Hey, my lovelies! I don’t know about you but I have so many pictures saved in my phone that I’ve even filled up the memory card I placed in there. Yes, I may have a lot of pictures but I rarely take pics of myself as I’m not a huge selfie person. I see people regularly taking selfies and, when I say regularly, I mean they take multiple pics of themselves every day to the point it’s annoying to me. I get it, there are days where you’re feeling extra cute and want to have a record of it to look back on when you’re having a shitty hair day.
While I may not take a lot of pics of myself, there are pictures with me in them that mean a lot to me. This picture means the world to me because it’s of me and my daughters and everyone is at peace but there’s so much more to the story than this snapshot tells.
Almost 6 years ago, we had to abruptly leave our home, the only home my babies had ever known, the home where they were brought from the hospital and grew up in. This event broke my heart because I felt I had let my babies down even though it was to no fault of my own. For 17 years, I lived in this home, I was comfortable with the space and my belongings but it wasn’t until I left did I realize it was just a house, not a home. I live by the adage A house is built of brick and stone while a home is built on love alone. This is the residence my ex-husband and I moved into when we were expecting our first daughter and started off as a home but life happened and it merely became a house. In the house, there was so much room, my daughters and I rarely spent time together unless it was to eat a meal but that all changed when we moved. I found us a two bedroom/two-bathroom apartment within walking distance of their school and cried when I did the walk-thru because they would no longer have their own rooms and I felt like a failure. My sister reassured me that everything would be okay and they didn’t view me as such but my heart wasn’t listening.
We finally got all of the belongings we opted to keep, I got rid of about 85% of the items in the house as we were starting a new phase of our lives and there really wasn’t enough space. I took this picture after coming home from work, fixing and eating dinner, and then sitting down with the girls to watch some television. This picture means a lot to me because, although I thought moving was a curse, it was actually a blessing as the closer quarters forced us to spend more time together. Having both of my babies snuggled up to me and each other soothed my heart and reassured me everything would be fine.
I may not be a huge selfie taker but I make sure to capture the moments that count the most so I can look back on and feel the warmth from that moment. Y’all be great, my loves!
Hey Lovelies! Anyone who knows me understands I proudly state I could be the posterchild for therapy as I’m a firm believer in being mentally healthy. My first stint in therapy was when I was 7 years old and I have my loving asshole of a sister to thank for that. Yes, to some, 7 is rather young to be in therapy but my mother knew something was wrong because I would cry when someone spoke to me and I couldn’t explain it and therapy was the only way she could help me. Well, the truth of all of that is there was a lot of turmoil and domestic violence in my home at one point and then my sister mentally tormented me every single night before we went to sleep but I couldn’t tell on her because I believed she was right about it all being my fault. Hey, give me a break, I was 7 and she’d been in the family two years longer than me, what she said must have been true, right? Ummmm, no, she was hurting and I was the only outlet for her to release some of it or at least as long as I was miserable with her, she felt better.
A few years ago, my therapist and I were talking about finding my ‘seed’, the place where it all began. If I could nail down my seed, I could destroy the tree of pain it sprouted and begin to heal the pain, misunderstandings, and confusion which plagued me in my adult life and relationships.
It was actually shocking to learn that my sister was the one who planted the seed which spawned the many branched tree of pain and confusion because she was the one who was there for me in my darkest moments even though she contributed to some of them. Yes, I talk shit about my sister but there is no one I’m more confident would lay down their life for me and we now have an awesome relationship.
My therapist told me to write a letter to my 5-year-old self and explain to her that, regardless of everything that happens, she will be okay. In this letter, I was to go thru every traumatic experience and relive with adult eyes which helped me gain understanding and help me heal that scared 5-year-old who got the bubble guts from hearing her Mommy cry and beg for my Daddy to stop hitting her. Yeah, shit like that scars you deeper than you realize. I wrote my letter with tears pouring out of my eyes because I’d never really dealt with it because, well, that was my life and I just went on with it as the years went by.
I have come to learn and understand that healing my 5-year-old self was important and pretty much disregarded my teenage self because I thought healing the younger me would heal all of me but that’s not how it works. You see, a 5-year-old is innocent and doesn’t really understand much about life or people’s attitudes towards them, they’re just scared when voices are raised because they feel they are the one in trouble. But, that teenager? She is bitter and angry because she has a better understanding of life because she’s seen more without those rose-colored glasses which protected the innocent child. The teenager has experienced heartbreak and betrayal, she has lived with being abandoned or played, she’s been bullied and teased due to her developing as a woman or even just her physical features which are different from others. That teenager has endured more pain than those closest to her could fathom because she never talks about it, she deals with it by isolating herself out of fear that more insults and displeasure will be hurled at her for being affected.
If I could go back and sit with my 15-year-old self, the first thing I would do is give her the biggest and longest hug anyone has ever received because she didn’t get that type of affection growing up. I would let her cry until she had no tears left to shed because that was an emotion she was chastised for showing to the point of being kicked out of a wake for feeling the loss of the deceased. The inability to show pain thru tears would hinder her as she got older as she wouldn’t cry in front of her own children when she was hurting which would have helped the understand that when you hurt, you express it.
I would tell her how absolutely beautiful she was as her physical appearance was always criticized by those in her bloodline which caused her to doubt everything about herself as she continued to mature. I would make sure she laughed hard and rejoice in the melodiousness of it because her laugh was silenced due to someone not liking the sound of it so she grew up holding in her laugh and covering her mouth to make it less audible.
Once I see that she is comfortable in her own skin, I would begin speaking the words to heal her. I would tell her how proud I was of her for remaining a virgin until after she graduated high school because maintaining that virtue helped keep her focused on what she needed to do and kept her character clean. Yes, there were some stank ass boys who lied on what transpired between them but that is on them, it had nothing to do with her and those who knew her knew she’d never let any of that transpire. I would hold her hand as I share with her she would experience her first sexual assault at the age of 18 by someone she trusted and, at one time, loved and reassure her that it wasn’t her fault because I know she still blames herself for everything that happened and questions what could she have done differently but there was nothing she could have done differently, he was going to do what he did, period.
Being a light skinned female, 15-year-old me endured years of hurtful comments which caused her to be ashamed of her complexion. She heard damn near every light skinned ‘insult’ you could think of, such as: high yella, light bright and damn near white, piss colored, and even told she could never understand the plight of Black people because she wasn’t dark enough. I would reassure beauty comes in every shade of the rainbow and who you are at your core is what matters. I would brush her hair and compliment the texture because that too had been criticized by others with different types of hair. To some, her hair was nappy because it wasn’t bone straight and to others, it was considered white people hair because it wasn’t kinky enough. She would endure years of criticism for merely being born with the light eyes, light skin, and wavy hair but that didn’t mean she was any less beautiful or worthy of love and attention.
I would share with her that when her Daddy left for a couple of years, it wasn’t her fault because he had shit he needed to work out but he would come back into her life stronger than before. You see, those years he wasn’t present caused her to feel abandoned which caused her to shrink herself in relationships so her partner wouldn’t leave. That abandoned feeling caused her to feel she wasn’t good enough just being her authentic self, she never felt as though she could let her weird flag fly freely without causing someone to lose interest and leave her again.
I would talk with her about her strained relationship with her mother which spawned 3 decades because she didn’t know there was no way to fight the reality of them being alike. I understand how hard she fought being like her mother and that was due to the constant tension between the two of them which often erupted in nasty arguments and periods of not speaking to one another. I would tell her to understand her mother had a lot of shit going on in her present life as well as dealing with being abused by the one person who was supposed to protect her. I would comfort her by telling her that she and her mother grow to have a close relationship but, unfortunately, a lot of years were wasted by both of them trying to be right and never bending to understand the other’s perspective.
I would begin to wrap the conversation up by telling her about the beautiful daughters she brought into this world who, in a sense, saved her life because she fought depression due to everything she had been thru when she was younger. There would be times in her life where the pain will feel as though it’s too much to bear and it would be easier to just end her existence but she didn’t because it would hurt those who loved her too much.
The most important thing I would share with my 15-year-old self is this: You will survive everything thrown at you and find your strength. Everything you go thru is to show you how strong you truly are. Your lineage is full of strong, determined, phenomenal women, you have a purpose.
We all go thru things in life and majority of it isn’t voluntary, it’s at the hands of someone we love and trust which causes scars we don’t acknowledge but show up in other areas of our life. I would highly suggest to anyone to take time to pen a letter to your younger self and, more importantly, to the teenager in you who is still angry for everything which transpired and damaged you before you had a real go at life. That teenage you is still damaging relationships because they are scarred and scared of letting someone close to you again because their experience is being hurt when they’ve let someone in.
Get your favorite spirited beverage and have a long, heart felt talk with your younger self thru written word, it will heal present day you as well. Be great, my Lovelies!
Hey, hey Lovelies! Have you ever had a dream so real that when you woke up you were living the emotion of the dream? When I was married, my husband had a dream where, I’m guessing, I had been unfaithful and he woke up pissed and stayed mad for quite some time. I guess my laughing at how ridiculous he was being didn’t help but, to me, this was hilariously unfathomable because I had enough shit going on in our marriage, with work, and raising our daughters to even attempt to offer someone else my time and attention. Let’s also factor in the fact that I am a faithful partner, once I commit to someone, theirs is the only attention I seek. Now, if he had had a dream that I went on a shopping spree and emptied the bank account, I could understand him being angry because that was so much closer to reality due to my shopping hobby.
Don’t get me wrong, I was raised to understand what specific dreams meant from a very young age and have earned the badge of “The fish dreamer”. I’m not sure if it’s country or what but, as I was taught, when you dream of fish, that means someone is pregnant and every single time I’ve dreamed of fish, we have welcomed a new member of the family. This might explain why I got so upset when my daughter called me a couple of months ago and told me she had a dream I was a fish! I refused to hear her out and simply said, “No, ma’am! NOPE! There is no dreaming of fish and me at the same time!” and she begged me to listen to her dream and why it made her cry. Hell, the possibility of me being pregnant at 49 brought tears to my damn eyes but I would probably be considered a saint as it had been so long since I had gotten laid, my name would be Mary because I had immaculately conceived the 2nd son of Christ! Her dream was that I was a fish, even wore a little blazer and sat a desk in my fishbowl and worked every day.
This broke her heart because she could never hug me again and she couldn’t live without ever receiving that from me again. To her, me being a fish was worse than me dying because she could see me every day but never touch me. Yeah, yeah, that’s very touching but couldn’t I have been something besides a fish?!
Just like my daughter had a dream that stuck with her and my ex-husband had a dream that altered his entire reality for a few days, we all have that one dream that just hits us so hard it makes us question what’s truly real. I am an avid dreamer and even keep a dream journal on my bed so I can scribble down what I recall from the really odd ones so I can piece it together and figure out what my ancestors are trying to tell me. I have heard stories of people who have had their loved ones visit them in a dream and reveal specific numbers to play and they win the lottery. Well, I don’t have those types of ancestors, mine make me work hard to figure out what they’re trying to tell me even though they know I’ll get frustrated and give up.
I have had many dreams of my Daddy since he gained his wings and some feel so real that I wake up relieved that his passing was just a bad nightmare but the true nightmare hits when I realize I can’t just pick up the phone to hear his voice. Imagine being in a dream in present time and your loved one is there, life is what you deem as normal as you’re laughing and just enjoying your loved one and then…………………………you wake up. This type of dream creates such a delusion that you wake up in euphoria that their death was the bad dream. When I have had this type of dream about my Daddy, I’m not instantly snapped to reality when my eyes open, reality doesn’t hit me until I start remembering the day he went down and never woke up and my heart breaks all over again. While it is a blessing to have him visit me in my dreams, it hurts just as bad as the day he passed when I realize it was all a dream.
There is one particular dream that has stuck with me for over 20 years and it involves my brother. He passed away suddenly at the preciously young age of 27 and it absolutely crushed my entire spirit. When I was pregnant with my oldest daughter, we opted not to learn her gender because, if GOD wanted us to know, my stomach would have been transparent. Before you ask, no, that didn’t apply to my youngest as I had a lot of pink everything and needed to prepare if we had a boy. When I was 7 months pregnant, I had the most vivid dream of my brother I’d like to share with you. We were on a row boat in the middle of a large body of water and he was holding a baby swaddled in a plush blanket and he couldn’t take his eyes off of the baby’s face. I will never forget the look of being so in love with a human being I saw in his eyes. He let his eyes leave the baby’s face long enough to look me in my eyes with a tear in his and said, “She’s so beautiful, she looks just like you. I am so blessed to have another niece to love on. Thank you”.
Even though I would never be sitting in a row boat in the middle of large body of water, this dream felt real, he felt real, I truly felt his spirit and energy with me. I woke up and smiled because, to me, he wasn’t dead and I was going to call him to tell him about my dream but before I could get my phone, I realized it was his spirit which visited me in that dream. It’s not just the warmth of his spirit that makes that dream stick with me it’s the fact he was truly holding my daughter in that dream because that is the child I call my clone as I truly spit her out. Anyone who knows us and has seen her will attest to the fact that she doesn’t look as though she has any other DNA than mine, like I created it her all by myself. The hardest part of waking up from that dream was that I mourned his passing all over again, I was sad and took time to cry in private for 2 whole weeks because I didn’t think anyone would truly understand how it felt. Yes, I cried and cried hard, I don’t think the pregnancy hormones helped at that point.
I have met people who tell me that they don’t dream and I can’t fathom such an anomaly. There are times where I don’t remember my dreams but I know I dreamt something and there are other times when I sleep so hard, I don’t even remember being asleep but I don’t wake up and believe I’ve not dreamed. I am of the belief that dreams are your subconscious thoughts which are only free to come to light when you’re resting and not pushing them aside because you have so much else going on in your waking life. Now, don’t get it twisted, all dreams are not always the sanest visions as some of mine have been a compilation of bat shit crazy to the point I begin to re-evaluate what I had to eat the night before that would cause such nonsense.
We all dream, whether they occur in a deep slumber or in our waking life, they are there to guide and bring us a semblance of comfort with the visits from our loved ones or feeling loved by our crush or getting that big promotion at work. If you’re like me and have dreams that tend to be all over the place, I suggest you get yourself a journal/notebook and a pen that you keep on your bedside table or even on your bed so you can jot down the fragments of your dreams you remember before they disappear, you’ll be surprised at what you learn when you put those pieces together.
I wish you sweet dreams and visits from your loved ones. Be great, my Lovelies! Smooches!
Hi my Lovelies! I was recently having a conversation with my sister and, anyone who knows us knows that our conversations are all over the place. I could call my sister on video chat to show her a new piece of furniture or way of decorating and this should only take, at most, 3 – 5 minutes but those tend to be the convos which we talk about everything under the sun for about 3+ hours. During our conversations, without fail, we will both use a quote/adage our father or older relative would always use and it stuck with us thru our lives. A couple of the more prominent ones our father would use would be “Be a duck” because I always took everything said to me to heart and it weighed me down and I needed to let it roll of my back as ducks do water or “Only dogs like bones” when I felt discouraged about my healthy curves because men like meat on a woman. I love my daddy, GOD knows I do but whenever he would say something like that, I would roll my eyes and tune him out because I didn’t want to hear it no matter how true it was or how much sense it really made.
After getting off the phone with her, I sat and tried to think of my favorite quote/saying and it was like trying to choose my favorite pair of shoes or movie. I felt I had burdened myself with an impossible task but then realized that, just as there isn’t 1 pair of shoes which will compliment every ensemble I have, there isn’t one quote that is a comfort blanket for every situation in life, that’s why there are so many. I regularly just stare in my closet and admire the many pair of shoes I have which are color coordinated like the rainbow and can’t imagine owning just 1 pair of black or brown shoes.
As most of us know, you can’t wear pants’ shoes with a cute skirt so, you need to have multiple styles with different heel shapes and heights to compliment your outfits appropriately. Just as you can’t have that lone pair of shoes, one quote doesn’t fit every situation in life. Think about it, while I may say “It is what it is” often, that doesn’t work when you’re trying to comfort someone who just lost a loved one and, if you opt to use it at that very sensitive time, please be prepared to get kicked out and banned from their presence for being an insensitive asshole.
The one quote my father regularly used on me was “Nothing beats a failure but a try” because I was, and still am, hesitant to step out of my box out of fear of failing. When you’re a perfectionist with O.C.D., leaving your comfort zone is terrifying because you’re agreeing to give up the one thing you work so hard to maintain: Control. I appreciate my Daddy for seeing how I was limiting myself and trying to help me understand that I would only fail if I didn’t try but I was also dealing with the thought I wasn’t good enough in other areas of my life and didn’t want to add to that list by not being good at this new venture. Younger me was too comfortable and strong willed to do anything which would cause me to leave the confines of my box and just didn’t try a lot of different things in life as the fear of not being perfect absolutely paralyzed me.
As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to learn that I can’t control everything but damn if I don’t try. As of late, I’ve adopted the mentality of “What’s the worst that could happen?” because, really, outside of dying, how bad can an attempt actually be? Hold on, don’t get too excited, I am not out here doing anything like cliff diving but I’m no longer as concerned with what others may think of me and my dancing to a song that speaks to my soul.
I have always been a huge proponent of “Practice what you preach” and can’t authentically suggest my daughters push their fear aside if I’m not doing the same, I have to be their role model or they’ll search elsewhere and end up down the wrong path. Yes, I’m glad you recognized it, that is my O.C.D. stepping forward and, when it comes to my daughters, I will never relax or try to reel it in when it’s for their better good. I used to think it to be a curse that my daughters, one more than the other, inherited my innate fear of stepping out of the comfort zone of the tiny box of familiarity but I began to appreciate it for the blessing it truly is because I was forced to get out of my box to guide my girls out of theirs. In coming to this realization, I now have a greater understanding of how frustrating I must have been for my parents who only wanted me to experience all life had to offer. I have one daughter, the youngest, who didn’t really show much fear from an early age, she just went with the flow and I admire and am so proud of her for taking chances without batting an eye. While her nonchalant attitude is impressive, it’s frustrating as her parent because it’s hard to punish a child who doesn’t give a shit about anything as her feelings on everything seems to be “Ah well, is what it is”.
After almost 50 years, yes, I said almost as I’m not claiming that number until April, on this planet, I’ve come to see how many opportunities I have missed out on by staying in my box and not having faith in at least trying. How will any of us know if we do or don’t like something or are a beast at a task if we don’t take that first step to try it? As my Daddy always said, you only fail when you cease to try. Be great, my Lovelies, and try something new today! Smooches!
Hey, Hey, my lovelies! Yup, we did it, we made it to another year, yay us, right? After the last two New Years, I’m feeling just as leery of this one as the rest of you but, as with last year, I have hope this one won’t be the same shit show of the last two. I mean, we have more lenient outside privileges, right? Wait, that’s not necessarily a positive because the ones who didn’t know how to act in the beginning are recruiting more idiots, shit. I tend to be an optimist and look at the glass as half full but the last 22 months have caused me to continue to fill that glass with wine and drink it only to refill to get back to my half full glass and then I drink that and just keep refilling until I’m nice, buzzed and couldn’t care less because I keep my ass in the house and away from stupidity because, apparently, it’s contagious.
I always say how I don’t make resolutions at the turn of a new year and it’s because I know myself and the one way to make sure I don’t do something is to write it down. I don’t have commitment issues, I just really don’t like being told what to do, that’s the Aries in me. While I don’t make resolutions, as an overthinker with nothing but time on my hands, I have taken the time to sit with myself and re-evaluate quite a bit of shit in my life lately and how I want to move forward. When we enter a new year, it’s a clean slate of sorts, a blank canvas to create the life we truly want and deserve to live. Go grab your favorite spirited beverage and relax while I share a few of the ways I’ll be living the best life I know for myself at this point.
During 2021, I began to find and use my voice, well, I knew it was there but still had fear of using it to the capacity I was blessed with. For most of my life and too many relationships, I remained silent even though I was breaking inside all out of fear of offending the other person and having them no longer speak to or leave me. I have come to learn I was doing a disservice to us both at that point because they didn’t know what an absolute asshole they were and I lost my entire sense of self all to appease someone who didn’t respect me enough to value what I had to say. I am no longer remaining silent when I don’t like an approach or any sort of aggression towards me, I have learned to move past the fear and knee jerk instinct to regress to a 5-year-old being chastised by their parent. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not out here looking for an argument and don’t raise my voice because Queens don’t need to get loud to make their point and stance clear.
One of the most important things I am doing in my life from this moment on is setting firm and clear boundaries. In the past, I called myself setting boundaries by merely ghosting people because I didn’t own that “No” is a complete sentence. In speaking with a friend the other day, they shared how they were going to just say “No” if asked to do something and I had such respect and admiration for this individual because I have envied that ability for so long. I have a tendency to attempt to say “No” with a lengthy (sometimes bullshit) explanation as to why I can’t do something and still end up doing it because I don’t want to make someone else feel some kind of way. I appreciate this person because they helped me understand that I don’t owe anyone anything as to why I’m not doing something. Again, Queen level shit and energy.
It wasn’t until I met coworker recently did I realize I tend to come off very judgmental. Yes, it’s taken a minute but I got a rude awakening by them as they were merely a mirror of myself and I didn’t like what I saw at all. This interaction was proof to me that GOD and the universe bring people into your life to shake the shit out of you for you to get it together. This is going to take quite a bit of conscious effort on my part because I am a very ‘particular’ person in most aspects of life. The bright spot for me is that this other person is not only judgmental but very close minded and didn’t take it too well when I used my voice to share such.
While I may seem to come off as judgmental, I am open minded and willing to see things from a different perspective. I now understand everyone, hell, very few, think the way I do but that’s not a bad thing because we’re snowflakes. Now, don’t get it twisted, there are some actions which will still get a side eye from me, some shit will never change such as: females who drink beer from the bottle or people who get loud and indignant in public places or those who are married/in a committed relationship and decide to stick their peen in or spread their legs for someone other than their Boo. I will maintain my composure when I see females my age with quite a few extra pounds stuffed into clothes from Forever21 ® to garner the attention of men or the males who use the same tired ass lines on female after female in an attempt to get their dang-a-lang wet that night. Ooops, shit, was that judgmental? I’m still a work in progress, told y’all it’s not easy, I just ask you show me some grace.
Probably the hardest issue for me to work on is the overthinking. If you are not an overthinker, you’ve no idea how exhausting this shit can truly be and it fuels my indecisiveness because I feel as though I have to run thru every single scenario to make a decision. Yeah, I’m a joy to take to a restaurant with a hefty menu. I have come to realize that if I keep thinking about the ‘what ifs’ in life, I’ll never see what can actually be.
There have been many opportunities I’m sure I’ve missed out on because I overthought to the point I come up with a nearly impossible outcome and that ended with 2021. I won’t be doing anything as spontaneous as jumping out of an airplane, I’m still extremely cautious but I will be stepping outside of my box and experiencing life as it was meant to be lived.
One thing I am no longer tolerating in my life is toxic relationships and I don’t care if you’re family, friend, lover, or coworker, if you bring bullshit to me, you gots to go! This Queen doesn’t have the tolerance, patience or energy for drama, we’re too old to still be acting like we’re in high school, I just can’t and won’t anymore. I know we won’t always agree on everything but if we can’t have a mature discussion about it, you don’t need to be in my space because this is where grown folks exist, take that nonsense back to the school yard with the children who of are your mental age.
On the very last day of 2021, we lost an iconic angel, Ms. Betty White. She was admired, respected and adored by millions of people because she was authentic, genuine, and kind to everyone. The one thing I admire most about her is that she lived her life and career on her terms, regardless of how others believed she should. I learned, upon her passing, that when she had her own variety show in 1954, she had a Black tap dancer by the name of Arthur Duncan on her show and her producers attempted to bully her into removing him from the show simply because he was Black. Ms. White pretty much gave them the finger by giving him even more air time because she wouldn’t let her morals be compromised for a check which spoke volumes about her character. There is an old adage that goes “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything” and she stood tall and proud for integrity, equality, and justice. In a world full of Karens, be a Betty.
If you are able to find it in your heart, I ask that you pay homage to the late, great Ms. Betty White and take supplies such as food, toys, litter, and/or towels to your nearest animal shelter as she was a huge animal lover.
With tweaks and understandings of myself, my best life is continuing to load and I’m embracing the fact that 50 isn’t coming with a filter. Be the greatest version of yourselves, my lovelies, as you only have one life to live and should do it on your terms!
