The Stripping Game Started in the Yellow Pages

“Well hello book. This is my dancer’s book where everyday from here til the end, I will write a page about the club. Who am I? Butter. My real name is Kendria. Butter, my alter ego, has become a part of me that no matter what happens,  I’ll always remember. So here’s the start of what will hopefully be the end soon. 

~6.18.02”

I've gone back and forth about penning this blog. At first, I was ready gung-ho with excitement to post this. I like challenging how our 'normal society' views those who it has deemed an outcast. I had all the words loaded in my head, cocked back the login on my laptop and prepared myself to start typing my hollowpointed opinions, experiences, and facts. Then I got side-tracked on FB.

Forth-five minutes and a bunch of scrolling later, I had ended up on a page of a young lady who had recently passed. Her occupation was exactly what I was preparing myself to write about: Stripping.  Her death was a tragic accident and although the drugs appeared to be the cause of death, I would be lying if I said her occupation wasn't a potential contributing factor. As my eyes fought the tears of this young life lost and a son forever motherless, I started feeling like 'how dare I write about stripping as if to glorify it?"

I abandoned the idea and started toggling with a different blog topic. The next day yet another Facebook scroll would land me back on the page that originally inspired me to write about my experience as a dancer. It was an article about a group of church women who visited a strip club on a regular basis and one of the women's experiences in doing so ("I Went To A Strip Club"). My repost of this article sparked a conversation with a few different FB franz  about the auto-prejudgment of girls who work in this particular field (also referred to as Sex Workers). I was inspired to tell my experiences. But before I could, I ended up on Kami's page, the young lady who passed, and started to question if I would be doing women a disservice by blogging about my strip club antics from well over ten years ago? Then it hit me: That beautiful young woman came to my attention FOR this blog. It wasn't meant to hinder me or stop me from sharing but rather to push me to do it. I don't know her. I don't know her family. I don't know friends. I only stumbled onto her page and the news of her untimely passing by six degrees of FB separation; her father is also a poet who I've heard of but have never personally met. Her story hurt me deep. And for her, I pray this blog reaches and touches someone else. I am not glorifying my strip club experience. But I'm not gonna sugar coat it either. Some of it was a lot of fun, empowering and surprisingly loving; on the flip side, there were times I could have died, there were people who did die, there were drugs, alcohol, and everything else you assume. But I hope my first-hand account of the good, the bad and the misguided will do something beyond provide literary entertainment and let you in on my past. I hope this post will do SOMETHING to change how you view dancers. Not all of them are money hungry. Or whores. Or being pimped out, on drugs and out of control. Some folks just end up there. And have to dig their way back to the surface of Light. 

I started stripping when I was 20 years old. I had no rhyme or reason for doing it. In fact, it was all a big low-self esteem joke that I was playing on myself that essentially didn’t end up being a joke at all. It ended up being reality. On a quiet and bored day in my life, I grabbed the Yellow Pages for an odd but regular favorite pastime: Trolling the phone book. I would open it up and look through it for ideas, businesses I had never heard of, places I wanted to go, etc. On this day, I went to the strip club section. A conversation with an ex that was sparked from us watching Players Club together led me to believe that I would be good at being a dancer. There was nothing enticing about it from the movie but for whatever reason, him telling me that I would be good at it never left my head. I called several different clubs before getting someone to take my bait and invite me in to fill out an application. Honestly, I thought I would be too large and unattractive to to get the job. I had hangups about my stomach and I thought my face was boring. I had NO expectations of being hired. I had left my job selling GTE Credit Cards to college kids and had started working at Victoria’s Secret.

I hated it. I’ve always hated retail but it was always the easiest job to get. I was now living on my own, on the east side of Indianapolis and I had bills that needed to be paid. VS was barely covering everything.  So even though it was more a of self-inflicted joke, I did wonder what kind of money I would make if I was actually hired.

I remember sitting at the bar near the door filling out the application. I spoke with the night manager, Jesse after turning it in. Looking back, as innocent as I already wasn't, I still was. I was wide-eyed when a chocolate sister with full breasts tucked behind a bikini top walked to the bar effortlessly in crystal clear heels taller than anything I had seen in person. I asked her with my shyness, "You can walk in those?" She said they were easy. I asked how tall they were and she told me six inches.

"Six in heels

she walks in the club like nobody's business

goTdamn, she murdered everybody and I was her witness"

Her confidence was an aroma that preceded her. The application asked me what my stage name was. I looked around the room for something that was that stood out to me. Then I remembered the now ex-boyfriend who suggested I would be good at this. He had a beautiful Rottweiler dog that I loved to play with. Ever since I met her, I wanted my own Rottweiler and I wanted to take her name, Butter, with me. In that split second in the smoky, dark bar with the loud music and dancing women, I became my own bitch. I walked in Kendria; a young chick who never had a nickname but always wanted one.

I walked out as a dancer named Butter.

It was that simple. There was no pimp. No drug problem. Just a young woman with a lot of curiosity for random things and places. I didn't know what I was doing or getting myself into. I didn't even know why I was doing it. I was quite oblivious to the strip club world. It goes to show how being on the outside looking in with nothing more than an opinion based off of things you've only 'heard' holds such little weight.

In short, I stayed a dancer for four years, toggling between the only two local black clubs in Indy and hitting the road to go to ATL and East St. Louis. All hustles have revolving doors and stripping is no different. Many times I would see people quit and try to leave the life behind them only to end up back in the basement, standing in front of a locker and asking for ‘titty tape’ (can’t show your nipples in Indiana. It’s nudity. Lol.). My pride made me promise myself that I wouldn't quit until I was sure I wouldn't return. I wanted to beat the odds. I wanted to save 10K and quit and walk up in the job force like 'heyyyy, did you miss me?!!"

It went nothing like that. It went all over the place and around the world in 80 days but it went nothing like quitting with ten thousand dollars in the bank, a free mind and a job waiting on me. HA. #YoungMinds

Stripping empowered me...

...in ways I didn't see coming. It didn't happen overnight, but after awhile of popping and gyrating in little bikinis and bandage dresses, I couldn't help but fall in love with myself. Confidence was an unspoken prerequisite of making money. I hadn't experienced that before in such a way although I must admit it was all surface-driven self-love. It didn't go deeper than my outward appearance and I still thought that I had little to offer the outside world. I mean sure I had finally mastered how to use my thighs to move my butt and I had become pole proficient, but outside of those dark walls and g-string queefs, who cared? I wrote poetry all the time. I journaled almost daily. But still I saw no value in how I wrote. I've always had this artistic heart that wasn't driven by finances and it caused a disconnect for me growing up. My family was about that mighty dollar. If you go to school, you need to come out and be able to do something and make $$. "Engineers make good money" was an argument I got tired of hearing and I abandoned the idea of college by my sophomore year.  As a dancer, I was doing it! I was making the money and it was non-traditional, which spoke to the rebellion in me. It wasn't the ideal way but  when I was home straightening out balled up bills and laying them in one direction for simple counting, you couldn't tell me nothing!!!! When I left the stage and had money falling out of my hands because there so much to grab, you couldn't tell me nothing!!!! When I was walking around with the baddest chick in the club wearing my lesbian lies, you couldn't tell me nothing.

I left my shyness on the dayshift and switched to nights and when I would arise from that basement in pretty dresses and six inch heels, you.could.not.tell.me.NOTHING.

It was a life I lived with pride. The longer I stayed, the more I became content with who I was and what I was doing. I had found a way, a tax-free way at that, to 'make it.' I was able to pay bills, go shopping and indulge in my first plane ride: a trip to Atlanta to dance for Superbowl at the infamous Gentlemen's Club. Once I arrived, I realized that there were other places outside of Indiana and I found a reason and a way to start seeing them. Florida was supposed to be a stop I made but I still had major hangups with flying. I wasted two different RT plane tickets gifted to me because I was too scared to fly. #DoubleEntendre

I road to New Orleans in the back of a van and road the famous Lake Pontratrain highway on the way home. East St. Louis is where I saw my first live prostitute at work on the corner. It was also where I made the most money for doing the least work.

The basement is where the lockers and showers were and where you could find us congregating on slow nights doing everything from homework, talking on the payphone to boyfriends, arguing, fucking, fighting and sleeping on chairbeds. But it was also where I learned to not be intimidated by black women. See, I was scared about stripping - more about the women than the men. I had long dealt with the antics and disrespect and neglect of men, so maybe that's why I feared them less. Black girls and women were who intimidated me. I feared they would try to fight me for being new or just for being me. That's the way it seemed to be around my neighborhood growing up, so I had very low expectations of the attitudes and energy of all these black women. Shamefully, I expected the worst from my sisters.

I was wrong and we were all sisters. I find myself wondering if today's girls are as close as we were back in the early millennium. I used to secretly call us a sorority. The blacklisted sorority of course. It was weird how so many of us became friends and family and broke bread and fellowshipped with each other outside of work.

My life as a stripper didn't deter me from being a great woman. It didn't stop me from being  good to my friends. From offering a warm place to sleep to those in need. It led to me making some FOOLISH decisions, but my heart, this same heart that folks love today, was the same heart back then. My point is, how many hearts and minds full of intelligance are folks writing off today because of how someone gets their money???

You scared to sit down and talk to them so you would rather talk about them? 

Idk. 

I'm gonna end here.
This ain't even the real blog. 

To Thy Selfie Be True

I was on Facebook, thug-scrolling around and had a thought about myself and the relationship I'm in. I typed a status that said :


So many loves of mine have been hidden, clouded in mystery and confusion and secrets and shhhh, don't tell nobody. I've always felt like the ones I chose were ashamed of me. ...and i should have been of them.

Life changes
Ppl age
Energies locate safe places.
We protect us, but this thing called frozen memories makes me excited. .i guess i could never share a picture....but I would be less the Self I've fought to be.

Picture me rollin.

I thought about it for  awhile. 

When I looked back over my ''dating' and relationship experiences, 'secrecy and mystery' are  a couple of the noticeable recurring themes. I never liked being kept a secret, but I still wonder if the chase of trying to love a man out of the closet with me was some sort of sick psychological turnon? In 2014, me and #Somenig were sewn in secrecy to everyone except the folks that just happened to 'know'. If they knew about us, it was mostly because of eye witness account. I was eager for the day we would no longer be beneath the seams of the dating game. Never happened. Prior to him, I had been in a relationship where I had been the gatekeeper on the hush hush of us. Towards the end I posted a few pictures in a last ditch effort to believe in hope, but for the majority of the time we were together (7 years), most people didn't even know I was with someone, much less knowing what he looked like. It wasn't even something I did on purpose. It just happened that way. 

Neither he or 'we' were anything to brag on. * shrug * 

Before that I was cheated on, which was it's own set of secrets and lies, and before that, I there was another unpublished situationship. That about sums up  the 'major' relationships and happenstances in my life. And when I say secret, I don't just mean socially. Actually, pictures and social media weren't even a thing in the past. In these instances, we were uninvolved in each other's family life as well as personal friendships and associates. There were no like minds or common grounds or double dates. We were never good matches for each other, so even when I did kanoodle around their loved ones, it still came with a price. I've never had the best of the best and I take responsibility for who I picked and chose to share beds, homes and hearts with. Because at the end of the day, it was still all my choice. I wish I had have known better, but I didn't. I do 'blame' my father and stepfather for not imparting on me what a healthy relationship w/a man looks like. Now at some point you grow up. You are a full adult and you have learned stuff and been through stuff to teach you better than what you thought you knew, so I'm not afraid of admitting my own guilt. My own poor people and relationship skills kept me surrounded by a sea of bad choices that led to me loving men who would never be able to love me back. Not because they were such effed up people but rather because we should have never 'crossed paths'. I didn't know who to avoid, how or why. So my options were abundant. But as a woman, your options should never be abundant. You should be picky. You should be selective. Your pool of 'fish' should reflect YOU. It should reflect what your father taught you. I love both my father and stepfather and I hold no ill will towards them today but I'm human. I will always have a piece of me that misses what I wish I had with either one of them. I was born into dysfunction where it concerns father/daughter relationships. That dysfunction played out directly in my subsequent 'ship boarding'. As this blog constantly reaffirms, it took a long time to figure out HOW to make better choices and in that time, I bought a lot of luggage. 

I didn't see my beautiful. I didn't know my worth. I thought I deserved every small dose of crackhead love I received. I thought it to be as good as it would get for me. My dad wanted no parts of me. My brother wanted no parts of me. My stepdad made me feel picked on. By the time I was a teenager, I felt like there there was nothing I could do that was good enough for him. No matter what I tried to do to correct my shit, it always led to the same results. When I got involved in situations, I would jump through every hoop I could in effort to get the love I was seeking. I grew up feeling like the secret every man loved to hate so the guys I would end up with were guys that fit that same bill; they made me feel like I wasn't good enough and like I was a big secret. Every solo holiday and birthday, every empty seat at a show, every missed opportunity to sprinkle the world with pieces of 'us' was nothing like what I wanted but truthfully, it was all I ever knew. So like the mammal that I am, I adapted myself to my relationshit environments and played my role: Desperately seeking [but] losing. 

It never failed -I connected them with the spin of my hips and they danced to the beat of my heart just to get to my panties. We would then build relationships off orgasmic breaths instead of concrete bricks so our foundations were always shaky. 
Who would want to share a shaky foundation ???? Why would either of us want other people to know about a fauxmance?
  
Because I had been a stripper, I thought I was someone to be ashamed of so their seclusion of me made sense. My 2014 mishap saw me excited about the day that we let the cat out the bag only for the bag to open and there be a different feline climbing out and licking her paws. Again, I struggled w/not being good enough to tell people about.When it was me doing the hiding, it was because I knew better than my actions were showing but I would stick around with my crumbling hope as if consequence would never reach me. 

And it did many times. I should have been ashamed of my choices. I loved vulgarly and thought that in itself would earn me a God-like man. It only cost me time in solitary confinement with the heathens. And that confinement only cost me myself. 

And so here we are. If you've been following this journey, then you know I am currently in a relationship. A healthy relationship. Honestly and unbelievably, everyday he shows me that he is everything that I've wanted and prayed for (when I finally prayed). He is my final act. If in the event I am wrong about #MrCurrent, I am absolutely letting go of possibilities. You'd have to know the true ins and outs of our relationship and the things that have transpired around and within it to truly get me on this. And that won't happen so to that I say trust me. If ever I had a husband, it's him. And just being sincere, that scares me.

Because what if ..... 
But then I stop. I reject what if. I reject it like a muthafucka. All the what if I'm wrong and what if we break up questions are not only rejected, they are set afire. I welcome no negativity or down trodden thoughts; I accept reality and live it. What is to happen will happen always and I will not suffer in the process. I am going to enjoy TF out of it! I've worked too hard at keeping my heart together not to. 

 I can only share so much about my relationship with #MrCurrent and I've spoken on why in prior blogs. Frankly, we all know the dangers of letting the public into your relationship. So for our health and protection, I keep us guarded. I noticed that both times I wrote in depth about him in this blog I used the same date night (or rather date-trip). Subconsciously there are armed guards and hungry pit bulls with red eye around us. I have only written one poem about us. It's almost like I feel when I 'Muse' men, I curse 'us', so I've been going at this a bit differently. 


But not just in the pyschological sense. I'm in a relationship that has elevated me. We are like mirrors to each other so seeing who I am in my relationships and seeing what bags are on my shoulders and how I handle conflict are things that are vividly displayed for my internalizing. Meeting someone who sees you at your ugliest possible moments but still looks at you with pure love in their eyes is a rare gem. For a chick who has a history of sloppy relationshipping, Mr. Current is a breathe of fresh air but he's more than that; he is my partner. My team. And my friend. I've never had any of these in my past relations and situations, much less all three. 

I could go on forever about the person I call Mr. Current. I don't call him that because of his 'current' position. That would mean things would change and I really don't see things changing for the bad at all. I call him Mr. Current because of the ocean. When a current comes in, it takes whatever is in it's path away with it when it leaves. Losts toys, fish, sea scrolls, people....it doesn't matter. It takes it. Mr Current has taken me out on the ocean and we've been coasting every since. I've been a beached whale in every single relationship I've ever indulged in and now finally:

"I'm on the ocean
I'm in Heaven
Yatching
Oceans 11" 
~Oceans, JayZ

Here's where the tricks come in. Social media is a dangerous cesspool of filth, hate, racism, misery, misogny, verbal abuse, etc etc. There are some beautiful things there but there is so much ugly to be seen. Social media was not created for love. It wasn't created to show love, share love, indulge in love or find love, however, all those things are possible within the realms of social media. But it's a dangerous game. Miserable folks want to know how you are with so they can see how to sabotage you (the most prestigious miserable MF don't need pics...they'll booby trap you while pissing in your toilet). Other folks "sip tea" and sit back waiting for your downfall so they can substat how silly it was of you to put your business out there in the first place.

  
There are tons more types of people but there are also folks like me. I LOVE seeing black love. It helps to curb the myth that black love doesn't exist and that black men don't like black women. On the flip of that, I love seeing LOVE in general, so my eyes are open to whomever - gay, straight, white, interracial, etc.....but I have a special affinity for black love. 

I've had to locate my footing on the tightrope balance of being in a relationship and being on social media. Given that this blog has been an account of my past heartbreaks, I admit to being excited to share someone that for once, was shareworthy. 

Initially, I considered never sharing anything. Not even a picture. But we stayed taking pictures. So I started sharing a few here and there with his face blurred out. It was a complete wine-fueled accident that I shared a picture that included our faces without being blurred. After that, it was over. And here's why: 

I LOVE pictures. Almost as much as I love poetry. I mean, in another life, I was a photographer, world renowned probably. I love what pictures are, what they say and mean. I'm that person that looks at a picture and can see all 1000 of the words it tells. I stare at parts of pictures and break them down to the second they got in their respective positions. I look at how graceful hands look, how eyes fill with emotion and how windows show the details of what has been seen through them. I also love taking selfies. To many, I'm a narcicissist and that's fine. I remember when I hated my face so the fact that I now love it and have embraced it means I don't owe an explanation about how many selfies I take or post. I do what I want. Me and Mr Current have LOTS of pictures that I have taken of us. I play with them and filter them and add them to stuff and when I feel like it, I post them on IG. 

IG feeds it to FB. Most times, I'll go back and restrict the viewing of pics of us (unless it's our proverbial shoe pictures) but sometimes I forget and others I just don't care. 

What I have come to accept in my life is that I want to be happy. I want my joy to resonate to others around me. I want to know who I am, where I am, where I am heading and how I'm getting there and for the first time in my life, I can say I know the answers to these questions more than I ever have before. NOT because I have a man. I know them because I have spent the last 2 years searching high and low within myself to find them. 

And I still have a way to go. 
But along the way, I spoke a prayer one night that brought someone into my life who is not leaving. Again, you'd have to know more than what you know about us to FULLY get this. We are for certain each other's soulmates. I know that folks might look at me and read this blog and think 'she's setting herself up again'. How can she be so sure? What if ? ' 

Trust me, I know. I started off asking myself the same shit. But I can't spend more time asking the same questions than I do indulging in what I have in front of me. Too many times in my life, I've found 'love in a hopeless place'. I've lived in secrecy, I've loved fearlessly yet quietly. I've been the background noise. The one they were ashamed of. All the way dating back to my father(s). I wasn't the daughter they carried pics of in their wallets. I was the forgotten chick that ended up here or the problem child that couldn't get along w/her stepdad. I was sent to counseling at age 12 to find out why I couldn't get along with my stepfather and I wonder if the counselor ever suggested openly LOVING me? I don't think so...if so, it was ignored. And so counseling did nothing and I stayed the same. As I was saying to a fellow Legendfriend, how is a child/teen to know what's wrong with them? Our brains aren't fully functioning so when we act out, there is reason. A reason that we as children can't always immediately identify. 

But back to relationships. I was the big 'shhhh don't tell nobody'. Either they kept me in the closet or I them. My ill fated attempts at loving men have all been some disguised, cryptic sneak festival of fucking and pretending and subconscious begging. Meanwhile, I'm in the background waiting on the moment the timer goes off and the 'him of the year' would realize that he was dating ME, and want to tell everyone, just like I did. I waited on my grand entrance.



That never happened. Not for friends, family, work and definitely not for the Gram. LOL. 

So today, I stand firm and as tall as 5'5 will let me be. I'm not a secret. Neither is my partner. I'm not lacking self esteem or wondering who I am. I don't seek to figure out my issues; I know them. * shrug* I stopped dating for boyfriends and got linked up with a grown man who actually knows how to treat a woman. Not only that, but he enjoys learning how to treat ME. There's a difference between knowing how to treat a woman (which is great to know) and learning how to treat the woman you're with (and vice versa). Individual beings require different needs and I have, for the first time ever, met and connected sapiosexually with someone who enjoys being my friend FIRST. 

Me at first arrival at the Gulf. #Currents

So, to my Selfie I will be true. My truth is not everybody's truth. It's not guaranteed to be the teller of anyone else's story. My truth is solely mine to walk in. I'm not at all suggesting to share your relationships on the internet. I'm wouldn't advise arguing online or talking about your personal business. I'm advising to be TRUE TO YOURSELF...in all that you do and in your relationships too. If you get with someone who makes you feel everything you've longed to feel and you are compelled to share a picture of it, I would say go ahead. I wouldn't share every picture or share them all the time. If it was FB, I'd have a restricted list of people I trust that wouldn't download it and use it for voodoo chants. It's some crazy ass people out here. But after all we go through with our hearts and minds, if and when we find that person that gives us freedom-in-love, it's not a bad thing to shout your heart from time to time. Truthfully speaking, I might be OVERprotective of my relationship with Mr. Current. I pray about us often. I read and watch power couples and listen to what they say about relationships, God, marriage, etc. I don't talk about the size of his penis to my friends or how often we have sex or not. I don't tell our secrets...in fact, I bet my sister thinks this is the LEAST she's ever heard about a man in my life. It's different this time. We're different. So I'm different.

We're walking in our light. I will protect us at all costs and I know he will too. I indeed believe we were brought into each others lives with great, lasting purpose. I believe we were God-sent to each other. If ever I said that before about someone else, I assure you I was lying to myself. I mean I'm sure they were 'sent' but not for the reasons I would mean. I've never laughed so much or been so much MYSELF with someone. He's the one that has made me feel like I am enough. He beat my father to it. 
He beat my step father to it.
He beat out 3.5 situationships to it.

And all were here before he was. 
He posts about me. Sometimes it's cryptic. Sometimes it's plain and simple. He almost never tags me and while he does share pics of us, it's not many. I like it that way. It's just enough to reach my ego but not too much to make us look we're #DoingItForTheGram. Or the Book. Or the people. Cause we're not. 

We're doing it because LOVE. It is real. So are we. So excuse me if from time to time, I am being true to my selfies by sharing a piece of us. It's the most I'm willing to give: A picture. A piece of proof. A Light to be shared (not oversaturated) in frozen memory style. 

Cheers. 
Because it took nothing but 36 years to finally meet someone who saw me and saw everything they ever needed and more. I'd be less myself if I didn't share that sometimes.

 

No blogtrack today.
nothing but "Sound and Color...with me...in my mind." (AlabamaShakes)

#28 is The Ultimate Feast

Yo, Can we cut the bullshit already???!!!
It's getting on my nerve. * le sighs in French *


I had a whole different blog that was supposed to be posted. It was called "To Thy Selfie Be True" but frankly after the last couple of days in the twisted, wicked world of the internetz, I have to free a few thoughts that might piss some niggas off and might not. I personally don't give.a.fuck. I've seen so much misogyny, finger pointing, shit talking, 'real woman is/isn't' bullshit since the Superbowl that I think it should be called #SuperBitch.

Matter a-damn fact, for the rest of this blog, I will be referring to it as #SuperBitch because that is all people have done for the last couple of days (bitch and moan and whine) and I don't reckon much will change throughout the week. I had to draw all the way to my southern heritage to type reckon.  There will be an influx of cusswords and hashtags and gifs from hence forward and I hope don't let that deter you.

First off, Beyonce. #SheSlayed. It's my opinion, which doesn't make it a fact, but that's the temperature of this blog.The bitch slayed and I call her that because she calls herself that proudly and so I figure we're even. The bitch slayed. The song...eh. I'll bump it hard. I won't consider it my 'anthem' because I won't be taking a nigga to Red Lobster simply because...I don't eat there anymore. *shrug* Nonetheless I dig the song. It's certainly not the 'Holy Grail' of black power movement music, but it's something and it's still true to Beyonce. She didn't Clark Kent her way into a faux song that sounds nothing like her or what she does. She kept it Houston, kept it Bey and branched off from her 'norm' a little bit visually. But for me, the most beautiful part of the show was seeing all those beautiful black women, standing, dancing, saluting on that field. Afro puffs and Black Panther-esque dress codes made for a beautiful sight for my eyes as I fought back tears. I wasn't the only one. A room full of multiple races of people stood in awe, clapping and cheering on the beauty of the performances of all the artists. NO ONE in the house that I was in felt taken aback by the color of Beyonce's hair. Or measured the times she twerked. We saw beauty during the #Superbitch halftime show. So I know it's not just me.

Peep the nod to Blue Ivy on the drums tho. ;)


Here's where it goes bad. The internet is full of opinions. For every like mind there are is yin/yang effect and Facebook gives us first class access to seeing the clashing of differing opinions. We see the ugly, the arguments, the scary and the beautiful. We see racism in it's raw form. And it's all available with one click of a link. So there's a PROTEST going on in NYC against Beyonce. I'm guessing these same people aren't protesting with Black Lives Matter or grabbing bottles of water for Flint. Giuliani had words, strong words that I had to cease in watching mid-interview about Beyonce of all things. Not Flint. Not the crime in NY. He feels no passion for the family of Akai Gurley or Eric Garner or idk, any of the other thousands of names on the list. His exact words: "...What we should be doing in the African American community (and all communities) is build up  RESPECT for police officers. And focus on the fact that when something does go wrong, Ok. We'll, we'll work on that..." Ohok. So I'm guessing his GAF for the innocent lives lost at police hands aren't of his concern. He doesn't even have a non-stuttering statement readily....

The hate is strong and passionate and troublesome. Not because of Beyonce. Not in this blog. I could give a damn about a Beyonce one way or the other. I'm looking at this whole circus as a successful black woman under attack by both white and black people and while I doubt she is concerned, I just wonder what it says about us as a people. Beyonce's blonde wig is offensive. She hates being black. Her message is skewed. Her twerking is outrageous. She bleaches her skin. Doesn't comb her daughters hair. Her daughter was sitting with Gwenneth Paltrow and her kids while Beyonce was performing....she doesn't respect black folks. No respecting Black Panther woman would dress like this. Blah fucking blahhhhhh.
I guess for me, I just don't know how one could see that much beauty in the form of ALL those black women and write them off like they weren't there. And to me, that speaks volumes because that's how black women are treated in society. Or am I the only one? I feel virtually invisible at work. That's not the greatest feeling. They pile a ton of shit on my coworkers desk but I wonder do they not trust me beyond what it is I do? #InvisibleBlackWoman. Maybe it's just me.

But it seems like all folks saw was Beyonce's blonde wig. They didn't see her or the more than 28 other black women on that field. More on that later....

Finally there are the white people, who are pouring tears in clouds and making it rain all over the WWW.  'How dare she use such a platform to rally against police!' Half of these whiney muthafuckas don't even know the lyrics or get the references or messages. They hear Black Panther and see a black woman and automatically shift into airing out their inner racist. When white people cry oppression it really sounds a lot like the boy who cried wolf. He got everyone looking around for the wolf but you never see it because it was never there. But I will end that there. This isn't that blog.

Lets move on to Amber Rose. The original muse for this particular blog who just took a backseat to Beyonce (rightfully so). A couple of weeks ago she was accused of gay bashing, snitching, being petty and violating Kanye West's privacy because of the tweet she sent out below:

This after Kanye West drug her and her child into some tacky childish 'twitter beef' with Wiz Khalifa. I wouldn't be surprised if all this crap was staged but for now, let's us continue. Kanye West has tweeted and interviewed about her, made an album of which she was the 'muse' and we all know it. Below is something he once said:

How Sweet, An Old Tweet

Now let's remove the 'celebrity' and talk about black women because this is not a blog about Beyonce or Amber Rose. This is a blog about black women and the scores of people we have to fight daily which includes our own people, the more successful we become. We all know there are "Beyonce Haters" just as there is the BeyHive. I do not exist in either of these sections. Do I like Beyonce??? Yep. Would I go see her live?? Nah. I'd go see Jay tho...Am I an Amber Rose fan ? Nah. Sometimes I think she does the UTMOST and other times, I'm like GO MUVA!!!! To this notion, let's look at Ciara really quick. She recently filed a 15 million dollar slander lawsuit against Future. He's been tweeting about her, interviewing about her, talking shit about her and calling her bitches in 140 characters. She finally snaps back and guess what the people say ? She's a gold digger. A petty bitch. She shouldn't have her son around the man she's dating. She was fucking Future raw and now she's a born again virgin?? Bish please.

It's like we just can't win. I'm an empathetic black woman. I feel the feelings of other people so easily that sometimes I have panic attacks from OTHER people's stress. I had to learn to cut that out. Sometimes when I look back on my life and re-read these blogs I clearly see I've lived a lot of lives. From lost teen to stripper to poet who gets invited to speak at high schools, I have lived a day to day life of hoping I was getting it right with whatever I was/am doing at the time. I am the only black woman at my job. I am the only black person at my job. Idk if anyone else in this type of work environment feels this, but I often feel like the whole black race is being represented by me in this office. It's a feeling I wish I didn't have. I just want to rep K. Smith, not my whole damn race. Other times, I want them to see me know that black people are dope AF. Lately, I haven't GAF at all. I feel like my job is on the line daily. Not because of what I don't do; just because of the way corporate works. I love my hair straight. It's more manageable that way. When people at work compliment my straight hair, it makes me want to wash my hair in the bathroom and come back out in full afro. #ToBeBlackInAmerica. No one compliments my kinky. And they don't have to because I love it!! I wear it at my leisure. MY damn decision. And I'm still a black woman, straight, kinky and colored and basically fuck the naysayers.  

In my relationships, I've struggled not to be the 'black woman with all the baggage' or the 'angry black woman', which the original Muse of this blog quickly referred to me. An angry black woman. Go figure.

I live in a world where folks think they SHOULD be able to do anything they want to you and you take it with a smile. They should be able to cheat on you, lie to you, misuse you, mistreat you, use you, call you names, be irresponsible, laugh in your face and/or behind your back and still you will smile. Being 'angry', as a black woman is something you don't have the right to...unless you want to get hit with that label. Black women are expected to not be able to find and keep love. There are hundreds of blogs and articles picking apart our flaws and closet insecurities to come up with an answer as to 'why black women can't find a man'. "Why can't black women get married?"  "Ten things a black woman needs to do to find a man". 'Why are more black women unwed mothers than white women?"


The obsession with how our lives unfold seems like a scripted page from reality tv. Our bodies are worshiped when they are bought and paid to appear on white women. #LetThatSinkIn Our bodies are also worshiped by our kings......until we open our mouths. Then suddenly we are too mouthy. Have too much attitude. We aren't passive enough. We invented twerking. I remember twerking as a teen to Patra. When we do it, we're sluts. When white folks do it, they cute. Or they just want to be us. Or a combo of both. But it's accepted and we dance to it and sing along too. So is it because our asses are thicker with more rhythmic bounce that makes black girls get frowned upon? By even their own people?

The attacks don't just stop there. If we like Marilyn Monroe, we don't know who we are. We are accused of being women who don't know their own heritage and the beauty within it. My sisterblogger Laura of Oh Wize One did a writeup on being a black woman who loves MM as well as phenomenal black woman from the past and how it doesn't negate her blackness. Read that here. I love Marilyn Monroe and always have. There's a divine energy connection I've always felt towards her inner Norma Jean. On the flip side, there ain't shit you can tell me about Eartha Kitt, Zora Neale Hurston, Maya Angelou, Lena Horne, Dorothy Dandridge or Grace Jones. I LOVE these women. I am black. I am woman. But my appreciation for Marilyn Monroe makes me a target from my own people who think they have the right to call into question my blackness. #BitchImNotOnTrial

Blackness is always under fire. From who we 'idolize' to how we dress and accessorize ourselves. If we have blonde hair, which MANY black women dye their hair blonde or some derivative of it, then we are accused of wanting to be white. Beyonce is often accused of this. Now, if this were Lil Kim, who clearly dislikes her (no-longer) black skin, then we would be on to something.

If we have weave, we don't like our natural hair. I have natural hair and often think about wigs and weave. I want a collection of wigs so I can change my color and my look as I see fit. To some, this makes me a trader. You know why? Because I would especially get me a blonde wig. Just.Because. Somehow this equates to not loving ourselves. FYI: no one appointed natural women the blackity blackest of all so um, yeahhhh. If we wear makeup, we are misrepresenting ourselves. We don't love our features. If we shake our asses when we dance, we're not dancing; we're being That Hoe Over There. #HowCleverOfYaw.  But wait, I already addressed the art of twerking right? And how adults AND kids in Africa twerk all the time and it's NORMAL. Right?


This is me barely cracking the ice. Black women have to reaffirm our blackness and our proud as if there is some EarthGod we owe explanations to. We are told how to dress.I remember there a video going around of a college band pretending to do a funeral for their rival during a classic. The faux-funeral video made the rounds on social media because it looked like it was happening 'at church.' I wonder when we will look past our own eyes quite often. Really guys? You actually thought it was a church? You won't even give your own people more credit to their smarts than that? When other people commented on what it was, folks didn't care. They still talked about the misguided girls twerking and shaking ass in skimpy outfits and how they were headed to hell. But these same girls are lined up in the cold during Circle City Classic in these same outfits, doing these same dances and no one bats an eye. Matter a fact, no matter how cold it is, you bundle up the family and try to get there early for a front curb seat! That's the thing about this society's ill relationship with black women: We are only as good as their entertainment. When they are NOT entertained, then we revert back to the angry bitches, hoes and sluts we always were in their eyes. When our song is not making them nod their heads profusely, when our poems aren't full of what they want to hear, we lose them. When our asses aren't shaking at the time they deem appropriate, we lose them. Them = black folks and especially white folks.

Black women aren't allowed to grow or evolve. We are supposed to still be in a mamie dress with collection barrels hanging off both sides of our hips. We are meant to be docile creatures who think for ourselves only when ALLOWED to. Sort of like an incentive for getting all the cotton up so quick. Who told us to be these free spirited black women who twirl, toss glitter and twerk in the bathroom in our church dresses?? Don't we know we aren't allow to think differently or make moves in silence and only emerge when we have results?? We aren't able to be revolutionaries unless we were born that way. It's not something we are allowed to evolve into. We can't be good mothers without a husband. If we are single parents raising little boys, we are often accused of treating them like our husbands. "A woman can't raise a man' is a statement I've ONLY heard in black circles. I'm not negating the truth or lie of it. I'm simply saying while we may not be able to teach a growing boy about manhood shit just like a father can't truly explain menstrual cycles to his daughter, but damn can we at least get the credit due for  trying? For not giving up when we were pillaged, raped, stolen from and/or left on our own to deal with the results? Our society still frowns upon us, referring to us as welfare queens and golddiggers. Tax time never passes without masses of people finger pointing what we are doing with our checks. Damn, can we just be black and die at our time? So what if our choices don't make sense to someone else. That's why we are free MFs!


Or are we????

The public world is scary. Black people and white people sometimes have the same disdain for the Black Woman. Maybe I'm reaching. Someone reading this thinks I am. But I know what I see. My perception from all I have taken in just in the last three days is that a black woman in total control of herself and her decisions is a threat to just about everyone else. A black woman who knows the blessing of a Yes and the power of a No is a fucking threat. Do we emasculate others by being aware of who we are? Do people fear an uprising when they see mounds of black women starting to really walk in their Light and essence?

#JaneseTalktonJackson and #MarySpears were both killed because they rejected the men that attempted to get their numbers. Two black women, both mothers, dead and gone because of male entitlement. Male entitlement rivals white privilege if you ask me. Both are deadly games and both will shit on the black woman. Our lives are literally at stake. Yet folks would spend hours a day debating on whether or not Beyonce is in the illuminati and why her #Superbitch show was nothing. SMDH.

Hey guys,
it WAS something. It reached who it was supposed to reach, much like this blog. If that person wasn't you, what's wrong with moving right along without comparing Bey to the black panther movement? Since when does a black woman not have the right to give a tribute? Since when does a black woman need your 'just-as-black-as-she-is permission on how to serve her people (or not)? Even if it was all one big stunt, it gave a shitload of women an extra boost of self-confidence which we are always in short supply of. With a country full of people against us and tearing us down, I guess it makes sense that a song some find empowering pisses off others. I guess when Amber  Rose or Ciara finally say enough is a enough and clapback, that would ruffle the feathers of those who think a woman's role is silence.

As for me and my crew.....or better yet, as for me, I loved it. I love the symbolism in her video and that doesn't mean I think it's a revolutionary song or act. It means I appreciated the art I saw. I think she took a risk at Superbowl (I mean #Superbitch) but what do I know? Maybe it wasn't. Nonetheless, to me, it was. It was better than her standing there doing Check Up On It and hitting herself on the head while chewing gum. But wait - Check Up On It and Partition and songs like it are the reason she can't rep black folks right? Cause none of us are fucking right? Lol. Last time she did SuperBitch, folks couldn't wait to make fun of all the faces she was caught making. I admit I laughed at some myself. I know that life tho. Cute performance faces is an art. This year folks say she's done nothing impressive and they can't help but talk about the fall.

The black woman's fall is sight for some eyes. They indulge in it. Rerun it. Share it. Love it. Have orgasms because of it. Her get up is less exciting. Even if she's getting up through a storm. Or a death. Or a surgery. Or a heartbreak. Her get up is no fun to watch and her fall is subscribed to. People WAIT for it.

I'm no longer talking about Beyonce.
She wasn't on that field alone. There were at least 28 other black women out there. I know because I counted one picture and I know they weren't all shown. 28 is a weird number. I would imagine she filled it out to 50. But let's go with what I know. 28 other black women stood on that field with Beyonce. It's like they were invisible; lost in the all the social media chatter, complaints and protests. But no matter what is said, nothing can take away from those women. Those 28+ black women  were living THEIR dream. I will never understand why folks have such a big issue watching others climb their personal ladder of elevation. If you know dancers, true dancers who give their all to each performance, then imagine the impact and importance of dancing not just alongside and with Beyonce, but at the Superbowl. I had a sisterfriend sing during Superbowl when it was in Indy. She was apart of the choir and despite it not being a solo moment for her, her excitement of it all was no different than if she were handed the mic personally. So when I see those #28Sisters, I know for a fact that they were over the moon about where they were and what they were doing. Let's think about statistics for a second before this blog ends. The odds are that more than a handful of those women (if not all) know someone or was related to someone who died by police hands. They probably know someone who passed during Katrina. Maybe one of them is affliated directly or indirectly w/the Panther Party. I wonder if any of them knew Messy Mya (google)?  One thing of no question is ALL of them were living their dream. Meanwhile, back on social media's ranch, they seem to be unheard of. The talk is all about the blonde wig Beyonce wore and the twerking she did. Nevermind those women who stood next to her. Nevermind their hearts or passions or their blackness. They automatically are nothing. #BishWhereIsYourCottonBarrel

via GIPHY
>


* sigh *
They say Beyonce is being boycotted. But I bet these are the same people that allege that Mike Brown tried to kill a police officer.

They say Amber Rose is homophobic by her tweet about Kanye. I'm guessing these people don't rally in line for the years of disrespect thrown her way leading up to it.

They say Ciara is a gold digging hoe. I'm guessing they think she broke. LOL.

They say strippers are hoes, single moms aren't doing a good job and that black women have poor attitudes and can't find a man.

Whoever 'THEY' is needs to get a whole life. I will end with the blogtrack for this blog. I've listened to nothing but Beyonce while writing. It's only befitting that I end w/the song that got the shit started. It's interesting how I keep seeing people talk about 'read the lyrics' and 'the lyrics don't reflect revolution'. Lol. I didn't think they were SUPPOSED to. Folks are relying heavily on 'When he fuck me good, I take his ass to red lobster' as their selling point to how counterproductive this song is to black people. I never sit and breakdown lyrics in songs that weren't meant to reach me and spend countless hours debating the songs on FB. I don't like 2Chains. Or Fetty Wap. Idk if I'm even spelling their names right. But you'd be hard pressed to find me challenging their lyrics. If I don't like it or it doesn't speak to me, I'm not above turning my nose up but sitting around trying to prove to everyone else why they are 'sheep' for listening is beneath me. Straight up. * shrug *  Funny thing is how Jhene Ainko's line "you gotta eat the booty like groceries" received little to no criticism yet was (and still is) playing all over the radio as a top hit. But let Beyonce mention fucking and folks lose their cool and hear no more lyrics. She's only been linked to one man...the one she's married to.

I mean...what is it?

You don't want to eat the Ultimate Feast? After all, that's what a Free Black Woman is: The Ultimate Fucking Feast. For mind, body and soul. And if you still on the fence about that, you need to need exit this blog immediately. Cause ain't nothing but #QueenFeast here.
Hmm....i wonder if bae wants to go get some crab legs tonight????????? *twerks in office chair*

Blogtrack: 

"Slay trick
or you get eliminated."

~Formation,
Beyonce

~jY

Finding AlbuquerQUEEN

"The joy of learning how to stop asking Mr. Wrong for the right treatment."
~januarie

Us women learn the hard way sometimes. It's probably more of a human thing than a woman thing, but I'm speaking solely from a woman's perspective. The above quote was a fbersation that took place based off of a meme similar to the one in the picture. There can be so many contributing factors as to why we (women and teenage girls; and sometimes prepubescent girls) accept and love the men that we choose: missing fathers, present but emotionally absent fathers, distant or unavailable mothers, environment and peer pressure. The hows and whats of our behavior is an endless list and often a list that doesn't get confronted until we are well in age. But we are tested, at times on knowledge we don't rightfully possess, throughout the majority of our lives. For some of us, learning the hard way means repeated visits at the same closed off door until one gets tired of not receiving that hello from the other side.

 I'm calling this 'missing the turn at Albuquerque'.  My buddy BB will illustrate how many times I've missed my mark:

Rihanna's "We Fell In Love" song comes to mind. It used to be my ringtone while I was with someone. He hated it. The irony. I've decided to break this blog down in a few steps of self confrontation that have helped me learn where I was missing my turn on my journey of love and why.

Step One: Missing the Turn:I've been on this journey of love since I was a young teenager. I started early because I yearned early. I wanted to connect with masculinity in some way although I never quite understood why. I thought I could do it sexually and that basically messed up my teen years. There were rumors about me in the neighborhood. Some true, lots not. People picked fights with me, harassed me, bullied me, stole from me; it got so bad that I had to switch schools. I hated walking in the neighborhood sometimes. Scratch that...most times. I don't say any of this for sympathy. I'm outlining how early and hard this mission began and was. I've been in several 'long term'ish' situationships and potential relationships, as shown by this blog. I've tried love as much as my heart could handle. I set sail on the road to find the place my heart belonged to and it has driven me every since. Carelessly I have gone top down, hair blowing, pushing pedal to the meddle around mountains.
....As I imagine this drive, I can see rocks and boulders falling in my way. I forgot to keep count on how many I actually dodged, how many times I stopped for repairs and how many times I was smashed underneath piles of hard Earth. But failure after love failure couldn't stop me; I've drug my bruised muse of a body to the car, hopped in and moved towards the Sun again and again. This has been a relentless journey I've so wanted to abandon many times over .....

I cringe at how hard I've yearned for it.




...And how many left turns at Albuquerque I've missed. I can see it as vividly as Bugs Bunny up there. Me, popping out the ground with my suitcases of heart and heels talmbout "I've arrived". Only to find out I've landed on some misfit's doorstep that don't know shit about reciprocity and is only good for adding to my luggage.

Every relationship, every "Parked Car" space that I occupied for longer than my season was the hopeful romantic in me trying to hold onto the string belief that someone was out there for ME. What I didn't realize is I was exhausted. This entire journey through the abyss of my heart has been exhausting since the first step I took during my teen years. I've entered adult relationships as an exhausted child, hopeful that the person I'm with is the person I will die next to. I've been seemingly a passenger in the car on this quest.

Watching my blood father take care of so many other kids but not me left a stain on my mirror that Windex and newspaper couldn't get clean. Not being able to emotionally connect to my stepfather gave me a feeling of inadequacy. Knowing I had a brother yet not being able to maintain a lasting bonded relationship with him opened a 3rd gap to be filled and all this happened before high school. There were holes all over my body. There were needs untouched and unspoken for; and a teenage brain that thought she figured it out. I was in counseling at age 12 and I opened up a lot but I don't think it helped. I was 12. I wasn't having sex yet so it didn't address the worse situations. And it didn't fill those gaps. My choices as a teen didn't fill those gaps. As a matter a fact, both widened the gaps. I started to feel ugly and only good for sex. I wasn't the girl people asked out. I was the one who's ass they looked at and who they tried to sleep with. And sometimes, just being honest, it worked...in their favor.



On my end, my thirsty behavior breached the chambers of my heart and left voids that needed to be covered in dirt. I needed something a seed could grow in. I needed growth that I didn't know I was even without. And unfortunately, no one was telling me to do anything different.

By the time I was an 'adult' my exhaustion levels had peaked. If it could have killed me to be run down and worn out from chasing love, I would surely be dead. I was at the very least, mentally dead and I needed every relationship I got into to be 'it'. But of course they weren't. I was in a relationship for seven years with a guy that I knew within the second year would not be my husband. There were echos in the space where my brain should have been. My relationship prior to that (#MuseRaggedyAndy) was a dual-physically abusive gauntlet of drugs, sex and danger. At the end of our relationship, I was tired enough to have let him kill me. And that's how I knew it was time to go. I hadn't stopped fighting; but I had stopped fighting for my life. Every one of them (3) was a man that I just really needed to be the one. To kill the search and let me catch my breath...finally.



  After the inspiration of this blog settled in, I started to think that maybe I missed my mark with #MuseSlevin....let that sink in yo.

I started to think... I ...Januarie York. The same woman who wrote and countless times professed "I am too much woman to be loved in a measuring cup".  I, SHE, started to think I lost out by not giving #MuseSlevin the chances he begged me for. He got married. And I started to mourn with curiosity. "Was it really him?" A man who couldn't love me properly at 21? I started wondering at 34 if I missed out on something. Lol. L  OH to the emm effin L. I started questioning if I missed out on a downgrade??? I mean, I'm sure he's great for his wife, but he was never for me. Maybe my self esteem hopped out the car and hit that left turn like the Kwan or something. In hindsight it's a frightening epiphany to say the least. I was a repeat offender of looking for the wrong man to give me the right love. How Sway????

These are missed turns. That whole situation there is a missed turn gone wild. This is like driving a roundabout and not knowing how to make that left turn without crashing, so you just take the next street and hope that you end up where you're supposed to be....only to get there and realize you should have made that left turn at Albuquerque. Some times, the places we end up are places we overstay our welcome at. Maybe we're too hopeful. Maybe we're stupid as some would say. Maybe we're just tired...and wanting to make this one somehow turn the dial and be better than anything in Albuquerque. It's as dangerous as drinking and driving. But the most dangerous part is this: Not knowing that a big part of this missed turn is the person looking into the rearview mirror.



Ever feel like you're trying to turn left on a Rights Only street? Sheesh, that line needs to start a blog about being Black in America, but for now, I will digress it back to this blog. That gif has been my love life for YEARS.

Step 2: Crown Fumblin': Someone should always tell us we are royalty. From the time we arrive onto this place called Earth, there should be someone, somewhere constantly telling us and reminding us in both words AND action that we are of Royalty. Because if not, it can be real easy to think you are a peasant that is deserving of peasant pooridge and bread crumbs. And that's exactly what you will accept. I didn't know that I had low self esteem AT ALL! Women wear so many masks on a daily basis that it can get hard to even think you are lacking in reconizing your worth and magic. Think of how often we get our faces beat and go out. And who we are at work. Who we are (or try to be) for family. The rock for our friends. Its simple to buy into your own hype and not realize you don't even really believe it. YOu don't believe you are or can be a rock. You don't see the beauty beneath that beat face and fresh hair. And that was me.

Off stage, when it was just me at home, I didn't really see my beautiful anymore. I questioned my value or my worth of having the type of love I felt like I deserved. These feelz started when I was a teen. I think it started with watching my father take such excellent care of other children. It always made me question my worth. We act as we believe. I had to reconfigure myself again. My self esteem has gone up and down like body weight. But this last time had to be my last. I'm too old not to sustain the notion that I too am black girl magic gone free. I survived the wrath of 2014. This blog will forever be proof, just in it's evolution. Shining all over 2015 was a must do. And by shining, I mean shining up mirror. Taking a good look at who I am. No wing tips half right, no filled brows. No poems. No man. No hurt. I had to rebuild. I had to love me all over again, reinvented. Every day you see me or read a post from me is me in this constant evolution of myself. I've learned life will sit you still if you won't voluntarily do it.Maybe it's not so much us missing that left turn as much as it is us not being ABLE to take it. We can't advance to Albuquerque without knowing the Queen within ourselves. Until we awaken her, until we know her, respect her, love her, shout her out, indulge in all of her....we can't make that turn. At all.

Final Step: Conquering AlbuquerQUEEN: The air here is lovely. The wind is calm, the presence of tropical fish swimming in oceans that are presented crystal clear for Queen eyes is a lifetime lullaby. The fruit is plentiful. The men are buffcakes. The food is cooked to order and served piping hot. There are no reality shows. LOL. Ok I quit...seriously, the air here is lovely. Finding AlbuquerQUEEN is the greatest gift you'll ever give yourself. I believe I was always seeking a love for myself, given by myself. This whole time and through each fumble of a relationship and seemingly missed turn, I was searching for something within me that I thought had to come from somewhere else. I mean, the feelings of inadequacy were gifts from others. I was inadvertantly raised to dislike myself. To see something wrong with me. I wasn't loud enough or tough or enough. I wasn't kid-enough or pretty enough. There weren't enough streets in me. No one ever actually said these things...this is what my mind filtered the rejection of my father and stepfather as. This entire journey until now has been me finding the true Queen in me. Hell, the GODdess. I had to tend to my own dysfunctions and still am. Sometimes, it's not fun at all.


But once I started pruning...and I mean really purging the leftover demons and self pity parties and 'i'm not pretty enoughs' from my system, I couldn't stop. I started having less moments where I felt ugly and more where I felt beautiful, no matter if I was beat or not. Which was new. Sometimes, I look in the mirror and expect to see someone not that attractive staring back and I surprise myself by being pleasantly shoulder dusting by the time I walk away. The aura emitted from me is free. Talk about setting the caged bird free.....and  THAT is how I learned to stop asking Mr. Wrong for the right treatment. I first gave it to myself. I REALLY gave it to myself. I treated myself to myself and indulged so much that someone took notice of the glitter party and said 'heyyyyy, can I join?'  And that someone was the first one to EVER meet me and want to indulge in me as much as I have myself. But this isn't about him or this new love.

My point of this whole blog is to say this: We as women ask Mr. Wrong for the right stuff all the time. We beg Mr. Wrong time and time again to make that left turn at Albuquerque for us. We think that we 'turn' Mr. Wrong into Mr. Good Enough. Or that we can turn ourselves astray from the 'right treatment'. I recently read a comment that said 'falling in love is a choice.' That's something I didn't believe until recently. But you know what? It IS a choice. We meet, we like, we fall. But in between the like and the fall, we have intuitions. We CHOOSE to listen or not and anything that follows is a direct result of that choice. We cannot adhere to our natural instincts if we haven't fallen in love with the woman who bears them. If I don't love myself, why TF would I trust my gut? What is my gut but a place where food goes to be enternal? You have to love yourself beyond what you THINK is loving yourself. That means if you believe your self esteem is good or at least fair and you still find yourself in relationships that are require you to be a lesser  version of yourself, then it's time to up the ante. It's time to revisit your love for yourself. It's time to go stand in that mirror and really take in all that you see. Let go of everything you think you are and rebuild yourself on the spot. There is something missing that you need to confront, so do it. Truthfully, it might take the rest of your life. But what better way to spend your days than building yourself UP?  And don't stop until you see your reflection wink back at you.

Control your journey. Realize that you are NOT in the passenger seat ma'am so steer this thing already!!!!! Make that left turn and change how you love and who loves you back....

Find AlbuquerQUEEN.
It's the first left after you finish loving yourself.
Change what you receive forever by how you perceive what you see in the mirror.

#AlbuquerQUEEN