An Ode To 2015, The Year I Put Myself On

I've been waking up early lately, an hour or so before my alarm normally soothes me awake. I'm a very light sleeper, I only need a gentle nudging to lift me out of my forgotten dreams.  Some days I'm inspired to hit the pavement and run, more often than not, I roll on my side burrowing further into the mattress that a boy once called too soft. There are mornings when I curl up in the silence, content with my thoughts, or other days when I grab my Kindle which is always nearby eager to pick up where I left off the night before. Grabbing my glasses, I begin racing against time, trying to take in as much of the story as I can before I absolutely have to arise. I've always enjoyed mornings, (mostly for that for that first sip of coffee), my feet eager to hit my cool hardwood floors, warming quickly as I step under the scalding shower. I like my routines ,and the solace that I find in my new normal. It's amazing how different life can be in 365 days.

This time last year, I was in a rut, still bogged down in that 20-something turmoil of what life should be and what it was. I was mostly wildly unhappy, but I didn't want to complain. (At least I don't think I didn't.) Chatting with people who have a few years on me,  I was told to just push through, that things would inevitably get better, but other voices (two to be exact) told me to do what felt right to me, and that's exactly what I did. In April, I left a dead-end job and a stable paycheck to freelance full time as an entertainment writer. I was done, fed up with people telling me to wait. If I've learned anything in my quarter century of life it's that waiting is bullshit. Admittedly, I do need to work on my patience, but time waits for no one, especially not a young Black woman. Visualizing your dreams slipping though your fingertips is gut-wrenching,  and I was determined not to let that happen to me. Unhappiness for any measure of time is too long, and aside from doing the big chop four years ago, stepping out on fate was of the best decisions of my life. I spent the late spring and summer writing in a  little cafe around the corner from my apartment 30 hours a week. With that freedom, I got to breathe and reflect on the last five tumultuous years of my life. I visited Paris for the first time. I got to live.

However, four months of freedom got to be be rather burdensome on my wallet, so towards the end of the summer, I set out to find a full time position writing, and pretty much snagged one up right away. It's funny how life works because, as soon as I grabbed a full-time gig,  y freelance work also began to pick up. I was being sent to places like Curaçao, Aruba, and Memphis. These were beautiful places that I'd never seen, meeting people I'd never dreamed of meeting. It seems that when you open yourself up to new experiences things just seem to flow in. And yet, the thing about opening up certain aspects of yourself is that, you'll also discover other parts that you want to close.

As beautiful and eye-opening as 2015 was for me personally, I watched people I love and adore experience life-shattering loss.  Though I've been through similar things, it's so sobering to be on the other side, to know that no words or hugs will provide the comfort that they are desperately seeking. Instead, I just tried to make myself present, though I'm not sure I succeeded at that successfully.

& then there are relationships. Romances and friendships; those have shifted too. I'm learning perhaps that that's  because I've changed so drastically. For many years, I felt the burden of being an sympathizer, the buffer, the one desperate for everyone else to get along.  It became too burdensome a title for me to continue wearing, so I sought distance and solitude which gave me peace. I find being around other people all the time rather exhausting, I've found that it interferes with my ability to think clearly. Romance was a another learning curve. I think I've discovered that for me, love isn't always enough. I need plans and actions and a bit of aggressiveness.  Perhaps that's unfair, maybe there will be things I regret in the future, but for now I'm more than enough.

From Dubai to Paris to Jamaica to San Antonio, I went places in 2015 and experienced things I never thought I would, I swam in what feels like a zillion oceans, I've laughed more than I've cried and I loved and let go.  What I've learned most is to trust myself. People often have the best intentions but that doesn't mean their suggestions should be the blueprint to your life. You're the one who has to get up everyday and face this harsh world, so do what feels right for YOU.

With love,

Chocolate Girl in the City.

“You Did Right By Yourself, Ain’t No Other Way To Live.”

“You did right by yourself, ain’t no other way to live.” Chadwick Boseman as James Brown

The summer my mom died I lost about thirty pounds. It’s been four years and I remember that summer as if it happened yesterday. It’s strange because I can’t remember what happened last week. And yet, those memories will forever be permeated on my brain.

It was the summer Kanye’s “ My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” dropped.  I was obsessed with being an ultra girlie girl and I wore copious amounts of weave and makeup. But the thing I remember most was the smells.  The smell of the cancer ward on the top floor of Northwestern Memorial hospital, the smell of the wind coming off of Lake Michigan as my best friend and I sped down Lake Shore Drive. We were desperately trying to hold on to the innocence of being]young and free, right on the cusp of adulthood. And still, though unsaid we recognized that we would never be innocent again. That summer marked the end of my childhood. As the summer trudged forward I slept less and less, my once tight fitting clothes hung off of me, and I painted my mother’s nails for the last time trying desperately to come to terms with her impending death. After twenty years those were to be my final days with her.

And even today, right now as I write this I can still smell the cancer ward. It's as if the disease seeped in to the walls and the floors of that building. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever smelled before, not like the maternity ward or even the nursing home I visited as a child. It was because of that smell that I didn’t eat. Every time I looked at food I was reminded, and I was disgusted and heartbroken, my stomach churned. So I drank coffee and alcohol, and stayed out all night,and worked and sat with my mother.

Even that summer, I was able cope, to press forward, to deal, despite what was happening around me. Perhaps I’ve worn myself down or maybe my nerves are just shot from the stress and overuse of the past few years. I recently found myself in a situation where my stomach was once again in knots, the constant stress and anxiety was literally eating away at me. I began questioning myself and my capabilities. (I’ll admit I’ve only ever truly been a disaster at a few things in my life fractions, physics, geometry and calculus. Everything else I pretty much get after a few tries.) The constant throbbing in my stomach and my perpetual anxiety wasn’t allowing me to think clearly. I started buying into the things that were said to me and about me.

And then after a particularly trying day a good friend called me up and we chatted for awhile and she expressed to me that she had been in a very similar situation and it took just that conversation to make me snap out of this reverie that had been consuming me.

#blessed & grateful

I’ve realized that people will try and tell you how to live or what choices to make, but at the end of the day you have to do what's best for you. You can’t let other people’s anger and dissatisfaction with their lives affect you because it will take root into your soul. Quite frankly, it’s none of your black ass business nor is it your place to become the vessel onto which they spew their negativity.

Happiness is everything to me, the joy that I find in a day is what keeps me pressing forward. Those memories, those images and that smell will always be with me, but I’m less easily haunted when I’m living in the light.