If you were to ask me when I fell in love with words, I would tell you I don’t know.
I would tell you that I fell in love with language and accents first. I fell in love with storytelling before I ever wrote a story down. I believe it is with that particular proclivity, that made room to love words.
From that, yields the roux for creativity.
Some use color to paint the world. My color has syllables.
If I can get it off my head, and I can see it to deal with it.
There is a reason why I journal, why I write, and why it is I use that visible pain to write characters that are believable. I am learning to honor what I feel, how I feel, and give myself permission to do what I had not before: feel.
At this portion of my life, I have the need to honor what I emote. Even if it is just to myself.
I am learning that as I protect everyone else dear to me, I cannot neglect myself.
I’m 41.
I’ll be 42 in June.
I am learning to love myself radically. Like, radically! From the sprinkling of gray hair, to the soreness in my left foot (#plantarfascitis), and yet, the fact I don’t look my age. I love the fact that I still love to dance in the mirror, still flexible, and I am enjoying my body.
I love that I can be a vixen in great heels, and comfy in my high top Chucks.
I am learning more about me as I age, and understanding what Mother Rashad said about my own self being such a treasure. It took me 4 decades to get to this point: to enjoy my own company, self, and place in the world.
I belong in the world. I add to it. It’s better with me in it.
Audre Lorde said that self-preservation is a radical act.
It took me to getting to age 40, to appreciate that. When I sit still too long, I feel a pain in my left hip. Not the joint, but the tendon. It pulls at me, reminding me of my age…and that I survived COVID-19 as a PCT during the first wave of the pandemic. Then, the snowball happens.
My mind wanders…it reminds me that I am still here.
I’m a rape survivor.
I’m a survivor of domestic violence.
I’m surviving racism.
I’m surviving sexism.
And misogynoir.
I am learning to say ‘No’, and absolutely mean it. I am learning to listen to God, and His gift of intuition. I am appreciating the fact I am a survivor–in control of the story I present to the world, and I tell myself. I am looking at myself in the mirror and smiling back at the woman that is there.
She and I? We gon be alright.
I haven’t turned my back on love. I don’t think that I know how. There is a part of me which is cautious and reckless when it comes to love. I am at the age where I am confident of what I want, who I am, and the caliber of relationship I want. Yet, I am still reckless enough to give into the abandon that new love brings.
I don’t think that is me being jaded –I’m a love poet. I don’t think that I have the right to be. Yet, what I do have is the realization love is still really…and can still be mine too.
I deserve a love that will be healthly.
That will not demand I break when you will never bend.
I deserve a love big enough to hold me up, keep me close, and causes me to remember how deep it goes.
Indeed, I am not built for the shallow–the forever love, wherever he is, cannot be built for the shallow either.
Michael is the name of my favorite archangel.
Which is funny seeing that the most protective people I have ever dated were named, Michael. I have often wondered why that is, and what I did to attract them to me.
My childhood sweetheart: Michael.
The first guy I loved: Michael.
First man to break my heart: Michael.
The man that loved me to the point the gift of writing came back: Michael.
On some end, that’s fitting. Oddly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I count myself as a unique, mystical woman.
And for that cause, I think it was natural that I would be a writer.
It seems natural that I would be one that would fall in love with a world unseen, and subject to my own imagination. Next February, I will be celebrating 10 years as a published author.
I will be celebrating 10 years of doing what I love…what I have dreamt of doing since I was 10, 11 years old.
Daily I chase this talent: daily I am amazed by it.
If I had stayed married to my second husband, we would have been married a decade in June.
10 years. Even thinking about that now is emotional.
What that relationship taught me is marriage with the wrong person is a prison sentence. Thanks to some internet sleuthing, my bestie and I found out that he has someone else, and has a new baby.
A boy.
I remember how devastated I felt, and how I had to pull myself together. Then, I remembered what he told me before while trying to hang on to a relationship I was done with:
“I know you want a baby…”
The most valuable thing I got back from that relationship was…me. To fall in love with me again. To protect me again. It was only when he was out of my life that I could breathe again…and heal up. Rather than do better by me, do right by me, he thought he could manipulate me with a baby. It’s incredulous to even think about having a baby with him.
Do I hate him? No.
Do I love him anymore? No.
Does that startle me? No.
Do I want him back? Don’t make me cuss.
Read ROMEO IS NOT COMING on Amazon and Kindle. -JBH
It’s Love Hangover Day.
Where you are basking in the glow of being well loved, or realizing you are the secret. This day is symbolic of either the best hangover or the most devastating hangover you have ever had.
There is time for regret. Reflection. Reconciling and remembering.
My Valentine’s Day? It was quiet. I reflected. I reconciled. And I decided–in my heart–that I might not be as ready as I thought I was to give up on love.
Still thinking.
I am impressed by the amount of change of the world, and not enough invested change in ourselves. Phylicia Rashad said, “You yourself, is such a treasure.” Inside you is love, passion, ambition, drive, and raw unmined talent. Also there is apprehension, doubt, fear and suspicion. Choose this day what you will.listen to. What you will listen.to is what you will feed and follow.
Be HERE for your own life. Be present in your present.
JBH, 2.2014
I Breathe Fire 