The Non-Conformist

hello - no love lost, so  thank you . the memories of us still okay in my mind from time to time  it's okay.  that's another laugh  another smile another moment of feeling... ...I'll cherish forever Forever . Not us. love will come again... we will love again ...and remember ... how it is to be loved ...to love, again.

The other day I was having a conversation about our children - no surprise there - with a close acquaintance, and the topic was focused specifically on our sons. Over the last two years, we've gotten to know each other well and shared quite a bit with each other especially since we work together in the same space. Our children congregate in our classroom straight off of their respective buses daily. If we're teaching, it could become rather chaotic quickly, but we've managed to keep it to a low hum with the help of snacks and alternative entertainment as we finish up for the day. If we're not teaching, which is only on our planning days, then it's usually a lot less noisy and we can be more attentive and in tune with our children. Beyond the most noticable and obvious similarities, such as our Florida connection, being members of sororities, marriage + 2 kids, and being fabulously young, black, and educated, we each have a child with special needs. While...

Picture this is back!!! 🫣 Picture this: He travels for the Father-Daughter dance because, you know, it's a new tradition and babygirl expects to dance the night away with her dad. It's a beautiful sight per usual, but then... All 4 of us are face to face. * Dun dun dunnnn *  This is all familiar. The four of us in a booth at Waffle House with the usual order in preparation. Him - a whole lot of eggs and double the hash. Me - The All-star, but just  for the kids this time. "I'm good. I ate on the way." If anyone didn't know the story, they'd think we were a family of four out having breakfast for dinner. In reality, nope. This was just time with a father and his children; a necessary few hours because things have changed drastically for two young children who only knew this picture. This dynamic. Granted, the two adults have had to make adjustments too, but for me, it's only and forever will be about the kids. When I left, it was for good. ...

I am a runner. A rusher. A ruiner. When it comes to making difficult, possibly life-changing decisions, I run. No, not down the road in the early evening for cardio, fitness, and mental clarity. I run away from having to make those decisions, or at least I try. I'm most successful with decisions regarding matters of the heart...sometimes, but especially when it's something new. As you may know, the past two years have presented a catalogue of new and different and difficult and uncomfortable, yet refreshing and hopeful and beautiful. "Yet" takes some time to get to, and I believe that is partly the reason for why I run.   The other part is that making a decision that could prove to be detrimental, or just wrong, puts me on edge and makes me feel uneasy. Nothing about it is easy. Or simple. Or fair. Mistakes I can handle, but to mishandle and make a mess of things(and quite literally a fool of myself) , well now that's just something I hate. So, why no...

On a recent visit back "home" to handle business, I stopped by my former employer AKA the last school that I worked at. Everyone that saw me, and I have to say it's been well over a year, commented or complimented me on how I am looking these days. Days . I have lost a considerable amount of weight, my hair has grown longer, I have a bounce in my step, and I guess I look happy and I look good. Good . I count it all joy; and yes, I do feel good and am happy because I just am. Am . I give all credit and all praise to God for that; where I am in life is all because of him and ultimately [read: finally], listening to him and being obedient. One of my co-workers said "I guess this is how it looks when you stress free", and I have to agree, because this is how it is and how it looks to be stress free especially for me. In the words of a young rapper by the name of GloRilla, "I'm F-R-E-E f#ck n---a free", and it's wonderful. It's like reaching a l...

*Note: I started this particular blog post 104 days ago, and I've debated whether or not I should finish and post or let it go. Since you're reading this, you know my choice.* Today marks the last day of the last month of 2022, and for many, the new year is welcomed with the infinite promises of new beginnings and good things. For others, it's a begrudging reminder of who won't be with us in this new year. With time, we learn to adapt and blindly move on from the experiences of the last 365 days; for some, it's twice or thrice as many. Even then, nothing or no one can dictate or control where, or when, or what, or how the grip of grief will squeeze just so; it does and though choices are few on what to do, making the best choice is important. Even with short notice. Grief comes in waves. Small like breaking waves slapping against each other as they approach the shore. High like the crescendo of tidal waves - curling and then crashing with roars that even...

I don't have all the answers, but I'm better. I'm getting better because I'm growing through all the things I've been going through. Even if I could have all the answers, I think that would be such a heavy burden. I wouldn't want that. Plus, not having the answers, but little by little learning or reaching them is the most...[insert adjective here]. Besides, what would I do if I knew everything that I needed to know? As humanly as possible, I'd choose to do what I want. I would, undoubtedly, mess sh-- up. I'm talking the most epic of epic fails outside of the Falcons losing the Super Bowl after having a 20+ point lead over Brady's Patriots. Even the stars are still shaking their pointy heads because they were aligned and the Dirty Birds still blew it.  I digress. I was looking at one of my elementary school portraits, and it's such an awesome thing to see because it's been so long, but I still remember it. I remember that outfit b...

Picture this: March 2021. After 9 PM. He's asleep with the kids in our bed with the TV on of course. TV still on in the living room, so I tidy up. An MK watch. Hmm, this is new and expensive and he didn't say anything about a new watch.  Outside in the truck, in a Vikings bookbag I'd given him was an expensive pair of shoes. Okay, now this is really interesting. He would've told me he'd gotten these shoes. Drum beats or heart beats? In his closet, the box hidden under clothes. In the box, the packing slip with her information. (Yes, I hit her up to let her that I knew, that he was free to be with her, and really...thank you.) Basically, this was a twisted, heartbreaking, sordid version of Blue's Clues, but unlike the last time, I was prepared. It was just what I needed to finally stop fighting against what I knew had to be done. I'd prayed for signs and guidance, and for the previous year or so, I'd denied the very things I'd asked God for. That nigh...

I remember hearing that after the humongous implosion in our marriage relationship in 2017. Picture this: newborn baby, first time mom, and a "workaholic" husband who was working at the wrong thing unaffiliated with clocking in and out for his employers to dictate what could and could not, and should and should not be done at their place of business. McDonald's. Also picture the new mom being afraid to stay home alone with a newborn because, duh, it was all brand new to her, and the philandering husband offers for a random employee to come over to help care for the baby. (This employee was actually his mistress from work with whom he'd made plans and started a family - she was pregnant. Somehow I wasn't allowed to be privy to these plans because, of course, they had nothing to do with me and I would "have to accept the baby if I wanted to be" with the philandering husband. Now, fast forward to late Winter 2021, and on the surface, everything seemed to be...

18 years. It's been that long since I wrote out the possible names of my future children with the man who would become my husband when I turned 19 like Grandma was in that picture of her and my smooth-operating fox of a granddaddy - aged 21. My husband and I would have five children with the first being born when I was 21 or 22 and the last being born at age 30. Four boys and one girl at LEAST. We'd live in DC. Young professionals, married, in love with a beautiful big family, making a wonderful life for ourselves. A tenured college professor and whatever he would be. (I never specified his profession. I guess I only thought about what I wanted for my life, but not enough of who I wanted.)  That was 18 years ago and I'm not that dreamy teen anymore from the small town of Thomasville, GA, who at one point was poor enough that we sometimes used forks or butter knives to part our hair. Or lived in a dainty 3-bedroom house with 4 adults and like 9 other kids. Or who walked ever...

To love is to love one hundred percent, but what I don't get is loving more than one. Your heart is oblong and divided. It's sore from trying to fight it. It's glum from trying to hide it. Your heart is full yet empty. Excited then confused. Uncertain then reduced...to the sedentary scraping of the sublime. Your smile flickers - it short-lived circuited long ago --- when you fell in love twice and never got over the one. But I really don't get is moving on and still holding on. You still want what you can't have. You still desire. You long for...to no avail. You keep keeping and are forgotten ...sometimes ...most of the time If you have you're way, you still won't get it. ...I don't get it - Simply B

In trying to eat and train healthy, I've been on the search for healthy recipes for all meals, including snacks. Now, I'm not a sweet potato eater, but I figured I needed to try something new, so I bought some. I decided to slice them and roast them in the oven - something like sweet potato chips. It didn't take long to do and it wasn't messy (easy clean up). (I know by this point you really want to try this delicious snack, which is under 150 calories!) WHAT YOU NEED: sweet potatoes, PAM cooking spray, cinnamon, brown sugar Now you can peel the potatoes if you want (I did), but it's not necessary, just wash them off really well. Slice each potato as thin as you like, almost like chips. You'll need to spray a cookie sheet and arrange the chips in an even layer. Once you do that, just spray the chips across the top and place them in your 375° preheated oven. It only takes about 7 minutes per side. (Yes, flip'em!) The final steps are to sprinkle t...

Have you ever asked yourself 'where do I fit in'? It's a question that I've asked myself often since my early teens. Since my surroundings experienced an expansion to include people from all over the world. Somewhat of a melting pot. I shared classes, benches, dressing rooms with Nigerians, Jamaicans, Middle Eastern Indians, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Panamanians, Bajans, Haitians, Germans - I was surrounded by people that weren't from where I was from. Lately, I've been reflecting on that time in my life that extended into my time as an undegrad at The Florida State Universit (FSU). By that time, I was no longer shocked, but wondering what was my story. I am taking a class on Afropolitanism, now in my 4th semester of grad school, and it's got me thinking and questioning again. Where do I fit in? In reading Taiye Selasi's essay - "Bye-Bye Babar" - the term "afropolitan" is "the newest generation of African emigrants, coming soon...

They are the transmissions of despair The locomotives of ludicrous disaster The pistons of poison rushing through rushing to who Whom what where Ever...they are are... There. The raucous and calamity of treachery - despised but kept, hidden but un-swept, too much often when dealt. They are the caked on slime Dried over time Stubborn mules, the prime Suspects: they subject their objects as prospects of failure never sitting always intending to declare a new charge - invisible, undetectable, but reachable. They win as they wind up and down up and down and around from the sky to the ground... It doesn't help to frown. They don't pay for where the sleep they never sleep - always growing never snoring no need for exploring... Forever imploring. Stop they cannot will not - not like the brakeless training bikes training wheels out of sight big and small like tikes - not like Mike. They are the frenemies that tend to be present endlessly and to change that means to shame their game st...

I don't love you. Even though I don't love... You stole my heart. The electricity and fluttery butterflies they made me shake...stiffly You only fooled me... Lying and smiling all the same, but I am okay....I smile on. So what If I don't laugh, and really you don't care? So what if I no longer cry, and you stare... Hopefully... Until then enjoy the latest distraction the Main attraction... I will...

Writing Project Proposal I am choosing to complete the Educational Project, with the three week poetry unit, because it fits into my profession as an English teacher as well as helping to establish my ability to produce quality lesson plans. Being a particularly “young” teacher, I do not have a great deal of experience making unit plans, especially one that covers such a broad range of content. The ultimate goal of the poetry unit is to have students understand the connection between form and content of poetry. They will develop a richer sense of poetic form providing meaning or theme, and how it is a product of its time. This simply means understanding how society and/or environment informs the structure and content, and vice versa. In the end, students will have explored several different forms, the histories, purposes and influences (or results) of the forms and poems written in such a way. They will have also experienced writing their own poems in the different poetic forms ...

As of late, I've come to realize that everybody ain't happy for you to be happy. It's funny, because happiness should bring happiness, but people start in on their own lack of happiness and things get ugly... I am happy and am in love. Haters are real. Jealousy is real. Envy is real. Why me? I don't have all there is to have in the world that money can buy and I'm not exactly where I want to be in life, so what's the big deal? I am happy for you, for all that you have done, will do, and are doing. You've made gains in your personal and spiritual life it seems, but there is something, some thing that is keeping you from living in your happiness. I remember a sermon stating that in order to have happiness things have to happen in your life. Things have happened in my life, both good and bad, but I choose to relish the good. How do we get back to love? I have grown. I've grown up. I am grown. I am no longer the girl looking for love. I lost sight ...

New Year. New You. Same Resolutions. The Alternative: GOALS. Make short-term and long-term goals that are attainable, realistic, and worth achieving. If you want to reach an ideal weight, make that your long-term goal in a reasonable amount of time, and your short-term goals can weekly (or bi-weekly) weight goals. My Fitness Pal App is awesome for this particular goal, and it allows to enter the foods you eat while setting you with a daily calorie intake. Of course, exercise is a must. If you want to increase your self-esteem/-concept/-confidence, look in the mirror and accept the nose, eyes, lips, and hair that you have. Smile, and accept that too. Do daily affirmations in the mirror. Then, as you grow more confident, do things that are challenging for you. If you want to be happy, at peace, or feel complete, pray. Just pray ask God to forgive you, make you new, teach you how to be who HE wants you to be, and move you completely out of the way so that HE can reign i...

I guess it would be completely out of order to skip out on wishing everyone a happy new year, so Happy New Year! (And, did you get everything you wanted for Christmas? Oh. It doesn't matter anyway, it wasn't about you, right?) Of course, with the ringing in of the new year in a church, home, or club, we have the never-ending, over-indulgent, unrealistic task of making resolutions. Ha! Well, not everyone, but all in the media, the questions pour in and the answers seep between the lips of liars like smoke. (Ok, so no one lies, it just doesn't work out the way you planned it...right?) Resolutions just aren't what they should be. Messy, drama-filled people say they won't let nothing worry them and that they're going to do them. Lazy people say their going to stack their money up. Lost, disconnected, and discontent people say they will find the right person to be with this year, and it's going to be real. The discouraged say they'll go back to school...

Six (6) months into our relationship, we realized we wanted to be together for life. Marriage was inevitable. We did what any two should do when they are living together, and are truly in love...we went and got married. Just the two of us, the judge and God. Fast forward (almost) 9 months later, we are still very young in marriage, but old in love. We learn something new about each other everyday, and we enjoy it. Marriage is work, but it is all so fun and exciting. We don't consider it work though...it's a lifestyle. Marriage presents freedom - a freedom that we never knew before. I mean, you might think being single is freedom (it has its perks if you choose that lifestyle), but not like marriage. When married, you can freely talk about sex with your guy or gal, why? Because you're married! You don't feel bad about what you're doing, after you've done it, why? Because it is YOUR right as a married couple to  love each other and love on ...