After the "love" is gone...

And just like that, February is over! Did you survive St. Valentine's Day?

Was it a happy day for you? Did you get that surprise you were hoping for? Maybe an engagement? Did you spend the day basked in love and feeling all "butterflyey" in your stomach?

Were you stressed out trying to plan the perfect day? Did you snap at the person that you were trying to show love because you got so caught up in all the madness of this and that and wait, how did I forget to get a card?!

Or was it a sad day? Were you bitter that you weren't sharing the day with someone? Annoyed by all the red and pink balloons and teddy bears that let's be honest grown women should not be receiving anyway. Did all the commercials and cards and flower people just get under your skin? Did you resolve to commiserating with the chocolate people who are the clear winners in this fiscal fight? Was this another scarry kind of day for you?

Or did you forget that this day exists? Did you simply wake up and go about your day like any other?

We all fall somewhere along the continuum...me, Valentine's day remains one of my all-time favorite days...I enjoy the sappiness and exuberant expressions of love. Growing up in a society that is completely infatuated with over-the-top gifts (I've heard stories of wealthy folks giving out cars as gifts) means that Valentine's day was  introduced to me as a happy occasion, regardless of whether I was gnashing (single) or not. It's also the birthday of some of my favorite people and unfortunately the day another favorite person passed.

 As I went through my own highs and lows of the day, I got to spend the day with a whole lot of people, some through texts, phone calls and many in person. Valentine's day this year reminded me that love comes in various packages and through different people.

And that love should not start or stop on Valentine's day. Love it or hate it, the day's a good reminder that the greatest thing we can share with others is our love. If the most loving thing you do for someone throughout the year is on Valentine's day, you might want to reconsider how you show love. There's no occasion needed to let the important people around you know of your love.

And who better to pour love into, than ourselves? Have you shown yourself love lately? What does that even mean for you...loving yourself? I would love to hear your thoughts.


Keep loving! 
Half-stepping diva

Loving You

Oh lawdie! I don fell off the bandwagon...and it backed up and rolled over me! over and over again! Ok, dramatics, but I did fall off and have lost my consistency in my dietary choices and it shows!

Since I have gotten to a more manageable weight, I decided to keep going and made a goal of discovering/building some ab muscles. You know, I purport to still carrying around some baby fat...no, not from having a baby...from when I was a baby 30 something years ago! And since I have been lackadaisical about my eating habits and my efforts in the gym, my potential for a 6 pack has expanded into the potential for a keg. Ok, still a bit dramatic, but my magic number of 35 inches around my mid section is slowly becoming a thing of the past. And this sister is not happy whatsoever about that!

As a 30 something year old woman I am definitely aware of how my appearance affects my daily interactions. I have used my perception of my body and/ or how it looks in clothes as a block to some things that I have wanted to do. Sometimes while getting ready to go out, I'd get so frustrated with my appearance that I simply would not go. Or decide against making plans in the first place because I didn't want to face the lying 3 way mirror in the dressing room, which has a sole purpose of seeking rolls of fat and putting it on magnified display. Though sometimes trivial, our appearance can be a stumbling block in our confidence and how we portray ourselves. And women are not the only ones who do not always feel confident about our appearance...it's a human thing that also affects our 30 something year old brothers as well...some of them are just better at not caring as much!

So once again, I'm resolving to consistency in my eating. I had cut out all added sugar (blog entry about how I finally lost the weight is coming soon!) but have slowly worked it back in my diet. So, back to what has worked, and focus on sculpting the muscles that I see trying to take shape. But above all those things, I am resolving to love my body no matter what she looks like!

I've recently been reminded of life's realities and with that, the importance of love, starting with love for all of me..including the silver hairs forming at my temples, my "athletic" build, my interestingly shaped toes and all those fat rolls that seem to only appear when I need to feel my best. I must love all of it. We often find faults with our body and harp on it, whether it's the acne that make us look 12 rather than 30 something, the extra body hairs that make us think of our Auntie Sally's mustache, premature graying, skinny legs, baldness, man boobs, a crooked smile or whatever we think should look better in order for us to feel great. But these are all the things that make us who we are and we often do not have control over them - no matter how hard I try, I will not grow past the 5'7" at which I currently stand (in fact, I might shrink as I get older!)

So as I chase the appearance for which I've been working so hard, I will continue to love me and not be so quick to criticize and demean myself. All of me is perfect. Period.

Half-stepping Diva

You have a Friend in Me

A couple of months ago, my jolly friendly parking attendant was replaced by two strangers. They were rude and they did not understand the arrangement that I had previously made with the other attendant and attendants before him. I found them generally annoying and had to keep myself from uttering names under my breathe after interacting with them. In fact when I drove into the parking lot, I often thought, ooh I have to deal with tweedle dee and tweedle dum. I felt that because they refused to understand me, they were intent on simply making my parking time unbearable. I was highly unpleased with them.

Then one day it hit me that these two are probably someone's father and possibly grandfathers. I saw one of them pull into the parking lot shortly afterwards and he had a Marines sticker on his car. I started noticing various things about the men that made them less...annoying.  I decided to adjust my attitude and the next morning, like I'd done with the previous attendant, I waved to them when I drove in and said a cheery good morning when I handed them my payment. The next day I noticed they waved first as I entered the parking lot and we exchanged greetings. All of a sudden my painful interaction had became a friendly place. With a simple attitude shift, I had made new friends.

I remember going to the market with my mom as a kid and she seemed to know soo many people! We would generally leave the house around 5 am to get the freshest vegetables...it was usually too early to be coherent let alone friendly, but my mom made her stops around the market and talked to her "friends". I learned as I got older that these women were virtually strangers to her, but for the purposes of her shopping experience, they were her friends. They had little nicknames for her and she always had something to tease them about.

We tend to treat people differently once they lose the mystical strangeness about them. During traffic my anger quickly dissipates if the person that just cut me off turns out to be someone I know. This has happened on several occasions with friends and coworkers who were just in a hurry. I've dismissed it with justifications of inattentiveness, which is generally unlike the irritation I feel towards all the other strangers on the road. We tend to forgive faster and not get so worked up when there is a connection with the other person.

I find that making this application to all aspects of my life can be very beneficial. Of course I do not have to trust everyone I encounter or make friends with everyone, but by seeing others as people and not barriers, harmful creatures of the other world or roadblocks in life, I can get to my destination with so much less stress and anguish.

Park Geun-hye

So a few weeks ago when I drove into the parking lot, I asked one of the gentleman whose name I now know, what's new, as  he was reading the newspaper. He informed me that South Korea had just sworn in a new president...and she's a woman. Wow! I learned something new.

Half-stepping diva

November 15: Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift that's why it's called present

I have been mulling over starting a blog for quite a while. And it recently hit me, what better time to officially “launch” it than November 15.  This date of course holds some significance for me. This is the birthday of one of my dearest friends who was taken away way too soon. It’s been about 5 years since his passing…and I’ve had a lot of time to reflect, pray and cry about losing someone very close to me. So I figured on what would have been his 33^rd birthday which falls on Thursday (day he was born) it would be fitting to celebrate a new phase of my journey by sharing a bit more of me with the world. He would have been so proud of this blog and probably have been the first person to log on to comment. He was one of my most vocal cheerleaders and always encouraged me to go to higher grounds.  

We were friends from childhood and he was the first boy to give me butterflies. When I moved from Ghana, he wrote to me and often. We talked on the phone whenever we could. We shared a love of music and he sent me CDs of the latest music in Ghana whenever he could. He was instrumental during my high school years…encouraging me to stay strong regardless of what I was experiencing and how difficult it was for me to adjust to my new world. In college he kept up with the letters and phone calls. During this time we got closer…after some time apart. We were both growing up and experiencing different phases of our lives. Being four years older meant that he experienced life before I did and got to give me advice as to how to manipulate through my world. Thanks to technology, we were able to keep in touch with emails and more regular phone calls. I was in grad school when he died. Less than a week before his passing we had chatted online…the last thing we exchanged before he logged off was “I love you”. This has been a very reassuring part of me losing my friend…he knew I love him.

Since then I have lost few other loved ones…each time it was even more difficult to accept that I would never talk to them or see them again.

Losing my friend taught me quite a bit. We had been friends for so long and many times I took our friendship for granted. After he passed and I started to mourn his loss, I realized that my tears of sadness  had become tears of regret…I was really crying because I regretted not spending more time with him or talking more to him or whatever else I could come up with. That feeling impressed on me so much more than realizing that I had lost him. I could accept that it was God’s will and that he was in a better place. But I struggled with the idea that I hadn’t done more as a friend.

This ushered me into a place of growth…I realized that life really is too short and I could not afford living in regret. This meant that I had to take others into consideration in all my actions. If anything were to happen to them, I could not afford to be regretful about the way I treated them. This meant spending more time with people I love, being positive around them, taking care of them, and loving them with all of me. My goal with all the connections I have made is to give them my best.

Gift from Yao in 1998

It has been very challenging to constantly do the right thing. But I’ve learned to forgive faster, laugh more, love harder and work on being in the present. I’ve been blessed to meet a lot of people…many of whom I’ve had a solid connection. I hope to continue building friendships, relationships and of course grow from my interactions with so many wonderful people.

So Yao, this blog is dedicated to you. Thank you for being such a friend to me. Thanks for being my first valentine…you’ll always be my valentine.  Even though you passed on our favorite holiday, I will always celebrate Valentine ’s Day with love in my heart. And I will continue to share my love with all the special people around me.  Happy birthday, sweetie. Much love always.   

Half-stepping diva