especially to the man I love, not everything has to be a fight. 

Truth time, reflection time, real time

As I sit here I am facing my real harsh reality that maybe I am not always the GRAND person everyone perceives me to be. I have opposite demeanor traits that I am hurtful and shameful about. I feel broken but strong, I feel smart but feel stupid, I feel rich but poor, because I feel the natural dichotomy of life. As I shed tears of pride, hurt, love, heart broken-ness, success, and failure I have to remind myself that I am human. True reflection reveals every vulnerable position that I have ever been placed in and every flaw that I have ever endured within my past, current, and possible future road that I have to or will take. That in itself is scary. How do I encompass my revered flaws to overcome my individual life obstacles? Ironically the song “Bruised but not broken” by Joss Stone is playing over the air and that resonates some message. I am feeling that every person can make room for change and improvement in some facet of their daily lives, including me. I take personal blame on every capacity of my situations, because many of those situations resulted in my personal decisions. For I am human and with that comes truth, responsibility, and challenges that will ultimately result in courage and wisdom. This includes a ripple effect of an holistic paradigm that ultimately effects our personal lives, careers, friendships, family, and romantic relationships. Life can be hard so are we prepared to endure it with respect, compassion, passion, and love? These are lessons!

Throwback Intro

As I was starring at my eyebrows looking for those pesky little hairs to tweeze I started to take a deep look at myself. It’s a well known fact that I am a woman. But, there’s much more to me than that, which I’m sure every female is aware of their personal uniqueness: good or bad. I resume back to what makes me the “core” of my inner-self. I am a Navajo woman. For centuries, the Navajo people, especially the women have displayed the true essence of strength and resiliency. We survived the “Long Walk” in 1864 in which the US government made thousands of Navajo people walk 300 miles to Fort Sumner in New Mexico. We were forced to leave our homeland and to leave the protection of the Four Sacred Mountains. We were forced to live in starvation, to live in diseased living conditions, and to live inhumanely. We survived as a Nation and eventually returned back to our original homeland. As Native people we survived genocide, cultural assimilation and relocation that have occurred since 1492. Although we still face tremendous disparities in every facet imaginable, our spirit is not broken. I am proud to say that our tribal people overcame many obstacles and we still remain culturally and spiritually connected to our heritage. With that being said, through my dating experiences, there are often reoccurring statements I hear, such as: “Native women are mean”, “Native women are stubborn”, “Native women are hard to date”, “Navajo women are the meanest”, or “Crystal, why are you so aggressive?”, “Crystal, you are not the easiest person to date”. My list of phrases can go on and on, but I assume you get the point. Now, referencing back to what makes us “Native”, we have incorporated all the strength and resilience our ancestors had to endure because it runs through our blood. Most Native American tribes are matriarchal. We trace our lineage through our mother and we hold honored places in our tribes. We have no choice but to be strong; to be strong for ourselves, our families, and for future generations. It’s safe to say I find it annoying when men say things like that. I find that they are intimidated by our strength because their weaknesses are highlighted and we let them know what their weaknesses are. We let them know, not because were “mean”, but because we deserve the best and we expect our men to step up to the plate. We may not communicate it the best sometimes, but being blunt about things is in our nature. Ladies, what do you think? I will be back soon to talk about many more topics about us and dating/relationships.



P.S. I wrote this blog a long time ago but they started a new system on this blog and therefore all my previous blogs were erased

Worst Date in History!

So there was this girl and she was open-minded, beautiful, has her crap together, and a sweetheart! Since there was no reason not to try online dating, she did! She had met a like-minded brother who was interested in the same things as she was. So they talked for hours on the phone and the conversation was always so entertaining and engaging. They had decided to meet for a breakfast date and she was excited, of course (who wouldn’t be?). Her date said on the internet he was 5’7’ and she is 5’3’, so she wore her cute 3 inch wedges to meet him. As she walks into the restaurant she calls him because she does not see him and an older woman answers the phone. As she is walking through the restaurant she hears her name being called and she sees this dude. This dude turns out to be 4’11’-5 feet tall!!!!! AND he is super skinny! So she proceeds to sit down and thinking OMG he is so short And skinny! As they are talking she tells him she called him (she did not know that was his home phone but thought it was his cell phone) and he says, “Oh that was my home phone and that was my mom who answered the phone.” Yeah folks, the dude lives with his mother. She is trying to hurry and eat so she can get the fuck out of the restaurant. She notices this dude does not finish his food and her thoughts were he’s skinny and he needs to eat. As they are walking out of the restaurant, he states “I have a surprise for you.” He then guides her to walk into the Goodwill Store!  He shows her the appliances section because her DVD player ruined, but she just looks. Then he says, “Let’s hang out here for a while.” She is thinking OMG WTH am I doing here??! So, in the Goodwill he starts to do “magic tricks” and sees some puppets and starts doing “puppetry!” At this point, she is having an out-of-body experience because this is beyond a horrible date! Finally, they leave the Goodwill and he walks her to her car. As they were walking he notices a beat-up old car and asks her if that is her car, she nods “No”, and he says “Oh I was about to say.” She gets in her car quick so he does not try to kiss her and says “Have a great day!” As she was driving away she noticed through her rear view mirror that he was sprinting somewhere. So she continues to look to see where he is going and he was booking it to the bus stop! LOL And he had the nerve to ask her if that was her beat-up car when he does not even have one!

 As I heard my girl telling me this story I could not help but crack up! I was thinking this has to be the worst date I have ever heard of!!! This just happened recently and let me tell you ladies and gentleman, the dating world is freaking hard! This is one mere example of it! LOL

Heart-wrenching

Do you ever really get used to dealing with heartbreak? I mean think back to your first real gut-wrenching heartbreak and now to your most recent ones, any difference? I think about that from time to time. Although it hurts (maybe the same, maybe less, maybe more), as we get older are we better capable to deal with heartbreak? It’s the worst feeling in the world because your heart/chest area actually hurts and your energy (mind, body, soul is so consumed with it that you are incapable of doing anything else. There is absolutely nothing you can do about it except endure the pain and with time it slowly diminishes. However, it does make you re-examine your individual self from your soul to your physical being. I guess that is one of the positive outcomes. Because I remembered when I was heartbroken I tried to concentrate on my blessings instead of my situation.

For example I thought, “Everyone goes through heartbreak and everyone gets through it. There are people out there who are in way worst situations than I am and mine is ONLY heartbreak. There are people out there who have no roof over their head, some are mentally/physically disabled, some have chronic diseases and look at me, here I am feeling sorry for myself when it’s only heartbreak. I am healthy, have great family/friends, I’m attractive, educated, and lucky to have car/roof over my head. I should be the last person to be feeling as sad as I am, when in retrospect I have a lot to be thankful for.”

23. Lifetime movie dating story (yes it really happened to ME)

“Men & woman research their job, school or even their dog's breed more than they check out their dates. It stems from this romantic notion that falling in love is spoiled by being prudent and skeptical. Why should you know more about your favorite sports team than on your mate? Aren't the stakes higher?” –From a Follower who commented one of my previous blogs


I personally went through a horrendous dating situation. I met this guy and he was wonderful! So, I thought. He was tall, dark, handsome, charming, hard worker, sociable, and respectful. I seriously could have married this dude. I met him in Tucson and when I first met him I thought, “If I could get in a relationship with anyone, it would be with this dude.” So we exchanged numbers and became friends for a couple of years. We hung out a few times and it was cool, but he moved back to the east coast so we lost touch. After a couple of years he randomly called me! After that one call we were talking daily like 1 0 times a day. After a few months, we decided we would be together and he would move back to the southwest to be closer. The next two years of our relationship was amazing! I was for sure in love. Then, we moved to Las Vegas together and that’s when our relationship started tumbling downhill, FAST. We broke-up and I was heart-broken. A year after we broke-up I found out he was previously married and had 4 kids from that marriage (plus more stuff but let me tell you it was like WTH?)!!!!! Breaking up with him was a blessing in disguise, when at the time of being heart-broken I could not understand why?! This guy seriously lied to me! I was mad but after I found out I was relieved.

This just goes to show that you truly do not know people and their capabilities, especially the negative ones. The statement from above from the anonymous follower made a good point. We research things in our life that does not directly affect our physical, mental, and emotional health.


As a health professional, one of my patterns when I know I am entering a relationship is to make sure we both get STD tests and to make sure I see the results and/or go to the clinic together to get our results. I believe this is mandatory in today’s world. I do not understand why people feel so uncomfortable with these types of conversations when they are important and needed! We have to take ownership over our own health. STD’s run rampant in minority communities, especially tribal communities. I always felt comfortable doing this, but based on my experience do I now have to get a background check AND a credit check? Has it come that people are so dishonest that we have to research their lives ourselves? Or is that taking it too far? Do we ever really know what types of people we are dating??????????????????

Settling?

Settling?

My words and feelings stem from my personal thought processes/experiences, but have been stimulated by other like-minded females. What is your list? For a man to be educated, financially stable, never married, no kids, tall, fine, good credit, adaptable, dresses nice, respectable, does not cheat or lie, and adores you? Yeah-yeah ladies join the line! Ok, so what if a man lacks some of these qualities but upholds most of them? For example, I once dated a man who was cool on the basic standpoint on where he was loyal, faithful, did not lie, and was respectful but at the time did not hold a job; therefore, was not financially stable with not so good credit. Hmm..then my questions arose, what is more important? What are my deal breakers? What if I did have a dude who was educated with mad money but he cheated on me (because ladies in my opinion the percentages are higher with those credentials with proven examples!). Okay, so what if you have good man who respects you, treats you good, compatible, will not cheat, does not abuse you in anyways BUT has some financial faults. I guess it depends on the female. It depends on how you grew up and your environment. Do you leave the man that treats you good and you are compatible with who does lack some traits you seek? If you don’t leave, is that settling? OR what if you do leave and the next dude cheats/lies to you but buys you everything your heart desire? It’s a tricky position! I am speaking from my stance, from a person who only dates minority men (primarily Black or Native men), so the pool I choose from will be much smaller from my peers who are dating other races. So the question is from a single, independent, native, professional…when do you know your settling or when do you know you found a good man? Money is not everything, but finances are important! Same thing with other examples in a relationship but I am using my OWN. I know there are other variables and other deal breakers. What’s your story?????!