Blessings, affirmations, grace, and reflection

Yesterday, I cried. I came home, went straight to my room, sat on the edge of my bed, kicked off my shoes, unhooked my bra, and I had myself a good cry. I cried until my nose was running all over the silk blouse I got on sale. I cried until my ears were hot. I cried until my head was hurting so bad that I could hardly see the pile of soiled tissues lying on the floor at my feet. I want you to understand, I had myself a really good cry yesterday. Yesterday, I cried, for all the days that I was too busy, or too tired, or too mad to cry. I cried for all the days, and all the ways, and all the times I had dishonored, disrespected, and disconnected my Self from myself, only to have it reflected back to me in the ways others did to me the same things I had already done to myself. I cried for all the things I had given, only to have them stolen; for all the things I had asked for that had yet to show up; for all the things I had accomplished, only to give them away, to...

"So de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. . . . He hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see." (Zora Neale Hurston - Their Eyes Were Watchin God)

The Strong Black Woman is Dead On August 15, 1999, at 11:55 p.m., while struggling with the reality of being a human instead of a myth, the strong black woman passed away. Medical sources say she died of natural causes, but those who knew her know she died from being silent when she should have been screaming, milling when she should have been raging, from being sick and not wanting anyone to know because her pain might inconvenience them. She died from an overdose of other people clinging to her when she didn't even have energy for herself. She died from loving men who didn't love themselves and could only offer her a crippled reflection. She died from raising children alone and for not being able to do a complete job. She died from the lies her grandmother told her mother and her mother told her about life, men & racism. She died from being sexually abused as a child and having to take that truth everywhere she went every day of her life, exchanging the humiliation for g...

My soul has been uneasy all week. I've had these words running through my head all week long.   ...don't tell nobody/don't tell a soul/she's dancing on beer cans & singles/this must be the spook house/another song with no singers/lyrics/no voices & interrrupted solos/unseen performances. It is from the opening act of For Colored Girls called "Dark Phrases."  It is one of my favorite verses from the play. Every time I read it I weep because it touches my spirit deeply. I am crying now. Feeling the burden of carrying the world on my back. Feeling the weight of my ancestor's burdens falling on my shoulders. Wondering why I do what I do and how much longer I an carry that burden. Mourning my lost childhood that was literally stolen from me. Wondering how I can even attempt to heal the world when I have not been fully healed myself. Tears streaming down my face....my neck...my chest.  Sobs catching in my throat. Eyes blinded by tears. Moved. I haven...

It's Saturday...I slept in, have my cup of coffee, and should be relaxing. Right? Wrong! Instead I am trying to get my mind 'right' so I can crank out these reports that were due yesterday, but will probably get completed by Monday. Granted it is my fault for procrastinating. I did not realize how time intensive and comprehensive these reports would be. The last time I did them they were in a different format and I was able to knock them out with a quick one two punch. I have several issues. One is that something has changed at work and though everyone knows it is a problem that I have dealing with as best I can, it is getting to a point where I can't deal with the problem and still do my job effectively. This means I have to give the bosses an ultimatum (so to speak) letting them know something has got to give. Myself and my assistant can't keep working under the conditions we are working under and be expected to do our best work. Sometimes you have to look out...

Have a blessed day! God is so good!

This is the word that I received today...God is so good! Matthew 6: 25-34

With all the talk about mental illness and dis-ease I found myself needing to take a mental health day. Granted I just came off vacation earlier this month and we had MLK Day off, but this week I have been having an internal battle to follow through. I have deadlines at work, I've put my personal projects aside, and I have tax and legal issues I am sorting through. I've tried to stay positive and upbeat, but it is wearing on me as everything is coming to a head. My job requires a lot of interpersonal skills and I just couldn't muster them up this morning. It wasn't because of the weather or any other external factors so to speak. It was just not in me today. I took the morning off and starting cleaning my house. This can also be a metaphor for our lives. How can I take care of others when my own house is not in order? As the dust and the dirt and the layers dissolved, so did the mental weight that I was carrying around. My internal weight affects my external wei...

I could probably write about the issues presented in the movie "Precious" for the rest of the year. Today's topic is mental illness in the black community. How does mental illness differ in the black community than others?  Primarily the fact that there is a stigma attached to being counseled by someone other than clergy. Now, this isn't a singularly black issue, however it is one of the factors that contributes to the high number of untreated and undiagnosed cases of mental ill individuals in our cities and towns. Mary (played by Mo'Nique) had the classic symptoms of a mentally ill person in "Precious."  She suffered from clinical depression and seemingly a form of paranoid schitzophrenia . This was evident by the fact that she sat in a dark house, curtains drawn day after day with the TV on as she smoked her cigarettes and playing numbers that she would send Precious out to get for every day. She had no friends or close relationships and was devoid o...

One out of every three to four girls has been sexually assaulted by the age of 18. One boy out of every six will be abused by the age of 18. Although we have some reports and convictions to base these statistics on, they are actually not accurate. So many cases of child molestation go unreported each year, so we really cannot estimate the real numbers. The FBI reports that the National Institute for Mental Health found that only 1% to 10% of victims ever tell that they were abused. Boys report far less than girls. The average child molester will molest fifty girls before being caught and convicted. A child molester that seeks out boys will molest 150 boys before being caught and convicted and he will commit at least 280 sexual crimes in his lifetime. The standard pedophile will commit 117 sexual crimes in their lifetime. Most sexual abuse happens between the ages of 7 and 13. There are over 491,720 registered sex offenders in the United States. 80,000 to 100,000 of the above of...

#TimeToTell Why I Didn't Want A Girl For anyone who was sexually abused as a child, this will hit you hard but it needs to be said.

Bag Lady (Smooth Mix) by Erykah Badu Old theme song

India Arie Beautiful Flower New theme song for 2010

One day I will figure out how to get off this hamster wheel. In the meantime, squeak, squeak, squeak. Reading Psalms 104 - verses 13-35 are especially poignant. 'In due season.' Have a blessed day!

Facebook is the debil! Most of my FB friends are people I've known in "past lives." Old school chums, family, and exes. There are very few people who I deal with on a day to day basis who are my FB friends. Often we will do a quick exchange of how are you and what have you been doing for the past 5, 10, 15, or 20 years? After that we will exchange numbers or email addresses (just in case) and sometimes comment on each other's status updates. End of story. There is a guy from high school who I found on facebook. I wasn't looking for him, but we shared the same last name, graduated the same class, and lived in the same neighborhood so I would ocassionally wonder about him. Turns out he is locked up. I was really sad to hear that because he was a really nice guy. He didn't go over the details of his incarceration with me and I didn't ask. Then, something strange started happening. Another girl from high school started posting pictures of her and the ...

After my brother's DWI, it went downhill from there. Apparently this was not his first DWI and the prosecutor was not lenient. It must have been during my this time that my brother came into contact with the guy he eventually moved to LA with. Due to my brother's DWI, he lost everything. In this time out godmother had also died, so his go to person was no longer there for support. He was eventually evicted from his townhouse that he lived in for over two decades and moved to LA. He had also been diagnosed with HIV. An amazing fact about my brother is that many of his friends and lovers died during that first big wave of HIV/AIDs. My brother worked in a hospital, so I think he had access to the early cocktails. He lived for a good 15 years with the disease. When I went to visit my brother in LA, I was in awe of how he was living. It was not his lifestyle at all. He was not working and his apartment and neighborhood were not nearly what he was used to. I remember staying one ...

My brother has been weighing heavy on my mind lately. It is not his birthday and it isn't the anniversary of his death, but I have been thinking about him a lot. Just to put it out there...my brother was gay. Like of the rainbow coalition type of gays. He lived in San Francisco and did everything in the Castro. He participated in gay pride parades. He was gay. Now, I never had any shame in his orientation because I never knew any better. I just thought he was uber-fabulous and never noticed when I was growing up that he only had men friends. To be honest, it wasn't really a secret. But, as a child you don't know any better and you certainly donn't have the vocabulary to describe it until someone gives it to you. Well, my godsister point-blank gave it to me one day in my godmother's car. She said something about people being gay. I was about 11 years old at the time and innocently asked what gay was. Strangely, when gay was described to me as people who like pe...

For the second morning in a row I have risen before the alarm and not been able to fall back asleep. If I keep this up, I might need to start getting up at 5:30 AM to hit the gym before work. That would add energy to my day. The gym is near my job so I would have to shower and get ready for work there. Eh, maybe a couple times a week I can make an effor to that. We'll see what happens. Kind of waiting for the new year crowds to die down. One of my pet peeves is going to a crowded, overused gym. Sure to happen after work. I just never have extra energy afer work, though yesterday I was surprisingly not completely dragging when I left. Not as motivated this morning, but will continue my 5-5-5 ritual this morning. I keep looking at my vision board that I created last year and although many of the things I posted are still in my vision, I want to update it...maybe narrow it down a bit. Collage is a messy process, but then again, so is life. Just ask the ex who found me on Facebook....

Good morning, This year is about rededicating my life to spiritual growth and physical health. I am starting off my morning with a bottle of water and a cup of tea instead of coffee. How life affirming to start your day off with something pure and fresh as water. When I think about way we Americans abuse our bodies it is no wonder we suffer from so many diseases. Instead of water and fruit in the morning we instead clog our intestines and arteries with egg and cheese sandwiches and similar foods. Now, don't get me wrong, I love breakfast foods, but I have come to realize that it is not life affirming to eat so many animal products on a daily basis. A balance of fruits, vegetables, grains, and proteins is better. My aunt and her hubby alternate oatmeal or yogurt and flax seed, and only on the weekends they will have a nice hearty breakfast. While I love love love coffee, I also know it is not the most life affirming thing for me to put in my body first thing in the morning. If I...

I started my cleanse yesterday with the hope it would motivate me to do more than just mope around my apartment and play Cafe World. No such luck. I am required to return to my place of employ after many days of well deserved rest and I am not ready. I am not ready mentally, nor physically. I haven't done anything to prepare for work though I knew it was down to the wire. I tried to meditate yesterday to get my 'mind right' but I kept falling asleep. The interesting thing is that I don't necessary dislike my job - at least I didn't when I left for vacation. Yet, here I am feeling like I have no drive or ambition. I don't want to go in tomorrow. I don't have any of my work done, and I don't have any of my clothes ready. When is it going to happen? I can't take the day off, but I also can't force myself to feel prepared to go back to work. What a conundrum. I will have to continue this lazy practice of procrastinating - a nasty habit that sho...

I had an old love contact me on Fac.ebook today. It was a surprise because I am not really out there like that on the Fac.ebook. Yet, many of my exes have seemed to track me down on there. I don't care. I've friended them all. No real anamosity toward any of them. We have memories. They are a part of my life and helped shape me. But this one guy, man oh man. We have some fabulous memories. This guy was so much fun. I remember I was crazy about him, but in the end our relationship just fizzled out. I think he may have even used that line 'it's not you it's me.' Anyway, this guy made me feel like a lady. He had a crazy history, but none of it matter because he was such a sweet guy. I met him because he lived across the street from my job. He lived in the PJs, he had 99999999 kids, and he was a recovering drug addict. Yeah, it sounds bad, but honest to God this was an amazing man on his way to living a blessed life. Never judge a book by it's cover. We...

I want to kick off the new year on the right foot. I want to do a total body cleanse - a master cleanse. Problem is that I should have started it earlier. Now it is almost time to go back to work and I am sitting on my butt, unmotivated and lacking energy. I want to start it today, but I still have "bad" foods in the house. I will just be setting myself up for failure if I start a cleanse and then jump right back into eating 'unwholesome' foods. I think I have the meat that I am going cook tonight for my new year's dinner. I will probably just eat it once and then freeze the rest. I will likely wind up having to the throw the rest out - the chocolates I got for the holidays and the egg nog (gasp!) I had a lot of respiratory and congestion issues last year and I feel like reducing my dairy intake and doing more cleanses (physical and spiritual) will help. I need to get to a point where I am motivated to get back in the gym consistently I need to get back to a poi...