The new year is here. We’re over a week into 2020 and things are moving along swimmingly. For me, 2019 was a humdinger for sure and I made it… so did you. There’s victory in that. Sometimes, we get so excited about new opportunities and expectations that we neglect to give weight and respect to what we’ve already made it through.
We don’t want to keep our eyes fixed on the rearview mirror, BUT every now and again you need to take a glance. Let it show you what you made it through, the ways you conquered things that were trying to conquer you and let it all paint a picture of your accomplishments and work that still needs to be done.
To that end, I want to walk us through things we need to do to elevate ourselves in the next year and beyond. Some of these things are written specifically with me in mind and some are for you, but they’ll all work together for our good.
I thought she just needed to warm up to the new school year. We were in a new grade, in a new building. Transitions can be challenging. I reasoned that anyone might need a few days to settle in. Then, things quickly escalated. She didn’t want to go to school. The final straw was when I had to go pick her up 2 days in a row because the office called me with her bawling in the background.
Up until that point I thought she was having a little separation anxiety. Which would have been standard. But, it wasn’t that she was crying. It was the way she was crying. The desperation and fear. The way she clung to me let me know that something was very wrong. This was more than separation anxiety. My girl… my effervescent star was losing her shine.
We need to re-contextualize strength. Like, what does it even mean to be “the strong one”?
Because it is NOT the absence of fear or pain or desire or disappointment. I believe that we have, in error, taken a patriarchal view of strength and applied it to our emotional sensibilities in an effort to make us appear less weak. They told us that strength and weakness cannot dwell in the same space. Men, for too long, set the expectation for tolerable behavior for women. Women are killing themselves to meet it. And women are cosigning this behavior. It must stop.
I am trying to negotiate an understanding of literal strength, figurative strength and the reality of my actual strength. What does it look like? What does it feel like? How have I previously misunderstood and in turn misrepresented strength. I am currently being forced to confront these feelings of wanting to be strong, solvent and also having to embrace that pieces of me breaking.
The Other Women In His Life. I know this is a touchy area so I’m going to speak carefully. His momma is his momma baby girl. A man who loves his mother or his grandmother??? Yessssss!!! #IssaWin That man is going to love you deep. Yes… He will look for comparisons and connections. No. You are not his mother and you never will be, BUT he has chosen you as a reflection of her. She has built the best foundation for him to love you. She literally gave him life. Why do you resent the relationship? Why don’t you like her?
I thought of all the times I was afraid to be me. How I worked hard to be acceptable and appropriate and good. Acceptable and appropriate and good do not benefit the folks who are being confined to it. I was bombarded with memories of the struggle to return to me. How it took my whole life to get back to a little girl with almost just right shoes so I could free her from the irrational, suffocating expectations of other people.
