New Growth

Hey everyone!!!!!!!! Been sometime since I’ve been here. I’ve gone through some changes mentally, physically and most importantly spiritually. I’ve missed my blogs but sometimes we have to step away from something in order for them to get better. With that said here you go……….

                In the African-American culture we have all heard the term “new growth”. It’s a term that describes that feeling, when you run your hands through your hair. It’s usually a little rough, but it clearly feels different from the rest of the hair on your scalp. If your hair has been straightened or altered, the new growth doesn’t lie down, may stand out, and is not easily managed like the rest of the hair on your hair. It’s unprocessed, unaltered, and thicker and has a greater texture. We don’t usually like it and want to find a way to tame it quickly, for it to fall in line with what our head already knows.

                See I found out that just like my hair, my life has gone through a period of new growth. At first I was uncomfortable and didn’t like the change. I was used to what I was doing and I wanted to maintain my life just the way it was. Whenever God was giving me the opportunity to become a stronger person,  I would ignore him and do what I usually did,  because it was easier than changing. See changing required me to stop what I was used to doing and let God do his thing and I wanted no parts of this. But when I allowed Him to do his thing I became stronger, tougher, greater, and different than my past. No longer am I able to easily be manipulated, altered, or swayed. No longer will I allow someone or something to press me into something I’m not. No longer will I accept what’s clearly not for me, or good for me. See when you start knowing your worth, things and people that you would’ve kept in the past are easier to let go.             

                So how does one get that good tough new growth!!!!!!!! We have to be willing to let God do his work and stop putting our hands in everything.  We have to stop trying to cover our growth and just let it be. There’s a path that is already destined for us, all we have to do is get out of the way.  So embrace that new growth, because it’s going to make you into a better you than you could have ever imagined.

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11

Nappy by nature

Fried, dyed and laid to the side. I can still remember the smell of a hot comb on the stove. The sound of  sizzling as it ran through the white rose grease in my hair. This was my mothers Saturday morning ritual so I could be pretty for Sunday morning ritual of church. One hair couldn't be out of place. And no kinks could be in my kitchen. My hair had to be done. 

Today my own daughter came home with her hair done. It wasn't fried or dyed but it was done!!!  It was full of beads and tight rubber bands. My heart immediately dropped not because she wasn't pretty but because the fairytale was being planted in her head. The fairytale that your hair has to look a certain way in order to make it in this world. 

I asked the person who decided to do this why they thought it was necessary for her hair to be constrained at 2 years of age. I was told "because her hair is never done". See they have been brainwashed to think that if your hair is just naturally out that it's unacceptable. And anything besides fake hair, beads, perms, rubber bands, is ugly. Of course I immediately took it out with no time spared. 

Now I don't knock anyone for the choices that they make when it comes to their own hair but I vowed that I would raise my child to love herself exactly the way God made her and to not be focused on what grows on top of her head but more focused on what is in her head. To be proud of who she is,  not because she looks the way society wants her to , but because she is a child of God, smart, kind and loving. 

Do you

So I was thinking about how I was going to  celebrate my bday. I already have made plans but until last Thursday I was seriously considering canceling. See I really wanted to stop celebrating as of last year. Last year was absolutely horrible. I really didn't do anything  and when I thought that I was going to have the opportunity to celebrate my bday I was told "April your birthday is over!"  Those exact words. From that day forward I said I would never mention celebrating my birthday again. 

It's funny how much of an influence people can have over you especially when your in a dark place and last year was really bad for me. With that one comment I felt like what was the point. Until someone who I just started forming a friendship with gave me some great encouragement. I think the words were somewhere along the lines of "do you". I'm not sure what she really meant by that but I feel like I'm slowly figuring it out. 

Regardless of how anyone feels about my bday I'm going to celebrate it exactly the way I want to. If it's all my friends or just me I need to celebrate it. Nobody except my parents and not even them are obligated to celebrate my birth. It's the day I was brought into this world and it is just as important to me as someone's else's whatever is important to them. I refuse to downplay it, act like it doesn't exist, or ignore it like other people including myself have done in the past. I have to make a big deal of myself because I am a big deal to myself. So I guess I'll do me !!! 

Hey sistah soul sistah

I think I have started writing today’s blog about 15 times. Not because I don’t have anything to say but because I have so much to say. So the only adjective that fits this post is “tired”. Not physically tired but mentally tired. The last couple of days has been nothing but dealing with people’s expectations of things that they don’t, wont and would never do themselves. It honestly feels like one of those damn if you do, damn if you don’t type of moments. And everyone is the victim. And if I don’t stop and take care of their needs I have a character defect. Or as it was put so brilliantly put (yea right) that I have no soul. 

I found this to be the funniest statement about my character that I have ever heard in my whole life. Literally I was laughing for almost an hour off of this comment, that I have no soul. I had to stop and rethink this comment for what it really was.  It wasn’t that I lacked a soul it was that I had finally grew a backbone.

See for most of my life I’ve been a sponge. I’ve taken peoples crap time and time again. People would just use me, wring me out, hang me up to dry and reuse me again. But I have finally gotten to the point that I’m no longer the sponge soaking up any and everything. I’m stronger, wiser and much more in tune of my needs and more importantly my daughter’s needs .  When I started writing this blog I said that people weren’t going to like the new me but who cares.  You can’t please everyone and as long as God is pleased with me that’s all that matters.  And at this point I’m willing to bet my soul that he is very pleased at the person I’m becoming.

Adventures in parenting not babysitting

Disclaimer: writer is extremely pissed off and cannot be held accountable for her rant

Ok now that I've said that here it goes. Mother's Day is this Sunday and of course it's a big deal. Probably hallmarks biggest selling card day. And I being a mother for almost 2 years can finally explain what is so important about being a mother. A single mother at that. 

So why am I angry. I'm angry because 7 days out of the week I'm my daughters everything. Yes she goes with her dad on a visitation schedule but I'm still her primary caregiver. I kiss her ouchies, give her hugs, make her meals, feed her meals, change diapers, wash clothes, change diapers again, etc etc etc. I'm your modern day super women. And not only am I super woman I'm professor Xzavier teaching her everything I can all to have someone who pretends to parent come and undo everything I'm trying to teach her. I teach her what's right but it turns into what's wrong. I teach her how to use the potty he resorts to using a diaper out of pure laziness. I use products that calm her eczema. He uses soap that makes her itch out her mind. It's a pure opposite day in my life 24 hours s day. I feel like I want to pull out my hair all day. 

It's insulting, disrespectful and just plain cruel. Sometimes I feel like he is purposely trying to confuse our daughter. I'm sorry let me use his words "his daughter". His daughter that he sees when he feels like it, when he doesn't have a party to attend, a game to watch, a something else that he chooses over her. His daughter that he is $4,000 behind in child support because he refused to help. Yes that's right his daughter. 

He chastises me over everything I do but I do it all without him and without his money. Like I said insulting. 

So what does this Mother's Day mean to me. Well since he won't let me even see her it means the same thing that it would any other day. It means that I'm her rock. I'm her provider. I'm her everything and despite what he says I'm her mother. 

Oh yes I'm the great pretender

I was discussing with one of my friends yesterday the art of pretending……well it wasn’t described so eloquently as that, but it we were discussing pretending.  To me this is an art form that has passed down from generation to generation. From pretending to be another race, as they said back in the day “passing” or putting on a costume at Halloween. We all pretend in some sort of way.  The question is why do we do it?

My friend and I came up with the conclusion that one pretends so they don’t have to show their true colors. We were speaking about a particular person and how they pretend to be so loving, caring, and supportive and giving to others but in actuality they’re really far from such adjectives. She said this person was so far from the martyr they claim to be that that it was sickening. I in turn starting naming all the things this person had done for other people but I was soon reminded on how they only do things for certain people and it was mostly so they could brag about how much they did or get something in return.  Oh and the biggest front of all, they always make the statement that if they didn’t have this or that to do they would do anything for anybody. Crazy thing is when the time comes to step up they’re nowhere to be found.  I realized that yes they were the great pretender!!!!!!

So what does one do with a person with such character? Do you walk away, call them on it, or stay and put up with the unclaimed selfishness.  I find that any other choice then walking away is super exhausting unless you accept that person for who they are. You realize that while the person puts themselves on such a pedestal you don’t have to do the same. You don’t depend on them to do the nice and right thing. You don’t get jealous when they selfishly do for others and you don’t take it personally. You continue to be supportive of that person without looking for anything in return for that’s what the great pretender is unable to do. And you be sure that you don’t become the great pretender yourself. You make sure that everything you do is genuine from the heart and has no ulterior motive. Because to give is to care, to care is to love and that comes with no price and no credit should be expected

74 +1

“No justice no peace”.  This is the phrase that Baltimore has been calling for in the last 3 weeks and today we got a glimmer of justice. Baltimore heard the words that they have been marching for, walking for, screaming for, yelling for,  and literally burning for “Gray's death a homicide; 6 Baltimore officers charged”.  As I watched the video of the city’s top prosecutor make this statement I could hear a roar of cheers in the background.  Justice is beginning to be served, but is it?

I in no way shape or form condone, agree, or justify what these 6 officers did in harming this young man and most certainly they need to be held to the highest punishment possible  for Mr., Gray’s untimely and horrific death.  They did something wrong and they need to pay for they’re wrong doings.  And while we still have a long way to go before these charges equate to punishment what do we do in the meantime?

Since Janurary 1, 2015 there have been 73 HOMICIDIES in Baltimore and Mr Gray now makes 74.  I find this important because not all of these were done by the had of law enforcement. They were done by the people in our own community.  There have been children shott while playing outside, murder suicides, innocent bystanders struck on their way to work, gang cross fire. All of these events have left someone’s mother, father, sister, brother, daughter, son dead.  And just as the country is shaking their heads for Mr. Gray, we as a community needs to be shaking our own heads for all 74 deaths. 

There’s an old saying that “we teach people how to treat us”.   And I never believed it more than I do right now. As an African-American community we have lost the it takes a village to raise a child attitude. We have become so immune to the violence we forget how violent this city actually is. Have we as a community succeeded in teaching others how to treat us? Have we become so immune to the violence in this city that someone that is outside of our culture thinks “hey they’re used to killing each other so one more won’t hurt.” 

So today as we post on social media, talk in our cubicles, discuss on our way home the happenings of these last few weeks.  Please remember that we, our community, our children have to do better, say better, live better and want better.  Because if we don’t want it for ourselves,  no one else will want it for us either. 

#KNOWPEACEKNOWJUSTICE   #JUSTICEFORALL  #JUSTICEFORME   #JUSTICEFORWE