MOTHER'S MILK WORLD

The Early Years of Figuring It Out! You got this!   Yes, YOU GOT THIS!   I know you’re wrapping presents solo.   I know you might be feeling guilt because you couldn’t afford all the spoils for your babe(s).   I know you’re possibly pushing through some unhealed traumas, negative balances, uncertainty, exhaustion & being the safe space AKA emotional punching bag for said babes…whom you are also wracking your brain trying to figure out how to give them the world & keep them shielded from the perils of that same world including your ish…What am I saying?   You’re keeping your spinning plates going!   You’ve come so far!   Remember when you didn’t have right in this moment (job, an apartment, safety, a couple of extra dollars, food, new furniture, new friends, new love, school, accomplishments…) YOU have come so far!   YOU have done your very best to keep the fruit of your womb safe & supported.   So take a moment to honor yourself a...

Move Out Day! "To love means to embrace & at the same time to withstand many many endings, and many many beginnings- all in the same relationship"   Clarissa Pinkola Estés (Women Who Run With The Wolves) I was recently speaking with a friend of mine about raising our sons.  Our boys are on the precipice of crossing over into young adulthood.  Roaming the world with less of a tether...making their own decisions... Somedays I wish I could somehow put my son back in my belly.  Somedays more than others, I wish for this extreme unrealistic regression because at least when he was in my belly; he was tucked in that protective pouch filled with fluid to pad him from any jarring experiences.  I wish I could protect him from EVERY bump, ditch, divet, tsunami, tidal wave, earthquake type of trauma...but I can't and those times where all I can do is be a place for him to lay his burden down and soak up is pain filled tears...I squeeze him with all might in hopes that m...

When you finally have the opportunity to climb out of the quicksand of your past & stand firmly on the ground that is your present...celebrate it!     Moira Rose (Yes, from Schitt's Creek). I've spent this last week nursing a cold and emotionally navigating all that is overwhelming, new, out of my control, unfinished business, regret, consequences, death, financial loopdeloops & everything else that comes in a stew of living, mental health challenges & a topper of a planet or five in retrograde.  Needless to say, it's been quite the emotional adventurous week:)!   I started it off on Sunday communing with my mother & my auntie who just passed a few weeks ago and then last week my sweet niece in Zambia had a baby and he didn't make it.  I don't think I realized how sad I was about my Auntie & my grand nephew until that Sunday morning...that day.  All the messaging I was receiving that morning/day was relenting to my heartache, rele...

NYC-Embracing & Letting Go of This Skin  I 've  been desperately holding on to old shedding skins.  Skin that has puckered and worn out.  Skin that is snug in all the wrong places and increasingly more and more uncomfortable.  Skin that no longer serves me and is completely unrecognizable.  Skin that I've been terrified to let go of and allow to decompose because the new just felt/feels terrifying.  The new feels/felt so different.  I'm not even sure how to wear it or even approach this skin.  What part of me do I dress/address first...Do I start with putting it on from my head or my feet?  Or do I put it on like a front button down dress with at least 100 buttons that need attention?  I'm not sure how to wear this new skin.  I'm not sure how to approach this new skin,  so I've isolated myself more  than ever.  I've hid myself away but I find myself seeking to connect and be held; be in spaces with more than ...

Dear 2018, I didn't greet you with vision and strength.  My resolutions barely full words, only letters tethered together out of obligation to other's expectation.  I was barely holding on to myself at that time, let alone ideas of a self I was supposed to resolve to work toward. All I knew was that I needed to get up for the sake of my son.  I had to get up to make sure he was getting everything he needed and that I supported his life...When he wasn't present, I was no where near present for my life.  I actively stopped showing up for myself.  The latter part of last year and much of this year is when my disappearance started to become noticeable.  I lost friends and what feels like a multitude of opportunities.   It was quite difficult to face folks anymore.  How was I supposed to explain myself when my words were stifled by pain & shame.  As much as I tried to be present for my son, he unfortunately felt my vacancy...Every time I lef...

Jessica Hampton Mother - Daughter - WOMAN  She was on the Red Line train in the middle of the day this past June.  25 year old young woman Jessica Hampton, whom I read was working incredibly hard to get her life together.  She was learning to love herself again. She stopped drinking and was probably thinking of what her next steps to living her best life with & for her daughter who she has left behind...a six year old daughter. Jessica Hampton was loved by many.  She was on her way somewhere and she shook her head no to him and he stabbed her multiple times.  No one stepped in to help her.  People screamed and ran in the opposite direction.  People videotaped her death and took in her demise through a lens and did not step in to stop it. Like many women, she found herself with a man whose intentions for her ended up being violence at all costs.  This individual has gone to jail for this crime against a woman who simply said no to him an...

I woke up this morning with Bresha Meadows on my heart.  I was wondering what she was going through right now.  What it took for her to be pushed to her breaking point.  At the tender age of 14, she gathered everything inside of her to pick up her father's gun...the same tool her father handily used to terrorize Bresha, her sisters and her mother, and shoot her father.  Her 14 years of unrest, trauma and horrific home-life gave her all that she needed to stop the destruction the man she was supposed to look to for love and protection caused. She loved, served and protected her family in their time of need...So the question so many are asking, where was her mother?  Why couldn't she be the one to stop the violence?  Why couldn't she remove her family from the hell that her husband cause?  I know I initially asked these questions.  I wondered why, as a mother, she could allow ANYONE to hurt her children.  As I cried over her daughter's plight...

Here I am stumbling through the process of learning to love myself… Yup, I’m challenged, but pushing forward because I can’t look back, I don’t want to look back.  This my friends, is so important.  This is my chance to finally get through the fear and bust through the ribbon at the finish line, only to train for yet another journey.  It ain’t over till it’s over!  Loosing my mother has taken away a part of me that was unconditional love for me.  The day she passed, that void of feeling loved purely and unconditionally without question of worthiness felt so vast and empty.  Nothing could fill it up.  I've hated how awful and lonely that has been/had been making me feel.  So I've decided to do something about it.  I decided to find a way to fill that empty space with self love.  Face to void and fill it! So let me tell you about my last couple of days of loving myself.  I started out my Sunday morning spending time with my sno...

Us... It's been one week and a few days since my mother transitioned.  My heart is both broken and relieved. Broken because I can no longer hold her hand, hear her laugh, see her smile, look into her kind eyes, lay my weary head on her lap, listen to her voice...Relieved because her body and mind can no longer cause her pain and torment.  She suffered for so many years.  This life had given the chance to see & experience so much of the world, explore her boundaries, realize her strength and unfortunately feel emotional and physical pain deeper and more profound than most people could bear.  It was to much...She held on through pain until she felt my son and I were going to be okay...supported & loved through this life...This is what I shared at her memorial... July 27th 1942 - July 7th 2016 My mother really didn’t want any fuss “when the time came”.   I believe part of it was her not wanting to inconvenience anyone and the other part ...

Life is what you make it.  I've learned that through so many lessons and in so many ways over the years.  Most of those lessons i've learned have been from the women in my life.  Some have been my ride or die homies who have mothered me through whatever emotional or physical trauma I was experiencing to the random momma stranger on the street who's momma .  It was these moments that made me understand the importance of my circle of women.   I'm so thankful for the many times I was emotionally rescued by these surrogate mothers in my life also known as my friends, my sisters, my aunties, my co-workers, my son's friend's moms, my friend's moms, and at the top of that list...my mom .  Women who had no obligation to my healing.  They simply were expressing their mother-nature, an extremely challenging emotion to avoid.  It's like an impulse...much like child birth when it comes time for a woman to push, it is an impulse that women cannot stop the...

Who are you?   As we embark on the journey of motherhood so many of us find ourselves merging our childhood, teenage, young adult dreams with the dreams that we now have for the being that we've birthed from our loins.  This representation of all things beautiful, free, innocent and right about you.  So your focus, ok, my focus is now place squarely on this gift releasing any dream distracting you from the gift.   Funny thing is, that gift i've fallen on the sword for...that gift I've selflessly starved my desires and dreams for...that gift that was born of me...specifically chose me, which means releasing my wishes and desires...the same desires and passions that helped form this gift is actually you denying the gift...this representation of all things beautiful, free, innocent and right about you is denied the opportunity to meet their maker...really know their maker...be affirmed by their maker. Moral of the story mother...don't give up who you are by lett...

I love my mother so much!  She has been my rock and my salvation.  She has been the person who understood me the least but comforted my in ways that no other being could satisfy.  I love my mother. Ms. Mabel... Like many folks, I really didn't start getting to know the woman whom I called mom until later in life.   She was always just mom.  It didn't help that she was also very guarded as are many african women, so wearing her emotions anywhere on her person was not a thing, unlike her daughter whose emotions should be tattooed across her face...Just sayin'. My mother's name is Mabel.  She is the second youngest child out of six.  She was raised in Zimbabwe with her parents and siblings (3 sisters and 2 brothers) on a farm.  My grandmother was a midwife and my grandfather farmed but also was a musician. My mother has always been driven; so much so that she left the home that she new in Zimbabwe at sixteen to come to the US as an exchange...

Hello April!  It's hard to believe you have already arrived.  You being here requires me to do a quick check in with my 2016 plan of attack.  Am I on a good path?  Have I been diligent and disciplined with my plans?  Have I changed my mind about how I feel about any accomplishments?  Did I surprise myself in anyway?  Am I feeling disappointed or proud of myself?  So many questions you bring to me April!   So 2016 was/is supposed to be the year I push myself outside of my comfort zone.  Do things that make you uncomfortable because the further out they are the more you find yourself stretching and growing in unexpected ways.  How has it been thus far?   Quick self assessment, like most folks, I started out incredibly strong.  I knocked out a few things on my list...Travel to LA for the first time...go on a dates(yipes!)...Okay, you get the idea, i've done some ish already and that feels pretty good!   Let'...

There are very few movies I walk away from feeling proud, moved & inspired...Creed I felt like a proud mom knowing that this beautiful movie was directed by a young driven brother whose honored his father who passed away by directing this gem of a movie.  Both my son and I spent the rest of our night obsessing over the soundtrack quoting the movie. One of the quotes that stuck with me.  That resonated deeply because it felt so relevant at this moment in my life was... "You see this guy here? That's the toughest opponent you're ever going to have to face. I believe that's true in the ring, and I think that's true in life. Now show me something!"  God this has been my lifelong battle.  I have effectively talked myself out of so many opportunities that the universe set up for my good.  I've taken a thousand momentous forward moving steps only to suddenly stop & dig my heels into a bed of quicksand layered with fear. Why?  Because it felt like ...

What a year 2015 was! FREEDOM was my New Years resolution.  I wasn't sure what that was supposed to be or how it would manifest, but it was what I wanted and needed to happen for me evolve.  I had no idea what I was in for.  I didn't realize my prayers and meditation would take me down this incredibly emotional road to freedom. A friend of mine described how she had been feeling for the last few months...like she was in a coma...man did that resonate with me!  I experienced extreme highs by celebrating my son's successes and a few of mine, but instead of me using my challenges (I don't want to call them failures or losses) as a catalyst, they became a warm weighted blanket in the heat of summer.   I had been laid off from my job and all though I knew that I had asked for this...not loosing my job, but the freedom from having a regular 9-5...I finally get to call my own shots...but how scary.  I have been working for someone since I was 15.  It was...

I feel like i've been on a really long writing hiatus...well because I guess I have.  If I could only string together every single word, sentence and single paragraph that I started & stopped over the past several months/year...Strung together to make some compelling, inspired thought. That last paragraph has been as far as I've been able to get for months...So this is me pushing myself past paragraph one.  Here goes. Persist - I've spent much of my adult life battling myself.  Against the doubt, the self sabotage when I got to close to FINALLY getting what I wanted, the fear of not being the right person to fulfill my "grandiose" dream.  I've battled year after, month, after day, after minute after second.  I battle(d).  As my thoughts linger on the time lost, at least that was part of the narrative that left/leaves the deepest wound...How could you waste so much time in a battle you created & fueled for the slow destruction of self when yo...

My heart is breaking much like so many other people in the wake of the horrible tragedy in Charlston.  Nine people died in the midst of prayer & reflection.  Died opening their hearts and doors to a very lost soul... To The MEN  who were the leaders and examples of excellence, The Honorable Rev. Clementa Pinckney (41) ...Ashe Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr.(76) ...Ashe - Tywanza Sanders (26) ...Ashe.   Thank you for showing us what it looks like to live an impeccable life.  Thank you for being the pride of the community.                                   To The WOMEN The beautiful mama souls that were violently taken from us. Taking in the pictures, stories and words that loved ones have been sharing shows how these blessed women were the hugs, the love, the words of encouragement, the prayers, the glue, the sunday dinners, the only one who understood, the one who fo...