I’m a sage, so seasoned.
I am not leaving silently. The adversary will not duct tape my mouth or cover it with their dirty hand. I will make as much noise in my going as I did when my mother gave way to me, a yellow baby with jaundice, now a brown skinned soul sister sitting with her legs open asking you not to look. Not a lady and never having been inspired to be one I have learned the worth of other people’s opinions by trying to pay a bill or two with them. I still was in debt. I gather that other people’s opinions of me are worthless.
It feels great to leave here with the legacy of a “carefree black girl” and to witness the brink of a new era for women of color in general. Women are able to just be with their fros and braids and locs and hijabs. Women are taking up space in society now although we still have a far way to go. Nothing has ever been given to us. Everything we have we fought for.
Let me hear you make some noise! I yell in an MC voice. Yes, that’s right speak your mind. Express yourself, not just with your clothes or your body language but with your words. Stop expecting people to read your mind.
I recommend that you stop taking everything personally and to stop accepting assumptions as fact. If you didn’t ask, do you really think you know?
If I was born here than that means I was meant to be. My purpose and value are intrinsic and so is yours.
I am a gift to the world that may sound absurdly boastful but I tell you the truth. I came wrapped with brown hair, skin and eyes but I am still a gift. My humility was never coupled by dismissiveness. Hear me today. I have already touched the lives of many and in enduring the walk of my tight rope, I see clearly that by giving hope and lending encouragement to those around me I have come to pour into my own jar when I thought I was sharing. Ha!
I must continuously pour because I am never empty. I never lack. My glass is neither half full nor half empty. My glass is overflowing with love, joy, peace, and goodness. Felicity follows me like my Labrador retriever when I am pinching a meat morsel between my fingers. I must do nothing to get what I get. I only must do good.
When you are good like me, good things, good vibes, follow you.
This is not to say bad things don’t happen too. Plenty of tragedies have taken the stage in my life and in yours too. Depending on your perspective, it may seem that more bad occurs among us than anything else. Yet here I am still here but about to go now. I still reassure you that good is stronger than evil. Love is stronger than hate. Light is stronger than darkness.
I’m a woman, a black woman at that. Why can’t I just be one thing at a time? So many people want me to erase one or the other I cannot. I’m not just a woman and I’m not just black. There lies an intersect that I will not ignore as bad as my men want me to just be black alongside them (or slightly behind them) or as bad as my sisters want me to just be a sister alongside them (or slightly behind them.
Nah. I just ain’t about to do that shit. Not in this life time. Black women have always stood for something and if there ever was a time we didn’t stand for something we were falling for anything. Black women have always done both and done it well until a hater came along and made us hate what we got that is so unique and sacred to us.
You my friend, if I may call you that, are a force not an object. You are the actor not the acted upon. You my friend, are a force—a force with which to be reckoned, sometimes weak but on your best days, unmeasurable strong, a force nonetheless.
desforpres 