Baby, I'm Back...Again!

Somebody - not me - had said that January 2024 was the free trial and that the new year starts February 1st, soooo…

Happy New Year! (I kinda wanna give it back tho)

Baby, I’m Back…Again!…like Scooter #sotoxic lol

Whew chile, I’ve been on “tour” or whatever it was he was on while he was gone and Khadijah (yall) was waiting by the phone, or whatever, until Max (the other yalls) told her to move on with her life so she finally did, and I popped up with a boomerang (the first time), and a tired apology the second time, then yall went out to do whatever it was yall was about to do, but then you realized that you loved me even though you was mad at me, so we here now.

Hey boo! * waves and grins * I suppose I have some explaining to do.

Well, things started to get weird when this happened. I thought I was going to be able to bounce back, but then we got stuck in a whole pepperoni pizza, so like nothing was available for any of us. During that time I got some bad news about this dude, and well, for a minute there, I thought we were going to be okay. But he’s with Daddie now, and they're laughing or chillin’ or whatever, but like, they left me here to be great I think?

Hilarious story about that - I’m not. At all. 

Lots of other stuff happened, too. Ain't enough words to cover it in one post (oh, we are about to have a time this year, get your subscribe and save amazon snacks ordered). But it feels like enough is enough, so I’m back.

Of everything that I learned, I discovered that I’m an alien. Crazy right? I’m an Anthean, from lightyears away. I came here because my world was ending, and there were answers here for me to find in order to save it. And if you haven’t caught on, I’m talking about The Man Who Fell To Earth type alien, and not Earth is Ghetto type alien (but it is, and I wanna). And me. I’m mostly talking about me.

I’ve been watching this masterpiece of a series, starring K. Faraday and Justin Falls over and over, because it’s the first mirror that I’ve looked into, reflecting something that makes sense to me, about me. It’s also how the Ancestors have been getting through to me. I hear the words my father has been desperately trying to tell me. I see who I was and who I’ve been and who I’m destined to be, if I just agree to be a scientist again or something. You have to watch it. Like now. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Naomie Harris deserve all the past, present, and future things for this. Absolutely brilliant performances from them - and the cast!

But back to the Happy New Year.

At work, our leader asks about our word for the year. A tactic many people are using these days because the resolutions weren’t resoluting, but were they ever? Last year my word was somewhere between Love and Me. I spent the year trying to get the “and” out of the way and it was difficult and unfinished. I’ve been having a hard time thinking about what that word is for 2024. The last  time I went searching for a word, I found wounded. Perhaps my word for the year is discovering, and you can help me figure out what word is on the other side of it. 

See, I told you. Get your snacks ordered.

Please Forgive Me, I Do*

*(queues up Anita Baker)

There was this one time, that an ex and I had to be in the same place at the same damn time and it almost went very well, which means it was actually awful and there were so many reasons why. *queues up EWF*

Those weren’t the reasons at all though. At least not for me. I had made my peace with what we were and weren’t by that time. So many years had passed. There had been so much to misunderstand, and even more silence to miss it with. One thing lingered though.

An apology. In all of it, he never apologized. And I really needed it. Hell, being honest, I still need that ‘ish. And it’s not like I am looking for heartfelt (or other felt) apologies from the people who have come and gone. It would behoove many of them to never reach my wavelength again. But because of who we are, and what we were, I seem to need it so much, if we are ever to be anything again.

I know, I know. In the words of Pop’s: I got issues. (I’m not working on them, in case you were wondering. That sounds too much like right.) But there was point I was looking for.

Courtesy of my feelings and IG: @22visionary

So, this one day, I was looking around on the internets and ‘webs minding all yall business and came across this: We talk a lot about the apologies we’ll never receive. What about the ones we’ll never be able to offer?

I have been (not) waiting for his and other apologies for so long, that I never thought about the apologies I have been holding on to. I mean, it’s not like I’ve left a cobblestone path of transgressions or anything in my past, but it’s just that, one or two people might wanna hear me admit some of the ain’t shit things I’ve done – whether I intended them or otherwise.

I don’t know how to live like this in a world where the things I really want are the things I really need to do. But here’s a valiant attempt (beginning chronologically because I ain’t got a mental health professional on retainer to fix me once I admit the recent stuff):

When I was in 8^th grade (or around that age) I had a boyfriend for like two days. Okay, maybe three days. Let’s just agree that it was not even a week. Anyway, this arrangement was made between he and I, so like, only the people in our locus knew about it. Which means it was perfect, because there was no way on this side of Jordan’s River that I was going to tell my Daddie about it.

Until the day the young man came to my house to see me. Not as a kid coming to play with the other kids who lived in my home, but as a suitor – a boyfriend coming to see his girlfriend.

I panicked yall. I looked out the window and made a decision. Inside is good. Stay there. Whatever you do, don’t go outside. Salvation could have been waiting for me on the other side of the front door, and I would have condemned myself to everlasting damnation. Which is basically what I did.

We broke up. Not because we talked about it, or one of us communicated to the other that the relationship was over on a note passed between friends. I literally never went back outside, which was a big deal. This was the 90’s yall – we LIVED for being outside. I died.

It seems a small thing to apologize for. (This is me, apologizing.) But it’s a big thing. A huge thing. It was the foundation for my entire life as a woman attempting to authentically engage in a relationship. I never did. Not once. In all my loving somebody’s son, not one of those sons met my father. I was never brave enough to stand before my Daddie and profess my love/infatuation/care/misguided-lust for the man I entertained at the time.

I apologize. A LEO is supposed to be brave, supposed to have courage. Jesus didn’t die on the cross to see me out here simpin’ but here I am. I saved none of that courage, none of that bravery, none of it for the men who came to eventually pass. I wish I knew the why. I suppose I wondered what tragic thing would (not) of happened if I had introduced a then boyfriend to my always father. What would Daddie of said (or not) to them? What would have changed in my relationship with Daddie? Being Daddie’s girl seemed *subconsciously because, like I had real-time awareness of this?* more important than being that man’s woman, so maybe it just made sense to keep both those lives separated? Who can know such things in such times that these are?

It doesn’t feel good to offer that. Probably the reason why I never did it. I’m not trying to clear the skeletons in my closet. I’ve made adequate space for them and all my shoes. It’s just, I know what having that apology would have meant for me that day, and well, I’ve got enough baggage of my own to be in 2019 holding on to something for which I have little use.

Now I asked yall to close the gate at Iyanla’s house. Who left one of her window’s open??

I clearly need new people.

She got a name, then he walked away...

Every Father's Day, without fail, someone posts to some social media in the internets, the following question (in varying syntax and leveling degrees of mastery of said syntax), All these songs about mothers…where are the songs about fathers?

One year I replied with this one. Mostly because poor grammar upsets me, and my unconscious ability to be petty amuses others. AND any father worth their fathering is not somewhere looking for a song.

He’s looking for the remote. Or a kid to bring it to him.

I digress.

But, I love this song. Before I loved it, my father had to help me. Remember that time my Daddie did that awful thing? When he left me in Westwood all by myself (yes, I’m this dramatic, still) to go make a life and be great or whatever it was? Yea, that. He left me with roommates. A caucasian and mexican girl. And because I like my mexican people from my neighborhood in the bay area (who are the southern californians anyway? they smell like avocado – not that this is a bad thing or I know what that is at this point in my life). HOW CAN YOU LEAVE ME WITH STRANGERS?!

…anyway, because caucasion people listen to different music, my roommate worships the devil.

Daddie…I think my roommate worships the devil? Will I go to hell because I live with her? It’s not like I picked her. What? What are you talking about? She listens to weird music. I think it’s on MTV. These white guys are like bouncing around and making strange sounds with instruments and whatnot. I am not sure what this is, and I don’t want my soul to burn in that place *because even though we’re preacher’s kids, we don’t use that h-word…around him* I’m sure it’s not that. Well, what are the people saying in the song? They’re saying…well, he’s talking about…Daddie their hair is like these weird colors!!!!! Baby, just relax. You’re going to have to give different things a try. I don’t think she worships the devil. If she did, I think you would be more certain of it. Just relax. If you don’t like it, don’t listen to it. But I don’t think you even know what it is…

Daddie – A Gazillion; Me – like maybe 5 or 6. I mean, I’m not a complete idiot…sometimes I got a W. But I certainly took waaaayyy more L’s, like not listening to the song.

So I took his advice. I listened. It was awful. Until I listened long enough to hear what they were talking about. Oh…this is about his father; he must have been a great guy. Oh, he left you? Uh…my bad. You were scared? Uh….okay, not exactly devil worship, but it’s not that bad.

 

Our fathers are nothing alike, but I love this song. There's this one part..., ♫♪ …daddy gave me a name, my daddy gave me a name…then he walked away… ♫♪

Same thing happened to me. Only, it happened much faster for him. His dad gave him a name, he closed his eyes, his world disappeared, and his daddy was gone. My Daddie gave me a name, then 18 of the best years a daughter could have, took me to Westwood and walked away…to the parking lot, to drive back to the Bay Area.

My Daddie gave me a name. On that day, when the one who (earthly) made me provided me that protection, he also shared the story of my name. And everything it means.

At Wheaty’s graduation taco party, we were all making introductions. As such, I extended my hand and told a man my name. I was sitting next to my Daddie. He looked up from his taco and made that eye contact that feels like a finger is being pointed at you and said proudy-matter-of-fact(ly), I named her. That’s my baby.

…and like a few of the other people here at this party, but yes Daddie, I’m your baby.

He says that he and my mother (before she became a turncoat) were talking to each other one of the nights they were anticipating my arrival. He loved the sound of names that sound like mine, but he wanted the “na” because, lucky for me, that's what he liked. And he even decided the middle name. But mother wanted the extra “e” in my middle name…so he signed off on it.

Mother needed his approval for my name. He had to sign off on it, or it wasn’t going to happen. The name had to please him. It had to be the name that he liked. Loved.

Being the first born third, I have always felt some kind of way about my gender. I’m a girl. I was born female. I’m a woman, because that’s the adult version of girl, but Daddie called me his baby, and you read these blogs, so you’re thinking what I’m thinking – she’s technically got "lady parts", but beyond that, the jury is out.

My father is the first son. Because of that, he carries the name of a great man. Exactly that man’s name…with a Jr attached. Because Papa was the original, and Daddie was that fire remix. My father’s brothers? Just about all have a fire remix walking around here. One got a sample outchea somewhere on someone’s playground. I have always wondered, would he have felt differently, better-differently if I were that remix. If I could carry three stacks behind my name, be a remix of Daddie – a sample of Papa. Be the legacy in title and task.

I have felt less because of this thing. Even more so in thinking about meeting someone and loving someone, and wanting to do that forever thing with them, and my name changing. I don’t carry his first name, and if married, I might not even carry his last name. It would be forever lost.

So I did what any guilt ridden daughter would do. Spent my entire life leaving things at Daddie’s altar (the night stand by his bed) to purchase his non-existent grief about this. Awards. Perfect grades. Complementary reports. Certificates. Good behavior. Recognition. I wouldn’t even ditch school on Senior Ditch Day – nobody anticipates you to be there, and it’s kind of weird for the teachers when you show up. Remember when I told you spent part of the 8^th grade in CST? I got a Computer Literacy certificate. My Daddie had it in a folder near his bed. Without a scratch or blemish. If I can’t carry your name Daddie, I am going to make sure I do right by this one I got. This was how I “fixed it”.

Daddie, though, being smarter and having sight beyond sight knew that this might happen (maybe). So he did something better than pass on a great name. He created one. One that every time he heard would fill him up with so much pride, that every time he heard it, the world would stop. Like my High School graduation. The story? It was hot as a bih on the Menlo-Atherton High School football field. So Daddie and his other Daddie homeys were standing under the bleachers doing Daddie things. When they called the name of the child represented by the Daddie group, they would come from under the bleachers, listen to the speech, or clap at the awarding of the degree, and go back under the bleachers. Because, we love kids, but shade too.

He probably said the same thing at my high school graduation. When I made my approach to the stage, and gave my stunning and inspiring speech, using my inspiration at the time – Tupac, because #HellaResist. I named her. That’s my baby.

This is all postulate though. How can I be sure of these things now, anyway? Much like Everclear, ♫♪ …I never understood you then, and I guess I never will… ♫♪

Oh…and if you’re looking for a song about fathers, check this one out. 

I promise, it’s a winner. 

She was loved yall...

I recently submitted an SA Speaks for our regional student affairs conference. What’s that? Well it’s a like a 10 minute speech/conversation/talk that offers presenters and participants an innovative look at important topics and a means  to spread ideas about how we can change the student affairs profession and transform learning in higher education…because professional development. I’m still waiting to hear back about it.

What’s the topic? Glad you wondered. It’s about my last day as a student affairs professional. I know what you’re thinking, you quit? Nah, I haven’t. But I have thought it over, and over, and over…but there is no other way I could imagine my professional life – at this point at least.

When I first decided, intentionally, that I would become a Student Affairs Professional, I had all the hope in the world. All of it. I mean, before Barack Obama was like a thing we all terribly miss now, I believed it would be me who would inspire a man/woman like him. That something I did, via all this housing and residence life work, would help some young person (of color) achieve something so great that it would be a first…like the first black president. I told myself that I would be a difference maker in the ways that people like Pops made a difference for me. Crazy, right?

My first words were words of hope. They were dreams for the generation to come. My words these days? I hope you do come into this office talkin’ crazy, I *hand clap* Hope *hand clap* You *hand clap* Do... Because all hope is gone. Why have you forsaken us Lord? After 10+ years, I have almost perfected the what I’m gonna say on my last day, so much so, I’ve submitted an SA Speaks.

My last words are hopeful. But not in the ways my first words were.

A few months ago my Daddie called me. Out of the blue. Well, out of love, but you know what I mean. Probably one of the most random calls I have gotten accustomed to getting because my Daddie was awesome about calling just because. He had a mission though. He wanted to tell me about my life.

He said one day, he was leaving the house. I, just figuring out how to run in my little legs chased after him to the door. He told me that I couldn’t go with him, because my hair wasn’t combed and I wasn’t dressed. Because, clearly as a child I didn’t understand stay ready so you don’t have to get ready…Lord bless me in my ignorance. At that point, I eagerly went over to my mother so she could do my hair and dress me up. She hooked a playa up. New fit. New hair. I was outchea in these streets shining. Yeah.

Only, this was their clever plot to distract me while he left to the store. How could you leave me Daddie? And your accomplice? I should have known that I couldn’t trust her. Because, birth! I was fine in her uterus, but she persisted and pushed.

Anyway, payback is a BIH because I cried the entire time. At the door. Looking for him. He said I wailed something awful because, well, he heard it when he returned.

It broke his heart. So he made me a promise, before God, the Angels, and that turncoat I call a mother… I’ll never be the reason you cry again. I will never make you cry again.

Daddie pretty much kept his word. The next time he left me somewhere was UCLA in 1990 and 8. I thought the world ended when he told me he wasn’t staying in the triple room with me and my roommates in Hedrick Hall. HOW CAN YOU LEAVE ME LIKE THIS?! DON’T YOU LOVE ME?! I’m so dramatic. I have lived my life in his footsteps. In 1990 and 3 he was moving back to Texas for reasons I never care to know or understand. It was shortly after a major surgery. He told me that he was leaving. I replied,  I’m coming with you. I left every earthly thing I kid could leave. I never thought twice about it. Daddie had to purchase my plane ticket at the airport counter in San Francisco. Remember when that was a thing? The summer before the 8^th grade, I moved to CST.

I started to tear up on the other side of the phone, PST. I almost lost all composure. He knew it was more than I could handle – because he knows my silence, so he quickly got off the phone, as he would expertly do. I love you, I’m out. I called my best friend. My best friend told me to go see my father.  

While those weren’t his first words to me, they carried the sentiment of his very first words to me. He attempted to explain just how much he loved me, the second he saw me, he says. We were in a hospital. Those were also his first words to the township of Hooks, Texas at the time of my birth. Yall, the man drove around the town announcing it. Aside from the fact it’s a small country town, we are literally related to like half the people – everybody pretty much already knew…but announcement. I’m not exaggerating. This actually happened. In real life.   

Daddie’s first words to me were his very last words. The man is so detailed he even had the nerve to speak them from a hospital. He was always particular and specific that way. Daddie told me that I would never understand just how much he loved me. And because the man is like waaaayyy smarter than me and knows soooo much more than me, he is absolutely right. It was a Friday night. I had a plane ticket to CST that Sunday evening *red eye*… We had daddie/daughter shenanigans planned for that Tuesday.

I’ll see you in Fort Worth! You darn right! Is Mommie coming with you? Nah, I told her I was babysitting the granddaughter. She ain’t gonna wanna come for that. I’ll see the baby on Monday, and come on Tuesday. Wait, so you just gonna leave Mommie? You seriously told her that? *laughing hysterically* You darn right…if I can get away with it!

I can’t fathom how, in almost 4 decades, he feels the exact same way he felt on that first day. I can’t figure it out. I’ve been in a profession I love for more than 10 years and I got some feelings I don’t think they would understand. They’re hopeful feelings too…but not exactly in the same way they first were. And I actually do love the work I do. But, feelings yo…the feels.

I wonder what it must have been like… To live a life, where the happiest you thought you could be, the loveliest ways you thought you could feel, would be the exact happy and lovely you would feel at the end of it. This is what I am talking about! I honestly believed it was improbable and impossible to be loved this way. After all, I’ve been told I was loved, but that changed. Every. Single. Time.

Save, one. Daddie was genius, yall.

If you will allow me to pray for you, I will pray exactly this thing. That a person will love you something like the one perfect way I was loved. Because it was complete. The beginning and ending of it was perfect, though the man was not.

He seemed it though. #perfect

She Has Fake Degrees... #ShowMeTheSealSoWeKnowItsItsReal

Have you been to my office? If you have then you know there is a large paper medal on the wall because I got the MVP of Student Staff Training #Spring2015…and what else? A bunch of thank you cards and other pieces of celebratory paper. The piece(s) of paper(s) you expect to see aren’t there.

Yup. There are no degrees on my wall in my office. And in the span of my full-time professional career, they’ve never been on my wall because…

…them joints is fake, yo.

Let me explain *in my Kevin hart voice* …

In 2000 and 3 I graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles. Just in time to NOT have the terminator’s name on my degree #BlessGodInThisBuildingSaints. It was an exciting time. Let’s go back to Ackerman…

I was so happy! I called home. Well, prior to the exciting call home, I made a huge scene in Ackerman buying the diploma frame. Yea, I want that one at the top. Very top. Yes, the best one you got. I just graduated homey…you better believe this piece of paper is hanging in style. Hello…this is me? I need better than your best.

Then he rang it up. I didn’t have money for three weeks. Daddie actually had to send money from Texas for California groceries…because hungry. I was embarrassed that I even needed money for food – until that time, I was able to take care of all my financial needs that financial aid didn’t cover #BraidingHair.

Anyway, as I wasn’t saying, I called him. Mom answered. She was sooo happy for me. So much so, that she stated that I should Go to Kinko’s… Yeah, Make a copy… Yeah, Then send the original… *ummm…where is this going* …to her in Texas. That, if I ever wanted to come home ever again, I would need to do this. I obeyed. But she got the coldest side eye ever given in the game though…through the phone. Because I wanted to go home, because fried cabbage yall. Both degrees are on the wall in their home. And a whole heap of other awards and such. I know because this past week (or so) I hung them there #TheyMoved.

Have you seen the color copy version of your degree/seal on your degree from Kinkos? It's orange... It's not even the same orange all over the seal. Because the photocopier, and the lights, and physics! Bro, this joint is as believable as the current sitting united states president. Like, we know it’s real, but it looks fake AF. Exactly.

Why would I put this on my wall at work? So I haven’t. It’s just not a thing. And, of course, this is all my mother’s fault. What does she want with it anyway?

But, as time deals with most things I made my peace with it. As a new professional, I began to realize that though I work with many people, some of which have many degrees, they are quite dumb. AF, homey…dumb AF. I started to take solace in the empty walls. My brain isn’t empty, and I use coherent sentences. I have the innate ability to swirl the king’s English with slang and contemporary vernacular, that honestly…the degree didn’t teach me to do. My intellect is more than what that piece of paper says I know. So…I’m good.

But I wasn’t. At a student leadership retreat, I had to share a piece of me…because vulnerability can be an important part of your leadership. Yes, all those aforementioned reasons are the reasons why my degrees are on bookshelf in my office. I know that I am smart, but I don’t always occupy that space. I am sometimes very insecure about what I know, to the point that I probably give the appearance that I don’t know anything. Like this guy last week told me how the Plan B pill works. Aside from the fact that this is something as a woman I would probably know because vagina, I was a Physiological Sciences major. Though I don’t work in my major, I LOVE science, because three swirls, remember? But nobody would know that was my major, because bookshelf.

I regularly get the feeling that I didn’t earn my degrees. Because, Daddie. Dude is smart as heaven…and a little hell – he ever tell you what he did to that cat? He would be an awesome person to have on a trivia team because he knows about the oddest, craziest things, usually from personal experience. He remembers dates like you wouldn’t believe. Why do I know that I was born at 10:16pm on a Tuesday? One year he called me at exactly my birthday. To the minute, yall. He even factored in the time zones because that was CST that I was born in, but it was PST he was calling to...so he called...twice, so it was 8:16pm PST, then again at 10:16pm PST. Everything I know is because of him. What he didn’t teach me, he prepared me to learn. And every bit of knowledge I engaged him in, he expanded upon – for my good – for my name to be on those pieces of paper. How can I take credit for everything that HE did. Doesn’t really seem fair at all.

As we were driving around in my Daddie’s truck, I was talking to that lady about degrees hanging from the wall. How I sent the originals, but all my sisters punked out and sent copies. But why they get to come home when you told me I couldn’t? Sure, I get the wealthiest portion of the fried cabbage, but nothing else for my obedience!!!!!

She said, your Father wanted that degree. I just passed the message. Then she looked at me and shrugged like, so you mad or nah? I leaned over the driver’s seat in amazement. All of these years those degrees have been on the wall, he never revealed this. And because, although hard-headed, she is a good wife, she kept his secret. She kept it until I needed to know it.

Today, this very day, there are two odd looking degrees on the wall in my office. I am more proud of them than you could imagine.

I have exactly what I earned on my wall.

...and Daddie has exactly what he earned on his.

She doesn't do funerals...

I don’t do funerals.

It sort of sounds like the way people say they don’t do clubs. Or tofu. Or turkey bacon. You should never do turkey bacon. Mostly because it’s not a thing. But I digress…

I don’t do funerals. Which means I don’t do death. I have never known how to grieve. The first funeral I attended, that I can remember, I was 16 or 17 and it wasn’t even for someone I knew. Next time I heard about a death was my maternal grandmother. I was soon to earn my first college degree. And the first funeral I attended for a loved one was for a young man, though unrelated, tore a hole into my womb. I felt the place he was connected to me inside from which he did not gestate. I was a degree holding adult by then.

Every funeral after that? I had a set of car keys. I maybe lasted 10 to 20 minutes. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

I said I don’t do funerals.

The whole thing is effed up if you ask me. After being born, I feel like you’ve paid all there is to be paid. But no, there’s more! You know it cost $300 to get the hole to put the casket in. Not dig the hole. Or pay the man to dig the hole. Or by the equipment to excavate the land. Bruh…$300 to have the rights to a hole…to pay for all those other things.

And if the hole cost that much, you can just imagine the full price tag. I see why Phaedra was trying to get in the funeral business. If I did funerals the way I do these races or shoe sales, I might maybe have a lucrative career. Seriously, this could be a thing if I could stomach it.

The whole pomp considering these circumstances is for the birds, yo. You walk the grieving family into the crowded (if people liked them) venue. You sit and listen to people talk about all the wonderful things that person did (if they did them) – that literally none of you will ever experience again. You realize all the things you maybe did/didn’t say or do. Everyone wants to touch you. Hug you. Console you. Be there for you when you fall out. Because everyone is waiting for you to lose your sh*t because hello – someone is dead. And you could be the lucky person to be there for them. #Season2Episode17 #WillAndGrace #KarenPlayedThem

Did I mention that when all this is happening there is a not-alive body in the same room? Because we need to have their remains in the room while we’re all breathing…because there’s enough air to have a something in there that no longer needs it. What else shall I render unto you Lord??

And the muther-effing-flowers. They are everywhere. And they are the dreary things. These un-alive things. These soon to be dead things. Just like the person in the front of the room. Who comes up with this stuff?? I promise I will haunt you for the remainder of you sad, pitiful, and tawdry life if you ever do any of this in my name. I. WILL. HAUNT. YOU. Even in your afterlife. You won’t even rest in ghostly peace. Because, yes…I am that petty.

Look, do me like Prince. When the purple one retreated back to the stars from whence he came, we didn’t even know. We were like, You know Prince passed away? Yea, girl, they buried him yesterday. How they get the body from one side of the country to the other that fast. I don’t know, but the headstone already up. Pictures from the Memorial on Spike Lee’s IG page, soooo? #WeFinishedAndWeDone How, sway? And it takes them like 3 to 5 business days to credit things back to my bank account? #ThisIsNotSiliconValley

Remember that? By the time we were able to process his passing, his earthly shell was literally already over all of us.

Give me this kind of love, if you say you love me. Actions. I feel like, there might be a funeral because some members of my family are hard-headed (ie: My mother). But at the funeral, yall should all be texting each other like, Yo, what time the party jumpin off? Do I have time to go change? They frying fish, right? And when it’s over, you should go up to my mother and say Mrs Marilyn, um, we gotta go change, but we’ll be over to the spot ready to turn up. Can you fry some pork-chops and make some cornbread and cabbage? Even if you don’t eat it, order it. Because, it’s a party and that’s what I would ask of her.

I don’t deserve a funeral. And not just because I don’t want one. But this is me people. ME. How many times have I done things that you were like, normal humans would be dead, but she’s one of the X-men, so I get it but not really? How. Many. Times?

Many, the times.

Aqui's is this great place that makes these drinks called swirls. They suggest that you have two only, because strong. Here’s the thing…they are absolutely correct in their assessment of the drinks that they make and serve daily. But here I am, a scientist and ish. I have had three swirls, on multiple occasions. The last time I had three, I had to dump the contents of my purse to figure out what the eff happened after the three swirls. This is not the life of a person who values or is attached to their said life. But here’s the thing…it’s not like people had to help me in and out of the car, or I was throwing up all over the place. I woke up in my home, in my bed, in my pajamas. All of my things were exactly where they should be. What were the contents of my purse you ask? ONE grain of rice, cookie crumbs, and a lip gloss from MAC. This is not normal. Also, that was not the last time I had three swirls.

I flew to Hawaii to run a Ragnar Relay Race (200 mile relay race) with 11 people I met in a Facebook group and on conference calls. I didn’t realize that this is a less than safe thing to do until I knocked on the door of the hotel room of all the strangers that are now my friends. My Angelica Rollerskates had to scare me into not running on my local creek trail because a felon escaped custody in my city. That news alone didn’t deter me from getting my daily run. I sampled (gulped) Hangar One vodka for the first time the night before the Pleasanton Double (10k – break – 5k). Every single state I have moved to, I did so, driving, alone. I have lived in Los Angeles, Conway (Arkansas), Murfreesboro (Tennessee), Hamilton (New York), and Norfolk (Virginia). Like Sandra Bland could not have been me. #ImBlessedYall #RealTalk

Is this the life of someone you should be crying about in a church? Seriously…put me in that $300 hole in Cedar Spring Cemetery as near to my Daddie as you can get me and turn the eff up. I expect nothing less than a spectacular event. Shut the township of Hooks, Texas down…then roll out to Dallas and do it all over again. Like at The Daiquiri Shoppe. You’re welcome.

You have to. Because, I’m no grief profiteer.

What’s a grief profiteer? Glad you wondered. Quite simply, it’s a person that seems to be there for you when you’re grieving and no other time. Because they are seen as being super supportive and helpful. They want to report to the world (social media) that they checked in with you, and that you’re doing however it is you’re doing and pass messages on behalf of you. It’s also the person that expounds upon their awful circumstances for the attention and whatever comes with it, because grief is now profitable, in a really horrific way. The problem? When you’re grieving, you can’t differentiate between the actual people who are human and the soul-less profiteers.

I won’t do either. Mostly because I don’t know how to do grief. I haven’t had anything to grieve, save my broken (for other reasons) heart, until these days. If I didn’t ask you to come to the court and help me run these drills, I’m definitely not about to call you when I lose the ‘ship. Cause Draymond has no chill and that Quickie shirt makes a bad hairline worse. #iWantOne #TheShirt #NotAbadHairline #GodSaveMyEdges

I don’t know how to do any of this because I never had to do this. When I began to perform some of my first born third duties, I realized I was way in over my head. I was speaking with my Auntie on that dirt road that got paved, and she said this family has been blessed with so many healthy years. But then we started dropping like flies…. #LordBlessUs

I realized she was right. I know, for certain, that having a mother and father who have loved every bit of my reckless life is blessing alone. Some people don’t know their parents, or siblings. To have every single Uncle and Aunt provide the same extension of love is abundance. My cousins are the brothers and sisters I never knew I needed. To have gone so long without wearing a black dress and ruffle socks to the church on days other than Sunday worship, bible study, or vacation bible school is overflow.

I did nothing to deserve such grace. Yet I got it anyway.

Looking at things that way, it seems kind of selfish of me to drown in sorrow, right? I have had soooooo much. Daddie would send me postcards in college from his school bus trips. Just to tell me that he loved me. Sent me text messages just the same – in Spanish. My friends were soooo jeals. How can I not thank God even in these things? Considering all these things?

Easy. Because I never had to. So I will need to learn from some of you. Like, how to talk about my feelings #ThatWasntNewsThough #YouKnowMyLife. Or accept the kindnesses many of you have attempted to bestow upon me. Or be vulnerable in ways that I can receive more blessing, abundance, and overflow. Because vulnerability? Yea, that’s kinda not a thing. At all. Ever. But sometimes on ice skates.

Last Wednesday, I had to reveal to someone this news. In my poorly thought out attempt to “return to my life” like none of this happened, it came up. Why? Because humans talk about their lives, especially if they’ve been away from home, not answering email, (receiving) or returning text messages for almost three weeks #UCLAandUCAmightWannaReThinkThosePapersTheyGaveMe #iAintGotItAll. Someone, not a best friend or a confident, but a normal-caring-present-human attempted to be there for me. After I spent most of the day and evening being there for him. And what did I do? Lose all of my sh*t #BecauseThreeSwirls #DoNotDoThis

When I figure out how to adult, I’m gonna be something special. When I figure out how to grieve, I will…probably…not tell you because I still would not have figured out how to talk about my feelings.

You laughed. But you agreed with me. Because, the truth makes you smile. #ThisIsMe #YouExpectThis