Family

The past couple of weeks have been a little rough.  2 people I care about a lot were put on hospice care.  One passed last week, one past yesterday. One was a blood relative, one was as close to me as a blood relative.  I love my family, flaws and all. My extended family, the people I consider family all play a different role in my life. Value family, spend time with family, love family.

Friends and Family

I know....I missed last week. I was travelling and spending quality time with friends and family.  Which reminded me of how much they mean to me. I often get consumed with work and attempting to figure out my next moves in life, but I was reminded this weekend to enjoy the moments you have with the people that you love and love you.  That's all I have this morning....

Words and actions

I don't even know where to start. Couldn't sleep and a lot on my mind and all I could do was blog. So honestly don't know where this post will go.

I never thought words could hurt so much.....for a person that always wants to know they why, I really want to know why you made the statement and the fact that you said it was not important hurts even more. You said it so to me it is important. Words mean things! Not only so words mean things, but the actions that go along with those words mean things and your lack of action hurts even more.

I don't ask for much and couple with the one thing I have asked of you and your recent words......I just don't know. My past and my present I am learning so much and right now coming to terms with the lessons I am learning are hard. It should not be this difficult!!!!!

One thing I have believed my whole life what is important to you make time for me, period! So when your words and your time don't add up it confuses me and I hate confusion.

So what will happen? I don't know, but just needed to let that out. Hopefully I can get some sleep before work in the morning, but doesn't look promising :-(

More blogging in 2015 is a must........

The Four Fs

Faith

Fitness

Finances

Future

What are these? My focus in 2014. Last night I was working with the kids I mentor on vision boards and everything I have been thinking about during my Facebook break came together. Thank you God!!! These are 4 areas of my life that I want to target this year..... aggressively. Every year people, I, make goals or resolutions and every year I accomplish some and fail at others. This year I want to be more intentional about what is to come.

How am I going to do this? Good question...... One thing I that I sometimes have issues with is following through things that are hard for me. Easy things? I got this, but things that I struggle with, I say I am going to change, I start out great.....hit a road block and I am done. But I realize I need to make some major changes in my life. So each area listed above has to have a realistic plan.

Faith

This past year my faith has been on struggle. Why? I honestly don't know completely. Growing up in church faith was always apart of my life, but did I understand it? No.....I did what I was told, what was fun, and it became a habit for me. Through college I grew in my faith and began to understand things for me....not what my elders told me. Imagine being a college student almost failing out, losing scholarships and grants, parents divorce, mother gets breast cancer, sister dies (amongst 4 other close relatives), and father goes down a spiral of alcoholism that eventually lead to his death.....but I always had a mentality of but God!! My faith back then was the only stable thing in my life back then. So why is my faith shaky now? Still processing that. I question....a lot, it is my nature. I want to know why!!!!! Things have to make sense to me and right now.....there is a lot in my life that doesn't make sense.

So.....this year my goal is to study more of why do I believe what I believe. Read the Bible more and have more quiet time. If I only read a chapter in the Bible a day.....it's a start. Also read more books explaining Christianity and what it means to be a Christian. Books to help me walk in my faith, just not talk about it, be about it. I also want to study other religions, I believe in God, but I think you can learn a lot from understanding what other people believe in. 

Fitness

I am fat....yeah I said it. I am actually obese. It is what it is. My last doctor's appointment was not great at all. No health problems, but the weight is the worst it has ever been. I admit I can be an emotional eater and learning to stop doing this, but it takes time. I also realize I don't workout regularly. This must change. I have to lose weight.....lots of it over time (didn't gain it overnight, won't lose it overnight)

My plan......I have to be more intentional on eating and exercise. I think I am going back to cutting out meat.....think this is when the weight loss sky rocketed, when I fell back in love with bacon. I also have to cut out fast food, now that I am not working as much this will be easier to accomplish. Green smoothies are great and I like! Just need to continue to get creative with them so I don't get bored. Next the workouts....my church is having an event called ChurchFit and I am hoping it helps give me a kick start. I have targeted 3 workout classes that actually fit into my schedule and I am excited about them!! I also want to aim for the Women's half marathon in September. I love to walk and I just have to focus and dedicate to training.....this cold weather keeps getting in the way. I think when I do these things I will see progress. For 2014 my goal is to lose 75 pounds. One pound at a time.

Finances

Another struggle for me......Coupled with ridiculous student loans and having problems sticking to a budget I need to make changes. Last year I paid off a lot of stupid debt and I hope to get all stupid debt paid off by March. So this year is going to be a year of savings. I am learning to pay cash for everything and not charging anything. I am admitting to myself I don't NEED the latest gadget or item I see. I am determined to put away a certain percentage of my check each month in an account that is not easily accessible. That way I can't just electronically transfer money when I want to splurge. I am also going to try real hard not to eat out at all.....you know how much money I waste eating out? I want to be a better steward of my money one day at a time.

Future

What does the future hold for me? I honestly don't know. What do I see in my future.....a variety of things. I want career growth, but right now I don't know what that end goal or ultimate job will be, but I do have some things in the work that I hope I can report on soon. I love what I do, but I don't want to do it forever. I need a new challenge (and more money.....just being honest). I want a family? But what does that look like? Good question.....each year I set and hope that my relationship status will change (been the same for a long time.....my whole life) but each year it doesn't. How do I change that? If you can answer that......please let me know. But, I realize I want a family in my future. I want children and I want someone to share that with. So......first step is going out on a date (don't think this goal is ever going to change until it actually happens). So as I was creating my vision board I came across an article that had the phrase "dating outside the box" which is something I am going to try.....hopefully. What I do know about my future is that is bright and 2014 I think is the beginning of a brighter future for me.

The Journey

It is going to be long and hard, but I think it is worth it. I will blog about successes and failures here.....I hope I will be transparent and learn from this journey. In the end I just want to be a better me.

The Movie Pariah

I went to see this movie last week and it was very eye opening. I love independent films and this one was a great one to see. I heard all the hype, but gave up on seeing it because I thought it would never come to Nashville, even though the writer is originally from the Nashville area.

To my surprise out indie movie theater here finally got it and I was so excited to see it. I actually went to see it twice (I do that a lot with movies, to catch what I missed the first time).  This movie was worth it. Why you may ask? It gave you a story of a young girl coming to terms with her sexual identity while dealing with the not being accepted by her mother. What I liked most about this film is that it did not focus on the sex aspect about her attraction to women, but her desire to be in a relationship with another girl.

She was a teenager going through a transition in her life and really had no one to talk to or confide in completely. I don't want to give any spoilers, but the movie had a few turns that I would have never gotten from the previews.

So if this movie is in your area please go see. No matter what you views are on homosexuality I think everyone can learn and take something from the movie.  I laughed, cried, and thought about several things while watching this movie. 

Got to stop crying....

Over the past week I don't think I have done that much crying in my whole life....A little while ago I wrote a post on Letting Go and I said no matter the outcome I was going to be okay....well I have the outcome and I have had to process the outcome and I don't know how to take it in my life right now. In my mind I had two ways the situation could have gone....and it went neither way. Honestly, I don't know how to handle it or I am struggling to handle it. It is like I got 50% of each scenario that I expected. This actually could be a good thing if I handle the situation properly, but right now I am working through the pain. This is where all the tears and pain came from. What is scary a friend suggested I listen to the sermon from church yesterday and all I can say is I really don't want to because I would not hear it or process it right now....I have never been like this.

How can I let other people get to me like this??? I mean when processing some things with a friends I can finally admit that I really care too much and I wish that people cared back. Then he stated that people that people do care, but not the way you want them to, so I am like what is the point??? I mean if someone says that they love you, but their actions do not line up with their words is it really love? If I tell you what hurts me yet you continue to do it but insist that you love and care for me does that really make sense????

When I look at the people in my life from friends, family, acquaintances, and so on there are very few people that I can say truly care and love me....and even those don't show it in the best way.  One might say you choose to have these people in your life so you can let them go.....if it were only that simple.  These are people who have been there for me through the good and bad....people who are family by blood and by actions. I have to realize that no one is perfect and I can't expect them to be everything I expect them to be....but when they fail on the small things, it hurts.

The crying is stopping slowly, I hope I can get past this hurdle in relationships. We shall see....



My Grandmother

This morning I decided to blog again. I have been gone because my grandmother passed earlier this week. It was not a shock, but it was still a hard time.  My grandmother was 89 years old and would have been 90 in a couple of months. She had been in a nursing home for about a year and she was slowly fading away.

I grew up having both my grandmothers in my life and I loved them both so much, but they were both so different. One thing they had in common was the fact that they loved their grandchildren and not matter what we did (even if we made them mad) they showed us that they loved us unconditionally.

When my grandmother passed last week it caused me to do a lot of thinking and remembering. My grandmother was a bad....SHUT YO MOUTH! (had to put it in). She served in the Women's Army Corp during World War II, she dropped out of high school to take care of family, but later got her GED (or the equivalent back then) and went and got her college degree from Lemoyne Owen College an HBCU in Memphis, and she got her Master's Degree in Education from Memphis State (now University of Memphis) along side my mother.  She raised 2 children as a single parent and she taught for over 30 years in the Memphis City School System. She traveled the world and had so many talents....one was sewing and making porcelain dolls.

This was my favorite doll of hers!

She had so many talents and just named a few of her impact in life. Like I said earlier she was an great grandmother. She cared and provided for us and set an example of how to live for her family and everyone she impacted.  I have listed her accomplishments in life, but she was so much more. When you think about she was a BLACK WOMAN who accomplished all these things back in the day when blacks and women had so many strikes against them said a whole lot.

I loved her for the woman she was and the impact that she made in my life. I know she is at peace. She will be missed, but I know she lived a life that anyone would be proud of....the good and the bad.

One of my favorite and funniest stories I can remember about her is when I graduated from Vanderbilt University. She was so proud.  I even got her a Vanderbilt grandparent shirt while I was in college.  She had been to campus a few times while I was there, but at graduation there were so many people. I was coming out of my dorm and my grandmother said (fortunately no one heard her) "What are all these peckerwoods doing here?" I still laugh at that statement. She knew I went to a majority institution, but her seeing so many of them made her realize it.  I just laughed...because I was taking her to introduce her to my "white grandmother" who served as a mentor and good friend while I was in college.

I hope I continue to make my grandmother proud as she made me proud, by being the best grandmother I could ever had!

oh.....well continue the 30 Day Blog Challenge later. Going back to work and a lot to do. I will pick up where I left off. Trying to get back to normal.

My Sister....

Yesterday while browsing on facebook my cousin put up pictures from her graduation. I was not able to attend, but it was great seeing pictures of the family. One picture got to me was a picture of her and her 2 sisters.  I was a cute picture and don't know why it just made me cry...why?

Well...The picture to the left is a picture of me and my sister. We were very young and as you can see my parents dressed us alike. I am pretty sure that my grandmother made those dresses for us and we probablly have a doll to match that she made also. Ya'll see the shoes? We were fly back then weren't we???

Well...my sister had cerebral palsy and was in a wheel chair her entire life. She passed away while I was home for Christmas Break while I was a junior in college. The doctors said she would not live passed the age of 6 months old....She lived to be 23 years old. Although we did not have a typical sister relationship I loved her and she loved me. 

When I saw the pictures of my cousins it made me miss my sister and realize that we were not able to experience the same things that most sisters did, but we had a special connection.  I sometimes look over my childhood and realize that I did not have a storybook childhood and sometimes in the past even wished that it was more "normal," but I realize now that my experiences and relationships as a child have made me who I am today and I am thankful for that.

I miss me sister at times and sometimes wonder what she felt growing up. She could not communicate like others, but she was always able to brighten up a room. I wonder what use to go on in her mind as we grew up. I have pictures of me and her as we grew older, but I thought this picture was too cute. 

A while ago I had a facebook status stating that we can't focus on the "what ifs" in life... that is one thing that I have to remember when I begin to think about my sister. My sister might not have been "normal"  but she was normal for my family and she was the best sister that I could ever want.

What's in a picture??

This morning I checked my mailbox and I had a letter in the mail from my mother and enclosed was this picture to the left. It is a picture of my maternal grandmother and grandfather in 1944.  What was funny was one of my older cousins on facebook made the comment of scanning more family pictures to share...So I decided to take a mobile pic of what my mom sent and upload. I have gotten a few "likes" and comments on the picture of how they love it!!!

I was thinking....if they only knew.  When you look at this picture what do you see? What assumptions do you make?  I guess since I know the history behind both of them I have a different perspective on this picture...

What people seeing this picture do not know that my grandmother and grandfather divorced back in the day (which was rare).  From my understanding he had other children the same age as my aunt.  By looking at this picture you would never know that I never met my grandfather. Only heard stories about him and met some of his family. Met his sister face to face for the first time last year (very exciting...eventhough we have had phone conversations). 

When people see this picture they see 2 black people in love...which they were. You see 2 black people serving in the military (My grandmother was and is a bad....SHUT YO MOUTH!!!...had to say it). But you don't know the drama behind the relationship. Although I have only heard one side of the story...I do know my grandmother loved my grandfather, but based on so many factors it just did not work out.

People's comments on the picture were nice and I debated on rather I should tell them more....I think I will not. Just got me to thinking do people really think about what they see when they see a picture....

All I Can Do is...Pray

One of my recent posts talked about how my grandmother is getting sicker...Today my mother is putting her in a nursing home. I talked to mother this morning and she is okay, but...I don't know what to do in this situation. I want to go home to help my mother, but she says no. I want to call, but I don't want to disrupt the moving process. All I can do right now is pray.

I am a person of faith and believe in God. I believe that everything happens for a reason. I try to find the positive in everything. Every experience is a lesson. I know God knows what is best. It is hard for me to focus on work right now because all I can think of what is going on with my mother and my grandmother...and what is sad my mother has a sister who is not on board with moving my grandmother to a nursing home which brings in family drama...but that is not the point.

I am having this internal debate to call or not to call, go visit or stay in Nashville. I know if I were to go home my mother would be mad. I think I will wait until I get a call from her and then decide. All I can do at this point is pray. I think logically about so many things, but I do have a heart. I am hurting, but okay. I am at peace, but still have feelings.

Today is a rough day...but I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Back to my regularly scheduled program...work!!!

Family

Assumptions are on hold for now....This past weekend I went to Atlanta to spend some time with some friends and I met some family for the first time. It was a great experience and it made me think about some things. I love my family...the good and the bad.

I have a very interesting family dynamic, but it has helped to mold and make me into the person I am today. Long story short...I was raised by both my mother and father and grew up having and older sister that had cerebral palsy and was in a wheel chair her entire life. I have had extended family from cousins, aunts, uncles, grandmothers, grandfather, and so on.

When you look at this picture this is what is left of my immediate family. My sister died while I was in college...when I tell people they are like awe, but I am like God blessed her to see 23 years old when the doctors said she would not live past 6 months. I love my sister and miss her, but she is in no pain. My father...My parents were married up until my freshman year of college then they got divorced. My father struggled with alcoholism that got bad in my teen years. He eventually died a couple of years ago. It was sudden and a shock, but that is how life is sometimes. Who is left now is my mother and me. We love each other and we have each other's backs through the ups and downs. We are not perfect. We fight, argue, and disagree, but we know how to squash the madness. I love her and she is my biggest supporter.

Back to what inspired this blog...the family I met this weekend was my family on my mother's father's side of the family. I have talked to a couple on the phone over the years and only met one face to face twice my whole life. When I met the family it just made me think about how family is important. Although we had never met before and really did not know each other they welcomed me in with open arms. The meeting was short, but it made me think about my family and how much I love them all. They are not perfect, but they are my family and I love them ALL!!!