Without having tested the texture of your lips nor the sweetness of your tongue, I’ve let myself fall into the nectar of loving you; quenching my thirst like no other libation I’ve ever had before.
Without any encouragement and in the absence of fear I’ve learned to thrive in the sun of your smile, as if upon me it will always shine; providing the heat necessary to sustain and maintain this life I now so love.
Without a single indication from you that the curves of my body have captured your attention in any way, I’ve mapped out a route of exploration and discovery on yours; arriving again and again at a place of pleasure I’ve never before happened upon.
Without planning to, I awaken each morning to the thought of you. Your essence you see, remains with me even when you have gone. The sound of your voice, the light in your eyes, and the feel of you, all mine to keep; a better gift I’ve yet to receive.
Without hesitation I close my eyes each night anxiously willing sleep to take me yet again to wherever it is that I can find you. No journey is too long, treacherous, nor arduous; knowing that YOU are the final destination.
Without warning this feeling has possessed me. My mind, body, and spirit are yours, and one thing has made itself poignantly clear; I no longer wish to be….
I know it has been awhile since you all have heard from me, and all I can say about that is "I'm just happy I'm here!".
That seems to have become a litany with me over the last few weeks as the world has swirled around me so fast over the last couple of weeks that it has been all I could do to just hang on. It started with my job.
In late May, it was announced that my company would undertake a head-count reduction in order to save money. In order to reach their savings goal, a 10% global workforce reduction was announced for sometime in July. Now your girl here has been in this industry for 12+ years, and is no stranger to "head-count reductions" having been faced with six such situations prior to this announcement. Therein lay the source of my own particular stress. As conceited as I can be sometimes, I have always been acutely conscious of this one fact:
As special as I am, I AM NOT SPECIAL AT ALL!!!
and knowing this as I do, I was quite sure that it was time for my number to come up [as it always does, unless that is, it is the number to the winning POWERBALL Lottery ticket and then I know I can forget about it!]. Anyway, I was convinced that I would be one of the individuals whose life would be changed by the downsizing and thus was preparing myself for the possiblity of a return to my former career as a pharmacist; an eventuality that though tolerable is not one that I would preferentially choose.
On Friday, July 11th, we were asked to remain at home and to await a phone call that would let us know our fate with the company. I SURVIVED. All I can say is that it seems I may be living right and for that I am very grateful.
As harsh as that scenario was to live through (AGAIN), I must add that my company made me proud to work there as they have been more generous than any of us ever expected them to be in terms of the severance packages and additional benefits they provided to those displaced in this situation. Though losing one's job is obviously a very difficult situation with which to deal, in my opinion, my company surpassed my personal expectations for what any company in this day and age would ever consider doing for those who were being displaced. Without question, I have a new respect for the leaders at my company.
In the midst of all of that stress, I am still trying to coordinate this family cruise which once I am on it in November will be the trip of a lifetime but which is today, THIS DA-YUM-ED FAMILY CRUISE. Step into my life for a minute and imagine yourself trying to make sure that 30 or so black folks to whom you are related have handled the myriad of details necessary to get their broke azzes out of the country for 9 days. From orchestrating passport application completion parties to trying to figure out the most economical route of travel to get everyone to and from the port without breaking the bank, to getting some of my knuckle-headed relatives to just return a phone call, I must say DAYUM, DA-YUM, DA-YUM!!!
Okay, got that out of my system. That brings us to this WATCH ME SHRINK thing I've gotten myself into. See what had happened waz....
I was doing just fine. I had NOT lost any weight the first week, but the inches were getting with the program and I was cool with that. When I continued to lose inches the second week but still no weight, I started to wonder what the heck was up. Then I thought back to the fact that I had recently seen my doctor for a neck injury at which time his office scale had said my weight was 210 pounds. The convergence of all of these things led me to the discovery that my "trusty scale" just might NOT be so trusty afterall. Confirming this to be fact, I went out on Sunday and purchased myself a new scale and started with a new baseline of 207 pounds on Sunday (this was 10 pounds heavier than my old scale said I was). This would be a devastating blow to some, but I am so committed to this thing that I simply took it in stride. I don't know what it is this time, but I know that NOTHING will stop me from reaching my goals and with a lil' help from my friends (even the invisible ones ;), I know that the prize is already mine! So here is a little video to show you all that I truly mean biznezz!!! I am not dumb enough to miss that the images in this video are not flattering; however, I've got my eyes on that day in the future when the first video of THE REAL ME goes up and all of you go scrambling back in my archives to today to see just how far my journey has taken me....Now that'll be something....
One of the things I have always wanted to be is brave.
When I was a little girl, I was actually very similar to what I am like now except I was quite a bit more quiet and spent significantly less time at center stage. Though I've always been able to hold my own, I didn't feel brave then and I don't feel brave now.
For several years, I've had a goal in mind which entails getting myself into better/healthier physical shape. In the spring of 2006, I made great headway towards doing just that when I hired a personal trainer for several months. After losing 35 pounds, I underwent a medical procedure and was restricted temporarily (6 months) by my physicians from working out. Unfortunately, after the six month period had passed, yours truly Ms. Just Write Now still did not jump on the treadmill or any other available piece of exercise equipment resulting in the "state of disrepair" my body currently finds itself in.
After stumbling upon a YouTube video created by a young lady who uses the screen name Smile2dayTears2morro, I was inspired by the sheer bravado with which she has chosen to approach her fitness program to develop and commit myself to my own program and to make the video you'll find below as well as the ones I will be posting to YouTube in the future to document my progress.
Now some may say that I, like my new friend Smile2day... am brave to post the images and reveal so honestly the current state of my body; afterall, I am blessed to be able to hide most of the issues with clothing so my shameful secret could very easily have been kept ;) Others might say that I am just plain stupid to do something so revealing and which could potentially leave me vulnerable to untold abuse by internet haters and the such. I would say that I really don't know which group would be most right (as there is typically some right in any perspective), but one thing I do know is that I am a woman of my word who needs some assistance right now keeping my promises to myself. For that very simple reason, I am willing to risk being considered stupid by some and in the event that even one of the individuals who stumble across this thinks I am brave for doing it....well, that just means I'll be moving towards the fulfillment of two goals by taking this one critical step and what could possibly be wrong with that!
So without further ado, please allow Ms. Just Write Now to utilize the magic of YouTube to BROADCAST HERSELF!!! ***smile***
So there you have it...it is what it is. I started this journey last Thursday July 3rd. My family's cruise vacation is scheduled to commence on Thursday, November 20th 2008 and that is my target date to be much happier with my naked or barely clothed body image. I will be posting weekly updates to YouTube no later than Thursdays each week, and will update here occasionally as I see fit.
Several of the women accompanying me on my family's cruise have made the decision to join me in my quest (some via YouTube - and some not), and I am happy for the company. If any of my blog family, female or male would like to join us as well, know that we welcome you. All suport will be gratefully accepted, and to any haters out there, feel free to do what you do best because I assure you that it will work as all things do to the good by making me just that much more determined to reach my goals so that I can show you just how big a waste your use of energy for negativity can be!
As most of you know, I'm pretty much a sucker for all things holiday, so of course folks were expecting that I would be hosting some kind of shindig or other in honor of our nation's birthday. Well, in fact, I chose NOT to have a 4th of July party, because I am not a fan of fireworks in the hands of children and the inexperienced. I come from a family of folks who love to purchase stuff for their children to burn and with my luck and Murphy's Law, the most likely outcome of that combination is Ms. Just Write Now's roof ending up on fire...and not in a good way.
Never one to disappoint, I instead decided to invite the clan and a few friends over for a FIFTH OF JULY PARTY AND OUTDOOR BOOTLEG MOVIE NIGHT! Always one to try a little something different at my parties, even I have to admit that this one was an absolute blast! Check out the video for a taste of what fun the fifth of July can be ;)
After being at war with my hair for more than 40 years, I decided back in December 2007 to start the New Year by rebelling against expectations set for me by folks I know and many I'll never meet (read: society). I decided to cut off the thin, chemically processed, abused hair I had been sporting most of my life and allow myself to discover what my natural hair texture was like. It is important to note that all my life for as far back as I can remember I had been convinced that I had thin, weak hair that was destined not to grow and to break easily. Looking at my siblings (1 sister and 3 brothers) who all share my DNA though not my hair led me to wonder if I was adopted. Confirming that I was not, I was left thinking that just maybe the problem was not my hair itself but instead the damaging things I and others were continuously doing to it. Once my decision to cut it all off and start fresh was made, I found that I felt absolutely liberated by it...a feeling which only grew in intensity over the next several months.
So, on December 31st, I did what many refer to as the BIG CHOP though in my case, my hair was so unhealthy that the chop was not all that big. The next step was to become the protector of my hair which meant not allowing any harsh chemicals to come into contact with it. This included not only perms, but also shampoos, hairsprays, and heavy synthetic oils that block hair follicles and prevent the hair from breathing.
Instead, I dove into the internet and found blogs and YouTube videos that educated me about how to better care for black hair the natural way. Instead of shampoos and other harsh chemicals, I gave my hair plenty of moisture using natural products that I make myself with ingredients like olive oil, avocado, banana, and honey. I stopped using shampoos and other products containing alcohols and other drying agents as providing moisture appears to be the single most important thing we can do for our hair.
I found that it became much easier to care for my hair in addition to being a lot less expensive. After a second and significantly smaller Big Chop in April to rid myself of any ends containing residual chemicals, I found myself with a much healthier head of hair that was strong, more elastic so it doesn't easily break, and amazingly I found that in the absence of chemicals, my hair actually grows very rapidly! In this newfound land of natural hair, I have also found that I have also become significantly more creative in the art of styling my own hair, and I have a good time doing it to boot!
As I moved through the various phases of my hair journey, I wrote about my previous experiences trying to come to terms with my hair in this post, and I summed up the journey my hair and I had taken over the years in this poem which I wrote to enter into the Bloggers Delight Poetry Contest.
Now I find myself six months into this brave new world of NATURAL HAIR and these are my thoughts:
-I LOVE LOVE LOVE my natural tresses! -I love the texture of my hair and am hard pressed to keep my hands out of it. -I feel more me and have a self-confidence level that I've never had before...don't ask me why ;) -I feel sexy and BEAUTIFUL in the way that only African Queens have ever been sexy & beautiful. -I don't ever feel the need to put harsh chemicals into my hair again.
So since you guys started this journey with me, and in at least some small way it was partially inspired by the poem I wrote to enter into the Bloggers Delight 2 Write Poetry Contest, I thought I'd share a video pictorial of my HAIRSTORY to date that can show you better than I can tell you how a woman who has been convinced that she is destined never to have a strong, healthy, thick head of hair can have the hair GOD intended her to have once she stops abusing her hair with chemicals and starts loving it with the things of nature!
