I Was Born to be Spectacular
“All my life I had to fight!”
Since my earliest childhood memories (age 3 to 5), I have been laughed at, talked about, shunned, avoided, and bullied. I never could understand what I was always doing that was so wrong… why the simple act of me breathing made everyone around me so mad at me all of the time. I just knew that I didn’t fit in. I didn’t belong anywhere. Occasionally, I would come across (or be put in the presence of—Thanks, Mom.) someone like me. Usually, these kind souls were adults with some talent to share, history to tell, skill or knowledge to teach, and/or wisdom to impart. I always thought of them as “kindred spirits” (Anne of Green Gables). Unfortunately, I more often encountered the douchebags
I got used to it.
Fast forward thirty-five years and you would find me broken, alone, and “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” I’d completed all of my duties and met all of my obligations. I was over it… and I was done. My memory is still a little hazy, but I do know that after countless attempts, beginning my freshman year in High School, I finally succeeded in committing suicide!
The entire ordeal resulted in two separate hospital stays. The second time is when I died for a week. So, two days after my release from the first stay, I couldn’t breathe. My younger daughter
But. I. Woke. Up. My mind was malfunctioning big time, though. I woke up a child
It took me two years to mediate with God
It took me two years of losing everything my husband and I had built, all that I had worked for, to provide a sanctuary for my daughters and myself– safe from the behaviors and isms of the douchebags.
It took two years of fighting with “medical professionals”
It took me two years of fighting for what was already mine, to begin with. Two years for me to grow into who I am now. I had to fight (almost to the death) to be taken seriously despite my skin color, gender, brain limitations, medical conditions, and forced labels. I have to fight, daily, for people to look at me and see a beautiful, wise, educated, black woman who is grown
It took me two years to identify the children
It took me two years to find #GrownFolks
It took me two years to learn to love me just as I am. Extra-Special with a side of Sugar and Grace.
byHisgrace
Credits:
Eric Thomas
The Color Purple (Novel by Alice Walker/film Directed by Steven Spielberg)
Anne of Green Gables (Novel by Lucy Maud Montgomery/Anne with an E on Netflix)
Special Thanks To:
The Father, The Son, & The Holy Ghost The Late Jean Pearl Jackson The Late Andre Monroe Ford The Late Jerry L. Jackson The Late Henry L. Jackson, Sr Lord Proctor My Heart & Soul, Sugar, The 7, New Friends & Kind Strangers
Read More:
The Vertical Path Magazine™(Pending)
Online Edition©(Pending)
Launch Date: 10.10.2020
The Vertical Path 501(3)c/R63 (pending)
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www.aclu.org/issues/free-speech/freedom-press/media-protection-laws