Month: November 2016

Drowning in Demons

I sit here in one of my most sought after situations. My kids are visiting with their grandparents. I am home alone, with time and no distractions to keep me not only from the things I need to do, but also the things I want to do. I am in the midst of completing 50,000 words during National Novel Writing Month and it is imperative that I write daily. Of course, this doesn’t always happen but the real win is to write consistently. Yet today, I am not so sure it will happen.

But I can’t take advantage of this blessing, I am stuck on my couch battling the demons in my head. Do you have demons? Have you ever been depressed, racked by anxiety, unable to get out of bed, leave your house, complete basic daily tasks to ensure your survival? I have and I have battled them alone, with professionals, with medicines, with God. All these things work in combination for me, but sometimes when I am cruising through life feeling good about myself and making plans to conquer the world, I awake to the gnawing of my demons. Nothing untoward has happened, no one has been especially mean to me, I am surrounded by love, yet the need to cry over nothing, the feeling of deep darkness overtaking my mind, the exhaustible effort it takes to be cordial to those closest to you. Have you tried to explain to a child that you love them but please don’t talk to me, don’t touch me, don’t be too loud, don’t change, be different, love me, like me, fix me because I can’t seem to do it myself? Well, let me tell you, it is hard to explain mental illness to a child who just wants you to be present. They want to help but don’t really understand that they can’t, there is no help but time, hopefully. Hopefully this time, you can pull yourself out with the techniques you have honed throughout the years. Prayerfully you won’t be forced to spend months building yourself up again. You know what I hate the most about it, I don’t know what triggered it, I just know that I am crying and I had to write this and I have pages of responsibilities I need to attend to but as much as I keep trying, I can’t, won’t be able to do it today. What many won’t understand is that I really want to, I want to be different, often. I want to have no problems getting it together, never to need medical intervention, prayer warriors, and understanding loved ones. I don’t know if they have me on a pedestal, but I keep putting myself on one where I can always accomplish the tasks with laughter and aplomb. Today, friends, I am here to tell you, I really can’t do that. I really need to let myself be and know that it is okay to take care of myself, both mentally and physically. I am not perfect, I am not even looking for perfection. I am praying for grace and mercy to continue to be extended to me so that I can extend to those in my space. To do so, I must embrace it, the gift, freely given, and know that I am, in God’s eyes, perfect as is and every dark demon determined to conquer me, may have a moment where I am struggling under the burden of depression, anxiety and fear. But I will not stay there, I will fight, with all the tools available, for myself, because I matter. And because I matter, others matter too. You matter, I pray that you can remember that as you battle throughout your day and life. We matter, take extreme care, especially when the demons come to try and tell you it isn’t worth it. You are worth it and I am worth it, so let’s go to battle.

How Are You Feeling A Week Later?

Well, have my feelings of fear and disbelief diminished as I paused in the last week, as many people requested, to give President-elect Trump a chance to show his presidential race was filled with rhetoric he would never actually engage in. I am here to tell you, the pause was barely a heartbeat between his acceptance speech that espoused unity among the political parties in the United States of America and his reconciliatory new promise of being a President for ALL the people of this country; and the divisive, separatist ideas of most of his recommendations and hirings for his upcoming Presidency.

As I research to find reputable news sources, listen and watch the numerous instances of hate shown marginalized people by white men and women, and walk through the world with my marginalization apparent for all to see, I am feeling less optimistic, less everything really. Every story of hate has been perpetuated by people who have vocally used an impending Trump presidency as a reason for their actions. Some more public officials have been held accountable, but what of all the people who are only in a position to loudly terrorize others with no thought of repercussions? Many want us all to forget that the history of this country, forgetting the history of the world for a moment, tells us this new America is frighteningly similar to the old America. Many people in this country despised the idea that the old America ever left, and now find themselves vindicated and elevated and celebrated. They are passionate and dangerous and nothing you say will change that. Does every person of privilege want some return to old America that includes savagery to those marginalized people who have always been here, who were brought here illegally, who travelled here under duress for life improvement? No, I certainly don’t ascribe to that belief, but those who don’t have misread the cues of the people before them and now we are stuck in an American Horror Story of our own making. The only way to change the story is to do the difficult work of looking at ourselves, our surroundings and our government and then work for change. Now that your President-elect is filling the spaces around him with divisive people, what will you do?

May you be emboldened to not show hate, but show systematic work to dismantle those who would tell us we don’t belong, don’t deserve and don’t matter. Remember that every day and person you show love and acceptance to in your small town or big city makes a lasting impact. And if all you can do is that, know you are thanked. Do more if you can, do your part and hold up the love Jesus showed to ALL people, even those who despised him through no fault of his own, and you too can change the world. It takes workers and caregivers to evoke change and both are equally important to the betterment of this place at this time in history. Because I want to be on the side of betterment, how about you?

United States Presidential Election 2016 Feelings

Since this is my space and I need to get out what I feel, today you get to read all about what I am processing in my soul after the United States of America elected Donald J. Trump as the next President of our country.

I am the daughter of a woman and man who spent most of their grammar school time in segregated schools in a segregated community. I grew up listening at the feet of the granddaughter of slaves, and the daughter of The Great Depression and The Jim Crow South, in a town where 20 years before I was born, it was still segregated into Whites Only and Negroes. I grew up listening to the memories of people who lived through some very divisive times, times marked by indiscriminate persecution, belittling, injustice, murder, oppression, and suppression. A time where all the people in charge of making and enforcing the laws of the land truly believed that if you didn’t look like them, you were mentally inferior and lacked the ability to think for yourself or take care of yourself without the saving intervention of the ruling class. As such, you had no rights, the rights you thought you had were systematically dismantled in new laws written for the express purpose of reminding you that you belonged to them and needed them and their kindnesses to survive this life. I lived through my own instances of intrinsic and subtle racism, stories to add to the great diaspora of mistreatment and injustice rampant in this country. As this person, I share my feelings, those which I clearly understand that I am still processing.

I sat up all night watching Election 2016 coverage. From the beginning you could see that things didn’t seem to be going the way the many historical pundits had predicted. Soon, everyone was sputtering to come up with words to explain what they were witnessing. Many, like me, stared at the unbelievable, but not surprising, results with an impending sense of doom. As my kids fell asleep and my husband abandoned me and I tried to drown out the results with the words of a novel, I could feel the collective gasp of people around the world who really could not fathom that the United States would vote an unknown political entity, who had crafted a race built on baiting the worse in many of us, to the highest office in our land. Yet, as the dread seeped in my bones and the tears tried to seep out, I was still thinking, I can’t believe they didn’t take him seriously, the threat seriously, the history seriously. I can’t believe I am possibly about to be forced into an United States reminiscent of my ancestors memories. After nodding off for about an hour I had to get my kids up and started on their days. I also had to tell them that Mr. Trump had won the election. I could barely manage to not cry as they teared up in despair of what Mr. Trump being President would mean for them and their friends. I explained that while we didn’t know what would happen in the future, we certainly knew Who held the future. We are Christ Followers, commonly called Christians, and we believe that God’s Will in the world will prevail, even when we don’t understand, even when we don’t agree, even when attacked. For my kids this helped, but I could tell it wasn’t over for them. They like others around the world, needed time to process. Before I had even got them up, I was being bombarded with the ongoing coverage. My television was still on, I was obsessively scrolling through Facebook and Twitter feeds trying to absorb all the responses and feelings from everywhere and meld them in my mind. Trying to make sense of them, of my own thoughts, of how I could be honest and supportive under the laws of the land which God had placed me. I didn’t delve too deep, my kids still needed my attention to move on with their day and I knew I was just waiting for space and peace to delve a bit deeper.

After dropping them off, I found my first gem of discordant tunes in the post of a friend. This friend is a non-POC woman. This friend had been harassed in her car after dropping her older children off at school. The youngest was strapped in their car seat in the back. Her car sported a bumper sticker that evidenced support of Hillary Clinton.  A non-POC man drove close to her bumper, crowding he driving space and intimidating her. He then pulled alongside her and started verbally abusing her with words that called out her gender with common curse words typically used to belittle women and ended with this nugget, “F*cking liberal loser!” My friend was terribly shaken, felt afraid and then took her bumper stickers off her car to avoid a similar situation. And while I felt her fear and was saddened by her experience, on the other side of those feelings I felt vindication and a bit of that Aha, now you see what I am talking about! I felt like saying, yes, now see how you might like living like that constantly not just now because Mr. Trump has been elected President. Because I can’t stop, shaken on the side of the road and pull my skin color off, the thing I am most vilified for. I can’t take my skin, crumple it into a ball and get rid of it to stop the hate from reaching me. Then of course came the post from a classmate who sung the educate yourself and don’t be silly because they can’t do that to you tune of the Trump candidacy. This post was an impassioned plea to not spread panic by telling children they will have to ‘go back where they came from’ because Donald Trump was elected. This is absurd, the post assured, because if you are born here and/or came to the USA legally and/or a naturalized citizens then this IS where you are from (emphasis mine) and there is no WHERE to go back to. This person also included their feeling on how happy they were with the election result because her son would have a fair playing field in the work force and her daughter, in the armed forces, would be safe with a Boss that would have her back. They included how you must educate yourself in order to know you belong here and can not be kicked out. Then they closed with numerous references to God in America and how we traditionally pay lip service to God in this country (saying things like Merry Christmas, In God We Trust, God Bless America and God Bless You) all while they would be standing for the national anthem with their hand over their hearts. Goodness, I didn’t even no where to start with all the assumptions in this statement. While they may believe no one here ‘correctly’ need worry about being kicked out, people are already running through the streets shouting “go back to Mexico, Africa, China, insert foreign nation here!” with enough hate to drive fear into the hearts of small children and old people alike. The problem with leaving this idea as a statement that stands in defense of legal immigration is that the people excited about the idea of deporting illegal immigrants don’t stop to check your legal status or birth certificate when spewing their feelings. Besides, we have been shown that in the United States you can actually prove you were born here and still not be believed, and if you need to prove your legal status to random beings you meet, does this not smack of carrying freedom papers, traveling papers, being pinned with yellow stars of David and forced into internment camps? I mean where does it stop? Do you see? I Love God, I Love my country, but I am not blinded to the faults inherent in humanity, of which I am a part. And I don’t have the privilege of hiding my difference in order to survive, I have to survive anyway. You can’t tell me that now that the election is over we can all go back to some Utopian time pre-election cycle 2016. Let me tell you, for marginalized groups of humans in the United States and around the World, there is no real pre-election 2016 utopia in which to return. Why do you think so many worked so hard to discuss policy that could put all marginalized groups back to oppressed groups and then beg us all to listen and make informed and educated decisions? It isn’t over now, it isn’t in the past and you aren’t at least a good person because(fill in your reason for feeling good)! We all want what is best for ourselves, we get lost when we lose sight that what is best for ourselves isn’t our calling. It is what is best for the collective in which we all live.

I am a follower of Christ and firmly believe in God’s true sovereignty over all. While I will and do pray for the President, other elected officials, volunteers, my country, and the world, it does not negate the feeling of desperation and fear uppermost in my mind and heart. Loving and trusting God didn’t erase the pain of my child’s death. Loving and trusting God does not erase the pain of my child’s absence on the physical plane and by the same note, loving and trusting God does not erase my fear today or keep me safe from those who wish to harm me. Loving and trusting God does not ensure a pain and trouble free life, it does ensure I will be strengthened to endure the race before me because I put God first, seek Him first. It ensures that no matter how my earthly body leaves this plane, my true home will be revealed in God’s glory. This faith helps me and does not erase the practicality of being alive in this time as a member of a marginalized people. You may not have my faith, but I pray you understand that my pain, fear, and distrust are real and should not be erased, suppressed, or disregarded because it isn’t your truth today. I don’t want a bleak Dystopia to be ushered in, I pray that history doesn’t repeat itself, I pray we aren’t disillusioned, decimated, or caught off guard. I pray that as we move forward we find a way to look at the problems in our systems and vanquish them while shining a light on anything we can get right. I pray that while today I feel the need to call on the faith of my ancestors that allowed them to make the seemingly ridiculous decision to get up and face hate every day by going to work, to church, walking down the street, by speaking out, by getting an education, by continuing to live every day with dignity even when afforded none by others. Then by having and raising their children to do the same.

Stepping Out of My Own Way


Have you ever heard that saying, “If you feel like you might throw up from nerves at the thought of doing it, you are supposed to be doing it!”? Now, that might not actually be the saying but I got the gist of it in there. When you are asked to share your story, when you are starting a new job or business or in my case a book; if you feel like you might just die from nerves, fright, and a general inability to actually do the thing you are supposed to, then you are probably on the right track. Sometimes I find it hard to determine if those feelings are a move in the right direction and you are just nervous. Or is this feeling a red flag waving just trying to warn you of the biggest mistake of your life so far! How can you tell the difference? 

I don’t have a really good answer, what I can say is that I am often, as many of you are, the most critical of my self. The work/effort/put your own thing here, never seems to be good enough, but since deciding to write again, what I have found every time I put my words out there, is that someone says something genuinely wonderful about it. And instead of throwing away those words as not meshing with my view of myself, I embrace and cherish every one of them and use them to bolster my lagging self esteem and view of my own gifts. I have watched lovely friends reach out and grab their dreams with both hands and I felt left behind, floundering in a morass of my own making. By starting a blog, sharing my words, and putting pen to paper on novel thoughts, I started climbing out of that sticky muck and embracing more of my authentic self. I hope with every post I can enhance my understanding of my self, my motivation, and my voice. I may not be an award winning author yet, but every sentence I craft leads me closer to the best self of my life. I am lucky to have such honest people around, they tell me when it is good and when it needs help. Sometimes lots of help.

So with that in mind, I have stepped out with pounding heart to join National Novel Writing Month, better known as NaNoWriMo. It is a platform where you and thousands of other writers are encouraged to complete a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. Now, I let the idea that I couldn’t possibly get that done to keep me from trying in the past. Not this year, this year, I have signed up and when this post goes live, I am going to start on the days words. I may not complete a novel, but I know I am going to get better by being involved with other dedicated writers, by habitually writing daily, by asking questions, and listening to answers. I hope your November sees you venturing out to grab your dreams too.