#TEATIME

My Black, My Truth

6/22/2016

I struggled for a long time with deciding to change my target audience. Perhaps I could relate my posts and experiences to all women and not just black women. Every woman needs empowerment – right? These thoughts rang over and over in my head as I plotted out a new path for DEAR QUEENS.

Maybe I should change my focus. Write about things that everyone can relate to. I suggested that I utilize a more general perspective, instead of focusing on issues that are ever-present in black womanhood and black culture. Issues like black girls being magic, ignoring society's perceptions of our physical beauty, and using 'Lemonade' as an outlet to tell our own stories.

These thoughts even trickled into my real-life interactions – being able to connect better with my African American counterparts, than any others. Not because of any prejudice, but because of our similarities. Because of our stories. Because of the unignorable beauty of our culture and the connection we forge because of it. For much of my adult-life, I felt this to be a hindrance to the woman I'm trying to become, both in my purpose and in my professional life. Maybe I should try to relate more to others, even if it doesn't come naturally. But the more I dive into me, the more I realize this is who I am and I have to love it.

As important as it may be to empower every woman, I can not speak to every woman's experience, because, I, myself, am a black woman, with a black woman perspective – and this black woman journey is all I know.

To water down my truth in an attempt to appeal to a wider range of women would be doing a disservice to those who're constantly being unserved: black women. To change my black voice to one that fits the general population will mean losing my voice. The voice that encouraged me to create this outlet of inspiration. The voice that's been keeping this thing afloat. The voice that has provided the lessons and insight I lovingly share here. The voice that forms the words of this process and uses it to connect with others like me. The only voice I have. 

See, I love my blackness. I love my black experience, my black journey – and every ounce of love and hate it may come with. I love how my melanin generates both great struggles and great triumphs. I love how my stories are not from a place of just womanhood, but of black womanhood and how unignorable that is. I love how my A.M.E Zion church is rooted in tradition. I love how my history – though heart-shattering – is synonymous with strength and rooted in perseverance and unity.  

I love how my red-toned skin tans. How my brown body looks in coral bathing suits and floral print sundresses. I love the dark brown freckles that grace my body in unforeseen places; and the darker brown beauty mark on my thigh. I love my lips, my nose, and my almond eyes. I love how my curves fill out jumpsuits, and how this lent its way to insight about street harassment. 

I love how black music, black art and black culture is used as a blueprint for what's "hot". I love how in the midst of its appropriation, black style cannot be mimicked. I love the creativity of my black counterparts and how we often turn our black trials into bold black testimonies. I love how my blackness cannot be avoided nor ignored – forcing me to accept and appreciate every inch of this blackness in ways that only other black bodies can understand. Can receive. Can wallow in. 

See, I love my blackness. I love my black life, my black struggles, and the journey of this thing called black womanhood. My blackness cannot be ignored, nor should my black voice be silenced. So, while appealing to a wider audience may be great, I love my blackness too much to water down my experience. I love it too much to water down yours too. We need these lessons in the brown skin context of which they come, and I will continue to provide them through these brown fingertips. 

There will be things we all can relate to, but there are some things that can only be shared through my black woman perspective. And I learned to be completely okay with that. 

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Here's to a Summer of Me

6/20/2016

I'm always good is usually what I say to mask my own trials, while I reach out to others during theirs. It's how I excuse myself for worrying more about others than myself. "I'm always good," I say to uplift myself, as I lend an ear to others, make plans to get their mind off their troubles, and become whatever it is they need to get them through the moment they're going through. Even when all I want to do is handle my own moment.

I find myself trying to make sure everyone around me is happy – often times at the expense of my own happiness. I check on their satisfaction, more than I assess my own. I do things and make changes to accommodate them. Their fulfillment automatically becomes more of a priority to me than my own. I work double time to help those who've never experienced happiness, get it. Feel it. Live it. 

Even when it costs me my own.

I realized this a few months ago when an outing to make myself happy, still lent itself to trying to make those I'm around happy. When I began to stress myself out checking on the enjoyment of those I'm with. When my own laughter is halted so I make sure everyone else is laughing. Looking out of my eye's side to check on their smiles. Listening closely to hear their laughter or sounds of disapproval. Being careful and strategic to agree or disagree with how they feel about a particular event at any particular moment. An outing, a trip, an excursion, a night dedicated to me, often shifts into me dedicating it to others.

And while this all just hit me recently, it's been this way for a long time. 

So this is to the summer of self and the three months I choose to cater to me. The summer of doing new things and not begging anyone to do them with me. The summer of travel, cookouts and tequila. The summer of doing what I want to do (in the confines of spiritual obedience) and not worrying about what others may think of it. Not worrying about the validation of others, the satisfaction of others, or the happiness of others over my own. It's to a summer of going places alone, traveling, and doing whatever the hell I want – with or without others. 

It's about making the decisions I want to make without worrying about it making others happy. It's about making me happy before anyone else. It's about going where I want to go, smiling how I want to smile and living how I want to live.

It's about me. My happiness. My enjoyment. My fulfillment.

This is to a summer of me and the fun, friendships and revelations it may bring. Cheers!

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Break. Every. Chain.

6/15/2016

Today, Tasha Cobbs' rendition of Break Every Chain has a different ring to it. It has a powerful, more influential, meaning. A soothing soundtrack. A romanticized revelation. Every word makes sense that it never had before. 

Today, as I recollect my childhood and how it shaped me – in good ways and bad – I have an intentional focus when listening to this song. A focus that suggests that this song is more than its catchy melody and striking vocals, but that with its power the chains, that I now recognize, will be broken. Chains that I didn't realize were chains but were part of who I was. 

The chains of "good behavior" I held onto on field trips and visits with family. Behavior that I understood to mean the suppression of self. Behavior that I now realize, 20+ years later, was the source of me locking up who I was in a file cabinet every time I met someone new. Every time I went somewhere different. Every time I was urged to 'behave'. 

I'm not sure when or how I calculated misbehavior to mean self expression, but regardless I left all the pieces of me hiding behind professionalism and tact. I wrapped up my weird jokes, opinions I'm most passionate about, and quirky habits and secured them in a locker, at the expense of 'good behavior' in this, now, adult world. But as I come into more of myself, I realize how much that thought process – suggesting that good behavior is the denial of who I am to appease those I'm around – has become bondage that has been making my wrists sore and my screams, muffled. Those thoughts have been the reason I have become less of myself and more well-behaved – whatever I attribute that to be. 

Today, as I listen to this song, I hear the chains falling, each being a part of the self-restriction that's being lifted. I hear them crashing against the concrete, as my most authentic self begins to emerge. Noise echoing from the same basement I left my 'self' in as I exited the house each day. I feel the shackles of my self-inflicted bondage easing off my ankles as I walk toward the sun that's now beaming in, providing the light I've always had but never let shine. And as all of this happens, I'm reminded that this won't be the only time it occurs. It won't be the only time I'll have to pick locks with bobby pins. It won't be the only time I'll realize how much I've been weighed down – by the burden of "good behavior" and the shackles of self-defeating thoughts. And it certainly won't be the only time I come out. 

Today I'm reminded, as this song sings a different tune to my soul, that this is merely one part of the process. A process I fought hard to begin, and one I intend to see through to completion.  

I will continue to break chains. Until all of me is out, and all that's out is shining. 

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life

Surfboards and Life Lessons

6/10/2016

Step 1: get on

Step 2: fall off 

I laid on the beautiful Aruban beach two weekends ago watching experienced surfers wipe out on their specially crafted surfboards. They got on, went out and fell off. Like a routine. They weren't afraid of being knocked off, they knew it would happen. Despite the intimidating water of the Caribbean Sea, they got on, fell off and went back out – every single time. They didn't let the waves of the water put fear in their heart. Instead, they let it excite them. They let their recent defeat motivate them to conquer. To go harder. To work until they get it. 

Sound a little life. We get on, fall off. Only many of us are afraid to get back on. Many of us allow the first fall to cripple us. Paralyze us. Keep us quiet. 

We don't create a routine surfers do. We don't get excited at the obstacles ahead, we get scared. We experience fear, and allow that fear to stand in our way. We pack away our surfboards and go back inside. We continue to work on things we've already mastered; things we know we can do. We're safe there. We're comfortable where we are inside – away from the waves. 

Two weekends ago, I laid on the beautiful Aruban beach watching surfers collide and flip over. I watched them be washed out by the Caribbean sea, mouths surprisingly filled with water. I watched those same surfers grab their boards and get back on. I watched them determined to master a new technique, a new trick, a new wave. I watched them fearlessly trek back into the same water that moments before knocked them off their feet – literally – with fire in their eyes to accomplish what they'd originally set out for. I watched them. I watched it. They fell. They failed. But they continued. 

Let's be more life surfers. 

Let's not let the fear of falling halt us from getting better. From continuing. From growing. From falling off again, and again...and again. Because we know each time we fall off, the next will be a little softer. We build the endurance to fall off again and to no longer be afraid of doing so. With each fall, comes more growth. More development. More waves. And with each wave, a chance to surf higher. 

Get on the board, Queen. 

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