Intimately Worded with Michelle

Tag: Self

  • Falling Up

    Me, not so put together….

    Oh, I make myself so mad! I can complete a four-panel interview with a smile and have the whole team laughing. I can exit the building smiling at everyone. I can bravely acknowledge the elderly man staring with, “Hi! How are you?” Him: “Better. I’m getting there.” Me: “You look good.” Him: “You too!” I flash my huge smile, strut in my heels glad to make someone’s day and in the next 15 seconds fall ….actually, I surmise that the ground came up to meet me. Knees scratched, palms tingling, phone cracked, portfolio wide open and my heels off my feet, I look up to find people helping me to my feet.

    Me: “Just give me a minute. How did I fall?” One stranger, female: “These cracks in the pavement. You probably stepped in one.” Me, shaking my head: “Only me. Thank you, I am fine. All my cuteness gone, ego bruised.” Her: “We all do it.” Me to self: “Not me. Who falls just outta nowhere?” All three women hugged me, strangers pitying the Black woman with the deep blonde inner roots.

    For all the grass that is green!  I feel as though my guardian angel is indulging in her comedic efforts to grab my attention. For what reason, I am unsure. Pride shattered, I gathered all of me together and sat in my car until my world righted to strong, independent, confident Michelle. I wanted to blast Mary J. Blige and Chrisette Michele on the drive back but I had to listen to my GPS to get back home. Change and newness does not welcome into my spirit so readily. Clumsily confident, that is me.

    Confident
    ~M.

     

  • Stuff, the inbetween stuff…28 years later

     

    Dawn Michelle

    What I have learned in the past week, change is inevitable. I know this is not new and exploding information but the older I get the more I realize how set in my ways and within certain thought processes I have the tenancity to remain. I am in wonder when the little things bring me more enjoyment than frustration; that my little tweaks and Michelle-isms bring more joy than all the other stuff.

    • Yesterday, I am asleep before my granddaughter. Her parents went out last night. She and I had a wonderful time together until about 9:00 pm, by 9:04 I was asleep. I really did try to stay awake. She remained wide awake. She is getting so plump and so mean. When she is hungry, she lets the world know. Auntie Autumn, my daughter kept her the rest of the night. Darius, my son, her father does the pick up. He was not surprised about my bedtime: “Momma can’t never stay up.” I would like to add I am up very early, when everyone else is asleep.
    • My “Me time” makes me a better person for the life I lead and the life I want to achieve. I enjoy the strength not to push it aside, deviate from it. My routine: prayer time, devotional call, children off to school and then exercise. My “Me time” prepares me for my day, for whatever the good, the bad, the surprises, the “what will be” and for everyone else. I do not have the answers to all that happens but I am learning the wisdom to not control is a required balance in being exactly where God wants me to be.
    • I am learning that I am happy and it is not because of all the things I have completed or the past mistakes. I truly believe I am happy because I choose to be. I am, because my faith has made this moment greater than yesterday. I am, because if I made it pass all of that other stuff, the bad stuff, the immature stuff, the pain, and the hurt I am going to make it to the next good stuff, the God stuff, which has no limit.
    • I am learning also that I have a tendency to make others laugh, and at my expense. I never identify myself as a short person. Yet, my children and others find it very funny that I cannot see out the peephole or is it funny that I am in denial? Either way, I slightly laugh with them. (Hee hee ha ha.)  My children are marginally taller, except Brutus who has a way of calling me, “Michelle” and that has him rolling in the floor. I have no clue why. I laugh with him too.

    I think we should be inclined to prepare ourselves to enjoy the little things. I had lunch with a friend Friday. I will confess, the younger Waxhaw-home grown-rooted-Baptist me would have never went. In that lunch meeting I describe my life ending with, “My life is pretty boring. I don’t do drama.” Him: “I beg to differ. I think it’s rather exciting. You are a great mother. A good woman. There are not too many good women out here. You are quiet just like you were in High School.” I smiled. I will take it.

    I don’t think there are limits to soul stretching. I think we brake…break because the plan isn’t working the way we thought nor how we planned. Our greatest assets develop from our not knowing. Love your life, continue to do the necessary to make it better. You just have too. Kisses!

     

     

  • Stay Strong in your Strength

    Whatever your strength may be, remain strong in it. Strength isn’t how much you can hold on to without bending. Strength is the core pull that keeps you.  I know life is difficult, rocky, tumultuous, unwavering, different, exciting, unexpected and yet, wonderful. Life is full of change and it molds us into great individuals. Many times life hits us with a gargantuan why! However, we have to be cautious, observant, for remaining in a hurt does so much injustice to you, to others. Losing pieces of your soul constitutes nothing; it betters nothing.

    There are so many reasons to go forward. Holding in an act of violence is a violation to all that is you. Soul wounds are God’s jurisdiction yet if you do not have strength enough to voice it, see it for what it is how He is able to heal completely? God loves intimately, without reserve. We have to take part in our own healing.

    Your strength is not a mute response. Silence is not a healing mechanism for hurt. Your strength protects you, heals you, and directs you. God is the source of my strength and yes there are times I can forget that He is. But we have to be more than a statistic, be more than what was done to us.

    Refuse to drown yourself in self-doubts, negative feedback, and devastating insults. Stop living within your hurts…caused by others. It is hard to maneuver and to be motivated in broken places. We can mend, hold on and continue to try a self-fix but a broken vase still appears cracked, chipped despite the different methods used to put it back together. The damage is there. Self-fixes include silence of a soul hurt, self-hate, low self-esteem, self-abuse, victimization, and ignoring a cycle of debilitating behavior.

    Stay strong in your strength. You know what your strengths are, don’t let anyone’s action strip them away. My strong strength: Faith. It is a strength no one can see nor are they capable of creating it nor do they have the ability to diminish it or take it from me.

    Any thing you do, whatever keeps you from falling into an emotional abyss of less than is your fallback, your anchor. When the world does not make sense what is your strong strength? I remind myself that I am an awesome Mom, my strong strength. No matter the challenges in life, I have to be better than a hurt, greater than a disappointment. It is my responsibility, my right, a privilege to overcome.

    A fragile heart is a strong strength. Keep it. Being hopeful, having expectations keeps you from settling for less than what you deserve. Do not let your thoughts descend into what ifs and why nots for they only produce negativity and intrude upon your imagination. It requires so much to outdo others and even more to be better than the best. You have all you need to be who you are…its right there inside of you. Take the time to enhance all that you have to offer the world.

    A hurting stuck requires no growth; it doesn’t move the world.  Remain strong and strengthen yourself for far greater than you imagined.

    Always expecting more for you,

    A.Michelle!

  • You are beautiful

     

    I have this intrinsic viewpoint of myself. I believe it to be more humble than critical, an innocent naiveté. I speak and communicate with strangers yet it still blows my mind when others want to be a part of my world. All right, I rip myself apart. You do too. I am friendly enough, very independent and make my own way but not at the expense of others.

    I have been teaching for the last three months. I have prepared myself so that I will not fall in love with these teenagers. My expectation when transitioning to teaching was and is to gain their respect not to be their friend nor to gain love. My big picture is to finish graduate school, pass the exam and achieve licensure as a counselor. I am a year and half away from the complete process.

    I enter the teaching field based on a suggestion, good advice, a solid “to do” until graduate school is completed. My wall is up, my heart guarded and my emotions are in check. I want you to know these children, these teens that are deemed “at-risk”, who are less than respectful, that are mean, they are hurtful and hurting….they come find me now. They seek me out. The ones I have had removed from the classroom. The same ones who call me names, the ones who walk out of the classroom, and the ones who have fought one another in front of me…..they purposely come find me in this huge school. It is a new semester and I have a free fourth block every other day. It is my planning period. I expect them to ask me for something or to do something and I hear, “We don’t want anything. We miss you. You mind if we sit in here with you?” I breathe, we sit, and they talk. My heart melts….I have no clue why they want to be here with me. The children that are expelled….referred over to alternative school they search for little ole me. They come in between classes to speak, to give a hug, to smile and just to let me know they made it to school. It truly amazes me.

    I have teen females telling me their troubles. How being girls in their household leads to violent acts, how they are touched inappropriately and how, “Mom has had three different boyfriends. She is pregnant now.” They tell me how being gay and sexually active at 14 years old is, “what I know. I know how men are. I see what my mom goes through. How she takes his side. How she did not come out her room when he was beating me. She threw me out. I mean I’m back now and he is gone.” Her head down and my response: “Our children should come first.” Her: “We should.” I just hug her because I do not know what else to do. I want to bring her home with me. Not just her, all of them. Oh how my heart aches for they go right back into the same environment.

    As a counselor, as a mother I know how to do this. As a teacher, I am amazed, blindsided, lost, and heartbroken. I have so many questions. This hurt, their hurt is on a grand scale and it is a lot of them. Her story is not new to me and her story has happened to so many of them in this school. I completed an essay and had an open discussion with my professor. I ask, “Why do they share with me? I do not know them. They are students not necessarily mine. I just got there.” Her response: “You are trusting. That is what they see. You’ll figure out what to do.”

    While I am trying to figure out the best way to aid, help, assist who I am does not stop becoming, does not stop progressing. My soul stretches. The gray hair multiplies before my next salon appointment. I tend to wear my glasses more than my contacts. (I think they hide my crying, red eyes better.) I do not see any increased worry lines. I still manage to smile. I have to. I love on my children even the more. I am ever so grateful for my parents, my family and my extended family.

    Wednesday of this week, I am waiting in the line at the grocery store talking with my Brutus, my youngest son. An older woman walks up to me: “I love your hair. I absolutely love it. You know we spend so much money on our hair. I know you not spending $300.00 on this and it is beautiful. Do not change. God has blessed us as a people with so much and we try our best to make it into something else. I have dreads and people do not even do that naturally anymore. We so quick to hop away from us. This is what I love to see. I am not going to stop at your hair. I looked at your skirt, beautiful. Your shoes, beautiful. You are doing it and doing it divinely. I had to come and speak to you. I watched you talk to your son. You, your you is just beautiful. Keep it up. Don’t change!” I thank her tremendously. Yet, I still wonder why she and others open up to me. I tell my daughter the conversation and I ask her, “Women will compliment me quicker than men. This woman compliments me and I turn heads but not one man spoke to me. Why is that?” My Autumn, (she is 12) hunches her shoulders: “She is right. You are attractive Momma. Maybe men see more and are intimidated.” My resolve, she is watching me too.

    We reflect what we want to portray yet it is what others see that is /will be our greatest impact. Continue to believe more of who you are rather than in what you are trying to do. God has this God-way of making it all work for our good. Your efforts will impact, direct lives to overcome, have others stand strong, motivate change and encourage others not to quit.Be beautiful in every way. Let them see you, your beautiful you.

    Light the way,

    A.Michelle!