This is going to be quick…

Grief makes me desperate. There, I’ve said it. Grief makes me commit crimes against myself on a desperate quest for solace. But there is no relief. There is no number of bad habits (people, places, and things) to save me from the pain or the shame. There’s only healing. And despite the lies your ego may tell you, no one is bigger or better than the healing.

The trial and error of healing is where we grow. And through these latest errors, I have learned that no one is meant to be a martyr to their own ego. I have learned to rely on quiet and stillness to point my life in its intended direction. I now know that the months of searching in the dark were actually honing my other senses and making me sharper. I’m present with a renewed sense of purpose and grace, for I relish in the realization that it’s the unlearning that takes the longest.

I started this blog to unpack generational ties— to tell stories of those who came before me. Yet my initial presentation of “Victorious”, left Nelisa behind when in actuality, my grandmother built a life sprinkling her gifts onto everyone around her to make them better, and that likeness is my favorite part about myself. As a child I spent every summer with her and watched as, time and time again, she opened her home to members of our family who needed a fresh start or a safe place to land. I think about the countless life lessons she bestowed upon us all: do things thoroughly and with excellence, use humor to build relationships founded on tough truths, sprinkle love in the details, rely on faith in tough times, accept and love your people for who they are. The list goes on. The ways in which she “fed” our family and her little island over the years, one way or another, continues to make my heart smile.

I saw these very same qualities in Delly, too. I cherish childhood memories of him taking me along to give to a local family who had lost everything in a fire or simply fallen on hard times. He often bought home dinner guests, people he had come across usually by virtue of giving them a job. Sometimes it was an old friend he ran into. It drove my mother crazy: now having to stretch a dinner for four to include our unplanned guest. But to him, it was the least he could do. He was a proud Girl Scout dad who worked our annual car wash and cookie distribution faithfully. And I’ve seen him give his last dollar to many. He had such an impact on others’ lives that his funeral was standing room only. Some folks were even turned away. Sheesh.

All in all, there’s no great epiphany here, just a little homage to two of the folks who showed me how to love through service to others. I remember each of them similarly, busy at work while humming or singing a happy song. I’m thankful everyday for the gift of their victorious hearts. Now, go on and reread “Victorious” with new eyes.

The internet will have you out here looking for more— convinced that your calling isn’t sexy or glamorous enough. You can spend your whole life looking for a better thing if you’re not careful. So despite being raised to be of service to others, feeling most myself while serving others, I have never really fully committed myself to being a career educator. I have often listened to others’ sentiments that I was too smart to be a teacher, too gifted.

There was even a time when I thought I missed my calling to be a high-powered (what does that even mean lol) attorney. So much so that in year three of teaching, right on the verge of tenure, I was shopping law schools on the east coast. Obviously I didn’t go through with it, but I never truly unpacked what has kept me in the field until last Friday night. While receiving an award from my school community at our annual fundraiser, I just couldn’t seem to compose myself. It’s been one of the toughest school years for me and y’all, I bawled through my entire speech… like a damn baby. But today, I am crystal clear.

Teaching is my soul’s work. The opportunity to shape the daily and future lives of children is a privilege that I take very seriously. The exponentially positive impact a Black educator has on the trajectory of a Black child’s life is not lost on me. It’s why my Black students hug me a little tighter and their families sigh in relief when I greet them at their first school event. Teaching children whose ancestors were denied the right to read just hits different. And honestly, it doesn’t get any sexier than that. So when given the opportunity to address my peers and our families to speak about my why, I was overcome. Here’s what I was trying to say through the tears:

We are all here tonight because we believe in miracles. And the miracles are our kids. I know I’m tough. I know that. But this work is my soul’s work, so I take it very seriously. I want to thank my parents for instilling an unwavering work ethic, moral code, and spirit of service. Thank you Tim for entrusting so much of your soul work to me. Thank you to our entire team for digging into this soul work with me. I know it’s tough, so thank you. And I want to thank our families for entrusting your most prized possessions to us. I hope your babies come home feeling seen, feeling safe, and knowing that they are smart. Thank you.

I finally had the words to match the 15 years of emotions that were escaping all at once. And who knows, maybe this calling will lead me to education law someday, but today, I’m helping to make sure our babies have a fighting chance and feel loved along the way.

Delly was larger than life. He could fill a room with his booming voice and infectious love of a good time. He did everything to music: drove long distance to Florida, vacuumed the living room on Sunday mornings, painted an empty house, you name it. With him, it was always a party, and everyone was invited. And in the same breath, he was impossible. A stubborn know-it-all who could argue you to the death. He never let me win at checkers or any game, for that matter, and it was always an unspoken competition to see who could unravel the plot of a book, movie, or tv show first. Yeah, big June Gemini energy (We’re looking at you, Louis!).

In a tribute, my big cousin Justin described my dad as one of the cornerstones of our family. Obviously a star in my universe, I don’t think I ever really thought about him in our familial pecking order until that very moment. It was then that I really started to understand just how much he meant to not just me, but everyone. And so I write this for all of us…

My father was chosen. He was the smartest, most charismatic person I’ve ever known. Dead smack in the middle of Nelisa’s boys, he had memories of home and family in abundance, and would learn all that a new life in the States could hold. By the time I emerged on the scene, he had all the ’80s could offer a child immigrant with college experience: a vision for my grandfather’s small business, a cute little nuclear family nestled into his larger, louder tribe, and the makings of a little real estate nest egg in his new hometown.

This is in no way a biography, nor is this my story to tell in full, but life is hard. Ego is real. Pressure is always mounting. And at some point, my dad simply stopped showing up. At first he stopped showing up for himself, and then he stopped showing up for the rest of us. By the time cancer took him, Delly was broken, being haunted by the man he never truly figured out how to be.

Now I’ve been studying this man for years, trying to figure out what changed and when. Was it a bunch of little disappointments or one sweeping blow? And while that answer still keeps me up some nights, it wasn’t until I was sieving through photos ahead of his funeral, that I started to notice how my dad’s personality had in fact changed over time.

Teenage Delly, captured in photos from the 1970s, appeared quiet and pensive, plotting even. I found countless photos from the ’80s and ’90s that caught him yelling, with his arms outstretched, just as the pictures were being snapped, clearly overjoyed. But by the new millennium he started smizing in photos, giving this really smoldering eye. Don’t get me wrong, he was killing it, but there was a seriousness, a sadness there. Life had clearly weathered him.

So what’s the lesson here?

Well, if Delly was chosen, then so am I. So are you. And while that’s a heavy fucking load, I find comfort in knowing that it comes with endless opportunity to show up for myself in a way my father just couldn’t seem to. I will show up for me, so I can show up for you, smiling in every photo!

Over the past six months, I have been doing a shit ton of feeling as I set out to keep the promise that I made — no more playing it safe or small. It’s largely looked like talking myself off the ledge, phoning a friend (or therapist), speaking my truth to anyone in earshot, resting when exhausted, unpacking family dynamics, occupying space, sitting with my ugliest, most uncomfortable feelings and thoughts, and denying myself many familiar, indulgent patterns. You know, real glamorous, money where your mouth is, stuff. And I have to be honest, at the halfway marker of 2022, I am feeling really good about my progress. My next steps are clear and I’ve finally begun to wrap myself around the idea that real healing is unlearning all the things you are not.

For years I have self-identified as annoyed by nature. The smallest transgressions can get anyone blacklisted, cussed out, or cold shouldered. I used to attribute it to my lack of patience and an even smaller capacity for bullshit. The truth, though, is that I struggle to extend grace towards myself for my transgressions, so I find it impossible to empathize with yours. This journey has been eye-opening because it has become jarringly apparent how hard I am on myself because of the shortcomings of those who raised me. Their faults have become my own, crippling me from dreaming bigger and opening up to all that life could possibly offer. You never know how much you carry your father, who over-promised and under-delivered for you and himself, and your mother, who demonstrates her strength through silence, until you have to figure out why you can’t get out of your own way at 35 years old.

Today I say no more. Some days it manifests in the form of saying no thank you to someone’s son’s attention instead of intention. Or it is a serious matter (hi, DIVYNE35!). Other days it looks like demanding a raise at work. And still others it looks like choosing a 2-mile walk over McDonalds. It could mean binge watching a women’s basketball docuseries on Father’s Day instead of going to the cemetery as self-care. Or denying myself the designer handbag and bracelet I’ve been eyeballing to save for a down payment. But most days, it looks like putting one foot in front of the other and making a decision that my dreams and goals, and ultimately, my future self will thank me for.

While I have been grappling, and seemingly winning (if even quantifiable), within the juxtaposition between the person I am, the person I say I am, and the person I want to be, I’ve found the sweet spot is trying to remain present. This allows me to celebrate the progress, dig deeper, and ultimately keep it pushing. Slow progress is still progress, and this post almost brushed right by this simple, but hella complicated truth because your girl hasn’t slept in days. Yet, as my brilliant bestie (thank you, Gia!) pointed out, intersectionality convinces us that we have to be all things simultanesouly without creating space for each experience. No ma’am.

We can talk about the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the continual attack on our civil liberties by the cisgendered, heterosexual-presenting white man, and the resistance another day. Today we will take a moment to bask in all the work done and celebrate me.

I arrogantly sauntered into quarantine with an ambitious reading list and some daily workout aspirations, but my focus on the wrong damn thing. The more I tried to force it, the harder the lessons got. And it is in that space that this homage to Nelisa was born.

Since my grandmother’s passing, I have spent many days agonizing over how to honor her legacy. But after quarantining with my mother and her mother, I realized that our three generations are swimming in pathology. I am undoubtedly connected to all of these women by a bond that transcends blood and names. Our joy and pain binds us. I cannot shy away from the fact that I am all of theirs… I am their daughter.

Add on, that while attending a virtual workshop full of educators on topics around dismantling white supremacist culture and abolitionist teaching, I listened to Dr. Bettina Love recount her time in Ghana during the year of return. I’m paraphrasing, but she commented on the idea that we [Black people] spend so much time talking about who died for us, but there is someone in our bloodline, with our DNA, that lived so we could be here. I come from a long line of women who lived.

And just like that, it all made sense. That’s the burden that has been plaguing me. How can I pay respect to women who’ve sacrificed so much for me? How can I honor their legacies? How can I begin to repay them for risking it all, leaving everything familiar behind, and embarking on a brand new country? By shrinking myself to fit into my, or worse, your comfort zone? Hell no.

What started out as survival, quickly evolved into perseverance. I come from women who persevered. My grandmothers endured so that I might enjoy a fuller life. I don’t know about you, but I refuse to disappoint. In fact, I plan to liberate them, you, and me by sharing what lessons I have found hidden in their stories. This is their story, my story, our story.

I have started this blog over and over again: First, over-explaining the title; like sis, your grandmother’s name is Nelisa. We get it. Oh, it’s your middle name, too? Cute. Then, leading with my dead dad and my very much alive daddy issues. Don’t worry, I’ll save the real tearjerker posts for after the honeymoon. Or, confessing I’m trying to thug through a broken heart that has been ten years in the making. Spoiler – cowardly, selfish men grow up to be cowardly, selfish men. And 9 times out of 10, if he tells you he’s in therapy because Hov the GOAT (debate your mother) recommended it, he’s more interested in unlocking a billy than being your partner.

So when I logged onto The Pattern to a congratulatory message about emerging from a twenty-one month confusing, life altering period a bitch had had enough. Was there a damn warning?! Did anyone besides smart phone astrologers know this was about to happen? Apparently not. Would I have listened anyway? Nope. I was apparently destined to embark on my own personal hell, experiencing a strip-you-down-to-the-white-meat kind of pain, where my awareness that a path was being cleared would only make the pain more acute because I couldn’t rush to the end. I still can’t. Being aware that you’re being planted not buried, doesn’t help you escape the feeling of suffocating, nor does it reveal what gorgeous blossom you are destined to become. Womp, fucking womp.

With all that being said, I know none of us are even a small fraction of the people we were before 2020, but nevertheless I keep coming back to this blog with only, my truth… I am surrounded by grief on what feels like all sides. And so, if I’m going to carry out this seed metaphor, then I better start taking root. Real roots. The ugly, aerial kind that you try and guide back into the soil to hide. My truth, my roots, are the fact that I’ve played it small. And worse than that, I’ve had the gall to be insulted, irate even, when I was rewarded with disappointment or loss. Um, don’t you know who I am?! Yea sis, do you?

But that’s over now.

So here we are, that’s the inventory you need if you’re going to ride shotgun on this journey. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way here’s the deal. I have very little answers and mostly questions, but I will use this platform to share as a healing space for me and you. I’m not playing small ball anymore (hi, Jillian). This year won’t catch me slipping, and if any of ya’ll do, I expect to be reminded. Some white man said something about grief being love with nowhere to go, but I’m over that. I will pour all my love into you. Hello 2022!