Tag: Women

Gratitude List 10.13.16

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  1. My alarm sounds like the theme music from from a nineties video game. When it goes off AB complains that it is not soothing enough. I tell her that I don’t care. She proceeds to jump around our bedroom as if she is Mario from Super Mario Brothers making the noises, acting as if she ate a mushroom and has grown, and just being an all around character. A. She taught me to not care about certain things. B. I wish to be as free as she is but just watching her be free is plenty good for me. For now.
  2. Darian is oversleeping in his bedroom which is next to ours. He is alive, loved, and comfortable.
  3. Snapchat, it’s filters, my best friend’s stories.
  4. My mother’s hilarity and our text messages.
  5. On Sunday my father kissed my cheek and refrained from lecturing me on how to lose weight. I’m losing it. I obviously have it covered. I think he gets that.
  6. Today is the first day of my writer’s retreat. I plan to write, and write, and write, and write. With a little editing and planning thrown in for balance.
  7. My grandmother is alive she has lived through so many things and I’m getting better at preparing myself for when she is ready to be done with this earth.
  8. Friends who come to your job just to hug you and kiss your cheeks. Those are the best kinds.
  9. Cyn. Mystical, Warrior, Woman; full of grace and knowledge.
  10. That gospel song that goes “Woke me up this morning started me on my way.” that one. That happened.
  11. Love. It’s all we need.

A Change of Shift

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It is pretty much a guarantee that as we age those who were caregivers will trade places with those who were formerly in their care. The child becomes the “parent” is a phrase that I’ve heard frequently throughout my nursing career. I’ve actually uttered it on more than one occasion while trying to help someone cope with the change of roles between they and their parents. Of course I knew that my day would eventually come but no matter how much you think about a thing you’re never fully ready when it happens.

My grandmother means more to me than most people in life. She has been so much to me throughout my life. My confidante, parent, role model, best friend, doctor, masseuse and the list goes on. The one person who I can tell anything without worrying about feeling any kind of judgement. My mother had me at an early age so in a sense I grow up alongside her calling both my grandmother and my mother; mom.

So the text that I received a few  weeks ago stating that mommy was having health issues caused my heart to stutter. Flashed me back to a memory of my cousins and I arguing over who loved her more. “If she died I would throw myself in the casket with her.” I vowed causing my cousins to yell at me for ever suggesting that she would ever die. In our young minds she would be around and healthy forever.

She’s so strong and up into a couple of weeks ago she was running around CT better than people twenty years her junior. Taking trains and taxis to the casino whenever the whim suited her. Traveling from state to state as if there were no barriers. Never needing any assistive device or any assistance from anyone. Now that has changed and I had been notified via text. Via text…

Even after I talked to my grandmother and she assured me that she was ok. “They’re always exaggerating. You ain’t got to worry about me baby.” Was how she phrased it laughing and downplaying the situation as my aunt continued to text message me about walkers and colonoscopies. The nurse in me needed to assess the situation with my own eyes.

Two flights later I was in her home wearing both the eyes of her daughter and the eyes of her nurse and while it was oh so easy to tell other people’s parents to get rid of their cat or their car, there are not many things more daunting than trying to decide how to tell your own mom that she needs to get rid of her throw rugs. That the table that she keeps lifting her walker over is unsafe as is the cellphone cord that she has stretched across the walkway to her bathroom. Or that yes, you do think that she needs one of those I’ve fallen and I can’t get up things.

I spent an entire twenty-four hours cringing every time she went to the restroom trying to find a way to broach the subject before I mentioned the placement of the table. Of course she lifted up the walker to display for me how light it was. It was not a problem and she would be “OK Baby.”

I don’t like conflict so when she went to the bathroom to get dressed for church I moved the table, plugged her cellphone charger up behind her bed and placed it on her nightstand, then I spent twenty minutes on Amazon ordering all of the things I had discovered she was low on during my assessment; toilet paper, paper towels, ivory spring bar soap, and her beloved beef ravioli.

I thanked God when she came out of the bathroom and laughed “I was going to ask you to put that table over there.” she said before sitting on the bed to finish getting dressed for church. I hope she meant to ask me to replenish her supply of Chef Boy A Dee as well. Either way I embrace the challenge of encouraging her to enjoy her autonomy while moving things out of her way for her own good.

I don’t however, embrace the fact that she may need a hip replacement for pain. I don’t believe that this is something that she has recently been struggling with. Lastly, I don’t know how I’m supposed to live in FL while she’s in CT where I can’t consistently see her with my own eyes.

A Sunday in August

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Eight years ago I met the love of my life. We became really good friends because in my head I was already with the love of my life. Throughout the years Ashley and I would remain friends going on occasional dates to catch up in between whoever was our most recent or current love of our life. Last July she called me and wanted to know if I would date her exclusively. I was excited but I didn’t think it would pan out to be much more than a few dates where we would catch up, enjoy each other’s time, and decide that now wasn’t OUR time; again. We would remain great friends and I would complain to my two best friends how I couldn’t find true love because no one would ever compare to Ashley. She was the ruler that everyone needed to measure up to. Honest to a fault, funny, sexy, and so positive. She made me better.

So much for great expectations and all that jazz. In her head this was our time and I would be her wife. I found out that we were in a relationship in my sleep as she told some guy that I was her partner. Excitement of what this time was for us began to set in. I told to myself OK it’s finally happening, I’m in a relationship with Ashley and life is grand. We move in together, we begin to build a life, and I am as happy as a bee on it’s favorite flower. After a while we begin to discuss marriage and I know that a proposal is coming soon. In fact being the control freak that I am, I have decided that the proposal is going to happen when we go to Italy for vacation.

My best friend and I begin to concoct a plan where I’m going to look perfect the entire time; my nails are going to be perfect, my outfits are going to be perfect, and I will never be without lipgloss. (A girl must always be prepared for the marriage proposal by the true love of her life.) I’m planning with my best friend how to be properly prepared for my proposal while Ashley is planning with my best friend how to throw me the perfect surprise proposal/engagement party.

So much for plans and all that jazz. My hair was perfect; before we spent a day at the beach and any natural haired woman who gets her hair straightened will tell you that the day at the beach is the end of straight hair. My nails were ok but they were far from perfect but this was fine by me really, because all that I had planned for Sunday was Brunch with some of the people from her networking group. So after the beach in go the two strand twists. A twist out is perfect for brunch… I should’ve caught on when she kept asking me what I was doing to my hair, what I was wearing, etc, etc… but I didn’t. As a matter of fact I didn’t even catch on when the people started dancing to OUR songs in front of our table. I totally believed her when she said that they did this often.

I’m glad that I didn’t know, that I wasn’t in control and properly prepared, img_2316that my hair wasn’t perfect, and that I totally would’ve worn a different outfit had I been aware. And I’m glad that it happened on a Sunday in August amongst all of my sneaky friends.

 

Photo Credit: Christy Marie Photography

Video Credit: Rokosz Studios

Screw The Government If You Want To But It Should Be A Choice

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The attack on women’s rights has been increasing instead of decreasing as the years pass. You would think that the more educated we become as a society the more we would understand that what a woman or any person does with their own body should be up to that person. Birth control, abortion, sex changes, and who we screw should totally be up to us. Increasingly it is not.

Women’s Rights has been a target of ridicule for many years now. Dating back to the 1800’s women were treated as mere posessions to be controlled by their posessors. From birth, they were the property of their fathers, until which time that they were purchased for marriage by their suitors. Once the transaction was completed they indefinitely became the property of their lawful husbands, at least until death did they depart. There was no place in society for women, much less for them to have right. Lately i’m feeling like we’re in 1814 instead of 2014.

Having an abortion or not having an abortion is a hard enough choice. Most women who make this decision do not enter in to it lightly and to have the options decreased or to deny access to safe abortions is preposterous especially since proponents of abortion are also the same people voting to decrease fair housing assistance, welfare, daycare assistance, and equal pay.  It was not too long ago when women were dying in back alleys from going to illegal, unsanitary places to have abortions. To do all of these things at the same time doesn’t even make logical sense.  “No you can’t have an abortion but if you can’t afford to take care of the child that’s your own problem.” *confused face*

Even if all of these things were available freely women should be able to make decisions for their own bodies. No matter the reason. Being raped does not trump being in college, being poor, being too busy, or just not wanting children as a reason to not have a child. Also it is not our business if someone uses state funded programs to pay for an abortion. Please don’t justify your nosiness with this excuse.

No one deserves to be forced to explain the reasons behind doing something that directly effects them and their body. It is their body and being that they own it they should be respected to do what they want with it. In the words of some fabulous black lady on the internet if I wanted the government in my womb I would fuck a senator. Actually I’d do Michelle but whatever floats your boat and all that jazz.Unknown

RECAP:

Sitting outside of an abortion clinic and yelling your religious beliefs or trying to make someone feel bad about having an abortion is horrible.  Sitting outside of an abortion clinic dressed in white with a red clothe over your mouth is horrible. Throwing objects on someone outside of an abortion clinic is despicable.Firstly don’t you have something to do with your day that directly impacts you? You have no idea how that woman came to that decision, the effects that the decision have on her, or what is happening in her daily life. And you don’t deserve to. It’s not your business. It’s not the government’s business. It is the person who is pregnant’s business. So mind your’n.