And Still I Rise....Choices

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Today I said my final goodbyes to my friend, my doctor.  It was bittersweet because like most of the other deaths this year, Prince, Phife, Doug it didn't have to be.....

I am not sure of what the cause of death was, but I am willing to bet my last born, that it was a heart attack.
He was overweight.  We often joked about it as his belly got more oval and there was no more letting out of his pants.  He was good with life. So happy and content with his wife and his boys.  And his bonus daughter whom he treated as his own.  He was like if something happens to me, my family will be good.  I remember wishing everyone could be doted on in the fashion that he doted on his family.  The last time we spoke was in August.  I always made my appointments in August so that I could remember to get the date of the cookout.  I scolded him more harshly this time about his weight because the loss of our dear compadre, his colleague, my former colleague, mentor and friend was still sending me into bouts of tears.  I told him I didn't care if he thought it was good for the pushing or his love weight, that I needed him to get it off because it was unhealthy and I didn't want our esteemed university to throw him a piss poor sendoff like they did the Macman.  Oh how I miss my boo more today than ever before.  He told me that we both weren't going anywhere and he would see me at the cookout.

That was August.  I didn't go to the cookout, I wasn't feeling up to it.  This is April.  I still can't believe he is dead.  I wonder if he thought he was invincible because he was a doctor.  I don't know.

At his funeral, I was already emotional, because I knew that at the stroke of midnight it would be the 16th anniversary of the first time I became a mother.  And three weeks later, the anniversary of the second time I became a mother.  But, nothing prepared me for the emotion I would feel when my most favorite doctor walked in.  I nearly lost my mind.  I had to fight back the tears as I embraced the man that restored my faith in the broken system we call life.  He looked as handsome as ever.  He was like a rockstar of sorts.  Everybody was beyond elated to see him.

I remember the last time I saw him and so did he because we were both in bad shape.  I couldn't feel my limbs and some more things and he, he was wearing stress on his face, which wasn't like him.  I remember our conversation verbatim.  I told him that he looked bad and that he needed to cash in on some of his sick leave.  I told him that I was serious that he needed to stop running himself so raggedy and worrying about everyone and take care of himself.  I told him that he needed to get some rest because in the decade plus that I had known him, he had never wore the stress on his face.  Two days later he was airlifted to another hospital with conflicting reports running through the hospital.  He had a stroke.  He had a brain aneurysm. He was near death.  blah blah blah.  I stopped going to the doctor after he got sick and left.  He tried to come back numerous times, with me scheduled in as his first patient and each time he tried, he had a setback and didn't make it.  He was the reason I didn't sue the hospital 16 years ago and the reason that I was able to successfully become a mother for the third and final time 3 years later.

So it was definitely bittersweet to see him. He listened and lived.  The other did not and died.

16 years I have been pushing....and for 16 more I will keep trying.  Life is about choices and what comes with the choices we have made.  For most of those 16 years, I decided not to live and to let depression and sadness consume me.  The result of all of that stress is why I am fighting to see another day, everyday today.

Today, because it is now past midnight, I will choose to celebrate all of the wonderful things that came out of that pain 16 years ago.  Like the friendships of some incredible doctors, two of whom have left me too soon but one that is still here showing me that if you choose wisely, you can beat the odds.

"Life is often hard and unpredictable; however, but for the flood, we wouldn't appreciate the rainbow" 

Gotta Luv Moi, Cuz I Surely Do ~ Smooches

The Tide Is Coming The Tide is Coming

If I was only so lucky to get those types of warning when the tide was rising in life.

I have been here, fighting my way out from under a riptide. 

It has been one thing after another ...back to back to back to back.

My homies are going through it.  Fathers or daddies whatever you want to call them, cuz I've only been acquainted with donors and hasbeens,  have been sending for their kids.

And when I say sending for them, I am saying with that hard knock at the door followed by 'you have been served' sending for.  Daddies who never wanted anything to do with the child in the first place.  Daddies that have been M.I.A. mentally and emotionally but now in the 2000-one six, these daddies have been hit with a wand that tells them it is time to step their game up

That would be all the daddies EXCEPT the one that shot his dana in me.  That tired bama like the entire tenure of my child's life thus far was a no call no show when I told him to come get his lying, thieving child.  I thought it was only right for me to dump my child with the person's whose traits he was exhibiting. 

This ninja stole my money and passed it out at school like it was Monopoly money for his classmates to buy chicken and fries.. no seriously... I can't pay my mortgage but it's all good cuz y'all ate good cuz "Big Money Grips" keep y'all fed with my hard earned duckets.  Then this ninja gonna tell me when they produced the evidence, a photo with him holding 2 of the one hundred dollar bills before he was about to give them away, that it wasn't him...the picture was photoshopped.

Now what I needed to do was bust him in the head to the white meat and tell him that blood running from his head wasn't real, it was a mirage.  But I didn't...I let him live because he will learn to regret the day he allowed the devil to get in his way and cross me.  Gonna tell me if I make $50 an hour I can make up all the hundreds he took in some hours.

I should have slapped all the snot out of him... yet I didn't.  I wanted to...I wanted to stomp him dead like I would have a regular ninja on the street who had stolen my bread.   And I look good in stripes and orange so I could just go ahead and seal the deal...

But he ain't worth it.

Anybody who would bite the hand that feeds clothe and goes without so they can have, is not worth it and unfortunately, that is how I treat him... I'm just counting down my sentence until I can put him out. #realtalk

In March alone, I lost five folks to cancer..back to back to back... my support system has taken tremendous blows.  And here we are in April, where it is already sink or swim through the depression.

le sigh.  I am missing my babies tremendously this year.  16.  I would have been almost free.  I am reminded how grateful I am that I got the chance to tell one of my kid's namesake how much I appreciated them last year before he checked out of here.  I miss him too.

"life isn't fair... and sometimes it isn't even worthwhile.  however we wouldn't appreciate the rainbow but for the flood." (Luv)

Gotta Luv Moi, Cuz I Surely Do ~ Smooches

Maybe I Am Better THAN YOU....

Ha!  Folks kill me when they want to justify their laziness of getting out of their own way and picking themselves up out of their own vomit and filth with:  You think you better than me?! 

They say when you know better, you do better.  But that ain't always true now is it?!?  Oh, yes, I am in love with a married man.  Trust it's no Olivia and Fitz scandal, but it's something.   And even if we hadn't been rocking, knocking the boots all night long... (go 'head and date yourself), I would still love him and what he represents for me.  But that's a story for another day, that's not the turkey I aim to fry today.

I got some great and unexpected yet welcomed news the other day.  I got a job offer!!!!!!  All glory goes to Jah who continues to bless me even in my disgraced state.  An offer, not the job because I still have to clear background and credit.  And well that scares me because long before I was unemployed and underemployed, I was depressed and in mourning.  And while I was depressed and in mourning, I stopped paying my bills.  Not because I couldn't afford to, but simply because I forgot and when I remembered, I was too angry to pay them. 

I wanted to rebel.  I wanted to lash out.  I wanted to do any and everything differently than I had before hoping to make sense of the pain...make sense of my current life events...make sense of why God had took HIS grace from me.  Yes, I have on big enough drawls to admit again that I was furious with God.  Yes, I knew that unforeseen events and occurrences happened to the best of them, but I still deep down felt that I was special.  Felt that I had suffered enough in my childhood to get a pass on all the gruesome stuff I have been witness to in my adult life.  So when I didn't, I got mad and darn near pouted my life and good credit score away.

For a decade, I barely existed.  I wasn't even a shell of what I used to be.  I barely got by.  I became angry, embittered, and depressed.  I worked menial jobs afraid to take anything else because I no longer desired to put forth energy to be great.  I no longer wanted the stress nor the responsibility of greatness.  I wanted death, not just for myself but for every and anyone that had contributed to my pain. 

That was a dark time.  But even in those dark days, I still tried to help folks by planting seeds of DIY keys to success.  And I guess because many had met me in my present lying in my own filth, forgot-to-brush-my-hair-and-teeth state, they were taken aback by my bread crumbs.  Kinda like a skinny person saying they can throw down in a kitchen, much shade will be thrown. 

Folks thought I was trying to elevate myself by stepping on their toes by pointing out the obvious.  'You look stupid sitting at the back of the bus talking about how you let umpteen guys run a train on you.  And if your mama, aunts and friends won't tell you, hunty let me be the first to tell you, that is not the reason you want to be seen on public transportation.  You never know who is sitting on that bus, train, street corner and when your paths will meet again.  The same with social media.  You should always be mindful of what you paint as a representation of yourself.'  I never once was condescending or arrogant.  I did it from a place of love because I truly believe that we should lift as we rise even if I was currently lying on my back looking at the stars reminiscing when they were my homies.

So that has kind of been the theme when I have offered words of advice, encouragement, insight, what have you to folks that I honestly wish would do better, not for me, because they don't pay not ner one of my bills or pad my pockets, but for them because I believe they deserve something better than what life has currently given them.  But when they show me that they don't want anything to do with the light, I allow them to stay blind because I don't have the time.  I was having a hard enough time trying to get myself out of my own funk of comfortableness with mediocrity to fight with someone about theirs.

The difference for me I guess was that I was aware that I wasn't living to my full potential because I had already lived it....tasted it...experienced what it was like to be a mover and shaker.  I had scaled the mountain and reached the top; I was trying to help folks who couldn't see past the tip of their nose to realize that they were standing on top of an anthill and the mountain was before them.

So fast forward to this offer.  One that I had put on my vision board some 6 months ago.  One that I had prayed about and put in the work to get.  One that I may or may not get...

Yes, let's talk about that:

So, I mentioned to an acquaintance that I had an offer from a Federal agency that I was entertaining and that while I was excited, I was also scared.  My health well, it's still not that healthy and I was hoping that it wouldn't interfere with this job if everything cleared.  I told her how I was trying to hook up my friend with the agency but she was dragging her feet with applying and how the other folks who I had told, had followed through and things were moving for them as well. 

So, after accusing me of holding out on her she lbvs tells me to not to wait on my friend but to give her the information so she could apply and in the same breath tells me that I only got the job because I am a veteran and how veterans are taking all the jobs.  Then when I tell her I didn't use my veteran preference and seldom do; she goes on another tirade on why and how I must have gotten the job. 

Le sigh

It took everything in me not to blurt out the very thing I have been so adamant against.  Maybe, I am better than everyone that applied!

That's right, I said it.  I am better. Now what?!

I mean I am the descendant of the best of the best of the best that survived the treacherous waters, packed inhumanely on a boat, in beyond deplorable conditions only to reach land to be further humiliated.  I am the descendant of the best of the best of the best that survived being beaten, whipped, chained and hanged.  I am the descendant of the best of the best of the best that survived separate but equal firebombings, Jim Crowing, Tuskegeeing,  bridge marching massacres, redlining, and poor schooling.  I am the descendant of the best my ancestors had to offer so heck to the yeah, I don't think, I know, I am better, which is why I try to do better....not just for me, but for those coming behind me.

I don't mind stepping on your toes when I try and pull your coat and let you know how to make this crazy game of life work for you too because I know that I am ALREADY elevated on the shoulders of those that came and sacrificed so much before me.  It pains me when I see folks letting opportunities within their reach get away simply because they think someone is hipping them to the game so they can feel superior. 

I told this acquaintance along with a gazillion other folks about the job fairs that I was hitting with Federal Agencies in attendance.  She like most of them chose not to attend.  I told her and a gazillion other folks about this hiring manager for the feds that was ripping up critiquing resumes, helping folks get them in USAJob tiptop shape.  I told this acquaintance about a lot of things and now I am scratching my head trying to remember one thing she has hipped me on....

"Sometimes while searching for an answer to even the playing field or justify why someone got a blessing that you think you deserve, hold up a mirror and do a little soul searching....is it that they believe that they are better than you, OR is it that YOU believe you are inferior to them.  There is nothing wrong with wanting the best for yourself and those around you.  Elevate your consciousness and start believing that you are better and watch how you start doing better"

Gotta Luv Moi, Cuz I Surely Do ~ Smooches

Grateful for My Crew

Yup, My Squad is Better Than Yours!!!!!

Wow, it's almost surreal that once again I have cheated death while so many around me checked out, lights out. (IHateCancer) And let me tell you that I definitely wouldn't have made it without my Tarajis (check the link).

I am grateful for my Sistahs that breathe life into me as these various autoimmune diseases try and suffocate me.  I am grateful for the love they show me and the understanding they have when I go ghost and be MIA for a minute because they understand that it's ME NOT THEM.... no really.

 

I am fighting for my life, I am in constant pain, I am living in poverty, sometimes I don't know if I even want to open my eyes to fight the same draining fight again. I am a single mother who even though I have seen flickers of greatness, am not sure that my child can make it in this world alone, so yes, there are many times where I just don't feel like engaging...I need all of my energy to try and keep my nose above water.

It is a hard pill to swallow.  To know that someone you love and care about isn't accessible because life is knocking them down; 

However, my crew, they for the most part are true blue.  They don't throw me any shade.  They allow me to do what I need to do to maintain and love me all the same.  Whether I am up or down, they are always around....Ready to celebrate my small successes, whether it's making it a day without being tired or finally getting in the kitchen and turning the oven back on.

They are happy simply because I am happy and because I am still here.

I almost had to kick one of my Sistahs out of the crew....

She had forgotten:

 

"Whether you are making 1,000,000 or 90gs, remember that your successes and accomplishments only mean something if you have folks that are genuinely happy for you around to help you celebrate and live it!!!  A person that can bask in the glory of another's  shine, is truly someone you want to keep on your squad." 

Gotta Luv Moi, Cuz I Surely Do ~Smooches