2019 - I Hardly Knew Ye.

2019 sucked. That’s the long and short of it, and why I haven’t felt like writing a recap. I don’t think this will be a very long entry, because of that. In the micro scale - 2019 was a very difficult year and I spent most of cradling deep grief and in survival mode. On a macro scale - summing up a decade is impossible. Particularly when you consider than 2010-2020 was the bulk of my 20s.

Being in your 20s is a very odd and complex experience - you’re not a child, but you’re definitely not grown either. I learned more than I ever cared to. For the entire decade, I can admit looking back, that I always felt like I was in flux. Every time I thought I had things figured out the rug was pulled from under me and things changed. Nothing was constant. Friendships, relationships, jobs, goals. living situations. Once things were stable, they changed again and again and again. Over and over and over again, I was forced to ask myself who I was and what I wanted… and that’s okay. Honestly, it’s ideal.

I, as a spirit and a light being, came to this earth, at this time, this way, to have a human experience. And how fun would that be if I had everything figured out? It wouldn’t be very human. I appreciate everything I’ve gone through and I have respect and gratitude for it - while understanding that not all of it was beautiful or lovely, or what I thought I wanted. Not all of it was kind, not all of it was fun, but it was mine and I am this person because of it. Thank u, next.

2019 had big ‘Thank u, next'‘ energy. I have no shame about what I endured or how I handled it - in fact, I’m rather proud of myself. I chose myself in 2019, in a radical, beautiful, and loving way. It’s something to celebrate. And while I will celebrate how I’ve changed in the last year and in the last decade - I don’t want to dwell in them. I’d prefer to look forward.

I hadn’t been feeling like myself when 2020 started. Rather than attempting to get back to old versions of myself, I’ve decided to find out who this new person is. My hair is pink now and probably will be for a long time. I’ve started working out and getting into movement again. I am chasing some dreams. I have some big plans and goals. While working on moving myself forward, I’m also allowing myself to surrender to divinity and whatever the universe has in store for me,

Until next time.

XO

Black Panther Feels

I remember the first time I knew I was black - I was five years old and a group of kids in my kindergarten class were going to play Power Rangers. I called Pink Ranger and another little girl looked me in the face and said I couldn't be Pink Ranger, because Kimberly was white and I was black. The next year I couldn't go spend the night at my best friend's house, because her father didn't want a black person in his home. I had a complicated relationship with my blackness for years. I spent years not understanding or accepting my blackness because I wasn’t sure where it left me in the world.I wasn’t black enough to be black and I wasn’t white enough to be white. For years, I identified with white culture, and I wanted to fit in with whiteness - I was a baby goth and a complete nerd, things heavily identified with whiteness. I didn’t identify with black culture - I hated church, I didn’t like Tyler Perry movies, and I wasn’t into hip-hop music. However, Black culture is so much deeper than that, andthe media didn't/doesn't want people to know that. Unfortunately that superficial glance was all that was fed through the media for years and, that’s what people saw, that's what I saw. Blackness is bad. Blackness is sad slave movies. Blackness is ghetto and loud and harsh and less than. I thought I could not succeed and be the person I wanted to be and be black. No skinny ass emo goth boy would ever date me, love me, because of my blackness. I was always told that I was smart for a black girl, pretty for a black girl, talented for a black girl...and that clearly meant my intelligence, beauty, and talent would never measure up. But then I got older and I read books by Zora Neale Hurston and bell hooks. I took Sociology and Black Studies and Theater classes with professors who understood blackness. I listened to A Tribe Called Quest and watched films with Sidney Poitier, and really listened to, not just heard Billie Holiday and Nina Simone. I voted for Barack Obama. I began to de-colonize myself. I reclaimed my blackness. I am the great-grandaughter of a man who was born a slave and died the owner of the largest farm in Louisinana. I am the grandaughter of a man who only had an eighth grade education, the man who laid the blueprint that Century City Mall still sits in, the man who was awarded five metals in World War II. I am the grandaughter of one of the Rosie the Riveter's and COGIC royalty. I am the daughter of Acquanetta - top of her class in law scool, an ordained minister (who was ordained when women just didn't do that) and biblical scholar, mother to three brilliant successful children. I am black. We are in a golden age of black media - positive and deverse portrayals of black people abound. And when I walked out of the theater after seeing Black Panther the first time - my god, how I cried. I didn't just cry for me - I cried for the little girls who get to go to kindergarten this year and get to be Nakia, Okoye, or Shuri on the playground and no one gets to say a damned thing to them about who they can be and what they can do. Wakanda Forever!