It’s always been: “You’re so strong” “I don’t know how you do it” and the one I hate the most “I wish I could be as a strong as you”

NO YOU DON’T!

I make this shit look good, but baby it ain’t easy! I’m tired of having to be strong. Believe you me it’s a survival mechanism truly rooted in trauma response, you don’t want this at all.

It took me so long to see vulnerability not as weakness. The way I grew up glamorized not being vulnerable, they wasn’t going for your “slip showing”. You kept it TOGETHER! Hell people would testify to it by saying “ I don’t look like what I been through/going through because God keeps me” We saved face and served it too(shout out to the Divas that raised me). Poised and ladies in the streets but pillows would be wet with tears.

So much of my life I hid behind that mask I had been trained to wear. So much that it almost killed me. Literally. Trying to be strong after two people that held my heart died back to back, my internal organs began to shut down, because I wouldnt sit down and stop being strong. My gallbladder died and I had to have emergency surgery to save my life.

I ended up in a state of crisis because I was being so damn strong. Holding it together. Always smiling and optimistic and full of faith.

Well truth is, I ain’t always got it like that. Sometimes I ugly cry, avoid going out because it’s a day I’ve been crying and lashes can’t hide the puff. Sometimes I get so afraid to make a decision afraid of the “wrong decisions” I stand stagnant. Sometimes my house ain’t clean and my kids don’t get any one on one time because I can’t get out of bed. Some days I need remedies to stay focused or even rest.

I DONT GOT IT ALL TOGETHER!!!

I NEED HELP TOO!

I WANT TO BE CHECKED ON TOO!

I’m a lady, I sit in my soft girl era from that place. I was raised a diva, a lady like esthetic isn’t anything new. My granny had me at nail salons in my teens, I was raised to LOOK feminine at all times.

How I moved, however, was masculine as hell. My desire to learn more about becoming feminine and the yin/yang to self compassion helped me realize how contradictory my behavior and esthetic was.

In weakness we hid and suffer alone.

It’s powerful to ask for help.

It’s ok to be human.

In this space of vulnerability we express sadness, needing time, needing to retreat, ask for someone to get the kids and if no one can let them kids eat cereal and fruit all day(whatever keep ‘em quiet). In this space we say I feel lonely, it doesn’t eliminate self love but as a human we chemically need others. From this space we can say I don’t got it, I need you, I need a hug, a shoulder, or to hold something(lol).

I may bounce back, that don’t make the impact of the fall softer, not at all.

Hell Jesus wept, I can be vulnerable too! I don’t have to hide my messy side nor do I have to clean it up. I simply acknowledge, this is all of me.

In Auntie Mary’s words…Take me as I am!!!