Grand"Mother" Lillie

Last week, my Sister called and told me that our maternal grandmother was not doing well and she felt I needed to come home. Apparently, she was officially dead for 30 minutes but she was resuscitated. My heart immediately sank because when I left home in July my grandmother was doing well. There was nothing wrong with her that made feel that I needed to worry while I was overseas. However, I listened to my sister and started preparing for a trip back to the States. I called my mom and she stated that she didn’t think I needed to come home just yet. “Just wait” she said. At this point, I am unsure what I am waiting on, but I tried to remain calm and focus my energies on other things. After all, God is in control. Right?

I waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, I received the official phone call to come home.

I jumped on the plane on Monday morning and arrived in Charleston, SC at 10:00 PM on Tuesday night. I immediately went to the hospital to sit with Mother. Her eyes were closed but I could tell that she was up and listening. I read 93 Psalms, her favorite scripture, and then just sat with her expressing my love through touches and kisses. It was very difficult for me to see my grandmother like this, but I tried to remain strong. We (my mother, Auntie Ann, and Amber) played inspirational music for her while we sat around her. The last song we played before we left was “It’s your Time” by Luther Barnes. It was getting late and I could tell she was staying up just for me. So I kissed her good-bye and left the hospital with the intentions of returning at 6 AM.

On our way home, we received the phone call that my grandmother had passed away shortly after we all left the hospital. That was one of the hardest phone calls I have ever received. Yet, I was immediately at peace because I felt as if she waited on ME. I can’t imagine how I would have dealt with all this if I hadn’t had the opportunity to see her alive and touch, hug and kiss her one last time.

As she wished, we planned her funeral within 3 days and it was one of the best home going celebrations that I have ever attended. I think everything went flawlessly and it was a refreshing to be around family and friends, unexpectedly.

A special thank you to all my friends who drove to SC to see me, sent cards, flowers or edible arrangements: SRA family, Nicole Scott, Tricy Liferidge, Naidra Hemingway, Nneka Wells, Lennox Browne, Crystal Dickerson, LJ Raines, Lisa Ernest. Your support was greatly appreciated by my family and me.

To Mother: I love you and miss you. I will always reflect on the life lessons that you have instilled in me. My affection towards others is what I know I have learned most from. Being appreciative of all things given to me and expressing my love to those around me are what I value most from you. Until we meet again…

Parasailing in Cabo San Lucas

This weekend, I started off 2011 by going on vacation. My friend, Siobhan, wanted to celebrate her 30th Birthday in the warm, tropical Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. I have never vacationed in “off months”, but I think it is a trend that I will continue. The weather was high 70‘s during the day. While on vacation, I decided to check off another item from my Bucket List; parasailing.

The experience was so awesome that words do it no justice. I think I was a bird in my former life. I don’t consider myself adventurous, in the least, but being in the air gives me a natural high. I parasailed across the beaches in Cabo and even though the moment was 10-12 minutes in the air, it was one that I will forever cherish and remember for a lifetime.

Hopefully, I can encourage you to try parasailing. I promise you won’t regret it.

Learning to Say No

One of the areas in my life in which I have self-identified as needing help is the art of saying no. I find that one of the reasons I don’t get ample sleep, is because I stay up late trying to complete a task that I committed myself to. This task could be very simple but due to the fact that my day is overloaded with other commitments in which I volunteered or agreed to, some things get re-prioritized. People often state that they want your honesty and can handle rejection, but this is hardly ever the case.

This realization was put into practice last night. I was having a casual conversation with a friend when she invited me to dinner with one of our Sorors. I politely declined the offer and was given the third degree about my decision. “Why don’t you want to have dinner? You are so social.” I stated that I didn’t have anything against the Soror in question but I just didn’t want to give up any of my personal time just for the sake of appearing “social”. This friend was really having a hard time hearing me say no. And I assume this is because no one is used to hearing me say NO. This becomes a problem because I feel this is how many people are taken advantage of. When you NEVER say no, you start getting a reputation as being “nice, friendly, and social” and to me this translates as a push-over.

My friend made my point in her rebuttal. She even stated that she thought I liked entertaining and being social. Please don’t get me wrong; I do love people. But there are so many of my close friends that I need to keep in touch with and reach out to that I don’t want to make time for those that don’t deserve it. Did that come out wrong?

The art of saying no has been a process. For instance, I am now trying to follow this without feeling the need to give a reason. Sometimes, I say no because I don’t feel like it. Sometimes, I say no, and don’t wish to follow it with a reason because I haven’t mastered how to let my comment come out without sounding like I am criticizing, complaining, or gossiping. Other times, I just don’t feel like a reason is necessary. However, it never fails; Someone gets offended by my response and demands a why statement.

I do consider this to be a 12-step process. In which I would like to claim that I have progressed to step 3.

Do you find yourself committing to things all because you haven’t learned how to say no?

The Financial FOUR

Is this the week of a full moon? I am not sure that the last week has really been weird. I think that is the only word that is appropriate. In the last seven days, I have had four requests asking for financial assistance.

The first text message was for help with a down payment for a car. She stated that she would pay me back next week when she got paid. Later, I found out that she was purchased an Acura TSX.
I have been burned by this statement before so I hold no truth to this. I responded with a very polite no.

The next day, the second request came as a text message and this friend asked to borrow (an undisclosed amount) money since she just moved back to the area from North Carolina and funds were night. As before, I didn’t respond because I have a hard core rule about asking for money via text. See Texting Etiquette. However, this situation disturbed me slightly because I offered HER a FREE place to reside while she got on her feet and she denied me because she said I lived too far. I get it..ok. But I offered you what I could AFFORD at the time--stability (a roof over your head, running water, and electricity) not financial assistance.

Two days later, I receive a text message from a family relative in South Carolina asking to borrow $50 until next week (See a pattern?). Staying true to my rule I didn’t respond, but I wondered 1) Was I supposed to wire her this money? 2) When she paid me back, was she going to include the wire charge? I am confident that I know the answer to these questions.

Immediately, I began to pray. I wondered what type of test/challenge was God preparing me for. If you read my blog regularly, you understand that I am a cheap skate and very frugal with my money. I am thankful for what I have but I strive to be wise in my financial decisions. Apparently, those on the outside take this as a front and do not believe that I am financially strapped when I say that I am.

In the past, I often commented that no one ever asked me for money. I assumed that meant that everyone understood I was in this struggle with them and did not have much disposable income. Sheesh! That theory went right out the door with spandex jeans.

So if you are keeping up, you realize that I only mentioned three so far. My fourth, and I pray my last, encounter came from an old colleague of mine. She actually CALLED! I don’t speak to her often so when she called my house phone, cell phone, house phone, and cell phone (in that order) , I knew that she wanted SOMETHING. A woman’s intuition is seldom wrong. She proceeded to give me a sob story about her cable and then closed with “So can I borrow $178 until...(you fill in the blank)?”. Yep, that’s right, NEXT WEEK!!!

All I could do at this point was chuckle. I explained to her that I wasn’t laughing at her struggle but I was really beginning to believe that this was my test. God, why me? Seriously, why?

I don’t wish to turn my friends down when they are in need, but money for a cable bill is just taking our friendship for granted. Do you know how long I went without cable in my life?? Cable is NOT a necessity. EVER!

You must agree, last week I entered the Twilight Zone...

Mr. Right

I received this email last Summer. I wanted to post it to receive your comments. When I forwarded the email, I received some very interesting replies...both positive and negative. Please share your thoughts.

"Find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot; who calls you back

when you hang up on him; who will lie under the stars and listen to

your heartbeat; or will stay awake just to watch you sleep... wait for

the boy who kisses your forehead; who wants to show you off to the

world when you are in sweats; who holds your hand in front of his

friends; who thinks you're just as pretty without makeup on; One who

is constantly reminding you of how much he cares and how lucky he is

to have YOU... The one who turns to his friends and says, "that's

her"....(author unknown/ )

Myspace Sucks!!

[This post was originally posted on Myspace.]

Sorry, Tom. I hope you don’t delete my post but I am taking my first amendment right to blog about how much I hate your website.

First, Myspace is totally overrated. This networking thing has gotten out of hand when relationships are compromised because of actions taken on Myspace. I have a friend who is constantly in disagreements with her boyfriend because of comments that other females are posting on his page. Now, this could bring up other concerns such as one’s insecurity or lack of trust, but I just think that this wouldn’t have been a factor if Myspace didn’t exist.

Second, why are people so serious about this Top Friends thing? Are you serious? I have to prove how much you mean to me by listing you in my Top Friends section. Again, Tom, this is a way to isolate and form barriers within one’s circle of friends. If you are popular and you have more than 36 close friends, you are screwed and are bound to hear the question, "Why am I not in your top friends?"

Third, at what age is too old to be on Myspace? Personally, I think once you are 30 years old, you need to enroll in a 12-step program and remove yourself from this nonsense, that we are addicted to. I once thought Myspace was more attractive to the high school/teenage audience and hence I was very hesitant to join. It’s so interesting to me, however, that studies have shown that the average age of Myspace users are 35-49 years old. Stop playing! In this day in age, that means that someone’s Grandparent is on Myspace! (SCREAM!!) So now my grandmother is going to shrug me off if I don’t include her in my Top Friends?
Myspace can be blamed for a lot of the confusion this world is facing. I just don’t find it a coincidence that Myspace and the war in Iraq both were conceived at the same time. Get my drift!! Myspace is the cause of the war in Iraq.
I rest my case.

P.S. Don’t ask why I am still logging in everyday. I haven’t turned 30 yet. LOL