Like you’d think by now that I’d have myself figured out. I’ve heard 25 is the mark where you come into knowing who you are, but I promise you I think the age limit for that is being pushed further and further back. I’m 26, own a successful company(we still have room to grow), put on two conferences in a year, etc. etc. etc. and still feel like the world is spinning before me.
Growing up, I was quiet and non-confrontational. I didn’t mess with anybody but everyone did mess with me. I tried to keep my distance from people because I was afraid of my own reactions. The first time I had an altercation was in 2nd grade. I remember it like it was yesterday. There was a bully in the fourth grade that saw me as weak. Her name was Victoria. Anything she could say or do to me she did, because she knew I wouldn’t do anything back. She was also the protector of a second grader that was in my class named Keisha. Keisha was cute. Keisha’s mom bought her every Nike jogging outfit ever created for kids. Keisha always had the freshest shoes and she had the the prettiest and longest hair. Keisha also had a mom that didn’t care. Keisha could talk to boys on the phone and also could have boys over. Girl wheeeeeet!!
I wanted to be accepted by the accepted. So I boldy asked Keisha a question. She told me to “shut the f*$% up, my man is trying to sleep.” Man did that make me mad! What made it worse was Victoria coming behind her and teasing me saying, “haha don’t nobody want you or want to talk to you hahaha.” It carried on the whole bus ride. It was the longest ride ever! I couldn’t think of anything but a thousand ways to kill them both. Yes, that’s what I thought. Well I didn’t make the news that day and I’m not in jail, so we know those plans didn’t happen.
So what did I do? I went home and found my red folder. It had pieces of paper in it and I didn’t know where they came from, but I was grateful in the moment that I had something to release my anger on. I used every inch of every sheet of paper in that folder. I drew out 2 faces of a dog. One dog face for Keisha, and one dog face for Victoria. Then, my brain started going crazy. I wrote every bad word around those faces and whole folder that I could think of. I called them the words second graders probably shouldn’t know. I didn’t hold back. I expressed my undying hate for both of them in every way possible. And for once, I felt good about being bad. Until the next day…
Getting on the bus with the plan to not speak to anyone, I made sure I had my red folder with me. I was praying that since it was so early in the morning that no one would have the energy to bully me that day. Well, that was short lived. As soon as the big bully Victoria gets on the bus, she snatches the red folder out of my hand. All I thought in my head was f^^^^^^$#!!!! I know, we had potty mouths(I actually still do but I’m being delivered!).
She was behind me so all I hear is, “oooooooo you hate us huh? Wait until the principal sees this!” I think my soul left my body that day. If I’ve ever felt death, that was the day. I dragged myself off of the bus and into the school. The principal wasted no time calling me into her office and asking me what happened. I was lost for words. Clearly what I was going through was already expressed on the paper so I just sat quiet and cried. She let me know she was going to call my mother and to head to class. All day I had to imagine what my mom would think or do. I couldn’t focus in class, I ate lunch extremely slow, I didn’t talk to anyone that day.
Finally school is over and everyone is dead quiet on the bus. I sat in the very front this time. I had no time or energy for the back of the bus antics. All I could think of was how much trouble could I possibly get in when I was the one being bullied. As my mom came home and began to prepare dinner, I remember the phone ringing several times. Every time my heart shook. I thought a heart attack was well on the way. The last ring I remember, my mom answered and said, “this is she.” That’s when I felt soul my transition into heaven. No really, I ran all the way up stairs in 10 seconds and wrapped my body twice in my sheets and laid on my bed because I knew it was coming. Yep, she came. She came with a belt and tussled with me through those blankets trying to hit me. I’d say I had some pretty good defense there. I didn’t feel much. If I needed something to feel good about, at least I had that.
So that whole situation eventually died down. I remember Keisha moving(thank God), and someone pushing Victoria into a swimming pool incorrectly where she broke her arm and it humbled her a bit. But we didn’t stick around long enough to watch her humbling process. We moved as well.
I eventually got in touch with an old friend that lived over there with us around that time and we chatted about the things that happened in that apartment complex. Some stuff worth laughing, some stuff worth crying. We circled back to my being bullied days. I expressed how that was some of the worst times of my life.
She said, “you know Victoria was just jealous right? She expressed how she thought you were pretty, light skinned and had your mom and dad in the house with you. She said she saw you and your sister in new outfits all the time and couldn’t understand how your parents had the money to put you all in the after school programs, school dances and stuff. She saw you being able to laugh everyday. She saw you in all the schools plays. She saw you making friends that you didn’t ask to make. She felt like you were never afraid. Like you never had a worry. She thought you were too much when you thought you weren’t enough.”
Wow, and to think that something that happened to me in the second grade needed to help me translate what’s going on with me now. Everyday I struggle with being “too much.” I always use the excuse, “I didn’t ask God to be this way”, never thinking if it is this offensive to the creator. Now, I don’t get away with doing any and everything, but God gives me a graces to do “more.” I’m learning to be unapologetic for ALL that I do; because it’s a lot. I used to dumb down my talents or abilities because I didn’t want anyone to think that I was trying to be better than them. I used the “shy” excuse.
One thing I’ve learned about my relationship with Christ is he works with me slow to fast instead of fast to slow. Slow to fast means, I will go through the trials and tribulations for quiet some time, but when its time to prosper or bloom in that area, it happens quick! So to me it feels like forever, but to others who aren’t on the journey with me, it seems like I’m doing too much, too soon. I can’t even act like I still don’t struggle with the acception of others or the validation of my efforts. I think it’s normal in some capacities. But I will be glad when nothing else matters but what God tells me.
So every time I found out the issue to my problem, I try to give myself some solutions, or at least strategies to prevent it from happening again or from sending me into anxiety shocks. Feel free to use these:
1. When you’re feeling like people are trying to figure out why you’re doing what you’re doing…Ask God for the peace of mind and to limit the distractions so you can continue the path you were asked to take.
2. When you feel like you want to give up because you think people are subliminally attacking you… Disconnect from those channels, including social media, that is causing you to change the way you’re perceiving what people are saying.
3. When you fall out of passion for what you were once so passionate about… Get into a place of meditation. Find yourself searching for the why in your purpose. Direct yourself back to your truths.
4. When you feel there is no help… He wouldn’t have given you the vision if he wasn’t going to give you what you needed to complete it. Sometimes God is just waiting for us to get serious about what he is telling us to do before he brings your A-team.
5. When you feel like “it” isn’t happening quick enough… Rome wasn’t built in a day. Most great things take time and take pressure. If you skip a step, you skip a blessing. You have time and when it’s right, it will be glorious!
To the girl who is afraid of being “too much”. Be that and more. Your too much doesn’t make someone else too little. You never know who you’re inspiring by just “doing”. Not doing right, not doing wrong, but doing. It takes courage to pursue a dream. It takes vision to wake up and take on the day. Your too much will never be too much, if God called you to it.
There will be people to not like you because of a strand on your head. Someone may not like you because you like you. Often times, peoples’ dislikes sometime come from their inability to have the peace you have in not knowing and being okay with that.
Eventually people will see you for who you are and not who they are not. But if you don’t continue to be you, they may never find them. Be the light. Be the dream.
Be too much. You’re too great to not be.
– A’darah / #StayBrkn