The best thing I have learned in my 23 short years spent living on this Earth is:


Let's just, let's just marinate in that, for a moment.

Let it consume you - inhale it deeply and let it infiltrate your thoughts.

I was (as per usual) scrolling through Twitter, and I stumbled upon a thread that impeccably expressed where I'm at when it comes to my perception of self.



There is something truly freeing about being completely whole with yourself, for yourself, by yourself.

I'm someone who believes behavior is learned and easily influenced. At this current point in my life, I have expertly learned how to filter out these outside forces from my psyche. So much so, my mental state now happily rests at the median between, "you'll take what I give you" and, *Beyoncé voice* "Bow Down."

Funny enough, I wasn't always like this.

Naturally, there comes a point in life when outside forces infiltrate our individual ecosystems and poison our perceptions. This often results in our confidence and self-esteem dealing with a blow that, for some, may take years to remedy.


If you've never been through that, you are one lucky b*tch.

The last time I let others get the best of me, I was in the 10th grade. Mind you, since the 6th grade, I had long been trying to be just like everyone else.

I had lost sight of just who I was and what I wanted to be, and I had ask myself: just what and who the fuck are you doing all this trying for?!

Not saying I was some freakshow, try-hard wannabe, I'm a friendly, sociable girl - have been since I was a child - but I had spent so much time trying to fit in while flying under the radar that everything about me had started to feel manufactured and forced.

And people can always tell when you are forcing it, trust me, it shows on the body like hives.

By the time I got to undergrad, I had stopped performing to people's expectations, stopped letting the opinions of others influence my behavior, stopped acting as if fitting in and being the coolest person around was important to my life; because in its grand scheme and short span - it truly isn't.

There's a recurring joke about popularity that has resonated with me everyday since I graduated high school. It details how when one's peaks early in life, whether it be during high school or college - whatever miniature institution one holds dominance in - the rest of your life is spent attempting to imitate that particular moment in time.

I don't want my 20s to be the best time of my life, I want my life to be the best part of my life.

I want to peak daily, not at one particular moment wherein I - as a result - am constantly attempting to recreate specific memories or relive certain days.

And I, under no circumstances, want to live for anyone else but myself.

The fact that I am living, day by day, accepting my flaws and not letting petty insecurities or outside noise dictate how I successfully navigate within society is an achievement within itself.

Especially when there will always be someone in the corner trying to bring down your joy or invalidate your gifts - that is the sad reality and intrinsic nature of our dog eat dog world.

So, if such is the norm, why be a contributing factor to that noise?

Why should I hate myself to placate you?



It is so easy to fall into the cycle of berating yourself - hell I do it everyday, at least twice a day to keep myself humble and hungry.

As a dark skinned black woman, being happy and confident in myself is damn near considered revolutionary.

That is super sad.

I'm not going to lay myself on a sword as a martyr because I'm a blackie who doesn't hate herself.

I'm tired that being a norm, and I'd very much so like to be excluded from that narrative.

No more sad dark girls.


I've learned to cherish my gifts and be happy with what I present to the world, and I hate that it takes so much effort and unlearning to get to that mental headpace, I hate that it does.

But once you get there, try to stay there.

Because there is nothing like being lovely and belonging deeply to yourself.