Sweat Check!!! Done!!! This workout is dedicated to a friend who I have come to appreciate more in death than I ever did in life... Our friendship was an unlikely one.... I was a young single woman living in Seoul, South Korea and she was a married mother of two... God placed her son in my 2nd Grade class... One day after walking my students to lunch..she stopped me...obviously to learn a little more about the woman who would be spending time each day with her son (she is the Mama Bear that I pattern myself after). After that conversation, I felt oddly connected to her and a friendship began. She watched me blossom while trying to navigate through single and professional life as a young woman far away from home. She SAW me and appreciated the woman I was trying to become... Fast forward a year...My friend developed a chronic illness and spent a lot of time in the hospital. I would go to the post hospital and visit her... We would mostly talk about my life...she was a trusted counselor.... I was on the helm of making one of the most important decision of a young womans life and I shared with her... Her response shocked me... Her words...You are already good enough. You aint got nothing to prove to nobody. You already done it all by yourself. I am not a fan, Sis. After that conversation, I cut her off... She was trying to block my happiness...she was trying to block my dream. Right? She and her family later left Korea...I made my decision and stayed behind... Fast forward...a few months and my phone rings before work on my birthday and it was her and her sons calling me from the states singing Happy Birthday... I needed that because I missed my friend and by this time I was beginning to feel she may have been right. Our friendship grows as does her illness....fast forward three years...she is in a hospital bed in El Paso, TX and I am living a seemingly dream life in Monterey, CA. I NEEDED to go visit my friend... I sat with her, next to her hospital bed and we have the most honest conversation... She told me, Im fighting but I know I am going to die. I have poured into my babies and I know they are going to be okay... I have always thought of you as my little sister. You are so smart and beautiful and you had a sassiness about you that made people sick but I loved it. I admired that you were so young and was in Korea just doing it. But you have lost some of your glow and that aint you. I can look at you and tell you are miserable. I can see it because, Im miserable too... I lay in this hospital bed looking at the ceiling...I cant sleep because they never turn off the lights and people stay coming in and out. All I think about is my life... Over and over again... And you know what...I never regret the things Ive done...I only regret the things I wanted to do but didnt... Dont do that. You better live your life, Sis. I was so embedded in the lies of my life..I couldnt hear her... My brave friend at 90 pounds... a shell of the woman I met... Packed her things...moved back across country to her hometown to a small apartment and died FREE and on her own terms.... I didnt get a call in 2010 on my birthday... And it was the year that I would need her the most because later that year...I heard her... I heard it all...crystal clearly.... But I was paralyzed by fear and trapped in a world of smoke and mirrors that I had created from years of not hearing and choosing to look the other way... Because for so long I was unable to see myself as Vette saw me. I was ENOUGH. I WAS ALWAYS ENOUGH... A little rough around the edges but I was born with the heart of a lion... Wherever the pieces fell...it didnt matter...because I would be able to pick them up and put them back together in a beautiful mosaic that would represent the journey of my life... Last year...I was on a journey to look like me again... This year I have been on a journey to feel like ME again. Yesterday, I took a sledgehammer a shattered the smokes and mirror... And stood there alone...an Army of ONE...and found my voice...and stood up for ElTanya P. Hadley... You dont have to respect me... You dont have to like me... But what you wont do is stand in My Way. I carry with me the power and confidence of all the phenomenal women who have pour into my soul when I was empty... I am Alive... I hear you... And I am going to LIVE without apology.... #RIP #MyVillageIsTopNotch #InHeaven #OnEarth #ThisJourney #MoreBeautifulThanTheLast #IGotThis
Posted on: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 14:12:09 +0000
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