Genesis to Love...

One of my biggest fears use to be becoming unsuccessful but I don't believe that anymore. It's even impossible to fathom that lie anymore, knowing failure is not an option for me. 

But I am a hopeless romantic scared as FUCK to fall in love. I know. How schizophrenic does that sound. I have become so guarded that I question every motive and have self sabotage any possible potential for love in the past. And being a single mother doesn't help either which gives me more reason to be overprotective of my space, heart and mind. I tell myself "I can't love anyone right now because I can't compromise my time with my daughter." I mean I don't have the leisure of having a babysitter which I don't like leaving her with unless deemed necessary, like a birth. And I am a recent transplant her in Austin, TX so really I have no family and friends.

Yes there's some pain here and fear of being hurt again even though I know it's inevitable but are they worth the hurt? I guess I need the assurance that person will be patient with my guardedness in a generation which is quick to give up for most people pursue relationship with very selfish motives. 

You see at the age of 16 I intentionally surrounded myself around successful partnership/marriages to look up to for I never saw that growing up. At my current age, I have already witnessed several of my friends experience divorce and broken families. I guess I need to know that person has the same value system as I which is the advancement of the institution of the family and has the vision of "empireship" for our children. Most of all I must feel a willingness to submit to his imperfections as the one I have chosen to lead my daughter and I. But most importantly, I always speak and admire all the relationships that started with friendship.

Maybe I use my daughter as an excuse but if I'm not good she's not good. She is my #1 priority. So if your are not someone I would not have my daughter look up to why would I brother to enter into courtship with you?

Are you worthy of courting my daughter and I?

@tinyandbrave

But that doesn't face the fact my propensity to be guarded. So as I am fully confident of the success of my future I must be also confident in love. So for the new moon (March 28th) I will charge my Rose Quartz yoni egg (as well as charge my carnelian and Green Aventurine crystals) and clutch my yoni until the pink moon (April 11th) approaches any beyond, lol! I will say prayers and be open to the possibilities for I love in a world with limitless miraculous abundance in all things. I will NOW believe I am deserving of love while I continue to LIVE my life.

With Venus (my ruling planet) being in the New Moon it's believed to bring hope of love and money. A New Moon represents the end of one cycle and the beginning of another new 28 day cycle. So today I decide to embrace love for myself and for my future partner if granted God-willingly-and if not I am still content but I will at least be totally honest with my Creator of ALL my desires. I will begin to pray for his well-being whoever he is; before I ever meet him or have an idea of who he is. I will look to put old habits to death and welcome any positive energy while still being intuitive/discerning. I will be honest with myself and anyone I cross paths with and not hold prisoner my feelings but also not take my feelings as law for feelings are fickle. I will remove thoughts that no longer serve me.

@alex_elle

As the new year has entered in (March 2lst), this new moon symbolizes leadership, new ideas and taking action. I will be making plans, pushing forward and charting new courses, not only in love, as the Pink Moon (April 11th) and my Birthday (April 21st) approaches. Let all of us nourish, heal and love ourselves. Make space in our lives for self-love. Take action on our lives based from a place of love, whatever that may be. Take advantage of the new moon...

un·in·ter·rupt·ed: A Letter to Her Father

Peace D,

This email is not seeking for anything but to say one thing and one thing only. I forgive you. It has taken some time but I can say with a clear and free conscious and open heart and sober mind that I forgive you.  I forgive you from feeling abandoned from you to the absence of you during my pregnancy. I forgive you for the words that were said. I forgive you for the disrespect. I forgive you for missed prenatals and missed celebrations. I forgive you for having me to figure things out on my own when I sincerely wanted your input and/or involvement. I forgive you for allowing me to have to choose to leave Boston with our baby.  I forgive you for unable to care for my emotions. I forgive you for not being there for me/us when I needed you the most. I forgive for not answering my calls. I forgive you for not being at our daughter's birth. I forgive you for disrespecting your daughter's birthday with your embarrassing statement in front of everyone that "you are only a sperm donor." I forgive you for leaving early the next day. I forgive you for having to choose families and leaving us. I forgive you for treating me like I was your enemy or thinking I wanted any way to harm you. I forgive you for always accusing me of judging you. I forgive you for never truly listening to me. I forgive you at times and now, for not checking in with your, Glorious, no matter the drama between us, as her parents. I forgive you for many of times not keeping your word. I forgive you for unable to love me or properly show me love. I forgive you that at this current time you choose not to be a father to Glorious. I forgive you for not allowing her to know her siblings. I forgive you for unable to come together to reason and come to an agreement of how we would raise our child. I forgive you for allowing me to do this on my own. I forgive you for never able to give me that security in actions that I was waiting for, for me to say "yes" to us.

And if there is anything that I may have said and done I sincerely apologize and hope one day we can have the dialogue to bring about clarity and peace.

Thursday I received clarity on a lot of things that are for my self knowledge, wisdom and practical understanding. And I can let the anger go and let you go and the ideas I hoped about and be ok with how things are; even if it never changes. I received a beautiful gift and daughter who has changed my life tremendously in an a year and 4 months. You go through things to either experience new discoveries, lesson(s) and/or blessing(s) and I can say I have gratefully gained all three and continue to. So I sincerely say thank you as well.

Peace.

For the past couple of months I have been wrestling with anxiety and worries. I have felt I couldn't breathe with all the worries consuming every fiber of my being. Worried from the day to day responsibilities of being an adult and a mother; to will I be alive in the next few minutes, next few seconds to what will my future be like. Will I always struggle. A desire to want to give up. Being angry with myself all over again. To being angry with her father. To mourning an absent dad to his daughter, to worrying about I will eventually have to die and leave her behind. Every day I woke up just wanting to stay in the comfort of my bed and not wanting to deal with the outside world including myself. To going to bed but unable to to close my eyes for anxiety plagued me every night causing me to just lay there in the middle of the night.

But one night my anxiety was so bad I was unable to sleep and was forced to pray to the Creator, pleading with tears coming down my face while laying in my bed in the middle of the night. I prayed that He would help me rest and to take my worries away. I was begging for His peace to rest upon my soul. Eventually I fell asleep and woke up to my day feeling motivated and focused as I sat at my desk. Eventually I heard my internal voice say, "She's easier." I repeated those words out loud to myself. Then the internal reasoning began and it concluded:

"She's easier. She has tolerated him since day one they met. And even though your actions have shown you love him but you wouldn't verbally accept what she has been accepting for so many years. Why do you think he held you at arms length, always afraid to let you in because you would force/challenge him in ways he is obviously not ready to meet. You challenge him. You shake something within him that makes him feel uncomfortable. I doubt that he loves her because he does but look at their history. They met each other when they were emotional not well. She allowed a lot of things. She accepted the dysfunctional behaviors.She was the easier choice since day one. He holds you in high regards to the point that you intimidate him. You not the easier choice. He was not and is not ready for your expectations of him because the idea of failing would be too great." 

At that moment I wept at my desk at work but these were happy tears. I felt free and released from the weight of all my worries and anxieties that I was wrestling with for the past few months. 

All I desired was the father and I to be civilized to one another as we try to co-parent but you can't do that if both parents are not committed. He currently lives in Boston, MA and looking to relocate to North Carolina with his other family as I live in Philadelphia, PA. Even though he doesn't really have a strong presence in her life at the current time I show her pictures of him and initiate phone calls between the two of them. I do this, so she will always know I never did anything to prevent her from having a relationship with him. And when the time comes and she desires to speak to him I will be more then open for her to reach out to him. I do fear the implications this will have on her as she gets older and the impact it will have in her identity but I must take one day at a time and just pray and love her the best way I can.

I did not write this story for you to hate him but hope you see that his actions came from his immature child mind state that never dealt with his own issues emotionally, mentally and spiritually. He came from a broken home as well, where he met his father for the first time at the age of twenty-two. He didn’t have a normal upbringing. I’m not making excuses for him. But more so realizing we must take special inventory of the state we are in individually and why we do the things we do. Family composition may not be normal but we are still able to create a safe space for the people involved and children. To make this possible as long we are willing to take responsibility for our actions and willing to do the work towards our own healing for the betterment of the structure of the family, no matter how that may look like because what is a normal family now a days. I also learned, ladies, we cannot think we can go into relationships thinking we can save someone, but most importantly we must see circumstances and people for what they are and not what we want them to be. Two sick people cannot know how to love one another. As nurturers, women have a natural tendency to nurture the best out of a person, but what if that person is not ready for that vision you see for them? Will you continue to live off a delusion or accept the situation for what it truly is and being honest with yourself?

Most of all we must be careful who we allow to plant in our gardens and plant spiritual, mental, emotional, verbal, and/or physical seeds because having to uproot those weeds is not easy. The Bible says “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life,” (Proverbs 4:23) and this rings to be so true. All intentions of a person comes from a person’s heart and when the heart is damaged it is very hard for it to come back from.

This is just the beginning for me and I am excited about others I may help by sharing my story. Part of my healing is by helping others and sharing my experience, which lessens my fears and shame little by little. I truly believe my experiences, which I take full responsibility for, were truly blessings to empower me and force me to grow. So in all that I have gone through I express gratitude because I am able to see the mercy, grace and glory in it all from start to finish and it’s far from over.

"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you." Lewis B. Smedes

Written on Oct. 2015

11 Life Lessons I’ve Learned From My 1 Year Old… So Far→

This year my daughter Glorious-Zoelle Shaddai turned one on June 17, and I threw us a celebration—that’s right, us!

I had so many mixed emotions about becoming a mother, but I celebrated making it through my first year. I celebrated that I did not lose my mind. I celebrated that I was blessed with an amazing being of a daughter. I celebrated being blessed enough to be surrounded by a community of people who love and support my daughter and I. And most of all, I celebrated how the Lord was with us every step of the way.

In 2013, when I first learned I was pregnant, I became extremely depressed, lost my job, and had an ugly dispute with her father, who was not present for the entire pregnancy and who wanted nothing to do with us. I was totally miserable and saw nothing to be optimistic about in my situation; I went from being a lively, carefree spirit to a confused and suicidal shell of that person. As my due date approached, I wondered if I should keep her or give her up for adoption.

But once I saw her, my life and perspective were turned upside down. It felt surreal: I was a mother to this tiny person with such a giant spirit. I couldn’t believe it. I was still overwhelmed with emotions and feelings of inadequacy, but I was a mom. Glorious-Zoelle has balanced me in ways I never thought she would, and she’s taught me so much in the last year:

LESSON 1

My daughter exposed the reality of my mortality. I now know that life is nothing but a snap of the finger, and because of that I choose to live a fulfilling life by any means necessary.

LESSON 2

I’ve learned that every action I take affects the future of my daughter. I’m working on finishing my masters in counseling to become a licensed professional counselor. I want to provide a financial foundation for my daughter's future and so I can spend more time with her at home. I’m creating an environment where she never has to question her identity, her dreams, her visions, wants, or future.

LESSON 3

After becoming a mom, my shortcomings have come to the surface—and I have no other choice but to deal with them head on. Glorious is always watching me and her pure heart and innocence demands it from me.

LESSON 4

Glorious-Zoelle has redefined my ideas of revolution. We live in a world filled with hate, inequality, racism, misogyny, and so many other indecencies and sufferings. It’s a world that wants to corrupt her innocence and power. If I can help her realize that she is powerful, then she will not let anyone or anything limit her. And as I fight to do this for her, I will also fight for those very souls I come across through the various work I do.

LESSON 5

My daughter has taught me you can still have joy and happiness in your season of grief and hardship. She has encouraged me to realize the magnitude of my strength and she has taught me that I am more powerful than I think.

LESSON 6

She has helped me let go of what I can’t control and helped me assess what is important enough to keep in my life. I’ve learned to let go of what is not worth our time because time is one of the most valuable assets we have.

LESSON 7

My daughter has given me a focus that makes the possibilities for us endless. I am confident and assured in the things I am now pursuing; there is not one bone of self-doubt in my body. If I fail, I just learn from it, reassess, and readjust because success is inevitable.

LESSON 8

She has revised my view of my own beauty. She is my reflection and I AM BEAUTIFUL. 

LESSON 9

She has taught me how to be patient, kind, and understanding in ways I wasn’t before. I am learning to forgive more, including myself.

LESSON 10

I am able to cherish my time and my space. When I’m with my daughter, I’m able to stop and enjoy that very moment with her because every moment with her is precious.

LESSON 11

She has renewed my relationship with my first love: Christ, who is also teaching me to trust and hope in love again, guided by wisdom and discernment.

And because of all that she has taught me, I will fight to protect her, teach her, and love her as long as I am allowed to. She is my sunshine.