12.31.23

One of my closest friends, more like a sister, FaceTimes me as I sit in my car debating my next move. After a bit of catching up, I decided I would take myself to dinner instead of ordering delivery from my favorite sushi spot. I still haven’t figured out how they can deliver fresh sushi in forty East Coast minutes, and it still tastes like a gold star. East Coast minutes, a unit of measure I have created in my world, my mind. A gold star is also a unit of measurement I have made in my world, my mind. Simply a reminder of the places I’m familiar with and sure to get a good meal, friendly service, and at a time where the parking is closer to convenience.

As I walk down the street, restaurant windows are full of balloons. The dinner guests look like pieces of confetti squished into the added seats because tonight, everyone is celebrating. Some don their Sunday best, a sparkly dress or athleisure, like myself. Some are wearing Kelly green with whiskey brown in hand, drowning out the fresh memory of an unfortunate loss.

At my dinner destination, I walk in with the hopes that I’ll be able to find a table for one where I can enjoy my meal and people-watch a bit. People-watching has been one of my favorite pastimes since I was a child. I think I was an anthropologist from the minute I was snipped from my mother’s womb. I was eager to get out one way or another and see what all the commotion was about.

I hear a familiar voice. A hug from a friend who coincidentally helped remind me of where I was this time last year. I was at Martha’s Vineyard with her and some other girlfriends. We dressed in matching pajamas, laughed from the oceans of our bellies, and toasted to the unknown. The unknown can be unbelievable in the best ways.

“Would you like some ketchup with those?”

“No, I’m more of an aioli girl.”

I have a friend who jokingly questions my blackness because of my love for a mayo-based anything over ketchup when it comes to the dipping of a good fry.

I sit at my table for one, happily taking in the conversations of the first rounds of dinner guests—people who, like myself, I assume want to be comfortably on the couch before midnight. Maybe we make it with eyes half wide open to see the ball drop. Perhaps we celebrate our safe space, our warm homes, and a comfortable bed, and thank God before we snuggle up between the sheets, knowing we plan to start the new year with an early morning routine. Both options are just fine because, if anything, of the life lessons I have learned, one of those lessons is there is sometimes more than one way to begin a thing or finish a thing.

My waiter has checked on me multiple times. As expected, the service is always a gold star. I ask him to please take the bread away. I know I have already planned to finish this steak and frites as well as spinach. I have ordered a medium steak since my early twenties because I believed that was the fancy thing to do. But I think I’m a girl who likes it a little more red. Sidebar: eat your steak however you feel in this life. I won’t judge you unless we’re close friends, and playfully picking has become a fun sport, never unkind. I don’t finish my medium steak. I box it to take two bites of a dessert to say I had something sweet. Maybe in 2024, I’ll retire needing something sweet to outro a lovely dinner.

A few tables away, I spot another single diner. I see he has ordered the steak. I hope he feels as celebratory, happy, and complete as I do. One of the runners walks over my dessert to the table. I instantly get a little teary-eyed because the freshly baked dessert scent reminds me of a time when I felt most at home. These emotions are not sad moments, just reflective ones. Life is constantly changing. It’s so wild how a scent can transport you back to a tiny kitchen with linoleum floors and squeaky cabinets.

The Christmas decorations, I wonder if they will come down tonight or maybe after the brunch rush of day one of three sixty-six. It's a leap year, an extra day this year to make it count. Will it be love, will it be career, will it be the consistent fighting of fears that you stumbled over in 2023? Whatever it may be, make it count. That’s all I have for you as I sit and continue reflecting on the wild ride this year has been and prepare for the next train. Wherever this ride takes me, I will make it count.

3 Quarters Down, 1 to Go

Caveat: I started this as a journal entry but here we are. enjoy.

Three-quarters of the year is behind me by only a few days, and I have been moving so fast that I should probably remember to stop and reflect on the journey. So here we are. This summer, in particular, held a treasure chest of experiences I've woven into the manuscript of my life. Each chapter is etched with the moments of falling in love; I've been a romantic since I was a single digit. Turn the page, and I'm soaring through the skies; I still need to fill out the application for TSA pre-check. Turn the page and, a thirty-something summer birthday baby, continually discovering the power of self-worth. And now, as I brace myself for the final stretch of 2023, I'm grateful for the blessings and lessons this season has bestowed upon me.

I can't swim…yet, but I love the beach. I wish I had spent more time there these past few months. There's something undeniably magical about the ocean meeting the shore, the sun kissing your skin, and your toes slowly sinking into the sand. As I let the sun kiss my skin, I couldn't help but draw parallels between the tranquility of the beach and the serenity of love. I penned pages in my notes app to later be transferred to my manuscript; please don't ask me if I've done so yet. Just know that I've been inspired.

When I left my job as a high school teacher, I told many colleagues that I had no clue what was next but something good. Fast forward to quarter three, where the good is happening, the travels have been frequent, life experiences plenty, plane aisles welcomed my wanderlust with a side of where's the paycheck, and I gladly followed amidst the clouds and distant horizons. I discovered the beauty of being untethered. At first, it was scary, but I have picked up many stories to keep close to me along life's way in this season.

While skipping coast to coast, I often found myself in conversations with fellow travelers. When asked about my occupation, I confidently replied, "I work in TV and film." This statement was not at all the boast you may or may not think; it was a testament to the progress I've made in my career. I've reached a point where I'm not trying to work in the industry; I am working in it. The subtle shift in my response reflected the growth and determination that have marked this "Something good gotta happen, Lord" year.

I also put into practice some of what I learned as a teacher, the art of asking for what I'm worth, and it wasn't without its share of trepidation. It's easy to underestimate our value, especially in a competitive world. But I've realized that my skills, talents, and dedication are worth every ounce of confidence I can muster. I embraced the discomfort, prayed, and found that the reward exceeded the fear. It's a lesson I'll carry into the final quarter and beyond.

Honestly, far scarier than asking for what you're worth is small talk. I've never wanted to engage in conversations that lead to nowhere, mainly because I am stressed, hoping I say the right lightweight thing, but as my friends jokingly say, "I always have my porch light on" or "Just accept who you are." I understand the value of building connections, however fleeting they may be. It's about finding common ground, sharing smiles, and acknowledging the beauty in the seemingly mundane but knowingly intentional. Taking more time to appreciate the richness of human interaction.

As I continue to reflect on the journey so far, I can't help but acknowledge the highs and lows that have shaped this year. While I haven't always shared the lows openly, they were crucial to my growth. Every time I cried in my car was a stepping stone, a pivot towards what I always knew in my heart. Good things are coming.

With the finish line of the year now in sight, because, let's be honest, Christmas is tomorrow. The lessons I've learned, the strength I've gathered, and the love I've discovered; love that is not necessarily romantic, but my heart is open for that. All of it has prepared me for this final stretch. I look ahead with gratitude and a sense of purpose, ready to embrace more challenges and triumphs that await in the fourth quarter.

As I continue to navigate the ever-unfolding story of my life, a reminder I rap to myself in the bathroom mirror sometimes while doing my skincare routine is I have everything I need to finish. I have to keep moving towards it. That fear is worth every dream I dare to chase, and I'm ready to make the fourth quarter count.

A Year And Some Change In Review

I looked up and had not written anything on this blog in a year. It's still here. I'm still here, writing, living, and learning. This past year has been filled with many emotions. I can hear my therapist saying, 'put a name to it. How are you feeling?’ 

September 2021

Like a sister, one of my dearest friends got married this month. I have been part of many weddings. I could have been cast as the Black twenty-seven dresses. I used to say that with a tinge of embarrassment, but now I consider it rewarding that friends love you so much to want you to be part of their special day. That same week a former student passed away due to gun violence, and on that day, I was an attendee at another friend's wedding trying to smile. Unfortunately, gun violence did not stop there. My school community lost multiple children. We closed our building down for two days. Although our school year was just beginning, I was already spent. The weight that educators carry is a heavy one. Philly Inquirer posted an article, "Philly teachers and administrators are end-of-year exhausted, and school has only just begun." That article could have been one of the many faces I saw in my school building daily. I tried to find things to do to recharge; instead, I told multiple people I was retiring. I would giggle about it, but my coworker and friend knew from the look in my eyes and our 4-minute hall monitor conversations that I was unsure if I would last. 

October 2021

I can now scream to the world how much I hate standardized testing…wait, I did that while doing the job. Have you ever tried to round a hundred and something kids up for an SAT test after being out of school for eighteen months? I should actually add a magician to my resume. As a reward, because I believe in rewards and lots of them, I went to John Legend with my friends at The Met. I think I want to do set design for a concert tour at some stage in my life. I also want to note that though I was depressed and anxious every morning, my skin was modelesque. The detailed skin routine I adopted during the pandemic showed outward joy even if I cried during my therapy session in an office nobody used at work that day. Insecure season five is back on, which helped me fight the Sunday Scaries. Another article comparing teaching during the pandemic to a steward on the titanic returned me to my Scaries. 

November 2021 

"Do you know how many alarms I set to get here on time? I'm going through it too." So I say to a student who has stayed up playing the game. Somehow I have become the enemy because we are in a school building, and I am a teacher giving him schoolwork. You win some, you lose some. Adele dropped her album in November because I needed something to cry to. That is my story, and I'm sticking to it. I played it multiple times on my drive back to my home state of Michigan, where I met new cousins, laughed with old cousins, and picked up Koegel Vienna hot dogs and Vargas taco bread. I mourned the closing of Rib Shack. Poured a red Faygo pop out in memory of those ribs. I stood in the middle of the street while the snow fell with my palm open, trying to tap into a childhood feel-good memory. I pass my granny's old house but never yet to the grave where her earthly body was laid. I sat in the parking lot of my last job in Michigan, the factory. I was reminded that I had always had the boldness to pick up and start over, just like I did when I left that job working on the assembly line in the past with dreams of being a writer. 

December 2021

The kids are restless. Not my birth kids but my students. We spend enough time together to be called a family, though, and I'm restless along with them. I cooked quite a bit this month based on my Instagram stories, delicious meals, beautiful. I was a little rusty but cleared a twenty-four-inch box jump at the gym. Just in case the apocalypse comes, and I have to jump a fence, I know I'm good.

January 2022

Walked back into the school building after winter break, and it had lost a bit of people weight. I tried to stay in the gym, therapy, and chiropractor so my mental health would not shift into something unrecognizable. A friend had a real book drop with a real publisher and a real cover. I was so inspired. I thought about all the times I walked into the Barnes and Noble in Rittenhouse square and imagined my book in the fiction section. I would sign a copy, "May this story stay with you like our favorite stories do," and then I hear a bell ring. I am transported back into the real world. A school meeting that could have been an email. After the meeting, I drive home. My world is blown up as I am rear-ended and left with a tad bit more life trauma than I woke up with, but I am alive. All things fixable

February 2022

As a high school teacher, I had many talks about sustainability in this profession. I'm getting back to my dreams this month. Group chats helped me get through. One of my students told me they googled me last week and that I was "like… famous." I will now call this portion of my life "Already Famous." I dyed my hair so I would feel like more of a rock star and look like an already famous person. 

March 2022

Tis' the season of midyears, but not mine though. It was my time to part ways. Terrified, I was but also relieved. Sad, I was but also excited for what would come next. Do I have a clue what is next? At this very moment, she did not. My student said, "they didn't see me as the type to hurry in falling in love, so maybe I should start working towards that so they can come to my wedding." This next season may bring that to me. I dropped a barbell on my chest in the gym. A strapping young gentleman helped lift the bar off my chest so I could live to see another day. Was he the love of my life? I will never know because I hid from him the rest of the month every time I stepped into the weight room. I will not hide from love anymore. I sang lots in the hallways this month. I had a joy about the next, even though I was unsure what that was.

April 2022

I was at an 86-day countdown. Maybe I should tell my job, "jk jk." Toni Morrison wrote her first novel at thirty-nine. This is a non-random fact I keep putting in the forefront of my mind just in case I get unwanted advice on my life choices. I had prayed, I had talked to my therapist, and I had sought wise counsel. I spent a weekend in Atlanta, where I encouraged my friend to leave her job, not because I was crazy but because we only lived once. I want people to remember that I lived. Maybe I am a little crazy, a lot of a dreamer, very much a believer, and doing the doer work.

May 2022

A child was playing a VR game in my class today. I have little left in me, so this is where we are. My hall monitor work friend, who has helped me manage anxiety in our day's 4-minute talks, is leaving. Who will I run to for four-minute pep talks? I wore heels to a wedding this month. That decision alone is saying I don't care about my life. I'm not made for heels anymore. When was I ever? For teacher appreciation, a student said I was annoying. In the same sentence, they said, "they feel like I care about everybody's futures." I do. That's the hard part about switching lanes. They also added, "Don't give up on us, purrr," and I won't. I told my classes they would not see me in the building the next school year. At Prom, they played My Dougie. The students were doing a dance I had never seen before on this side of heaven. Everything changes in this life.

June 2022

I cried in my car a few times this month, then treated myself to dinner because rewards are my thing, of course. Beach days, the arrival of my friend's book, and the anniversary of when I packed everything in my Pontiac Sunfire and drove through the mountains and rain in search of my dream. One of my students said I didn't know this was your last year. Another said she has been talking about it for a while. Another states that they better see my name on a book or film or see me in it. I have a lot of work to do. These kids are not about to dog me out.

July 2022

I'm putting on a one-woman show. At least, that's what I have told myself and everyone else around me. The keys have been returned, and the desk packed up, but on the streets of Philly, I hear, "Hey, Ms. Henry!" Once a teacher, always a teacher. I'm obsessed with the Pimento cheese dip from Trader Joe's. It's like my top summer snack. I got a new tattoo, and I could see my granny shaking her head at me. Sometimes I play "Everything is Everything" by Lauryn Hill in my car. I remix the "You can't match this rapper slash actress" line to Writer slash actress because you know whatever you have to say to pump yourself up, you have gotta say it. You gotta believe it before the world does.

August 2022

The month of my birth. This month I began advertising "Hello, How Are You?". The month that hoteping on Chestnut street is at an all-time high. I spent my time gifting myself, a step up from rewarding. I collected the September issues because one day, I would like to see my name on one of these articles. This is the season of thriving. Again, I don't know how it will happen, but it will. 

September 2022

I worked on some jokes while I rode a boat around the Panama canal. Anything to not think about that I still, at my big age, did not know how to swim. A lover of the water who can't swim…yet. I'm going to work on that. I have been a production Assistant a few times over the past few months. Anything to get me in the room. In the rooms I have been in the past few months, I had no clue I would even be here, but this is what walking in faith looks like. Before I knew it, it was the weekend of my show. I was so nervous. Would they point and laugh at me, or would the people actually laugh? I got genuine laughs! The kind you people pay to park for. The flowers, the love, my hands, and my heart could not hold them all. This is what I am supposed to be doing.

October 2022

Nobody ever talks about the moment after the high of life. Like what's next. Well, a trip to Seattle where I had the craziest moment of clarity. A moment of confirmation, you could say. This season will be hard but keep doing the work. I told my friend that I'm somewhat of a popular loner currently. I work through the sadness that seems to seasonally show its ugly head. I spend my days trying to pump myself up to keep on working, and keep on pushing because this is a faith walk. Not faith lay in my bed and avoiding human interaction. I beat myself up a bit because did I think this through enough? We here now.

November 2022

Today I wrote a detailed list of all the events since I decided to follow my plan A, and I must say, girl, you betta gon head. Stay tuned for an updated glory reel because I have no choice but to follow what I set out to do. 

Short Stories #2

Sometimes I write songs and sing them to myself, sometimes I start sliding down the internet of random facts. I find it interesting how Mexican hot chocolate needs water to reach an extreme boiling point in order for it’s best to come out. I find it frustrating in life that I sometimes have to reach heightened level of frustrations in order to do the things that I should have just done in the first place but maybe, oddly in some sort of way the sweetness of life is so much sweeter when you know how hard and hot it was to get there. Here’s a short story I wrote sitting in my car eating ice cream and finished sitting at my desk drinking coffee. Enjoy.

like water for chocolate

Ornithology is the study of birds. I’ve always been interested in birds and how they ride the sky so free. When I was a second-grader, I started reading chapter books. I would always pick up the weird ones, my mom said. That was just her way of calling me unique. I know she loved to see me reading, even if it was the back of a cereal box. She had wished I had rubbed off on my older brother. I read so much about birds I started obsessing, wishing I had the freedom to fly. My agitation would build up, and I would jump off 3 or 4 steps, thinking I could take off into the sunset. Ride the clouds over the art museum returning home just in time for dinner on Fridays when my mom would hop off the 23 so she could pick us up some hoagies on her way back from work. I could not fly though I would --for the most part, land on my feet. Even if I could fly, would I be too scared of the heights it would take me?

I almost peed my pants in the 4th grade when Antonio Jones dared me to jump off the top of the slide. Would I fly, or would I fail? This wasn’t some little slide either. Let me just say I’m scared of heights, always have been, but Antonio was fioneeee, beautiful, stunning. I had first learned the word stunning when I read about the Indian Peacock. Antonio had these brown-black eyes, a fresh haircut, and was wearing the brand new Jordan taxis. He had the power to make a 9-year-old girl feel like she could fly. Let me just add that Antonio, the love of my 4th-grade life, had the Jordan Jordan’s like from the gallery, not the one’s down on 52nd street that my mom would buy Leek sometimes. Leek would leave them in his locker at school on purpose and tell my mom they got stole because he was too cool and couldn’t be bothered with wearing the ocky version.

I was not cool. I read books about birds and made paper dolls with magazine clippings. What I felt for Antonio had to be real love, or so I thought at that age. He talked to me at recess when he could have talked to anyone else! But he spoke to me. There was a heartbeat in sweaty palms when he sat two people over during reading time. My pot-shaped heart boiling over when he asked for cuts in the lunch line. Whatever it is that you feel in elementary jumped off that slide and landed on something metal. They had to call my mom cause I had a hole in my arm. It wasn’t a hole hole, like a big hole in the wall, but Leek hyped it up cause he liked to see me get in trouble. My mom cussed me out without using a cuss word. I remember it like yesterday. “Nadiyah, you betta be glad that’s the only thing that happened to you, little girl, cause if you had broke a bone, I would have broke the rest of them to match! I don’t know what’s wrong with you flying after some lil boy!”

As a little girl, I believed my mama didn’t understand love. I had never seen her even look back at a handsome man who would whistle at her in the street. She wouldn’t let the nice man at the store hold the door open for her, and she huffed every time she saw somebody kiss on tv. So here I was trying to show Antonio that we could be a family of Golden Eagles, inhabiting the same nest for a lifetime. We could listen to Al Green as we fed our little baby birds because from what I saw on TV, that’s the music that always played when two people were really in it for the long haul.

Like a mute swan, I just sat on the bench during recess for the rest of that year. Reading my books, learning about the birds and how the world moves around them. I would be a grown woman one day unfearful and free to move around the world like the birds do. I knew my time would come to fly.

Short Stories #1

I am a romantic. I have loved, but I don't think I can confidently say I was in love with anyone I have ever dated. As I've matured and learned what healthy relationships look like, both platonic and romantic, I now realize that things were lacking. Please don't hear that I'm saying love had to or has to be perfect. I am saying love should be interactive. I am saying give me a romantic love that has an effect on both of us. I have cried over men that were not meant to be. The lesson that I learned is that you know what home feels like, and you have stayed many nights in hotels. Always choose the one who feels like home, and I pray that I'm blessed to experience that one day. I am a romantic. I hope you enjoy this short story I wrote this morning about on waiting for love.

Love Letters Left

We become more and more aware of how wrong something is the older we get. Consider yourself lucky if you look "okay love" in the face in your younger years and have the jet fuel to take a flight out of there. On my 45th birthday, I woke up to no happy birthday, not a scrambled egg, not even a silly birthday card. You would think as long as we have commonly shared this space, this room, this recycled air from my lungs to his and back. You would think that he remembered and cared for me, especially on a special birthday.

I had been waiting on love for a very long time, is what it felt like. I had been waiting on my time when Lincoln came along. He wasn't really my type, but at thirty-seven, the aunties started to make me feel like a granny goose. They urged me to give him a chance. Not many chances were being requested of me in that season of my life, so I walked along with what they were saying, pushing away the faint feeling of wrong turns.

Lincoln was a nice man. That's what the aunties said. He didn't have any children from his previous marriage. He didn't steal, kill, or beat his first wife. They just decided to part ways. He had been working at the plant since the week after his high school graduation. We had lived in separate parts of a town with two high schools, three if you count the sewing school that girls went to who said they wanted to be housewives. I didn't really know much of the man he was in his younger days or who to ask around so that I could learn. I was taught to trust the elder's advice, but old age doesn't always mean wise.

At the peaking in of my thirty-eighth birthday, I accepted Lincoln's request for a date. He picked me up in his car, which had some miles on it, you could tell but clean. He opened my door. Ordered for me what he said would be good. We talked about the weather, complimented how nice each other looked, and how good the food was though I thought it was really just alright. That new Gladys Knight and the Pips played on the radio as he drove me home. He said he would pick me up for church in the morning, then opened my door and kissed me on the cheek goodnight.

Saturday nights, we would put on an outfit and share a meal. Sunday, we would put on our smell goods and share the end of a pew. Weeks and weeks of this repeating itself, and then shortly after my thirty-eighth birthday, he asked me to share his place. It would be easier for both of us. This was not at all the love I had waited for, but I sadly assumed this was the love I would be getting—a man who wanted to wake up next to me each day. We would share laughs, a bed, and maybe one day, children, though that topic had never come up in conversation.

I felt his side of the bed that morning, cool to touch. He must have picked up an early shift at the plant as he sometimes liked to do. We lived a little better than comfortable, yet he always jumped at a little bit more. I had taken the day off from work as my mama used to do. Well, mama would just call in sick, but women had grown to get a little more freedom, nothing close to equality, but my boss was happy to give me the day off for my birthday. I decided to treat myself. I went and put on a pretty dress and went on down to the shop for some fresh curls.

It was evening time when I returned to our shared space. Lincoln freshly showered and in bed. I knew before I stepped foot into the room because of the half-smoked cigarette that still lingered and the sweaty beer can that he had only taken one sip out of. This was his routine, a dirty habit for such a clean man. Today was a special day, and though I had let his niceness blanket my affections for love, romance, and four walls that feel like home, I couldn't shake this.

I let him sleep. I allow him to run on his rabbit wheel peacefully. I started not to leave any sign other than the last little bit of recycled air. The kindness in my heart just couldn't do that. So in the letter, I wrote, "Dear Lincoln, You are a very nice man. Even dependable on most days but not in the needed ways. I've tried to be okay with these past seven years, but I remembered I'm not built for just a life of okay. I wish you the best. I left you a piece of seven up cake in the fridge to eat tomorrow when you wake up, enjoy your birthday." I placed the letter underneath the ashtray, and in the ashtray, I put my ring from the marriage that never happened. Still, I trust and believe for me one day it will. One day I will know what it feels like to call someone's warm arms my home.

Beauty in the Ruined

Hopefully, this is a safe place, but I’ve seen many times in tweets and think pieces that have come before; this may not be. I’ll choose to tell this story anyway. Which is the story of daily learning to love my body, love me, love me through. 

This past week I set out on an adventure with my sisters—a vacation in Mexico. Packing masks, Lysol wipes, vitamins, and even what books I would read was the easy part. I waited until the day before to pack clothes because weeks prior, I had tried on a pair of shorts. I purchased these said shorts summer of 2020, and they were now too tight. The terror I felt that nothing else I owned would fit me. This terror of my size changing has been a video loop in my mind since I was a little girl.

The first time I cared about my size, I remember sitting in church next to my grandmother and no longer being able to fit my thumb and middle finger around my arm. When my granny’s church friend would genuinely compliment my smile as I child, I was already thinking, oh, she’s just finding something nice to say. Then there was 5th grade. I switched households, changed schools, my freedom to run and play and ride my bike anywhere halted, and I ate. I still have a hard time looking at my 6th grade photo. In middle school, it all fell off. I played every single sport, and I remember my two closest friends at the time would always compliment my figure, but in my mind, I was still chunky obviously because none of the boys paid attention to beautiful me.

In high school, I got a boyfriend, and guys started paying me attention. However, yet and still, I remember the constant complaining about my size, my shape, what I looked like compared to other girls—outwardly complimented on my confidence. Inwardly and in my room changing 20 times because I lacked majorly in that area.

My adulthood has been an up and down of weight, workouts, diets, pant sizes. I can’t believe I’m sharing this with the world, but one time in my twenties, I ate an entire pizza then cried about it for two days. It’s been rough out here. 

This year, however, I began practicing speaking well to and about my body. It’s been a journey. When I finally packed, I just went with what worked. This week has been a reset for my mind. Something about nature just puts me back in a place of clarity. As I lay on the beach and talked to God and talked to my body for all that I’ve taken it through, I decided to get a massage. Those that know me closely know I’m very conscious of my body but growing. I walked into the hut, unable to effectively translate my problem areas to the massage therapist. The thing about different languages is that tone is universal. As she asks me to lay down for my massage, she just stares at me and says a few times, “Muy Bonita,” taking a moment, she then says, “very beautiful.” She was unaware that I was struggling in all areas to feel that about me. 

I have sometimes considered this body like the ruins. Disintegrating at times because of how I treated it, talked to it, devalued it. I thanked her in my minimal remembrance, quite broken, Spanish. I left feeling a bit lighter as I held onto the flowers she gave me in my heart.

Wash hands, Mask up, 50 feet, Repeat...

I have this slight obsession with my 600-pound life. Not really sure what it is about the show but I will talk that out in therapy. I watch it often and even more so in 2020. As I was watching it this week while finishing grading, the man on this particular episode said something to the effect of “You know, being this big and immobile you don’t really get outside, I forgot what it's like to feel the sun on my skin or feel the wind against my face. It’s been that long.” A statement so simple, a pleasure hastily overlooked and readily available to many of us on God’s green earth. This year I was reminded about all the things big and small that I take for granted when suddenly the world around me, around us, changed. I felt that even more intensely when I myself tested positive for COVID-19 and the only sunlight I dared to get close to was from the security of my bedroom window.

I thought, well very much wished, I had had a cold. Those who know me personally know that I have been a germaphobe since well before 2020. The running joke is how can I love nature so much and yet everything else in life I must sanitize twice over.  I have always washed my hands above average, beyond expert. I have practiced safe masking at about an 85th percentile but since being sick I’m on 110 percent. This year has already done a number on my mental stability and from what I’ve seen I am not alone. I can easily fall into a shell when my routines are shaken. I started in-house workouts but that motivation had disappeared somewhere into the abyss. Some days have been better than others but when I first learned of a positive result back in October I had already been struggling with seasonal depression. I was feeling very down about life. In a year of so much loss around me that can often cloud the good, I was trying not to lose myself. I put on my big girl smile and pressed on.

Sometimes pressing on looks like being still and focusing on getting better. I think this past month or so has been the most still I have been all year. Today was the 3rd time I had left my house since October. The first time was about 3 weeks after quarantining to get another COVID test. I’m not sure about the science part of it all, but the negative COVID-19 test result was enough to make me feel like I could not put anyone else in danger. After which,  I joyfully rushed back home to bleach and pinesol my life away. The second time was to go for a walk now that I was clear. There was so much anxiety that I felt when strangers were walking too close to me and the mind racing thoughts that someone could breathe on me and I get sick again. I will add this as another talking point in therapy. Then there was yesterday. I needed to get up and go for a walk. See the world moving. I jokingly messaged my sister that 2020 took me from deadlifting 145 pounds to adding an enormous amount of dead weight on my body and I should do this walking out the house thing more often.  Again I say, I started the year going to my gym 3-4 times a week since last year, then eased into Youtube workouts but not quite on any of those rides anymore.

When I read the numbers and I think about all the people who got sick and did not have mild symptoms like myself, I whisper a prayer for those who have suffered great losses known and unknown. I am reminded that though this year has been tough. Joy is yet available with each new day given to me. Fittingly, I will navigate as safely as possible in this new norm because there are others who don’t have a chance to. Learning to not take my time for granted because story endings happen every day. 

Thoughts of Registered Voter

One of my life lessons has been to watch what I say. As a child and even more so now I can be quick to speak depending on the day. After which I'm regretful of the words and the way in which they wielded a moment in time. Something I have tried to be careful about is what words I write, share, and what answers I may have to give after voicing my opinion, an unfinished thought, or maybe a question I have sat with. Have you taken the time lately to sit with some things before ejecting them out into this world? Is that concept foreign because of how technology has given us more access than my grandfather ever had being born in 1900? Are we saying just to say as my dear friend jokingly remarks in our conversations from time to time?

This year has been full of things said and written by many that cause me to cringe. Power can create a monster in the best version of one's self. If not tamed can destroy all lands around it. This is how I feel about politics. Always bowing out of conversations or convincing myself I was just not educated enough on certain things in order to give an answer that sufficed for the hungry conversationalist or great debaters. Honestly, I’ve come to realize that is not the case at all. I am simply just disgusted by the power and what others choose to do with it. How you get into these positions and make choices that are bathed in bigotry,  then wake up and do it all again.

I have been turned off by politics because of the ugliness of its power. So I unlock the doors in which I choose, opening up what I will engage in and with.  I shut down what fills me with rage. It is that rage that has me boiling when I read all the misinformation people put out there to share with the world because they have access. Never thinking about the repercussions when you don’t fully water your thoughts to hungry eyes just looking for a half-truth to walk to the polls with. Half-truths are easier than the work it takes to read, understand, and form an opinion that doesn’t just serve you but serves all.

I remember the feeling I felt last presidential election. The morning after waking up honestly wondering what type of thought did I, did we, put into this. Though it may be melodramatic to one who is not negatively affected or sees the negative effects of voting I wore black that day. My steps mimicked that of a funeral procession as my mind gripped onto the feeling that we were about to be pushed back into time. I’ll say while I want to be a better-informed voter the truth is I feel like I am picking the better lunch choice in my elementary lunch line. It is not a pizza day, but I am hungry and would like something decent enough before I get home. Truthfully that is what I’m down to. I will continue to vote because I want something decent enough before I make it home.

We want justice, y’all want us to shut up, and be responsible for changing the world.

Now I won’t throw you into the "y’all" category too quickly unless you give me a reason to. I won’t even really talk about y’all. I’m going to put my focus on the "us" I feel so deeply for as I sit down at my computer to write this. Black women, I love you.

Black women, I love y’all. I talked to a few of y’all today. I sent a text to a few of you asking Black women I know and love specifically if they were doing okay. Personally, I had work that still needed to be done and I couldn’t just still away. I could not go sit and cry or protest tonight because I have duties that I must tend to for work and for life.

Black women, I love y’all. I hate that we are all so used to this routine. Be Killed, no justice, chase peace, Be Killed, no justice, chase peace, and then the country points at us to change things.

Black women, I love y’all. I know many of us are thinking she could have been me. I’ve never thought so much about having the right life insurance as I have lately.

Prologue to Year 34

I often bounce questions off of an elder. I’ve said it before and wholeheartedly believe that we all should have a friend in the seventy-plus club that we can call on from time to time. I asked my auntie before we got off the phone if she always shared her age with people, or did she find it disrespectful when people asked a woman how old she was? She replied with seasoned confidence, “well, it never mattered to me, as much as I’ve been through, I consider each year a blessing.” It is with the hope of gaining that same confidence that I joyfully walk into year thirty-four.  

Birthdays bring about so many emotions I tweeted earlier this week. It’s like trying to unknot a delicate necklace. One of the things that brought about these emotions is the idea of failure and success. It is with each new year I make a mental list of all things not accomplished because somewhere I learned that life was about all the grandiose things you do. I torture myself tallying up all the things I didn’t do; even worse, I think about what others will say about what I didn’t do. Confidence is so much easier talked about than lived out.

In my life, I have attempted to focus on undoing and redoing and unlearning and relearning intently.  So I woke up this morning, scrolled through my pictures, and was reminded of all the things that I should view as successful. My reminders that my life is full and to look at things differently. Pictures tell stories beyond the smile. You remember this is where you were when you struggled through a depressive season. You remember what you were eating when a friend felt close enough to share her intimate wounds. You remember the specific sound when you stepped foot in a new country and how it changed you. My pictures don’t tell stories of failure but experience.

Most importantly, I remembered that these lists that I make up in my mind don’t mean jack. Maya Angelou said that “Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.” I liked myself at 33, and I like how I do things. I like that I’m changing my thought process around what it means in the context of success and failures. I like that I’m not giving up on me and learning to take it easy on me.

Last year, as I entered into year 33, I wanted to accomplish a few things. I will say that all have not reached achievement status, but forward movement is occurring. Jana at 34 is quite pleased with a move, which may not be much to some, but it is an act of courage when I think about all the times I stood still. Here is to a year of continued movement. 

Green books, Safe Places, Equal Spaces.

The green book has always been such a needed concept --for me-- in my black adult life. When I first learned about it, I viewed it as a magical book created to protect black people wherever the road may take them. The 1949 edition introduction stated, “it has been our idea to give the Negro traveler information that will keep him from running into difficulties.”  I’m all for the shared information that could help protect and keep one safe, particularly a black one. Read the 2020 room.  I’m all for laws when it’s about safe places and equal spaces for all. 

My nearing vacation was the first thing that came to my mind as I scrolled through twitter today. I saw another subtlety worded tweet of racism from forty-five but loud enough to hear from four hundred years in the back. I thought to myself that vacation at this very moment, today, sure would be welcomed—a getaway from my every day, an electronic turndown. Travel options are minimal, but I’m so looking forward to an upcoming cabin trip surrounded by woods and lakes. A place to clear my head, put some thoughts and ideas on paper.

I often follow the hashtag and look for pictures of black people when I decide to visit new places. It puts me at ease. I’m not sure any of my white friends have gone to those lengths before traveling. I have even searched for what could be a modern-day green book. What’s known formally as “The Negro Motorist Green Book” has been referenced as the “Bible of black travel during Jim Crow,” and was published annually for about thirty years, but where are you now, is the sad song I sing. Based on the little living I’ve done here on earth, there is still a place for such a trusty companion.

I have always been an explorer by nature. As a child, when the summers seemed much longer, I would wake up looking for my next adventure. I wasn’t so much concerned with safety because racism had not fully seeped into the crevices of my life experiences. I would just go, unafraid of what was in front of me, innocently thrilled at seeing something new in each day. That is how I feel about travel near and far. I just get excited to see something new in an old place or something old in an unfamiliar setting. What is most exciting is being able to explore and leave all your cares behind.

It wasn’t until about 5 years ago when I first traveled internationally did I remember having learned initially about the green book in an African American studies class at Temple University. While I have easily traveled through many states and saw people who looked like me, which made it easy to navigate. My layover in Qatar was an eye-opening experience. I saw nobody who looked like me, I did not speak the language, and had no idea who to tell when my space was violated by my taxi driver as he began to rub my thigh and asked me to be his wife.  I wished I had had some type of guide.

I’d like to truly live sometimes as the secret explorer people I am, people-watching in a new coffee shop, eating my favorite food at a nice restaurant, and taking in a new place wholly. I wished I lived in a world where I did not have to desire the tools to

Counting The Days

I’ve been counting the days since I walked out of the high school in which I teach. 111 days since I reached for my things, made sure to grab any papers that needed grading, then headed out of the building with what felt like an imminent attack on life as I knew it.

When I awoke that morning, it had felt like any other Thursday to me. I pushed snooze then rushed to get ready. I then traveled to work in silence. I like to hear myself think in the morning. Walking into the building, giving myself a pep talk as I usually do because teaching high school kids can sometimes feel like the first time I ever set foot on a theater stage. I hurried to make my coffee and look over my lesson. That morning or any of the other mornings, I never really watch the news or read it.

I have to admit blocking out the news was in ways, I thought, to be protection for me from whatever has been happening in the world post-2016 and some pre. I felt like something had caught up to me instantly when the panic-stricken child that I had tried to calm during my last period had approached my classroom. Was it the daily news catching up with me and forcing me to be aware of all that was about to happen, forcing me to be fully aware of all that was around me.

I don’t know what I have been counting, but there have been 111 days since I immediately realized that the normalcy that I hold onto like a baby who has just discovered their grip was not so much within reach anymore. I’m counting the days from, and the days until what, I’m unsure. Counting the days can be both a calming reminder and a trolling alarm clock of the things undone, gone completely.

I was praying for more time this year. Time to do things I felt I couldn’t manage before. One week I am complaining about the normalcy of my busy life taken away, and now I have just been counting the days.

I feel like a crazy woman with all this time on my hands, yet time is what I wanted. I see everyone on social media talking about seizing the day, coming out of this new and improved, or ahead of the game, whatever that may look like for them. If I’m honest with you, I want new, improved, ahead of the game on my goals, but I’ve just been counting.

A few things this past week have catapulted me into living more of each day instead of checking another number off on the calendar. My prayer for you and my prayer for me is that we focus more on the actions in our day instead of counting how many have come and gone.

Remembering

So many emotions fill this place, my body. I can’t remember if I ate a real meal today. I cried when I realized what today was having let my dates, times, suns, and moons all switch places since quarantine began. Today is my grandmother’s birthday. She is someone who I will forever speak about because of the investment she put in me as a person though she is no longer here with us. I cried again when I realized yet another hashtag and another viral video of death replayed on my timelines. It seemed like it happened so fast that we as a black community couldn’t even let out a sigh of relief for a black man who got to walk home from central park this time.

One thing that I remember about my grandmother was she would always tell me in every situation whether I was complaining about my siblings, parents, or trouble at school “Treat people how you want to be treated. I don’t always get it right but I try my best. Each year as I got older one thing that I learned that cannot be denied is that color blurs the beliefs of how some think they should treat others. There is a different standard of treatment, of what’s allowed, of what is looked over. It breaks my heart to have to relive trauma weekly it seems as of late because of the unfair treatment of my community.  

When I would sit at my granny’s table and ask her about her life one thing I remember is the calmness in which she talked about situations that had obviously caused her pain. She was born in 1915. Just a child during the times of The red summer of 1919,  the Elaine massacre, and the 1926 parade of the Klu Klux Klan in Washington D.C.. I don’t know if that behavior was something she learned because of the times or inherited but I think it passed me by. Feisty, fiery she used to say to me when I would get upset. I feel it all and it sets fire to my insides so much so I want to explode. Explode because here we are yet again not fully healed yet asked to remain calm by those who don’t want begin to understand.

We would talk about everything. I imagine that if she was alive today I would have picked up the phone to discuss the wrongs of this world. She had an input in almost every single one of my decisions. In middle school I stumbled across Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings and read it in a day. Upon finishing I thought to myself I would like to be a woman like her and like my granny who experiences life. Then I would like to write about it. So this is me experiencing life as it currently is, as painful as it is, and writing about it.

The revolution will not be televised. It will be hashtagged.

Over the past few months, there has been much time to aimlessly fall into the hole of social media. While I would like to say that I have made sure to get up in the mornings, pray, make my bed, read, tend to my teaching duties, and eat three balanced meals; it is safe to say life has been not that. Some days I win in this season and some days I lose. Most days I’m trying to find whatever I can to keep my mind on that which won’t make me lose it.

The Internets are and can be a wonderful place: full of zoom parties, baking classes, and the occasional workout. All very great things that I should be doing more of. The internet can also be a place of doom where following the hashtag can lead to vicarious trauma and hours of numbness because you have no clue how to fix the ills of this world or how to heal. I know, and I say I know because life has proven that anytime a hashtag is led by “Justice for” it can only end in a painful picture or viral video etched into my very detailed photographic memory.

As I’ve grown older, I realize that the hypersensitive woman that is me tends to check out of this world when I cannot find a solution. I have seen so many hashtags in the clearing of our smoke-filled lives over these past two months. I feel like I am grieving for my black and brown people daily. I am grieving for this world. I grieve for myself, who has had endless hours since March to think about my own trauma; more than I’ve thought on it in my short thirty-something years on this earth. I am thankful for therapy weekly to help me walk through all the things that have been stirred up in my soul from a hashtag.

Yet, very often I wonder what can I do beyond the hashtag of the people who have died due to murder— and I say murder because I watched the video. They won’t see the revolutions of many but we are in it or we are watching it. One of those great revolutions being our educational system and the rapid plunge in which we are seeing daily. As an educator, I see these things up close. I also see the great class divide between the minority communities that I teach within, and the neighboring counties that look at this as an extended family vacation. What can I do and what will we do beyond the hashtags of today. What choices or decisions will we make that will change future generation’s perspectives about the year 2020. The year when the world slowed down enough for you to hear birds in the city and amplified the sound of community wailing.

The Sweet Spot

January 2020 has come and gone. It was a long month yet a flash of time when I think about the list of goals I'm working on. I won’t ask you anxiety-inducing questions that I can’t bear to deal with myself. Things that start off with

 “how much did you...” 

“How many times have you...”

“Did you finish...”

“You should be on step two by now.”

“What’s next on the list?” 

During this time of the year, everyone from the coworker in passing to the lady ringing up my groceries has questioned "Any new year resolutions?". The minute that questions hits I feel like I’m at an interview and fumbling to explain a gap on my resume. It feels like if I don’t have one I don’t care about forward movement in my life. I know that mostly the questioning is harmless. it's just that time of year where resolutions reign king. If you do not stay in the game until January 31st it can feel like your year is trashed. Throw it all down the drain.  If I’m honest, I don't know if I’ve ever set a resolution for myself that I followed past twenty-one days, which is why I decided to look at things differently.

I have this really bad habit of trying to change myself overnight. I can be extremely critical of my growth and how much hasn't been achieved instead of focusing on the things that I have. With each new calendar year, I would think up a billion things that would make me a better me. A me that would instantly be everything I hadn't been at 6 pm on December 31st. Resolutions seem like things I know I'm going to break. They are very stepping on a crack break your mothers back to me while trying to walk on cobblestone, a setup for failure. With each new year, I felt more and more defeated by not keeping up with certain things.

This past year I began to write more things down. I not only wrote them down but I made the list visible. I put it somewhere that I would see on a daily. It assisted remarkably in me not feeling like I had once again withered away a season of life. What needed work was right before me, literally. When I awoke in the morning the list was there. When I applied my face lotion at night the list placed next to my bed was a reminder to not only work for those things but to pray as I laid down at night. I have found my sweet spot and what works for me. Slowly working my way away from the alarming unhealthy habit of setting all of these resolutions that were never really able to be kept by anyone.

Find your sweet spot,

•Set a few goals for yourself. (think measurable, think reasonable, BUT don’t be too hard on yourself)

•Write them down. Place them somewhere you can see. On a mirror, in your car, maybe even a sticky note in your wallet wrapped around your debit card if saving money is one of your focuses.

•Tell a friend. We all need someone who can be a cheerleader when we win and a piece of sound advice when we are not going after what we sought out to do.

May this year be filled with you taking little steps towards your big goals and may it feel easier to do with each passing day because you have a game plan.

Allow me to reintroduce myself.

Welcome to my little piece of place here on the World Wide Web. Some of you reading this may be old friends who know my story or maybe you don’t. Others of you are new friends and thank you for stopping by. 

I have to let you in on a little secret. This is not my first blog or my first attempt at blogging. There was Philly Love Or Lost during my phase of life when I was trying to find out do I hate the east coast or will I grow to love it. There was Simply Me Jana during a time I was trying to create a brand yet had no clue who or what I was creating. I kept the name but that blog, too, went into the graveyard of forgotten domains. In recent years there was Days In Weeks when I was trying to find my voice again outside of a journal. Yet once again stifled by nobody other than myself.

The one thing I lacked when it came to putting forth an effort to make something that I could smile at and be proud of was consistency. The one thing that I have too much of when it comes to the little things or the major things in life is fear. I had to be real with myself in recent years and more importantly, I have a circle of loved ones who are real with me. Nobody gets anywhere in life by stopping every single thing they start. Work on being consistent in your art, in your craft, in your life all around. 

Now back to the fun part. This blog is just a little window into my life. So allow me to reintroduce myself, and hello if you don’t already know me. I’m still Jana, just a more consistent me.