YOU BETTER GET WELL!

Sitting here watching the special on the life of Dr. Maya Angelou and inspiration has over taken me. I'm flooded with tears and emotion listening to her stories and watching all of the women, black, white and every other kind that she has touched. I was in the 5th grade when I learned of her and the poem she wrote "Still I Rise". That poem touched me back then in a way that I had never been touched. But now it's meaning resignates within me deeper than even I could ever imagine. I've been raped, treated like the black sheep, disliked and even hated by many, talked about, called ugly, slapped in the face, stabbed in the back, misused and abused, and made to feel completely and utterly worthless. BUT, STILL I RISE!!!!  The truth of who I am is so clear to me! I am not my rape, I am not my failures, I am not my adultery, I am not ugly, I am not the abuse I have suffered, I am not the pain I have endured, I am not worthless, I am not my experiences good or bad. I AM A...

INSECURITIES we all have them. Some of us cover them with a smile, others with pride and yet still others with faux perfection. Making it seem like I had the perfect life was my cover up of choice. When the reality was my baggage was so heavy that even a strong man twice my size couldn't carry it. The source of my insecurity dates all the way back to my childhood days. You see, I grew up in the Church of God Holiness. I couldn't wear pants, i couldn't go to the movies, I couldn't listen to any secular music, in fact I wasn't even allowed to have a walk man because my parents didn't want me listening to the radio. I couldn't talk on the phone as a teenager, even at the age of 17 I couldn't have male friends. Me moved more times than I would like to have and attending different schools and making new friends was hard for me because know one liked the new girl because she dressed weird. My first pair of name brand gym shoes was some L.A. Gears, I thought I ...

There I sat one Saturday night at age 10 or 11 in the bathtub singing a song I made up. I was fully convinced that no one loved me, no one cared, my parents hated me, I was the black sheep of the family, my friends were very few and I was constantly being bullied at school! The song I made up was a reflection of all those thoughts. The pain in my heart was so heavy and as the tears began to stream down my face the only way I could see to end my pain was death. I wanted to die. I was a worthless waste and no one cared about me anyway so I wouldn't even be missed. My only problem was I had no idea what method to use, drowning myself in the tub never crossed my mind. Finally I convinced myself to get out of the tub and from there move on with my life. Feelings of worthlessness and thoughts of suicide consumed me many days after that, from childhood to my teenage years, right into adulthood. At age 27 I was fired from my job for doing things I absolutely knew was wrong, the engine in m...