1.  Sometimes, when the blessins and lessons are pouring down,

a few tears follow suit.

I've become quite the crybaby in my old age.

And don't ask me why, but when the tears are falling,

I notice that I've taken to fanning my face with my hand.

As if doing so will quell the deluge.

Don't ask me what the fanning is about.

I’m certain it makes me look crazy, but hey, it makes me feel better.

2.  Steve Perry’s voice still has the power to take me somewhere I probably shouldn’t go.

3.  There were several people I wanted to be with me

To be a part of my life as these things started happening.

But they’re not here.

And surprisingly, I’m alright with that.

I don’t know how I’ll feel tomorrow.

But today

I’m perfectly ok with going it alone.

4.  I really enjoy firm toothbrushes.

Why they even make ‘soft’ or ‘medium’ is beyond me.

5.  If a man is not asking you anything about you, he doesn’t care to know.

You do not matter in his world.

6.  Your mother is your first teacher.

But your mama can’t teach you what she doesn’t know,

Can’t teach you the information she had no use for.

Knowledge is power, so the best way to help children

Is to educate and empower their mothers.

And it appears as though I’ll need at least another five years of living and learning and growing before I’d be comfortable even considering bringing a child into the world.

Cause the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know.

1. It appears as though I’ve been grossly inappropriate for a long time.

2.  I always get in trouble when I start looking around at what other people have or are doing.

But I can’t help but notice that everybody—and I do mean everybody—is taking long, indulgent, well-deserved, exotic ass vacations.

To Costa Rica and Amsterdam, to Jamaica and Italy; on cruises and safaris, even.

And they come back tanned and with all kinds of pictures and memories and souvenirs.

And I wonder when I’ll get such a break.

And since such a break hasn’t been afforded me, I wonder if I deserve it.

Haven’t I been working hard enough to go on a vacation like that?

I am still in the thick of the fight of my life.

I’m working hard.

I think.

Am I working on the right thing?

3.  When I'm chillin and enjoying my life

Yet expressing an interest in having a partner to share in the enjoyment

People tell me I haven't found what I'm looking for because I'm not looking.

Seek and ye shall find, they say.

So when I start actively looking,

People tell me I haven't found what I'm looking for because I'm looking for
it.

When you not looking, it will find you, they say.

So if everybody would please get together

And decide what the hell they think I should do regarding this area of my
life

I would greatly appreciate it.

Yes, what they think I should do.

See how ridiculous that sounds?

4.  My conditioning has been conditioned.

When it comes to my line of work, my experiences with men of my
ethnicity have not been the most positive.

So when I’m meeting new men in my line of work who also happen to be
black, I’m not my warmcuddlynice self.

I become this dismissive, gruff person I don’t even really know.

It’s so glaringly obvious.

It looks like in this area of my life, I let the bad guys win.

I’m ashamed, really, and working to fix that.

And I am so genuinely sorry for my behavior.

5.  There are mistakes.

And then there are deliberate actions.

Patterns of them, even.

There are memory lapses and oversights

And then there are passive-aggressive slights and purposeful exclusion.

There’s catching up, small talk, and conversation.

And then there’s one-upmanship, comparison and competition.

And the older I get, the easier the distinguishing becomes.

6.  There are some people that you simply have to get ignant with.

They don’t understand loving kindness.

They don’t understand diplomacy.

So you have to stand on a desk or two and raise your voice a couple octaves.

It sucks,

But sometimes, there is no other option.

On Monday, February 23, 2009, I had an experience that restored my soul.

I was acknowledged,

taken care of in a tender and loving way,

and given a safe place in which to reflect on a situation that caused me great pain.

And the reflection brought laughter.

Belly laughs.

I laughed in a way I haven't laughed in a long time,

And laughed so heartily, I pushed myself over yet another hump.

God is good all the time,

And all the time,

God is good.

He said his name was Timothy,

and that 3 AM was the coldest hour.

I met him downtown near the courthouse,

a slight, blue-black man in second-hand pants and an old windbreaker.

He said he was from New Orleans, and he landed in Atlanta after Katrina.

Timothy added that he was trying to get back on his feet,

and to leave the drugs alone,

the same drugs that left his face pockmarked and scruffy

and his teeth a mess.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a dollar for Timothy.

He thanked me profusely--a dollar buys a sandwich,

and a sandwich will take the edge off, if only for a little while.

He said that he's alright out here on the streets

until it gets to be about 3 in the morning.

It is then, Timothy said,

that the cold gets to be a bit too hard to handle. 

1.  Black people are black people.

But we're not one monolithic group.

With that in mind, I would like to request that companies start marketing specifically to the natural-haired, crochet-and-incense artistic segment of the black community.

It'd be really refreshing to see more of us in print and television ads.

Then again, we tend to not have a whole lotta money, so I guess companies have to do what's profitable.

Still would be nice, though.

2.  While I'm on visibility, I must say that I love Whoopi--really, I do.

But there's a desperate need for another brown skinned, dynamic, kinda funny black woman with locs in the popular consciousness,

Cause if I get one more comparison to her, I believe I'm going to kill someone.

3.  By the way

In case you didn't know

A black woman's love has the power to change the world.

Tell a friend.

4.  And while I'm talking about my people,

I have to say that when I think about this most historic presidential election, I'm more than saddened that many of my people came out and voted for the first time.

So you mean to tell me that the sacrifices of our Ancestors don't mean anything until there's a brother we can believe in on the ballot?

So Those Who Came Before Us marched, and got firehoses and police dogs turned on them,

were beaten and killed for your black ass to have the right to vote, but the first time you exercise that blood-stained, hard-earned right is in 2008?

So in your apathy, ignorance and unwillingness to come out and choose between the lesser of two evils in the eleven or so presidential elections that have taken place since our people got the right to vote, you've basically been spitting in the faces of my Ancestors all this time?

Really? 

'Saddened' is not strong enough a word.

5.  You know, I've never, ever seen myself as funny.

In times past, I would try to be funny, and would fail miserably.

But in recent weeks, I've been hearing more things about my 'natural comedic timing' and people have been laughing even more often at things I say, sometimes going as far as to call me "hilarious".

My response to that is, and has always been, that I'm just honest.

Don't nothin I say be untrue--matterfact, it's often what a lot of people are thinking.

Which is probably why they find it so funny in the first place.

6.  In a previous life, I worked retail.

During my time at a particular store, there was a young man that was new to the job.

Everybody loved this guy, but there was something about him that didn't sit right with me.

He knew I didn't like him, so he would try that charming shit that seemed to work on everybody else, and in true Tasha fashion, whenever he came around, I would always find me something else to do.

Everybody kept saying, "He's so sweet!  Why don't you like him?"

And I couldn't articulate it, but I just didn't like this cat, and wanted to keep my distance.

Few weeks go by, and dude doesn't come to work one day.

He was on the news that night, though--arrested on murder charges.

Fast forward a few years, and I end a brief dating situation with a young man.  He was a liar and a mooch, generally unacquainted with the concept of honor, so I had to cut him from the team.

About a year after our disassociation, he writes me a letter, thanking me for what I had been in his life and half-ass apologizing for his behavior, but I still had a sour taste in my mouth, and it wasn't directly related to his half-ass apology. 

Something about this guy still wasn't well with my soul.

So I shared his letter with a friend. 

She said she would've loved to have received such a letter from an ex, and she was puzzled as to why his letter disgusted me so.

I didn't know how to verbalize it, but I still felt like something wasn't right with this individual.  I put him and his letter in the mental recesses and kept it moving.

Fast forward a few months, and I find out from two trusted friends that the guy I'd been dating had been lying about his very identity.

Yeah.

The lesson?

If I don't like your ass,

If something about you doesn't sit well with me,

Then something is definitely wrong with you.

And I need to continue to ignore those around me, and keep listening to my first mind.

Though it may take a while, the truth always reveals itself in time.

7.  I didn't want to believe it, but I now understand and acknowledge that there are people capable of bringing out the worst in me.

I need things to be EASY.

And that need supercedes love, money, genetics and history.

Whether it be business, family, platonic or romantic,

if it don't flow, it's not a situation I want to be in.

Point blank, period.

8.  I asked G-d to remove from my life everyone who wasn't supposed to be in it, and those people fell away.

I asked G-d to make my intimate circle more reflective of the best parts of me.

Some people stayed where they were, and made changes for the better, while others didn't change, but stepped a little closer.

I asked G-d for reciprocity.  And I asked G-d for supportive friends

A small group of intelligent, creative women with ambition and drive, right here in the Greatest City On Earth, who would be happy to see me, glad to hear from me, willing to huddle up with me, and be as good to me as I know I have been to others.

It appears as though my prayers are being answered.

But what I forgot to ask for

was the grace to accept without question all the love being showered upon me.