List # 10
- We never know the impact we have on people. I will never fully understand it, but when someone says they need me, I am there. When I don't hear those words, I am there anyway.
- That is something I truly love about myself.
- I am a person who does not respond well to compliments but will soak in harsh words and will wear them like my skin tone
- I listen to Jill Scott on repeat because she answers my questions, about life, in general
- I promise we are related
- I’m just sayin’
- Music is my sanity
- I have accomplished a lot but feel like they are just baby steps on the road to my destiny
- Hungry to take real strides
- I love random words like cascade, behoove, and word
- And I mean 'word' in the I agree with you sense
- I like saying it
- I love the crackling sound a brand new book makes when you open it for the first time
- I have grown to love hardcover books, but there is something about a nice worn paperback book that you got for a quarter off of the back rack in the used bookstore down the street
- I carry Tide to go sticks with me everywhere because I am not one of those perfect people who can wear white clothes and ever get anything on it.
- I am not one of those perfect people who can wear any color and not get anything on it
- And I just really love the concept of tide to go sticks and how well they actually work, but I wonder if it is actually just water...
- I could spend my Saturdays in used bookstores wearing a sundress with my shoulders out, big hair that is untamed, sandals and unpolished toes, and be truly happy
- I love the light the floats into someone’s eyes when you offer a simple hello, a gentle reminder that I see you and no you are not invisible
- I need that myself sometimes, which is why I constantly speak to people I see on the street, random strangers who are going through life, trying to keep their head above water, just like me
- We are all the same. I forget that sometimes. We all breathe, cry, sweat and believe.
- Or at least try to believe
- In each other, despite the disappointment, In our dreams, despite the fear, In ourselves, despite ourselves
- I love cupcakes, any kind really, but my favorite is white cake with white frosting.
- I wonder if there is some kind of subconscious message in that
- I'm a big girl, struggling to love herself everyday
- I have had 350 million conversations about my weight and why having so much of it is bad, and why I should be unhappy, and unsatisfied with my life and how I should go to Ross, stock up on those silky animal print moo-moos and hide my shame behind a mean fried chicken recipe and flat worn down shoes that lean a little to the left, because as a big girl, I don't deserve to be as fly as I am...
- <_<
- I have always wondered why I should be ashamed of myself, why I should hide, cry, feel unsatisfied
- I justify these conversations by saying that this person loves me, they care, so I nod, with my head cocked slightly to the left because I am listening, but it is rare that someone listens to me
- If they did listen, they would hear me say that I have tried every diet under the sun, binged, exercised, girdled, hidden and tortured my temple for the sake of pleasing others until I realized that it just wasn't going to happen, I was not going to get down to the perfect size 6
- I need to find the person who determined 6 to be the perfect size so I can slap them
- I need to find the person who invented the word perfect so I can slap them too
- I am deleting perfect from my vocabulary…
- Done
- If anyone would listen to what I had to say, I would say that at my last doctors appointment I was called a miracle because my blood pressure , cholesterol, sugar levels and whatever else they test came back better than a patient who runs marathons for living
- I would say that I have bad knees because it is hereditary, and not because of my weight
- I would say that I don't eat fast food, but drink wheat grass every morning, only started eating meat again after 3 years because my nutritionist said I wasn't getting all the vitamins and nutrients I need to maintain my energy and I drink enough water every day to drown a fish, and yes sometimes that is to mask the random coffee binges I go on, but I drink a lot of water none the less
- Yes I love sweets and coffee, sue me
- I am the picture of perfect health in a big girls frame because guess what, God made me this way
- My size has opened my eyes to more than I can articulate and I'm destined to teach people how to love themselves as they are and to block out these conversations
- But people don't listen, they are concerned, so they talk, and I listen, fighting with everything I have to block out the negative and let it float past me and not let it wrap itself around me and cover me like a shroud
- I guess that's why I started talking to myself, justifying my crazy with the fact that I am an artist and this is exactly what I am supposed to do, internalize the ugly, swallow it whole, suck it out of the world so that it can't hurt someone who isn't strong enough to take it and regurgitate all of it back out in the form of something beautiful and let them know, its okay
- Yeah, I am learning and most of all I am accepting who I am and really learning to like this chick who cuts her own hair, wears the busted pair of ugg boots to work just because she likes the way she walks in them
- I go off on tangents that have nothing to do with the original conversation and blame it on my A.D.D.
- When I say something, I mean it because to me, saying something out loud makes it real and is one of the most important acts of faith
- I like to sit in silence sometimes and just clear my head, allow my thoughts to float free and travel until they settle down
- I heard a poem last night that reminded me of how much I miss the 80’s. The days when people actually talked to each other and didn’t rely on text messages or emails to relay life changing messages. When kids had to go outside and play because watching that bouncing ball on Atari was only fun for so long. I miss the days of me being the family’s personal answering machine because we didn’t have an electronic one. When we would eat dinner together and sit down together to watch the Cosby show and a different world, when kids read actually books instead of electronic copies on little devices. When earphones were not worn as frequently as earrings. I miss those days, when people came together and face to face conversations weren’t a rarity that was to be treasured.
- Blast technology. BLAST I say!
- I am adding Blast to my list of words I like
- I prefer to start writing my novels by hand before I start typing
- That is how Maya Angelou wrote all of her books, every last one of them, and then she hands her handwritten pages over to someone to type them up for her
- If we don’t leave a paper trail, our history would be lost. In a few years, everything will be electronic and we won’t even need museums and libraries any more because we will just be able to see what we need from the comforts of our own living rooms…
- We are becoming hermits and don’t even realize it
- There is a reason it feels so good to be outside and laughing and joking with real life human beings
- Think about it.
- I love God, like with an intensity that I can feel, physically, that makes me always want to be around Him and hide when I don’t act right.
- I’ve been hiding a lot lately
- Except, He can totally see me, so its not really hiding at all
- Come back to me…
- I hear you Jesus
- I can’t stand it when people try to act a certain way in front of me because they know how much I love God, or that I am a published author, or a Delta, or whatever other things people want to attach to me that they feel should make me behave differently than I actually do.
- If you knew me...
- Just be yourself, and stop placing me in boxes.
- A lot of times I feel invisible. But it is in those moments that I do my best work, so I have learned to embrace it
- I love that art has no rules…
- I saw a 17 year old girl last night who’s poetry nearly knocked me over…the fact that art was pouring out of her life was my motivation to shake off this self pity and get back to me. God is giving me a gift of life, time and freedom. I am at a fork in the road and I chose to go left, yield to the destiny God has designed and embrace that I am an artist and it is the gifts and talents and artistry that establish my place in the world. It will be my livelihood, enable me to send my brothers and kids to college, it will allow me to travel and inspire and smile because yes, I am actually satisfied with my life and fully acknowledge what a blessing it is to be able to do what you love, I am ready… and speaking these words because like I said, this is my act of faith.
- It shall come to pass
- This is just me…
- “Love it, or leave it alone.” Alicia Keys
