Inspiration

Creating Blackness

Before, I was going to name this post "Til My Cup Runneth Over", but I saw that as I began to type that post with that name I grew stuck.  I was stuck in the mindset of reliving the pain that I have been feeling and there was no one to blame but me because it was a choice of mine to live in that pain.  I was also in the wrong mindset all along from the very moment I decided to do this blog.
       See, I started this blog to not only chronicle my college years and what I thought would be me living my fantasy college life, but because I didn't want girls out here like me to feel alone.  Yea,  I put myself out there; yea, I got personal; yea, I know that this is the world wide web, but I have seen so many girls out here either take their own lives or not live up to their fullest potential because they may have experienced some of the things that I have.  I wanted to show them that things do get better, I wanted to show them that they can make mistakes and take responsibility for them, I also wanted to show them that there is a time where you can find clarity.  But you know the funny thing about that?  I was telling myself something completely different and I was stuck in the mindset of finding myself...Find yourself Blackness...Figure out who it is you really are...but what I lacked was the mindset of figure out WHO YOU CAN BE.
        When you grow up, you hear narratives about college being the place where you find yourself.  I do agree that you do in a sense "find yourself", but you so seldom hear about creating yourself.  Of course, by the time you get the college, you are who you are and you should never change that unless it's detrimental to your growth, but you also grow so much during this time.  There are times where you look at some of your old high school classmates and start to think "wow, they have really changed" (well they may in some way or another), but sometimes we are too close to ourselves to really realize how we have changed and how we have grown.
        By the time I got to college, I made the choice that I was not going to be stand being known as "the quiet girl" like I had been known as for about 12 years.  I even got voted "most quietest" in our senior yearbooks back in high school.  I felt college was going to be a clean slate for me and I was going to have these great friends, I was going to go to parties, I was going to do better academically and I was going to be more outgoing and take risks.  What I found was that I was still deciding to live my life as the "most quietest".  I was still purposely making myself invisible because I was afraid to take risks and I was too close to myself to see it so I wondered what it was about me that made my peers at Howard not want to say hello or talk to me or even walk up to me.  I blamed myself, I beat myself up about it and told myself that I was boring, not pretty enough, not loud enough, not fun enough and all those hurtful words built a wall around me even more.  But now, I really see what it is:
IT WAS ME DECIDING TO LIVE MY LIFE AS THE LITTLE QUIET GIRL I HAD ONCE BEEN.
        All details aside, I'm not that little girl anymore that use to eat lunch by herself. I'm not that little girl no one wanted to be in a group with. I'm not that little girl anymore who didn't have any friend. I'm not that little girl who had that ugly duckling stage...I'M 19 NOW, I HAVE GREAT FRIENDS, I DON'T HAVE TO EAT ALONE AND I'M AT THE BEST BLACK COLLEGE IN THE COUNTRY DAMMIT!!!!! I'm not that little girl anymore.
        Since the moment where I looked at myself and saw that little girl staring back at me, I have been able to finally realize that I am not her anymore.  I'm almost at a place where I can put her story to rest and stop living her story.  Now I am confused about this stranger that I see, this stranger that I am to myself.  I feel like I don't know anything about her because I have been so caught up in "Little Blackness" that I was blind to the life that "Big Blackness" lives.  What I do know is that she has great friends, she's funny, she's definitely not an ugly duckling, she's smart, she's passionate, she's a very sweet and compassionate person and she's eager to take risks.  Little Blackness has been putting her little hands around Big Blackness' wrists and has held her back from great opportunity.  And I'm hoping the little me will just stay to the side for now so that I can take over and show her that there is nothing to be afraid of because there really isn't. Life is full of heartaches, heartbreaks, rejection and other icky things, and not even the ones who try to avoid it are safe.  That avoidance though creates a barrier from the great things in life and prevents you from living your life to the fullest.   There is this very interesting, confident, risk-taking girl that wants to come to out.  There is this cool soul sistah that is waiting for her turn to see the light to live life to the fullest and there is no one other than me that can let her out.
        I am who I am at this moment.  There are some things about me that I'm still waiting to find out, which I shall discover through trial and tribulation.  As for the good times, they shall come more often because I have more of a mindset of creating myself, being the woman I want to be and doing the things that I want to do in life.  I can already see it now...I have a brighter future ahead of me because of these realizations.  Yes, there are going to be not so bright times, but only I have the choice as to whether or not I'm going to let those dark times hold me back from living my life and let the record show that today I choose HAPPINESS.

The Sweetest Thing

"Can We Talk" by Tevin Campbell has to be one of the sweetest songs that comes to mind.   Every time I watch the video I think of the sweeter things that are out here.  Tevin's sweet voice, sweet words and very cute smile melt my heart every time I listen to it and not only brings back lovely memories, but gives me hope of what is to come.
Enjoy!

PeAcE