So when I consider what do You want? The thing that comes to me most strongly is: "Peace”. I work backwards from there. What feels like Peace for me? Being useful. Helping and being of service. Making connections and having time to reflect and make thoughtful offerings to my community. I want a home. A space of my own. I have a vision and I want to see it through because more than anything in the world, I never want to ever betray my own heart.
Read MoreI haven’t written since last May. I hadn’t made the correlation until right now that perhaps, I could not face the words because they would remind me of our last encounter. Obituaries. Mourning. Loss.
Read MoreI didn’t get the job. In my heart, I knew when I had not heard anything in two weeks, that the job was not going to be offered to me. The news is freshly confirmed after an email I have yet to respond to; what was I supposed to say? What am I supposed to say? I don’t have anything gracious or wise to offer, so the correspondence sat unanswered. Sits unanswered.
Read MoreThe morning I quit my job, it was five years to the day of the time I quit the first time. November 9, my own personal 9/11. I reread my own essay after the prompting of my coworker. I recognized the ways that I had been hiding in this career. Playing small to keep the peace and not upset the egos who held more positional power or authority than me. I was exhausted at having to negotiate for my own humanity and it was increasingly more evident to me that in this country for a Black Woman, it's a distinct possibility that some people may NEVER give it to you. Some spaces will take too long to change and expand their capacities to be able to digest someone like me and it was evident to me that higher education was one of those places and I had to go, immediately.
Read Morehow badly do you have to be bleeding before someone acknowledges your pain? The unfortunate truth in this country is that in Black skin? You can die live on television and there will still be debates on your humanity.
Read MoreI closed my eyes to damn the tears. I couldn’t make a decision about food. I asked myself what I could do?
So I wrote.
Read MoreI am officially preparing to leap into a career of God’s design. I can see it clearly but there is not a blueprint for it. This next chapter is all about faith and trust. I know it’s going to work and I have no fear or trepidation. I feel nothing but ready.
Read MoreI hope that you know how many people stand with you and will be with you should you chose to push against the unjust, and quite frankly racist laws and regulations that classify cannabis use as illegal for anyone, including athletes. I hope that you know how many people will stand with you should you not. I hope that you know that you are not wrong for smoking weed. You are human. You deserve to grieve and heal and.manage that process in a way that feels right for you so long as it does not harm you. I hope that you know you are worthy of peace. That includes peace of mind and I hope that you are able to find it. I hope that no one ever tries to bring shame to your healing. I hope that you do not allow this moment to deter you from your dreams of Olympic gold.
Been that girl, still that girl. Will forever be that girl.
Read MoreAs a Black Woman we often have to extend ourselves grace because others will not. It becomes our responsibility to treat ourselves with tender loving care, because so often there are no other spaces that provide that for us. Where is the soft place to land for a Black woman? Who holds us in their bosom and nurses us back to health, assuring us it will be alright? Who acknowledges that we, too are fragile and in need of being handled with care? More often than not for Black women, that answer is another Black woman. But our humanity should be universal and not up for debate.
Read MoreI must admit that prior to now, I was not ready for you. It took keeping a personal blog since 2008, obtaining two graduate degrees that privileged reflective writing and processing, sending a tweet with a link to half blog post half academic assignment to THEE Brene Brown, an invitation to collaborate with writers such as Sonya Renee Taylor, Kiese Laymon, Luvvie Ajayi Jones and Tarana freaking Burke, and TWO WEEKS on the New York Times best sellers list for me to feel like maybe I am ready.
Read MoreWhen I woke up yesterday, I could feel the weight of my body and my burdens. Pretty immediately I felt nauseous and wanted to vomit. I did. Then I cried. All within ten minutes of opening my eyes.
I took my medicine, nearly choking it down, my body not wanting to cooperate with me, and I wrapped myself in my robe and went back to bed where I would remain the majority of the day.
In my mind, the thoughts swirled of how lonely I felt. Loneliness scares me. Loneliness is what lead me to call the man who raped me. Still, I craved intimate companionship. Not necessarily romantically, but I was craving something I couldn’t put a name on.
Read MoreIn my own experience, I was not in a royal family, I was in higher education. Feeling swallowed up and not wanting to live because I could not figure out how to be myself and survive in that environment. When Meghan referred to her own oppressors as “The Institution” I chuckled and winced. My own institutions had also failed me when they told me, at one point that they would support and protect me. Having a PhD and being part of the academy was supposed to mean something, that I had earned the right to fully inhabit my space and that my presence in the room was warranted and welcomed. That could not have been further from the truth.
Read MoreSometimes I find myself in a place of painful insecurity. This isn’t rare for an artist. Finding ourselves so incapable of self-affirmation that we offer our expressions of the human experience up for the masses, begging our audience, in so many words, Please assure me I am worthy of belonging and love.
Which is why it hurts so much when there is no audience. When there are no comments, no likes, no shares, no affirmation that your moment of naked honesty was seen, and no certainty that you are worthy.
Read MoreTo name your Self means to take radical responsibility for the words that follow “I am”. It means to define yourself an alchemic aligning of Lorde’s idea that to define yourself for yourself is to avoid consumption and annihilation. And Carroll’s idea that “when I use word it means only what I intend it to mean nothing more, nothing less.” It is to hold the idea that I can be many things at once and still, none of it absolutely, beyond that I am.
Read MoreIf ever there was a phoenix out of the ashes story—the last three years of my life have been just that: a burning, ashes, and a vibrant. rebirth. I suppose I’ve made some semblance of peace over my past because I have no desire to comb through it, I am much more interested in discovering who I am being and becoming right now in real time.
Read MoreYesterday, I made a bold proclamation, as I sometimes do. I told myself, and soon thereafter twitter and Instagram that “I want to have a public conversation with Brené Brown about shame specifically as a tool of White Supremacy; relooking at the paradox of vulnerability as an act of liberation and sovereignty but also the high risk of vulnerability in Black skin. I’m ready Brene.” As soon as I wrote it, my whole body got hot. I was terrified, what had I done?
Immediately, admittedly, I wanted to delete the post. Forget the proclamation. I quickly realized that what I was feeling was shame, specifically imposter syndrome of the “Who does she think she is” variety. The feelings came quickly and flooded my body with panic but before I could delete the sentiment, I made myself put my phone down and just wait. I made myself breathe through all the reasons why I actually was uniquely qualified to have this conversation.
Read MoreIt’s been three years since I earned my PhD—Doctorate of Philosophy in Leadership from the University of San Diego, the F I R S T leadership studies program in the nation. I never thought that they bragged about that enough. In the space and time between now and April 20, 2016 (the day of my dissertation defense) I feel as though I am just now beginning to see the brilliance of my work and appreciate the awesomeness of my entire doctoral journey.
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