Strength-To Others

Stop telling your strong friend how strong they are when an issue comes up.

We know that. And honestly, that statement is dismissive.

As their friend, ask what they need. Just be there. Even if that means just sitting next to them in a room for a couple hours. True friends should make every attempt to understand, especially in vulnerable times. Sometimes the words to explain are hard to get together, and we want to know that your there anyway.

Now, should we begin to show that we have forgotten our strength, please, by all means, give us that reminder.

People assume that because we handle it a certain way, and it isn't easy to see when we're struggling that we don't need anyone... Wrong.
It's very possible that Anthony Bourdain, Robin Williams, and many others were the strong friend, and it just got too heavy to keep carrying. (RIP)

Life is consistent strength training, so going from"carrying" 300 lbs to now holding 330 is a big change. Mind set matters, we can do a lot more than we think.. But never ignore that the transition is not easy. And consistently building strength by choice or chance, is tiring.

Yes, we must learn to be strong for ourselves and understand when to stop so that it doesn't become overwhelming...but we're stubborn, lol.

Be there. Ask if they are truly okay. Be willing to push if you feel we aren't really being open. Understand. And be patient. We want to be here for the Long haul, we have large dreams and goals, which is why we became strong.. But that doesn't mean we don't need anyone.

Alright,I'm off.........#GoBeGreat

Trust Your Gut...I got a story to Tell

Thanksgiving of 2013 my Godbrother tried to force himself on me...

It isn't that I never expected to be raped or tried in that way because...people are horrible. But, it made me think of that scene from "For Colored Girls" where she talks about the rapist being the person who has been in your face all the time and not the stranger you expected.

I'm not blaming myself, but I can only assume he thought this would be okay because we use to play fight. It's the reason I wanted a brother all my life, so that I could fight with someone. Lol. But...this was different. And in the beginning only my mother noticed it was a problem. Eventually the military, yes....the jerk is a military male, called him back and he was gone for a while.

Cue Thanksgiving 2013, he's in town. And I see something...else. Black soulless eyes. Stories of how he would prey on women while he was over seas, staring at them like a lion about to pounce, while his WIFE AND KID were at home. A wife he now disliked because she gained weight after having their son.  These are the stories he told to tell me and friends whom he had just met...at Thanksgiving.

He tries to play fight, but something in gut won't stop bothering me. I dodge, I say stop(I SAID STOP), I move away. After a few hours he gets the point.

Fast forward to the next day...

My sister's best friend had come up for the holiday as well and we were sleeping in the same room. She and her then fiance left. But when she left...she left the door open and he was in the living room which wasn't far away. I freaked out as though everything in my soul knew what was coming.  So I jumped up and closed it.

I get up to go to the rest room and see that he isn't in the living room, dining room, kitchen and the bathroom was empty. AMEN!!! The devil is gone!

Door bells rings...it's him. He forgot something.
ARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!

I let him in and go back to the room.....start to close the door...

"Wait, gimme a hug, I'm about to leave."

*deep sigh* *one arm hug*

Everything else happened really fast.

The squeeze, the peck on the lips, the butt touch, the whisper in my ear that I should have "give[n] him some", me shoving him away and slamming the door.

What...the...heck?!

I stood there holding the room door closed until I heard the door leading outside BOTH shut.

I sat on the bed trying to figure out what in blue blazes just happened!

Did my Godbrother really just try that? What should I do? Why didn't you punch him in the face? So stupid... You should have fought more.
I could have gotten raped?! Really?! In my parents house?! Nigga, you tried this in my parents house! Your deceased mother's best friend! This is gonna cause a problem if you say something. You pushed him off. They aren't gonna believe you. This is your mother's deceased best friend's son. (Bastard...) Should I go to the police? Nothing actually happened... He's military...(NAVY) You gotta say something....But what about?
You gotta say something....But what about?
You gotta say something....But what about?
You gotta say something....But what about?

You gotta say something...But what about........
What about me?
What about how I feel?!
Is this gonna effect me tomorrow...next week...next year?
Everytime I hear the name COURTNEY am I gonna cringe? Will my stomach drop?
He didn't get as far as he could have but will the mere mention of his name make you uncomfortable...and tense...and pissed at him... and pissed at yourself for not fighting more...

Eventually the answer to all of that became yes. It's 4 years later and I still get mad, and cringe a little, and pray I never see him in public because...it never plays out well in my mind.

But I made a decision that day, that it seems no one I know or anyone they know has made.

I said something... because I decided that I MATTERED to me more than he had or ever would again.

In the midst of my back and forth thoughts, I heard someone in the kitchen and decided to speak up before I started talking myself out of it again.
My dad...of course. I tell him...
He grips the counter, few deep breaths, asks if I'm okay, looks me up and down to see if I look worse than what I'm saying, I say I'm fine and go upstairs.
I started talking...figured why stop. Next stop, sis and bro-in-law, and mother....and later a few friends.

We call to confront, and this fool has the audacity to say hello "didn't mean it the way I took it." All my thoughts go against everything I was raised to say or think but I'm justified and honest unapologetic about it.
He was wrong. And I said something.
Bad people remain as such because others give them hope that they can get away with it by the victim staying silent.
Even if you THINK no one will listen or believe you...keep talking until someone does.
Did I go to the police? No. And part of me thinks I should have. So that I do regret, but I'm glad I said SOMETHING to someone, and no longer will be subject to that evil in my presence. Personally I think we should have gone after him with bats and knives but....oh well

The bad things that happen aren't always some lesson....people are just jerks. Don't contribute to the evil by staying silent, when you deserve to be heard. They deserve to be stuck in a place they DON'T want to be for putting you in a situation you DIDN'T want to be in. 

And don't only focus on people you don't know. The devil never is a stranger. He always makes himself look very familiar and inviting.
He'll probably never know how this effected me. Heck, probably wouldn't care if he did know considering according to him, I took what he said "the wrong way" *evil side eye*

But I'm here. I spoke up for this. And if I deserve to speak up for what happened to me...you deserve to have your voice too.

I'm still in decision mode about whether or not to put his picture in this post. Maybe he's gone further with someone else and they need support....hmmmm

Speak...Heal...Grow
#PhoenixOut

#30Lessons

So...I’m turning 30. What started as just a random post to indicate I had 30 days until I turned 30, turned into me thinking about everything I’ve gone through and the biggest lessons I’ve learned in my 30 years of life.

1. Life is perspective. Solidify your own, and stop living through everyone else's...
2. At no point is any other person required to truly give a damn about you...that's your job
3. Not everyone is bad. Pay attention and understand that we are all flawed. Some more intentionally than others...
4. Love is a decision people make and therefore not something that can hurt you. People however...
5. You need to heal. Not just survive. Survival does not equal peace...only temporary safety. The reflection of your past may not be pretty, but in it there is tranquility.
6. Not everyone is searching for true logic. Their own misconceptions are fine for them. Understand this, and move on.
7. Let people's actions change how you treat them, not who you are. Defrost!
8. People will project their own insecurities/guilt/downfalls on to you. Hand them a mirror and walk away.
9. Don’t let what you want to do, keep you from doing what you want to do.
10. KEEP...BEING...CREATIVE!
11. The strength to stand and the strength to walk aren't the same. But you can and have done both...KMF
12. Everyone is replaceable. It isn't about what the person/place/thing is replaced with, it's simple the fact that it can be replaced. Stop trying to get others to understand this. Most won't. And don't take it personal...
13. Give positive energy... just make sure to keep some stored for yourself.
14. You're not as strong as you think, but you're stronger than you are.
15. Forgiving someone doesn't mean that you excuse their actions. It doesn't mean that you took the situation the wrong way. It doesn't mean that, depending on the situation, you don't put them in jail, or break up with them, etc. It just means, you don't allow the negativity from that situation to completely take over your life and pull you down. It means choosing to not be miserable about it. People deal with things, and spend the rest of their life complaining about it and harping on it until it consumes their mental, physical and spiritual existence. You walk up to them, and the aura is tainted by it... it's all they talk about and reference and you feel the anger coming from them like the situation JUST happened to them all over again. How is that healthy? Forgiveness means freeing yourself...taking back your power. Heck, you can forgive and testify against them...

16. People will ignore what you want to do if it doesn't benefit them. Do it anyway.

17. Not everyone will apologize, and even less will actually mean it IF they do it. You can move on...

18. Trusting your gut doesn't make you mean... It means you're connected. Always listen, it's yet to steer you wrong.

19. The most honest & noble of us too often allow ourselves to cuddle with the off spring of deceit. Time to get up!

20. "You are blessed to be a blessing, and are a blessing because you're blessed"

21. You're at your best when centered & observant. Keep all eyes open. Listen more than you speak.

22. Be as blunt with yourself as you are with others. There is no growth in continuous equilibrium...

23. "The word was with God and the word was God"... The power you possess is very real! Be aware and be careful...

24. So...You’re kind of a big deal! You are the anomaly they read about. Not perfect, but pretty dang awesome! Enjoy the confidence and wear your crown WITHOUT APOLOGY. Even if it makes others uncomfortable, love who you are Queen! You’re beautiful...

25. People will always look at you a certain way, most times contradictory to who you actually are. Live for you.

26. It chipped you, cracked you, bent you, but obviously didnt break you No sense crying over spilled milk, it's already on the floor. Accept, learn, and KMF.

27.Be wise enough to dine with Judas, just don't let him cook. Know more than just your enemies name...

28. Sacrifice does not equal Sabotage! You're worth more. Remember that, and move on.

29. There's a difference between not giving up and settling for less...

30. Stop apologizing for being yourself. Embrace it and the journey that you're on. More greatness is coming... 

 

Birthday Bonus Lesson-Admit all that you could be, positive or negative, but focus on who you want to be...

To Find...

I despise feeling lost.

I've been really inside myself for a long while now. I haven't talked about it in much detail to, well, anyone. I pray about it but honestly, I don't know if I'm getting an answer or if I have to find it on my own while still trusting it will work out.

For the first time in my life, I lost a friend. Not because of a fight. Not betrayal. Not distance. Not because they were in a relationship. But, because they died. For 27 years I hadn't had to experience this and the first time I did all I could think was, "this could have been avoided." (Thus making the loss worse). This is where that feeling started. I know that now. Sure, other things are added to it, but this really pushed it over the edge and put things in perspective.

Now, I don't want you to think that I assumed I was immune to losing friends this way. I had lost a sister/friend 6 months before, but this death hit closer to home for me. I mean, you always remember your first love, right?!

So, I'm trying to accept, and deal with it, and rationalize, and analyze, and all these things. I'm praying, I trying to stay inspired to move forward, I'm distracted, I'm ALL OVER THE PLACE. I officially felt unsettled.

Now, so much after that followed that further pulled me down into the pit I had to accept that I was in. I wanted to be alone, but understand that sometimes I need to be around people, but while around people I wanted to leave. (cue Alessia Cara, "Here"). The life and mind of an ambivert, smh.

So, what do you do? Pray! Clarity. Strength. The courage to follow through when moments I need to be strong come up. The strength to be courageous when I feel weak. Yeah...I didn't do that. I literally LET life beat me down. I haven't been suicidal in 10 years, so that didn't cross my mind. But I did inquire to God about why I was still here.

*whisper* Phoenix.....

I have been broken more times that I care to re-think about. Any lesson that came my way last year, I'm positive I missed succeeding at, but I was paying attention to what was trying to be taught.

So, my hidden melancholy turned into constant reflection. Constant conversation with God and myself. Pray and affirmation. And this all just to get OUT of the hole and back in alignment.

I don't believe in making New Years Resolutions, so I started on that journey in October 2015 when I got sick of being depressed and having anxiety attacks. Heh, it's a blessing and curse to be able to hide it so well. To those around me who got it, thank you for hearing my silence.

So, depression aside. Questioning life aside, I have committed, and stumbled continuing, positive affirmations and prayer in my life. I was lost...and I need to be found. And I am prepared to accept whatever God has me to find about myself. I know full well it won't be easy. There is so much in the ashes that I have come out of over and over again. Some gems, some thorns...
"I know God won't give me more than I can handle, I just wish he didn't trust me so much." -Mo. Theresa

As an artist, we fight between keeping our scars hidden and constantly exposing them. I have understood that for some time, my life is meant to touch others...even if it that is singular. Whoever you are, I love you. And you can continue, pick yourself up, and move forward to greater.

Until next time...

Think it, believe it, and be it
#KeepMovingForward

The Piano Lesson

If you haven’t watched the movie, don’t read this because there will be details of the movie in it. However, you can watch it on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baAWP5_0RZ0) and come back to this after.

In life you will see things that may not mean much at one moment, but later “the truth changes color depending on the light” (Eve’s Bayou).

I recently found a movie that my parents had shown me and my sister called, “The Piano Lesson” starring Charles S. Dutton, and Alfre Woodard. It’s set in 1930′s Pittsburgh, and tells the story of a family’s piano that holds their history…and the soul of the slave owner they stole it from. Now, watching this as a kid, it’s just something else my parents showed us, and I liked it because it was entertainment. And then I grew up…

Now, it represents the fight to get out of slaves hand, and move forward as a black person. To be something, and do something more than your parents did because you have the choice and more of the freedom to do so. The value of holding onto our history, and our story…and learning if it’s worth selling it to better yourself. Not to forget it, just, to better yourself.

In the movie Boy Willie is in a constant argument with his sister Bernice about selling the piano that their father stole back from the overseer who owned their family. Some would say it’s disrespectful to sell your family’s history to gain some land so that he, ”no longer have to work for someone else”(which…is a great feeling). Others would say that there is nothing wrong with him wanting to get out and stand on his own two feet without the white man making him doing. After all, it is JUST a piano…right?

Bernice told how their mother would polish the piano everyday with her tears (crying over the loss of her husband who died because he stole the piano), and that as she was rubbing in her tears, her hands would begin to bleed and she rubbed the blood into the piano as well.  Their history carved into the wood, their mothers sweat, blood and tears making it beautiful….why would anyone want to sell it? But how do you deny a man his dream?

Now, while your dreams may not involve you selling a family heirloom, what is the cost? And is it worth it? I believe that sometimes it is, simply because at some point, the risk may turn around and become something more amazing than you or anyone around you would have thought and now you have begun to open their eyes. Maybe I’m rambling…

There have been some very harsh remarks made about this movie. And, I can understand them. In a way it seems like a less well-written version of “Beloved” (another movie you should see) because of the idea of a family torn and brought together by a spirit of the past. The ending is a bit lack luster, but sometimes it’s more about the lesson that some extravagant ending…that is, if you get a lesson out of it at all. Which, not everyone will. 

Enough rambling, go check the movie out. I was so happy to find it on YouTube, because my family has been searching for it like crazy. Especially since the recording we have of it is messed up. I’m glad to have brought back some memories.

Until next time…keep chasin’!

Wonder...

You ever come to the realization that...you love someone? You spent all this time getting to know who they are, or at least who they show you. And then one day, they open another door to themself...and another...and another, and while it's great you still wonder about the door in the past that they refuse to open. That hides their pandora's box, and at some point life (As it always does) gives you a peak into that box behind the door and....this person is tainted. not, destroyed, but askewed from what they portray. You find out that they aren't on the same moral field as you....yet they have part of you. You opened up...you were vulnerable, on purpose.

The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak...and maybe that caused you to love them. It definitely confuses things. So you're fighting with yourself. They say some great things, show more of "themself" but then...they tell you more, and something about it reminds you of a line you've heard somewhere before. From another being....who you never thought they would be similar to. And the more you're around them, the more you love them. And then jealousy comes and....you're...falling? Actually falling? Again? What's wrong with you?!

Everything in you is screaming to stop and the more you try to, the more you want to just open up, the harder it becomes, and the burden gets heavier with every breath, and every step, and every moment you're in their presence....what do you do? Cry...what does it solve? And you're too scared to talk...so what...do you do?

You sit with your thoughts...write poems, sing, stare, give yourself, and pray for God to intervene because you have no clue how to change it.

You ever come to the realization that you're in love with someone after all the heartbreak and headache and stress you've been through, and you know it's a waste of time.....no? Me either...

Women...Relationships...random

At what point did females forget their worth? What tragic event caused so many females to lose sight of their strength and confidence? I'm beyond tired of seeing women, of any heritage, walking with their eyes to the ground, being okay with being called a b**ch/slut/ho/etc. And these outfits!? Ladies, do you know that by showing EVERYTHING, you've already shown a guy all that you have to offer? Or that if you aren't respecting yourself, you can't ever expect a guy to respect you? What's even sadder is that good women are at home either single, or being cheated on, while the bad apples are treating the few good guys in the world like crap and thus creating even more bad guys....anyone else realize this ridiculous cycle?  It's as the old saying goes, "Hurt people, hurt people." What sense does it make to hurt someone new because someone old hurt you? It isn't their fault. Not everyone is the same.


Back to females...where are our positive role models? We are now stuck with Nicki Minaj, Alicia Keys (yes, she's on the bad list now), Kim Kardashian and Beyonce (over-rated). A barbie doll (eventually those get old and thrown out), a home-wrecker (yes, i consider it home-wrecking when you can't wait for the ink to be dry on a person's divorce papers before you are planning a wedding with them), a liar who is unhappy with her looks and does anything to stay in the spot light, and...another liar who will do anything to stay in the spotlight and isn't as classy as she claims. Just my opinion, don't really care if you agree with me.  I would love to have more women, who are widely recognized, especially black women. It's aggravating being put in the same group of loud, obnoxious, ignorant people who won't do better because they think they can't, or are too lazy. Where are the Maya Angelou's, Sojourner Truth's, Harriet Tubman's...hell, where are the Oprah's? 


There is no way to advertise that one is different, and most people don't want to take the time to find out, thus begging the question: how does one stand out without seeming desperate? Live your life, keep the faith and follow your heart. 


Random, but...that's the machinations of my mind. Until next time...
Keep your head up,
The Phoenix