What I've Learned From Mean Black Girls

So the obvious thing I’ve learned from mean black girls is, to not be one!

You know when you make a post (or comment on one) and somebody has something ugly to say back? That’s them folks I don’t like! Why do we have to be so rude to each other? Black folks in general as far as that goes. Why is it just the norm to go at each others throats in these comment sections? Or better yet, in real life!

This hate applies across many races and ethnicities but I want to address my own people today. I want to talk about how as black women, we are always worried about who said sum'. A long standing offense amongst us is “she think she cute!” But why can’t she? And why can’t you think the same simultaneously.

As a black woman, how sincere are you when you comment “yaaaassssss,” “okay queen” or “I see you sis” on another black woman’s post or say it in real life? Do you really mean it? Or is it just a surface level thing that we do with each other? Are you apart of the “performative sisterhood” as sports journalist Jemele Hill calls it. Deep inside, are you a mean black girl who’s grown into a mean black woman?

I’ve spent a good majority of my life, smiling more than most probably do because of the instant threat black women feel towards one another. To ease the tension that just exists amongst us when we see a woman on her shit by whatever means her shit is poppin’ and sadly, even smiling is sometimes perceived as intimidation. I say this with love but I mean it at the same time, I’m tired of going above and beyond for your sensitivity now! And your lack of recognition for your own downfalls, shortcomings, and the improper lessons that sit in your mind about other black women.

Any accomplishment I’ve made in life have always been attributed to everything but my intelligence, resourcefulness, hardwork, resilience, ability to persevere and most importantly, my without a shadow of a doubt, faith in God. It’s always been, “she must’ve slept with somebody,” she probably got sugar daddy,” “her man takes care of her,” “she kissed somebody’s ass” or just because they think I’m cute.

I love this Red Table Talk (<<< click to watch, it’s good) on this exact subject, because we hear a very candid conversation from the ladies and their guests, sports journalists Jemele Hill and Cari Champion, about why women are so mean to each other. One “tweet-able moment” (as Oprah calls it), Jada says it’s a “survival over sisterhood” mentality. We spew black girl magic all day but it’s really every women for herself in these melanin streets. Stats from the Twisted Sisterhood show that “60% of women say they are distrustful of other women because of past experiences.”

In an article by Arah Iloabugichukwu she states the same sentiment by saying “before we’re taught sisterhood, we’re taught survival. Which is ironic considering we’d probably need to know a lot less about survival if we collectively understood a little more about sisterhood.” She goes on to say how our weight, skin color, height, curves, backside, hair and make-up are what we are programmed to idolize in how to categorize and prioritize black women and how “we’ll continue to subscribe to whatever narrative earns us our “fair share,” which, unfortunately in our case, is the one that pits us against each other.”

I believe black women are the backbone of black culture. We can not be at war with one another and expect our race to survive as a whole in a world where we are already fighting multiple systems designed to eradicate our blackness from this earth. How can we want so much respect from our oppressors and not be able to give it to ourselves? And that’s blackness as a whole as well. Throw the entire system we’ve been taught away!

“As black women, we can be so hard and cruel to one another.” Where does it come from? A catalyst to this mean girl syndrome is believed to be spawned from our upbringings. Jemele said these “lessons of mistrust are bread in our own home” and we pass it on to other women. It’s built on watching our mothers gossip about their “friends” to other “friends.”

We watch and hear the backstabbing as children and it’s just instilled in us from generation to generation to be this way. I myself can’t stand to hear gossip as a full grown woman today. My grandmother, God knows I loved her and thank her for her sacrifice to raise me when my parents could not, but we called her the “mouth of the south” because she gossiped about any and everybody on the telephone EVERY. DAY.

And rather than falling into it as I got older like most women do, it did something to me and I wanted to dismantle it. I never wanted to pass that much judgment on people and if I wanted to ask about someone to that extent, I would talk to them directly.

Cari said that “childhood lasts forever” and the things that are instilled in us usually have to be unlearned at some point to be better versions of ourselves as adults. As women, we learn many of our habits, good and bad, from our mothers. Our first real moment of female bonding. Some of us are taught the right way to love and celebrate other black women but many of us are not. A lot of us don’t have great relationships with our mothers which forms the ideas of hate towards other women early. I surely don’t and my grandmother did the best she could but she was too busy bringing home the bacon and cooking it too to show me “the way”.

Jada asks “if we don’t have great relationships with our mothers, how do we learn to relate to others?” It’s a real struggle to recreate relationships we’ve never experienced. We were taught to be hard, strong, independent and never to be vulnerable. We were taught to compete against one another, especially professionally. We are judged by everything we do as a black woman. “We get judged on how we look, we get judged on our hair, we can’t even love who we want to love,” Cari says. “We are always wrong.”

We need to be more vulnerable and human towards one another and go hard together against those who want to see us fall. We have to give each other the grace others don’t. We go through enough as it is. I feel the resentment that creeps up in me when other black women win, again, it’s instilled in us. But I fight it, HARD! I make sure I don’t give women their flowers in vain.

I consciously give all queens their props knowing God still has blessings for me too and that my time is my time. I want them to be happy for me when my day comes. One thing we do, we remember who celebrated our wins with us when they were down and who didn’t. I want genuine love when I make it. Not a bunch of fakeness and women talking about me behind my back.

I’m not afraid to stand up for myself whether in person or on social when folks act up but at the same time, I have a level of anxiety that haunts me from when I was. When the mean girls used to go in on me and I didn’t know how to verbally fight back. I try to avoid drama at all costs. When I’m on social, I usually don’t comment on controversial posts because I know somebody is going to have something to say. When I do, I prepare my mind for what may be said but always try to respond with grace and a sense of understanding that the ugliness has been brainwashed in us and it’s going to take more people who have unlearned this behavior to do the work and change the narrative for others.

People get real bold behind these screens but why can't we just accept others opinions, have healthy debate, and not tear each other down? I’ve gotten to the point where I tell people who start that nonsense in the comments with me, “I’m not going to argue with you over a difference of opinion because we as black people are fighting enough evils in this world as it is.” We can correct each other without dragging one another for filth.

Rather than basking in the destruction of one another, it’s time to push for true sisterhood. We must learn to love the very things about ourselves that don’t measure up according to what we are taught and appreciate it for what God gave it to us for; our own uniqueness in hair, body type and skin color then use our individual weapons of warfare to show that our blackness is enough (“on Jesus and Jollof” - you gotta be a Luvvie Ajayi and Yvonne Orji fan to catch that lol). Not just to each other but to the world!

We are in a time where todays generations are learning how to unlearn the traumas of our ancestors before us more and more and I love to see it! Let’s denounce our mean girl ways. It’s time to put an end to the oppressed becoming the oppressor. Even if you have to call a thing a thing like Gabriel Union did on her come to Jesus Red Table Talk moment here. She admitted it, she was “a hater, a troll and the worst part of the comment section on social media.” She had to come to grips with her mean girl ways and she is not the only one that needs to do it! Let’s be real y’all. Go ahead and look in that mirror and make sure it’s not you too.

We also need to learn how to be the girlfriend who pulls our friends coat tail in a loving way without squashing them in order to tell them, they are the mean girl. If you attack they won’t hear you. And if you are on the receiving end of the convesation, be ready to hear it and accept it. The community is the only one who can truly check the community. We have started the conversation. Let’s keep it going.

Thanks for reading,

~xoxo,

Candace Blair

Why I Should Hate My Father But Choose Love

The Power of Forgiving

Sometimes I wonder how I ended up with the father I have. How does God choose our fathers? Why does he choose them? Why do men who deserve children not have them while those who don’t, do? Why do good kids have bad fathers and bad kids have good ones? What about the father/child duo who seem like the perfect match, how’d they get so lucky?

My dad wasn’t the best. He wasn’t the smartest. He wasn’t the most loving. He wasn’t the type of father I felt anyone would want to call “dad” because of the way he treated me. In fact I called him by his name, Curtis. He was just a man with kids that he didn’t know how to properly raise because of his inability to mentally, emotionally and spiritually process his own shortcomings in life. My childhood was consumed with him blaming his downfalls on me. He also talked very condescendingly while he did it. He did not encourage me to be anything, want anything or have anything in life like fathers are supposed do, so how did he earn the title of a dad? 

In fact, he did quite the opposite. He taught envy, selfishness, poor self-esteem, hate for others including family and violence against people he deemed a threat to him even when they meant well. So again I ask, why was he a father? Why was he my father? I didn’t believe in what he preached nor could he persuade me to. What good did he do me? He didn’t teach me how to save money, how to carry a conversation, how a man should treat a woman, to embrace my imagination or deal with the overwhelming emotions of my mother not being around during my childhood. There’s nothing positive I can directly attribute to him for purposely putting forth a conscious effort at making sure he schooled me in the game of life that takes the form of a value or skill that I would need later down the road. Nothing.  

I feel like I deserved a father who showed me how to embrace my differences, to enjoy my adventurous spirit and pursue my thirst for the curiosities of this world with every ounce of zeal I had in me. And to leave no stone unturned in the process. I wonder who I would be if I had that? How far would I have gone? How great would my accomplishments be had a dad been my biggest cheerleader along the way? 

But, that’s not what God gave me. So now what? Now, I let it sink in. Now I let it be what it is. Now it becomes a lesson within itself. Now it becomes a story of healing. Now it becomes a journey of unlearning. Now it becomes my empowerment to truly understanding the potential I have through self discovery. You may read this and think I hate my father. When I was younger, I did in the sense that all kids “hate their parents.” But no, I don’t hate him.

As a grown woman, fully in-tune with who she is, good and bad, I hurt for him. I hurt for him never knowing a world outside of the space he locked himself into. My dad was the epitome of social distancing. So I hurt for him pushing himself away from us. I hurt for him never living his dreams. I hurt for him never owning a home. I hurt for him never embracing his family with real love and compassion. I hurt for him never being mentally stable enough to enjoy life for what it was.

I hurt for him for the overwhelming embarrassment he felt for the man he let himself become. I hurt for him not knowing how to truly smile without worry. I hurt for him never seeing the world with me. I hurt for him not knowing a life of pain and strife. I hurt for him not being able to be a true grandfather. I hurt for him not knowing how to alleviate the source of his anger and taking it out on me instead. I hurt for him because he didn’t know how to hurt for himself in order to become a better him. 

Not only do I hurt for him, I forgive him. He never got it right, but deep inside I know he wanted to. I saw the good in him even when he didn’t show it to others. When I was a little girl I’d lay under the junk cars he’d buy and fix up with him watching him work for hours. When it would start after all his hard work, every now and then when it was just us, I saw him forget his troubles and we would laugh and celebrate.

Sometimes we’d even sing songs by his favorite gospel group, The Williams Brothers, and dance a little too. He knew he didn’t have to worry about me laughing at him and that it was always with him. Especially because it was so rare to see him smile care free. He may not have instilled a laundry list of values in me, but he never left my brother and I. He couldn’t properly care for us, but he was always with us. He didn’t run away from us. He didn’t know what to do and when to do it, but he allowed my grandparents, his parents, to take care of us and him while he was forever figuring it out. 

He hated every minute of it, but he knew it was best. After my mother left, we were living in a shack that I vividly remember at the age of three because it had no working toilet. There were no light fixtures so Curtis would plug up a work light when we needed it. And I can’t exactly remember but I don’t think there was even running water. The shack looked very similar to the cover photo of this story. Even back when we lived there. Ours was bulldozed over years later but the one I’m pictured with was right beside ours. Imagine the same house a third smaller without all the trees and you have ours.

I remember one night getting out of the bed that we all slept in together to use the bucket we had as a bathroom and a rat running across my feet. I screamed and jumped back in the bed still urinating and it got on the sheets. It wasn’t too long after that that my grandmother, his mom, came to get me. He followed reluctantly with my brother shortly after.

Curtis suffered his self-inflicted sabotage for at least 36 of my 38 years of life until the day he died, just a few months shy of his sixty first birthday. I remember looking at him as he lay in the church a few days before the funeral and wondering if he was proud of me for defying his odds in life. He always told me what I couldn’t have and what I couldn’t be, but I was everything he didn’t think I’d be and more.

He didn’t know how to say “I’m proud of you,” “good job,” or “you did it!” He just had a way of asking me about my life over the years, and saying “alright then” that I took as his way of saying he was wrong about me, that he’s sorry for what he said and that he was indeed, proud of me as his daughter. I accept that that was his way and I believe he knew that I did and we both made peace with it. 

He definitely stopped telling me what I couldn’t do or be once I did it and became it. He was an entire emotional and mental hurdle in life to jump within himself. Let alone the expected ones that we leap over on our journey to success. So in his own way, him believing in my downfall, as far back as I can remember, is how he gave me the grit and determination I have to be everything I dreamed and more. He gave me a will power to show him, but most importantly myself, that I was somebody!

Although I can assume he was proud, the assumption will never take place of the real words. So I call a truce with him based on what I feel like I knew. And with that, I loved him in a unique way that I don’t fully know how to explain, that only he and I understand. Just like our rare moments of laughing, singing and dancing when I was a little girl. And it’s enough to have the mental release I need to move forward in my continuous journey to becoming a better me. I hurt for him in a way that opens a floodgate of tears when I think about all that he missed in his sixty years of life. Too afraid to come out of his room and take a chance on himself. So I live for him to help ease the pain.

I cremated my father against the will of almost everyone in my family because he told us to. Black families don’t like the idea of cremation, especially black families in the south from the back woods of the country, so it was a struggle to get some to accept it but they had to in the end. My biggest reason for the cremation was never explained, but more understood between my father and I. It was because he hid himself from the world out of shame for who he’d become and I knew that.

When he was having a good day he would admit it; that he didn’t want people to see him like he was so he sheltered himself away until he could get on his feet. That day never came. So in his death, I would not allow people to see the version of himself that he hated. This was bigger than tradition. This was about my fathers dignity. Who he was as a man. For the people who hadn’t seen him since his better days, I wanted them to remember him for his better days. Not the laughing stock, “crazy man” they heard he’d become in his latter. 

So my brother and I, uncles and aunts (his sisters and brothers), said our goodbyes before they turned his body to ashes. For anyone who didn’t accept my decision, when it was all said and done, my decision was for my father to accept and I know he did. No one else’s opinion outweighed his immortal gratitude for honoring him. I still have his ashes and plan to spread a little across the world as my way of showing him a better life than the one he knew. To help him shed the layers of humiliation that plagued him the majority of his days on this earth. 

Father’s Day and Mother’s are traditionally celebrated as days of joy and appreciation for your parents but for someone like me, it’s been years of a facade. A fake forgiveness created by generational curses in black families that drown truths by pretending that “ the thing” doesn’t exist and hoping for the best. That is not real life. The psychological traumas we experience from a parent, the person we are supposed to trust most in life, can and will last a lifetime if you never take the time to process it.

If you can’t resolve your hurts with your parent(s) directly, you still have to forgive for your own true peace of mind. Forgiveness does not mean you condone what they did. It means you release it. You make the required steps towards “happiness, self-acceptance, and maturity.” I encourage you to read this article about forgiving your parents as it sums up why what I’ve done in the process of forgiving my father is such an important step to take in your life. We must realize our parents were hurting people too and therapy wasn’t as accepted in their time as it is in ours.

I pray that those of you who have hurt to liberate yourself from, receive the strength and determination to push through when it gets hard and when it becomes ugly. Because it will become both and then some. I believe in you, I encourage you and I welcome you to ask me anything that you think will help you achieve the level of happiness you deserve as you process this moment of your life. Feel free to comment below and go get the life that’s waiting for you!!

“You can’t build anything if you are not willing and sometimes seeking, suffering.” -Will Smith

~xoxo

Candace Blair

The Subtle Art of Showing You Still Give A F*ck About A Person You Say You Don't

So, when I say you still give a f**k, I mean it in multiple ways. In relationships it could mean you aren’t truly over the person you were with. Or maybe you don’t want them back but deep down you’re still hurt behind what they did. I get it! You want revenge, a sincere apology, for them to get ran over and you end up with the insurance money, SOMETHING! You want justification for the time, the love and the sacrifices you gave them. But guess what? More than likely, your way will not work. 

Suffering is a part of the journey that makes you, YOU! It’s time to stop the shenanigans though. Social media drama is not a good look on anyone! Especially if you are grown grown. If you follow me on IG, I gave you three clear reasons why in my post about the same thing (read it here so my rant makes more sense). Here’s the quick breakdown:

• It’s completely unbecoming of you

• It gives your haters ammunition to drag your name

• You won’t reach your goal, which is moving on

“Feel the fear but never let it drive the wheel” Bishop TD Jakes. I’m going to drop a lot of gems from the Bishop, who just speaks so profoundly on any subject, but these are nuggets of goodness from one of his Super Soul Sunday podcasts with Oprah Winfrey. PLEASE LISTEN TO IT HERE!! It’s sooooo good!!

Before you make another post remember, warning always comes before destruction! Many times, I’ve seen these situations have more to them than what we are seeing on social media. There’s always some underlying root cause. Some details being left out that the person doing all the exposing “forgets” to mention that they did. 

You know like when your kids have you at the school going in on the principal for suspending them then the principal tells you your kid had been forging your signature on all the tests he was supposed to take home for you to sign as acknowledgement of his failing grades? Those type of details. 

And to be honest, shame on you as someone’s friend for not telling the whole truth so people can rightfully decide if they want to support your mission to completely slander someone’s name. Maybe what the person did to you is justified from actions that you didn’t speak on. And deep down you know your friends may think so too which is why you didn’t tell them what you did to escalate this situation.

Seriously, I know people who have dirt in a relationship that didn’t come to the light. Only us real friends know about it. But soon as your partner does something wrong, you go IIIINNNN trying to make them look bad! Why? Did you forget what you did? I mean, are you going to test God’s grace by putting your partners business in the streets like God won’t put yours out there too? Tuh! Try Him, He can show you better than He can tell you!

If you want to keep your dirty little secrets, I highly suggest you stop testing God’s gangsta. He remembers what you did. And you need to remember that He didn’t let you get exposed.

Now let’s address friends that gas these situations up in three little words; just stop it! I’m all for standing up for family and friends when someone does them wrong for sure. But I am not for coddling a person’s borderline narcissistic thoughts to bring down another human being. People make mistakes. That’s life! There was probably signs they shouldn’t have got together to begin with that you didn’t speak on so don’t drag the other person now! You need to be trying to help your friend heal and figure out how to move forward at this point.

I’ve never done social media drama, but I have made little slick posts. Scroll back a few years on my IG so you can see how far I’ve come. I’ve never been a spiteful person either. I’ve seen how it affects other people to be in drama on social media, what folk’s thought of them and how people that were supposed to be their friends talked about them behind their backs. It only takes ONE time for me to have or witness a bad experience to make sure that it never happens to me again. 

“In the face of pain, we must not forfeit our dignity” -Bishop TD Jakes

It’s hard but trusts God’s timing. I’m 38 now, but when I was 19 years old, I got married, had a child and gave my all to a relationship that left me feeling like sh*t. It was over by the time I was 23. I uprooted my whole life and completely changed who I was for this person and they moved right on like it didn’t mean a thing to them. THAT HURTS!! A LOT!!

I wanted so many bad things to happen to him and many times I wanted to be the one to do them. I cried, I had days where I didn’t want to get out of bed, not even my son was motivation to push through the pain. But guess what, as time went by, it got easier. 

 As much as I wanted to be uncooperative with him for what he did, I wasn’t. As much as I didn’t want my child around his new girlfriend, I let him go over. I didn’t open my mouth when she came to the gas station drop-offs even though I didn’t’ think she needed to be there. Because I knew deep down, it was the hurt talking. I aimed to be the BEST hurt baby mama I could be. Which I was.

Now this IS NOT easy to do. Sometimes it comes out. But you have to get to a point where it doesn’t. You have to pass that thing to whatever higher power you serve, mine is God, and trust Him to handle it. One thing I never wanted was for my son to see me say or do anything negative towards his father. He had the potential to be a really good dad and I know he loved his son.

Too many women use the poor babies as ammunition against the man that wronged them and I’m telling you now, you are hurting those kids more than you are hurting that man. One thing I always feared is that my son would remember me keeping him away from his father or me saying bad things about his dad and not forgive me for them when he got older. So, I let him form his own opinion about his dad. It was not my place to give him based on my experience. Unless your kids are in true danger, DO NOT keep them from their mother or father. Their bond is bigger than you. Don’t be selfish. 

“There is elegance even in agony that ultimately awards selfless sacrifice and I’ve learned that eventually truth and mercy will always dedicate those who have endured the hardships of life…we will emerge despite our own depravity” 

– Bishop TD Jakes

Now, did the tables turn fast after all the wrong he did to me, NO! God waited years but when I tell you it was so sweet! There’s no way it would’ve been as satisfying had I handled it myself. LET THE REDEEMED OF THE LORD SAY SO!!!! I got a call from the girlfriend one day because they had broken up. I mean she went out her way to get ahold of me. Why she thought to call me I don’t know but maybe she remembered how hurt I was the one time she saw me act out of character from when they first got together so she thought I was still vulnerable enough to prey on. She wanted me to help her get back at him for the wrong he did to her!

I’m sure you can imagine all the things I would’ve liked to have said in this moment. First word I’m sure that comes to mind is “B*TCH!” Followed by “who the f*ck you think….” “haven’t you heard how you get ‘em is how you lose ‘em.” But I didn’t respond that way. I kept it cute. I kept it real. And I kept it short! I simply told her I can’t assist her with trying to bring him down but if she needed help getting back on her feet, I could help her figure out how to do so. His life wasn’t going as great as he’d planned either.

Mind you, when he left me, I had NOTHING! I lived in a homeless shelter with my son and he DID NOT CARE! He was with her living life and I’m sure she didn’t think twice about him helping us. He didn’t even give me money to buy diapers. He wasn’t on child support and to be honest, I was so bent on not needing anything from him that I told my lawyer when we filed for divorce (which I paid for) I didn’t want child support! 

I’m just naturally resilient. I knew I was going to be ok without it! But in the state of Texas you have to take it. Or at least you did back in 2005, so I got it anyway. It definitely came in handy needless to say. And from the age of about three until my son aged out of the child support system, I never bothered trying to raise the amount he paid. I got a really good amount compared to most but still, I never wanted to argue about money even though I could’ve gotten more. Don’t be her. Get what you are owed but not at the expense of your sanity. Sometimes you have to lose the battle to win the war! God will make a way!  

“Purpose will always outwrestle pain…it justifies the pain. It always leaves a gift behind…wisdom, strength, tenacity, something. But pain creates it.” -Bishop TD Jakes

That quote was so good to my soul!! And now that I’m on the other side of it I truly understand how my pain made me who I am. Allow yours to do the same. 

Now, being the unofficially titled self help guru that I am, here are my tips to be a better you and they are based on as usual, my own experiences and what I’ve learned from resources I use to continuously outdo who I was yesterday. Here goes:

1.     HAVE A PLAN: When you don’t get what you want in return from your “person,” YOU NEED A BACK UP PLAN TO COPE WITH THE EMOTIONS YOU GET FROM THAT!!! Phone a friend, go for a walk, pray! Whatever works. This Therapy for Black Girls podcast calls it a coping kit. You make one before you need to cope obviously. That way, when those moments hit, you have something to help bring you through them. Learn more about it here.

2.     MISERY LOVES COMPANY: Trauma bonds are real! Make sure you are confiding in someone who can actually help you! Not friends who help you stay stuck because they are too. That’s just another unhealthy environment of now two people who need healing supporting the same pains. You need someone to help you feel it, accept it and get over it.

3.     YES, NEW FRIENDS (Drake voice): Connect with people who’ve been through it (whatever your “it” is) and who are actually thriving after it. Not a constant convo about how “he/she ain’t sh*t,” “he/she a deadbeat” “you see what such and such did now,” these friends just gas you up to eventually do stupid things. Know your friends and where they are in life too. They may need the same help as you! Love them but don’t confide in them until they are in a better place!

4.     GIMME A BREAK (sing it like the song to the show from the 80’s lol): Get a hobby! Nobody wants to go to your pity party every day!! It’s draining!! Especially when you don’t listen to the advice given to you. Those friends that tell you the hard truth that you avoid because you really want someone to wallow in your pain with you day in and day out, they might be the ones you push over the edge and really end up telling you about yourself. Now you walking around mad and think they owe you an apology when really all they did was give it to you very raw because you won’t listen. Give us a break from the drama sometimes please!

 5.     MASK OFF (Future voice): You have to give yourself an opportunity to be vulnerable so the other person can have that opportunity also. Stop all the back and forth and just talk like two adults so you can come a mutual understanding on how to move forward whether you stay together or not.

6.     OLD HABITS DIE HARD: This takes time! You will backslide on this journey but remember we serve a forgiving God and hopefully the people going through it with you are just as forgiving 🙏🏽

Do we have a right to be upset about things in life, abso-F**KING-lutely! But don’t hide behind that. You have a responsibility not to stay there and control how you respond to those things. As Jakes says, “it is the divinity that we bring through suffering that determines the outcome thereof.”

Now go be a better you!

~xoxo

Candace Blair

How To Handle Your Emotional Triggers To Become A Better You

Understand What Pushes Your Buttons

Do you remember a time when you weren’t who you are today? Do you miss that person? If I could remake myself, I’d be as savvy about life as I am now but as sweet of a person as I was before “life” happened to me.

Why? Because me and my mouth now, oooo chile! First off, let me just say this mouth of mine has come a long way from being a girl who didn’t realize the power in her tongue, ok! And I mean that emotionally, mentally and biblically!

I know a lot of women don’t subscribe to the angry black woman vibe and feel that it is a false description of black women who speak up for themselves. I have to agree in some situations it very much is, like in the US Open final of 2018 when Serena Williams was labeled one. But I must say it is a very real title and a lot of women who hate being called one are just like I was, an angry black women who had triggers from her past that had not been dealt with but trying to live like I was all good.

So, what do I mean? Because I know some of you got that eyebrow raised like, “Candace, I thought we were cool, but I don’t know now!” Before you attack me in the comments hear me out. Now, it took some time but one day I got tired of being frustrated, getting into arguments in my relationship, having anxiety about how something was going to turn out after I “went off” and I had to really take a look in the mirror at the person I was presenting to the world versus the person I was behind closed doors and realize that I had an AT-TI-TUDE (and at times still do #workinprogress).

If you rubbed me the wrong way I could get hella loud, unyieldingly defensive and make my BEST attempt to take your entire soul with the words coming out of my mouth! THAT is not the definition of a woman who speaks up for herself. That is not a woman who is healed. That is not a woman who is signed, sealed and delivered from her pain and ready for any type of relationship with anyone.

Whether it be a friendship, significant other, how you engage with family, coworkers, etc., this woman will eventually bump heads with anyone who doesn’t see things her way rather than understanding that sometimes you have to agree to disagree or even open your eyes to the fact that you may very well be, WRONG! And admit it!! This is a woman who is hurt and has only brushed it under the rug rather than accepting the destruction it is causing and will continue to cause with the next person she tries to get close to.

As the saying goes, “hurting people hurt people.” If you can’t have a hard conversation without attacking someone (verbally, physically, mentally, etc.), regardless of what they say or do, you need to self-reflect on who you truly are deep down inside. Whether you can handle doing this on your own with books, podcasts and YouTube videos, or need a professional to get it done for you, you have to accept that you need help.

Now, speaking of seeing a professional, I’m seeing a rise in people say, “there aren’t enough black therapists to deal with black problems.” Well, according to an article in The Baltimore Sun, less than 10 percent of mental health professionals are black, and that’s more than double the amount we had from a study done in 2015 at just four percent.

So, do we just not address ourselves because this isn’t a thriving profession for black people? No! My therapist is a heavy set, blind, white woman. I LOVE HER! Because she tells it like it is and isn’t afraid to slap me in the face with the truth. I had to comb through a few to find her, but someone can help you regardless of skin color if you allow them to. In fact, it’s not necessarily as much about them being black as it is about them being culturally competent which my therapist very much is.

If you don’t know what to do but know you need to do something, you can start by just talking to yourself. Think about things like, how well do you control yourself in situations that make you cringe, give you anxiety and/or piss you off. Why are you like that in those moments? What are some things that “trigger” you?

Now this is where it gets deep, you have to figure out why “it” triggers you. You have to trace it waaaaayy back before the present moment you were triggered then ask yourself, how does THIS MOMENT relate to a time in my life when I was attacked or hurt by someone I valued and I couldn’t defend or speak up for myself?

What do I mean by this? Being fully transparent, I can’t stand for people to come at me in a rude, disrespectful, condescending or aggressive way. It triggers me to attack anyone who does. Stick and stones went out the window with me at a young age, lol! 

When I traced how I became this way, I remembered that I was yelled at a lot by my parents, not because I was bad, I call it “adventurous” haha, I was yelled at for reasons I didn’t understand. I was talked down to by both parents, treated like (and told) I would never amount to anything and made to feel less than by them my whole childhood.

No matter how hard I tried it wasn’t enough. I loved them both, but I always felt like they didn’t love me. My mother made me feel like my dark skin wasn’t good enough (among many other things) so she bought me soap that was supposed to lighten it. My dad always drilled into us that we (my brother and I) would never be smart enough to live up to his standard of what a productive black person was when we grew up. It was literally a life full of discouragement with both of them. As an adult, I now know they had their own problems they never addressed and they used their children as an outlet.

Because of them, I became fearful when it came to yelling, not measuring up and the feeling of what would happen when I tried to show/receive love. I then attached that fear to anyone that did those things to me and it became a trigger so I would defend myself the only way I knew how.

If you talked down to me, you would get the business! If you yelled at me, I would yell better! If you cheated on me, I would call you every name for a sorry man I could think of! Thank God I made it through the many other things I did to them as angry me because I could’ve gotten seriously hurt! That’s how I operated for years. When I got triggered and became fearful, it was the child that was still fearful, so my adult self protected my child self if that makes sense. Rather than realizing I needed to address the trigger created by my parents, I just started doing what I saw them do when I was triggered.

Our triggers can vary and be seemingly petty things. In a song off her latest album about just that, Jhené Aiko’s “triggered” lyrics lets us know that she’s “triggered when I see your face, triggered when I hear your name.” It can literally be that simple and you are pissed! Dirty dishes, the toilet paper turned “the wrong way” leaving a mess on the floor, the last person driving the car not filling up the gas tank, etc. We all have a thing that can make us “big mad” and that’s ok. But if it is a cycle that creates constant tension then you have a problem that needs attention.

When you start to address the things that make you trigger happy, you have to understand that your needs are not all that matter in your relationships with other people. But you also have to make sure that said needs are valid and that you aren’t putting unrealistic expectations on people. Otherwise, the things that go on in your head can trigger you to hurt people who have no clue how to help you. If you can’t get over your personal fear, doubts, worries, etc., you will not be available to be who you need to be for you or the person/people you love.

You also have to accept the fact that you have the power to make people slowly close themselves off to you and make your relationship fall apart. People will take a step away from you to protect themselves if you won’t. It’s hard to accept that you pushed someone away, but you very well can. You both may have wrongs, but you and only you are responsible for yours. It’s never their fault you did what you did.

Another reality of this process is the people causing you to be triggered, don’t necessarily know that they are doing it. You may think they should but if you’ve never had a conversation about it, they very well may not. Most of our triggers were created when we were children and we have brought them into our adult lives. We associate them with things that aren’t always true as children because we don’t know how to process our fears as a child.

Here are some steps to begin “fixing yourself.” They may require a counselor so don’t @me if you haul off and break somebody’s nose because you can’t handle you! Fair warning. I mean, imagine what others are feeling dealing with you if you can’t even deal with yourself!

 This is in no particular order:

• Recognize when you are being triggered. You may not be able to do it in the moment yet, but think about times when you acted outside of yourself and figure out what caused it. What emotion do you feel, anger, sadness, fear? Identify it and you can move forward with fixing it.

• What was the earliest memory you have of this feeling? This is more than likely when your trigger was formed. Your subconscious mind will remember something about this trigger if you allow it to.

• From there, you have to think of the “you” that you were before you became triggered and figure out how to be that person again. For me, there was a time before the triggers when I was always happy, and I remember it. I was actually very shy but still happy and innocent. I didn’t know how to be mean to people and sometimes I miss it. I always smiled and nothing ever got to me. It took the people I valued the most in life, my parents, boyfriends, family and friends to keep crushing my spirit until I finally gave in and that’s when I started to change. My triggers became real. 

• Realize that you can’t communicate with someone while you are in trigger mode, so don’t! Get ya mind right first. Your “person” will develop a responsive behavior to you that I promise you won’t like if you keep being triggered you towards them. They evolve with you for the good or the bad.

• You can’t be selfish and decide that someone else has to change first. You have to do it whether they do or not. This is for you first, and hopefully the both of you in the end.

  • Once one of you starts to release your triggers, the other person will fall in line. It’s a natural reaction when someone treats you better to do the same thing for them. 

• Understand that this is not a one-time process. You have to consciously do this over and over until you really have control over it. I’ve slipped up many times before I could begin to control it. I’m not perfect at it, but I’m so much better than I was.

• BONUS TIP: You can ask the person you hurt the most, what you do to hurt them if you swear you just CANNOT figure out what you do wrong. Trust me, THEY WILL TELL YOU! You just need to prepare your mouth to shut up and listen.

These steps took me quite a while to understand because I consider myself to be the self-help queen so I initially dealt with my triggers myself. I didn’t have a therapist and I didn’t understand the process of figuring out what a trigger was. I didn’t even know there was a process. Which is why I wanted to write this blog post because I know a lot of women that it could benefit so they don’t stay stuck as long as I was.

You can read more about what types of childhood situations create triggers in this article by Dr. Margaret Paul on what emotional triggers are and why you need to understand them. Sign up for my email list so you can read the mini-series I wrote around triggers, resources I’ve found to help you start your mental health journey and what I think people who operate in their emotional triggers do openly to let you know they need help.

My disclaimer about this article: I am not a licensed therapist so my opinions above are based on my personal experiences in addition to what I’ve been counseled on and read on my own. It is just a blueprint to get you started, not the end-all-be-all to your personal problems so please seek help if you need it.

Thank you so much for reading!

~xoxo

Candace

How Having Seven Kids Almost Killed Me

The Risks of Invitro Fertilization

Anyone that knows me is probably thinking to yourself after reading this title, “you do not have seven kids Candace!!” If so, where the hell are the other six because I’ve only met one? Well, you are partially right. I’ve never met the other six myself. Haha! Now I’m know you are like, WTF!

When I went back to college to get my bachelors degree, I decided that I didn’t want to work so I donated my eggs to women going through in-vitro fertilization. I was considered an A+ donor because I was extremely fertile. The medication we had to inject into our stomachs was designed to make us produce more eggs but the doctors would joke that I could inhale the meds and it would have the same effect. I over produced eggs when I took it so I was very full each time.

The process of donating your eggs involves a lot of evaluations and testing to make sure you don’t have any serious family history of illness the child may inherit whether it be medical or psychological. You also agree to sign over your right as the biological parent to the child and to never make contact with them in any way. This is to reduce the risk of kidnapping by donors who became attached. You don’t get any information on the receiving family so I’m not sure how people try to take the children later but I was told it does happen.

Once you reach the final stages of producing enough good sized eggs for donations, you prepare for an outpatient surgery to have them removed. You’re put to sleep, they take the eggs and it’s all over before you know it. Other than some cramping you really don’t feel any pain. I hated injecting myself in the stomach because those needles hurt but it was so heart-warning to donate my eggs to families that couldn’t have children on their own. It was also nice that we got paid to do it which is how I supported my son and I during and after college without working a job.

Unsplash, Arseny Togulev

The pay for donating your eggs started at $7000 per donation if I remember correctly and every donation after compensation went up $500. All expenses incurred during the process were reimbursed as well. I did five donations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and one in Oklahoma. My fifth donation was where things went bad and I actually died.

I was working at my now ex-in-laws family daycare and on one particular day I was not feeling well. I walked into my aunts office and she took me to the doctor that I was working with for my up and coming donation. I was maybe within a week or so of the retrieval and my ovaries were very full! By the time we got to the office I could barely walk. The nurse had me prop up on my hands and knees but shortly after I couldn’t hold the position because I was in extreme pain.

I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, my aunt was hysterical, the nurses and doctors couldn’t help and after the pain became unbearable all I remember was telling myself is, if I lay on the floor and close my eyes the pain will stop. Not remembering in all the movies that they tell you to keep your eyes open out of fear you’d die, all I knew was I needed to close them so it would stop! The nurses and doctors had walked out to get a stretcher and call 911.

My aunt also stepped out to get one of them back in the room to help me. That was the moment I slid down the chair I was sitting in, to the floor, laid my head back and closed my eyes. I remember being awakened by the ammonia thing (I don’t know what it’s technically called) that’s placed under your nose when you are unconscious a couple of times but passing right back out every time.

The out of body experience from my so called death showed me that I wasn’t going to hell lol! I saw a light. I didn’t see anyone and I couldn’t hear anything. I just saw a light but it didn’t seem like I was going to be entering it. Just that I needed to see it. I don’t know how long I was out, I just know by the time I woke up I was on a morphine drip in the hospital prepping for surgery. I was experiencing torsion of the ovaries. The most extreme pain I’d ever felt in my life. You know it’s serious when you are on a morphine drip and still feel the pain!

Unsplash, Casey Horner

I was very close to my ex-husbands family so his father, who was a preacher, came in to see me. His sister was my aunt (ex-aunt in law but I still love them all like family) that took me to the doctor so I’m sure she called him to pray for me. I was barely able to focus on what was happening but I remember seeing him for a brief moment and that he put his hand on me and talked to God on my behalf. As soon as he touched me, something shot through my body like I had gotten shocked and the pain was gone!

The doctors came back ready to take me to surgery and I told them I no longer was in pain. They couldn’t explain it. My ovaries just untwisted on their own. But for all of us that know God, we know He untwisted them. My father in-law came in like an angel, touched me then left. It’s like he was never really there but he was. I was released from the hospital like nothing ever happened. My aunt was a complete mess after seeing me basically die on the floor but thanking God when she saw me walk out. She told me to never do another egg donation ever again, rightfully so. But I did.

Not only did I agree to have the procedure to retrieve the eggs that almost killed me done, I did another donation some months later in Oklahoma for another couple. I had no complications and the retrievals went very smoothly.

So now you see how I have six more kids in addition to my first born son. I of course don’t know them but always hope that one day, they would find out that the mother they know is not their biological parent and want to find me. If not all of them at least one. I think it would be so amazing to meet them. Especially the one that almost killed me lol!

-xoxo

Candace ❤️

How Being Homeless Saved Me from Cancer

How God Always Has Us Covered

In the fall of 2000 I was 18 years old, in college, working and living in my own place; loving life! By the spring of 2001, I’d dropped out of school, was pregnant and had gotten married to my sons father. Trying to “do the right thing” with my circumstances. Truthfully, I was so embarrassed with myself that I tried my best not to be seen by anyone. Especially anyone I knew. I couldn’t fathom how I fell off so fast. How did I let go of my dream of independence and end up pregnant??? My husband joined the military to give us a better life because neither of us worked once I was with child. We were living off his minimal church musician paychecks before that and eating the Wendy’s meal deal which was “two burgers and two fries for two dollars.” Anyone remember that?

He ended up being totally different from the person I thought I’d met. He became a very controlling. Everything we owned belonged to him with the exception of a third car he’d bought later in the marriage which he couldn’t get on his own so it was in both of our names. He literally ran my whole life, I had no say so in anything. He chose how I dressed, where I went and who I could be friends with. It was a miserable way to live that I never saw coming. We were doomed to divorce from the start. We didn’t know what we were doing at 18 and 19 years old but you couldn’t tell us that.

To spare you all the details, aka long story short, the relationship and his cheating had gotten so bad that one night I finally decided I was done. We were living in Texas at the time after being stationed in Maine for a few years. We got into a huge fight one night which was the motivation I needed to packed my things in the one car that had my name on it and I leave. We hadn’t even made our first car payment on it so it was solely up to me to pay the note which meant I had to find a job quick.

I didn’t want anything from the marriage but I took the car so it wouldn’t end up on my credit. He wasn’t the best at prioritizing bills. I also lived in it for about three weeks. It was extremely uncomfortable. I left my son with him during that time because obviously you can’t live in a car with a toddler. It was better that he stayed with his dad. He was a good dad, just a crappy husband. But with his priorities being himself at the time, he had no problem letting me have my son back when I was ready for him.

I’d met an older man while working as a car sales-woman that I dated and who eventually put me in an apartment in Dallas after hearing my story. He paid the rent and fully furnished it. He didn’t live there but of course visited. I went to get my son from his dad shortly after. We lived really good for a few months but like everything in my life at the time, things made a turn for the worse. I mean, God was really taking me through it!

Unsplash, Patrick Perkins

I found out the guy was married so I told him I was leaving. Before I could pack our things and leave the apartment he was there. We got into an argument right in front of my son. He was so mad that I was leaving that he grabbed me by my neck and slammed me down on the floor. He was choking me so hard I couldn’t breathe. My son ran to his room screaming. I was calm, I didn’t fight back, I was just thinking of what to do next. I knew as soon as he let go, hoping I’d still be alive, I was going to go in the kitchen to get a knife to kill him. He let go and that’s exactly what happened. But I didn’t kill him. A neighbor heard the commotion, came to the door and called the cops. He ran away before the police got there.

I quickly grabbed a few things, my son and got out of there before he came back. I looked up shelters on my phone while driving and that same night we went to a homeless shelter for women who were victims of domestic violence. I sort of felt like a phony for trying to get in the shelter. I’d only had that one incident yet, there were women who’d truly been abused that needed help and here I was being admitted and taking up a spot someone probably really needed. But now that I’m older I know that abuse is abuse and there’s no “abuse seniority” that qualifies one women over the other. No one has the right to hurt you and the sooner you leave the better. One time is enough!

The shelter let us in immediately. Because it was for victims running from domestic abuse it was surrounded by a wall with a locked gate and the address was only given to women seeking help. I needed help true enough but in my mind I’m asking myself, WTF are you doing? Taking your son to a homeless shelter, who does that? But I was too independent to attempt to live with, live off or depend on someone else for my stability so the tough girl in me was going to make this work!

Now, this was not your typical homeless shelter. I thought we were going somewhere similar to a warehouse with a large concrete floor and cots. Nope! We lived in individual, fully furnished rooms and if you made it through a preliminary period you got to move next door to your own apartment! This place was the five star hotel of homeless shelters. That comfort alone let me know, God had a hand in me being there.

Unsplash, Bence Balla-Schnottner

I met women from many walks of life while in the shelter. My son and I were there for two years. Most of the women had kids also. The older women who’d been through the abuse cycle were the ones who were serious about getting on their feet, letting the program work for them and starting a new life. The younger girls, who hadn’t stopped loving their abuser, were the ones we would see come and go. We all had befriended one young lady who had so much potential but loved her abusive boyfriend to the point that she kept going back to him. After a while we didn’t see her anymore and learned that he’d unfortunately killed her. We are taught about the abuse cycle while we are in the shelter to encourage us to recognize patterns. To see the signs and never go back but they can’t force anyone to stay. We all had free will to make our own decisions.

For those truly seeking a new life, the shelter offered us everything we needed and then some. We never went without anything for our birthdays, Christmas, Easter, pretty much any holiday really. We celebrated them all. The donors of the shelter were so generous. We’d get trash bags full of gifts to wrap for our kids, clothes, toys, houseware, accessories, literally any thing you could think of for all occasions. It was a way to keep the moms from having to worry about how to buy things for our children and home so we could focus on starting over.

For our mental health, it was mandatory that we all attended counseling every week. The kids had their own sessions, moms had theirs and we all attended group sessions. We were required to work and a percentage of our paychecks had to go into a savings account which we got back when we moved out. We were even required to pay off our debt little by little. I had over five-thousand dollars and good enough credit to get my own apartment when I left. A perfect start to a life own my own!

A lot of people thought I was crazy for living in a homeless shelter but they just don’t know how wonderful this shelter was. Now don’t get me wrong, we did have certain interactions outside of the shelter with your typical homeless people. We just had a better place to go at night. On the night of thanksgiving one year, a homeless person broke into my car and stole everything my son and I owned. I was keeping it there while waiting to move over to the apartments at the shelter and we had to park outside the gate until we did which is how they got in. It almost crushed me but that was the reality of where we lived.

The shelter was great but you also had to have a will to succeed in the moments that were out of your control or when you got down on yourself because of your situation. The staff did a great job supporting us through it all. Another perk was that we also received free healthcare as residents from Parkland Hospital in Dallas, TX. I got my checkups every time they came. But one check up didn’t go as smooth as planned. It was my well woman’s checkup.

Unsplash, Patrick Fox

My Pap smear had come back abnormal. I knew something was wrong when they called me to go see the doctor the very next day about it. That had never happened before. I remember sitting in the room with a calmness only God could give over me. Not worried at all, just curious about what the doctor would say. When she walked in she was so sweet but very apologetic at the same time. She was “sorry to inform me” that I had cervical cancer. I think she thought I was going to completely fall apart when she said it. She was prepared, but then shocked that I didn’t. She kept asking if I was ok. I told her yes and asked what do we do about it? God had already prepped me for the news so it was time to move forward with the solution.

Thankfully, it was beginning stages so she told me they’d have to do a cone biopsy to remove it and that I should be fine. I had the surgery immediately. All expenses paid because I lived in the shelter. Talk about the hand of God! I had a job but no insurance. I was just a receptionist at a dental office so insurance was too expensive for me. Had I not been at that specific shelter I wouldn’t have been getting check-ups. I would have either never known I had cancer until it was too late or, not been able to afford the surgery to remove it. It was meant for me to be there.

On the big day I went to the hospital by myself. I didn’t tell anyone that I was having surgery or that I even had cancer other than the administration at the shelter. I remember sitting outside waiting for my therapist from the shelter to pick me up when I came to from the anesthesia. I just didn’t have anyone I trusted to know that level of detail in my life so I felt better not telling anyone about it. Even if it meant going through a surgery alone and I was ok with that. Some things are just meant for God and you.

Every check up I’ve had since the surgery has been perfect! The cancer is completely gone. Its been about fifteen years since my son and I lived in the homeless shelter and I credit it with saving my life and giving me a fresh start in so many ways. Living homeless for two years wasn’t easy but it was necessary. I would’ve never been able to start over so well prepared had it not been for the selflessness of the women from that shelter and I am forever grateful to them for the life they gave us.

❤️❤️❤️

-xoxo

Candace & Sébian

My son and I when he was 15 years old in Canada to snowboard for Good Friday

Why I Started Traveling The World

Why Being Your True Self Is Priceless

One question I get asked quite often is, how do you travel the world like you do? Are you rich? Is your travel sponsored? Do you have a job that allows you to travel? As much as I wish the answer to all those questions was yes, it’s actually no. My travel journey didn’t start with me taking trips all over the world like it seems on Instagram. I started from humble beginnings, just wanting to travel so bad that I slowly made it happen. It was a childhood fantasy that I turned into my reality, literally by any means necessary. You’ll see what that means later in the story.

Many people limit the term travel to being on a plane but travel is so much more than that. There are numerous modes of transportation that will get you places if you can’t just pack up and fly to another continent today. Whether it be financial constraints, time limitations or family commitments, traveling is much easier than it was when I started just a couple of years ago. Especially if you consider the destinations in your own city and state; there’s more to see than you realize.

On top of that, you can go on a trip anywhere in the world, come back, post your photos to the gram and pay for it up to a year after you get back with all the payment options that are available. Don’t believe me? Read my article on what I’m talking about here, your next excursion is closer than you think. If you open your mind to all the possibilities that traveling encompasses and throw in an adventurous spirit, you’ll be amazed at all the places you can go.

For me it’s not so much how I travel, that part is easy, it’s why I travel that defines my journey around the globe. It’s one thing to sit at a resort the the entire time you are on vacation and quite another to live like a local everywhere you go. True passion for travel allows you to understand the culture you are immersed in, not just take pictures on the beach with drinks in your hand to stunt for the gram. Now that can also be nice, don’t get me wrong, it’s just not all that I believe you should do (unless you actually need to relax). But if putting’ on for the gram gets you out the house then by all means, let’s go!

So you’re probably wondering when I’m going to get on with how I started traveling right? Ok, here goes. Grab a glass of wine because this is a good long one.

Candace as a child, at my grandmothers home

I grew up in the very small town of Elberton Georgia. I was raised by my grandparents who allowed my father to move back in with them after he and my mother separated when I was two years old, my brother three. My dad had what I believed was an undiagnosed psychological condition so he kept us in the house a lot because he was afraid everyone was trying to kill him or us to get at him. No exaggeration. He would force us to sit through lectures that lasted for hours about who was trying to do what to him, how and always found a way to tie it to the Bible so we’d believe him. My brother never quite latched on to what he was saying but I did at first not knowing any better and because he was my dad.

It drove me crazy as I got older because for one, he didn’t have a job most of my life so no one really saw him in order to come up with a plan to kill him. Two, he rarely talked to anyone besides us so I felt like no one even realized he was still alive in order to decide that they wanted to kill him. He didn’t want us to come out the room with him when family came to visit or even eat my grandmothers cooking. I did get to do both regardless of his opinion but sometimes he’d force me not to. It was like we were involuntarily locked in a mental institution right along with him sometimes.

My main get away from the inside of my grandparents home and the delusional rants of my father’s mind was when he randomly took long drives through the country. Now that I’m older I think he did it to clear his mind and feel like he owned his life in some way rather than his mother still being his sole provider. Even if only momentarily. He was pretty cool when we went on our trips I must say. I’d be glued to the window with excitement and watching everything we passed, usually just riding aimlessly.

I think my dad wished he could’ve just kept going instead of having to go back to my grandmothers but without a steady job he didn’t have the means to do so. Many times we’d end up in the woods walking through a creek, shooting his guns (yes as kids) or picking scupperdines to eat, a type of muscadine, which was like a grape with really tough skin. I found out when I was older they are actually called scuppernongs. Us and our country slang. Whatever they were, times like these are what shaped my love for exploring a place for what it truly was which is why I do it now when I travel.

Our drives were also moments for me to play a game with myself to see if I could guess what make and model every car we passed was from far away before I could see the emblems or the nameplate on the back. I rarely got it wrong. The body style of the car gave me clues in the daylight. I used the shape of the head and taillights, how far apart the lights were, and where they sat on the car to determine the models at night. This is where my love for seeing different monuments and historical sites when I travel began. Just recognizing cars from afar. Kinda weird I know. I was just happy to be apart of a world beyond anything that didn’t sit on that acre of land my grandparents owned so this is how I did it. I eventually went to recognizing trees, buildings and bodies of water but cars is where it all started.

When I wasn't lost daydreaming on our drives through the country side, I’d be imagining myself in different scenarios of the pages in my Seventeen magazine that I received every month. I have no clue how I paid for it but my grandma gave us money for chores so that must’ve been it. I also snuck and read my uncles Ebony and Jet magazines. Jet seemed of limits because of the beauty of the week. Seeing a women in a bikini is nothing today but back then it was a big deal. These magazines were how I somewhat saw and learned about other parts of the United States and the world. It was how I took my mental vacations from the life I hated so much but had no clue how to get out of with a father who didn’t let us go anywhere.

Photo: unknown

When my mom left us she’d remarried and moved to Texas with my then stepdad and later born sister so my brother and I made a few trips there while we were growing up to spend summers with her. My father didn’t particularly like this but allowed it because she was our mom. I think his resentment for her leaving him is why he always tried to convince us we should never leave our little country town. He would say that God was not pleased with her leaving and wouldn’t be with us if we did the same.

He even gave it relevance to make the thought of leaving scarier with a Bible verse, his main reinforcement for why we couldn’t do certain things in life, ever. When my uncle, his little brother, died at age 28, (I was 10 years old) he was able to back his claim up even more by saying it happened because he moved away from home and dishonored his parents which God says not to do in the ten commandments. My uncle had only moved to Atlanta, two hours away. Talk about terrifying to ever think of leaving!

I feel like my father saw it in me early on, the thirst for more out of life and that’s why he said those things to us. I think it was his way not to lose us too now that I look back on it. Our family didn’t know how to be vulnerable and say things like “I don’t want you to leave because I love you too much and you’re all I have.” So my father resorted to scare tactics. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get me to accept his idea of never leaving Elberton. Something inside of me said the opposite. I wanted to be in the good graces of God of course, but in the back of my mind I knew the Lord would forgive me whenever that day came. I didn’t know how but I always knew I would set myself free and more than likely without my dads approval.

During one of our summer trips to Texas I remember the first time I saw The Parks Mall in Arlington, TX driving down the interstate. I thought it was a huge grocery store. Coming from a small town, the only large places of business were the regular Walmart and the grocery store. Not the super Walmart with a grocery store inside but the one with only the other half of the store in it. I’m sure Gen Z is like, what are you talking about? Ha, ha!

I knew it wasn’t Wal-Mart, so it had to be a grocery store based on my life experiences. When I saw it I said, “dats a big grossry stow” as country sounding as I could be. Now this mall is 1.5 million square feet but again, I was correlating it with what I knew. My mother quickly corrected me, in a condescending way I remember, and I felt very dumb to say it plainly. Elberton was doing me no justice.

I mean, I’d heard of the mall and had been to a small one a couple of times in Athens, Georgia but had never seen one like this one. It looked like it was made of glass. Now I know those were just massive skylights and windows. But as a child I associated it with the Ingles grocery store in our town which if I remember right, had skylights on the outside so to me, it was a huge grocery store. It was one of those moments that defined why I had to know more about life than my Seventeen magazine and our country road trips were allowing me to.

I of course forgave my mothers lack of care for my feelings because she was my mom, the fun parent from what I saw. Living the good life. It was also what I always did. She’d always groom me to pretend our relationship was something it wasn’t in front of others and I’d soak up the moments as if they were real life knowing as soon as we left that crowd of people things would go back to the way they really were. She pretty much felt like a mean babysitter any other time.

Realizing so young how shut off from the world I’d been was definitely a catalyst for me to figure out how I was going to learn more about life than I was being exposed to. I decided I’d never be made to feel less than by anyone ever again, no matter who they were. I probably was all of 11-years old but that feeling stuck with me. To the point that I needed a counselor to help me understand why I talked so condescendingly to people that didn’t know things I felt they should an adult. It was just my mother coming out of me. Thank God for realizing I needed to see someone. Talk about toxic behavior!

In our travels as children, we were lucky enough to drive to Disney World with my dad since Florida was right below Georgia and he’d stumbled on a little money from one of the few jobs he had as we were growing up. We drove one of his raggedy cars that broke down on the trip like they did everywhere we went (the Burger King drive-thru in Elberton was the most embarrassing break down) but it was all still fun. He didn’t have his job long but it was thoughtful of him to want to spend the little money he had on something so huge for us. It was the most fun road trip we’d been on at that point in my life. Disney was great, but being on the open road was the best part to me.

I also got to ride from Georgia to San Diego, California when my mom won custody of me after I told the judge I wanted to live with her at our custody hearing when I was 12. My dad was very angry with me to say the least. He felt like I ruined his life but I never knew how or why he believed that. Now that I’m grown I don’t think he meant it. I believe he needed to have a real talk with himself about his shortcomings in life and at the time blaming me was easier.

We lived in San Diego because my sisters dad was in the Navy and that’s where he was stationed after they lived in Texas. I chose to live with my mom because of the nostalgia of seeing other parts of the country more than anything, not because I really wanted to live with her. I did but I saw something in her that wasn’t what a mom should be and knew we’d never be what I hoped we would. I was just fascinated with her life so I took the anger she directed towards me and always forgave her just to indulge in her world. I think she could use a good counseling about her past also because she’s still this way today and gets very angry if you bring it up. The only difference now is I don’t allow her to belittle me in any way when she gets in her moods. We tolerate each other pretty well for the most part though.

When I was little it was like she lived on a page in my magazines. The drive to California then became the most intriguing one I’d ever taken. Little by little I was outdoing myself with my travels. I loved it! I still remember what it felt like to arrive in San Diego and to see all the cars, the traffic, the buildings, the ocean and the miles of hills for the first time. I felt like I was free. I had friends, played after school and did any and everything with my sister. It was my favorite place to live. That is until my mom sent my sister and I back to Georgia after the school year ended.

Photo: Derek Story, Unsplash

I figured it was my fault she sent us away, my sister was spoiled and couldn’t do any wrong even when she did. One reason I thought she did it was because we stole all the recycle buckets that were given to every resident in our apartment complex off their doorstep and had mountains of them inside our apartment when she got home from work. I still don’t know what we were planning to do with all those buckets. Or maybe it was the time I convinced my sister to let me teach her how to ride her bike (the one that was hidden because it was her Christmas present) and then sneak it back like we didn’t see it. My mom quickly realized what we did because the bike tires were white when she bought it and had turned black where the thread hit the pavement. I obviously didn’t think that through.

Then again, maybe it was the time we snuck through the bars of the pool after it was closed to go for a swim and my sister almost drowned. Thankfully I knew to get the life preserver to save her. My mom probably would’ve tried to put me in kid jail had she died. There was also the time I called 911 thinking I was locked out of the house because I didn’t have my key when all along the door was unlocked and she had to leave work to talk to the police. She was pissed.

It could’ve also been the time she bought this expensive soap that was supposed to lighten my skin because she said I was too dark. They all were light-skinned. After I took one bath my sister ruined it because she couldn’t stand to see me have something she didn’t have, being so spoiled and all. Little did she know I was very happy she ruined it but my mom was so upset. That really hurt my feelings that she bought me soap that would somehow make her approve of me. I really hated living with her after that. I just knew if wasn’t one of those reasons, it was all of them. I realized it was none of them as an adult and that she had her own problems she was working through like my dad but as a child, you see things in a childlike way.

Instead of driving us from Cali to Georgia, she sent us home on an airplane. This was when the meals were free on domestic flights and people could walk you to the gate to see you off. I know Gen Z, crazy right? That plane ride was when the wanderlust bug hit me. I didn’t just want to leave Georgia for another state. I wanted to leave the U.S. for another country! The reality that planes could fly anywhere in the world was real to me on this day and I had to see what that was like when I was able to buy my own ticket to fly. This wouldn’t happen for another 20 years but I never let this dream go.

Once I was back to living in Elberton, after experiencing so much more, enduring the small mindedness of my father again had become very overwhelming for me. I lived with my other grandmother, my moms mom for a little while before going back to my dads mom. It was fun too, for the country, but still in Elberton. My father decided to take us out of school in the beginning of the seventh grade as his mental condition worsened so we sat in the house every single day. Thus, limiting the little freedom I had even more. We were supposed to be home-schooled, but we never did the work.

We rarely got to go to events like football games, a highlight when you live in a country town, just like the movie Friday Night Lights. I missed my chance to be in the band, something I really wanted to do and the most normal things like sleeping over at my girl cousin’s house was rare because of my dads paranoia. He was just so sure something was going to happen to us. I could feel how sorry people in town felt for us but no one could get through to my dad to save us.

In January of 1997 I was 13 years old and supposed to be in the ninth grade. I remember my dad and my grandmother got into an argument so bad that he said he was leaving and taking us to live with him in our car. The thought of living that life terrified me so much that I ended up running away from home a few days later because I believed him. My dad had taken my brother to the store and I saw a chance to get away unseen since my grandmother worked at the local spark plug plant until late and my grandfather had passed away. I’d already prearranged for my big cousin, who was five years older than me and had moved to Texas from Elberton when she graduated high school, to drive home to Georgia with her boyfriend, pick me up and take me back to Texas to live with her and my aunt.

My aunt was no longer married to my dads brother but she never stopped being my aunt to me and I knew she wouldn’t tell. I called my cousin who was waiting up the street when my dad left for the store. The moment she arrived I came running with trash bags full of clothes, got in the car and instantly felt free again. In the back of my mind I knew it wouldn’t last but I enjoyed every second of it while it did. We drove to Texas in the snow, which I thought was so amazing. The time I spent living with my cousin was one of the absolute best moments of my childhood. I didn’t think twice about how anyone felt about me leaving. I figured if no one could save me I’d save myself. I felt like the epitome of why the caged bird sings at this point in my life.

Photo: Annie Spratt, Unsplash

After a few days on the run my grandfather, my moms dad, reported me missing. I can’t remember why my dad didn’t make the call himself. I sure he thought his worse nightmare had come true and someone got me. I managed to make it a few weeks before I had to let my dream life go. I was living life the way a normal teenager was supposed to. I was about to be enrolled in school and I lived with people who showed me love. Something so small that many teens may never think twice about meant everything in the world to me. It was hard to accept that I couldn’t keep it. Since there was a nationwide search for me, some people even said I was on milk cartons, I went ahead and turned myself in. When the police showed up to get me I knew it was all over.

We stuck with the alibi that I ran away to anyone who asked for years. I was still a minor and my cousin was 19, legally an adult so we didn’t want her to be charged with kidnapping. We told the police that I got to Texas by hitchhiking but they didn’t believe it since I was only 13. They couldn’t prove that I didn’t so after lots of questions they had to go with it. Little did I know my mother had also moved back to Texas, was married to her third husband and that I had a step-sister. Since she legally had custody of me still, the police made me go live with her. She wasn’t too happy about it since she’d sent me back to Georgia and neither was I. I cried so hard the police didn’t want to make me go but couldn’t stop it.

We drove from Arlington to Fort Worth and I remember trying to keep track of every turn so I could tell my cousin how to come get me again. Needless to say she couldn’t. My stepdad had my mom enroll me in OD Wyatt high school during the last six weeks of the ninth grade so at least I still got to go to school. I was placed in all remedial classes because the administration office didn’t think there was any way I was smart enough to be starting school in almost the 10th grade since the last grade I had finished was the sixth. Luckily before all this, my seventeen magazine subscriptions allowed me to keep learning. Any word I didn’t know, I would look it up in the dictionary.

My grandmother also had a set of Encyclopedia Britannica’s that I’d reluctantly dive into after I read my magazine from cover to cover until the next one came. Not everyones first choice of reading I know but I read everything I could when I could. I just wanted to learn. I’d gravitate to any resource I could get my hands on and I’d try to learn something from it. Even to the point that when I used the bathroom I would read all the shampoo bottles, air fresheners, cleaning supplies, toothpaste tubes, feminine products, enemas, Vicks vapor rub (I lived with old people lol), I mean absolutely anything I could find while I was in there. I even challenged myself to properly pronounce all the words on the ingredients labels for the products that had one. I read everything on the cereal boxes when I ate breakfast, including my grandfathers nasty Raisin Bran. The boxes that had trivia questions were my favorite. I always rewarded myself with the prizes on the inside.

When I finished those six weeks of the ninth grade, I was 14 and had aced every class they put me in. I’ll never forget that all the popular kids who used to pick on me later in our high school journey were actually in those classes too. I of course didn’t know who the popular kids were when I first started. But I learned by the next school year.

They were the ones that dressed nice, had the latest everything, knew how to do all the cool dances and were envied by so many of us that didn’t have any of those things. But they could barely read. I realized then that popularity isn’t all its cracked up to be. That it was just a facade for most who had it. By the time 10th grade started I was back in regular classes. This is also when I considered myself to have officially started traveling on my own.

Photo: Rajvir Hunjan, Unsplash

I discovered my opportunity to begin my wanderlust journey when all the other kids were skipping school to go hang out to drink, smoke and/or have sex. Instead of doing those things I decided to get on the city bus. Yep, my travel journey started on the city bus. I got on the one that stopped at the corner of my high school. A dead giveaway that I was skipping had any administrator just looked out the window. I was just excited to go somewhere I’d never gone so I didn’t consider any of that. Keeping in mind I’d never rode the city bus before, I had no clue how to get off, no destination if I did and had no idea how to get on another one.

We lived in the hood so I figured to not look like a target to what I thought were would-be thieves, I’d just sit there like I did this every day. I learned how to get off by watching others hit the button for their stop and caught on to how to transfer when one of the passengers getting on was arguing with the bus driver about it but didn’t have their ticket. I didn’t know where to go even if I did transfer so to avoid getting lost, I stayed on the same bus until it arrived at a stop I recognized not too far from my school. The ride lasted for hours, but I didn’t care. I enjoyed seeing parts of the city I’d never seen before, especially downtown, even if it was just Fort Worth, TX. I was glued to the window just like I was as a child riding around with my dad.

My step-dad was pretty mean to me in the beginning and always had me on the go. He made me tag along everywhere he went which wasn’t that bad to me since I didn’t like being around my mom. Unbeknownst to me, this was his way of keeping me in line. He never let me go anywhere and I wasn’t allowed to play sports in high school. I tried out for the track team, made it but couldn’t participate which made me so mad. I later found out from him, after high school, that he thought I was her bad, crack head sisters kid (she doesn’t have a crack head sister) and that I was just in denial when I told him she was my mom.

I remember he’d introduced me as her niece one day to his friends so I asked him why he said that. He told me because I was and was convinced I was lying when I said I wasn’t. He and I didn’t quite see eye-to-eye while I was in high school. We had what I thought was a weird, cool but not cool relationship because he was really fun but hard on me for some reason.

He also revealed to me (again, when I was older) the reason why was because he thought I was a juvenile delinquent who was always lying or being sneaky thanks to my mom. He said he never knew my mom had any kids besides my sister so of course she never planned for him to meet me. My sisters even thought I was adopted. They told me my mom told them not to say anything but because we were so close they did. It’s things like this I don’t understand about my mother. Until God says otherwise I never will and just have to accept it which is sometimes hard to do.

Back when I was 18 and in my senior year, my stepdad was upset at me over something my mother had lied to him about. This was pre-revelation of her lies to him. We got in a huge argument and he said I couldn’t go to prom. I’d worked really hard to save up money to pay for everything myself. I had two jobs in high school to make sure I never needed to ask them for anything financial so the argument got really intense.

By the time it was over he’d kicked me out the house. My mother had me pack a trash bag and took me to a hotel. She didn’t even try to convince him to let me stay, she just took me away. I was happy being gone and oddly enjoyed it. Being in the hotel made me feel like I was on a much needed vacation from my life. My stepdad ended up leaving to do his once a month service in the marines that weekend and since living in a hotel wasn’t cheap my mom brought me back after he left.

Before he returned I snuck out a window and ran away to a friends house. I never went back and still went to my prom. Once again, free and loving it! I wouldn’t see any of them again for a couple years after finding out my stepdad wanted to talk to me and apologize for everything he did. This was when he realized my mom had been lying to him and asked me to forgive him after seeing my birth certificate. He instantly became a rock in my life and the only true version of a parent I’d ever had. My sisters dad was always really cool too but he was just more involved since he was there for my teen years which made him more of a pillar. He and my mom stayed married a little longer so I talked to her off and on like nothing ever happened as usual. She denies anything he said about her.

Photo: Ross Parmly, Unsplash

When I was 19, I caught a couple more domestic flights between Chicago, Maine, and Massachusetts because I was married to a military guy. As always, I was all in when I got to fly. I felt elite because no one besides my mom and sister had ever rode a plane that I knew personally from our small town. My family viewed it as a thing white people did. But I viewed it as freedom. Until the plane touched the ground and I went back to my basic life. I had a typical military marriage that taught me a lot about relationships, the value of family and developed my sense of self in a way I never imagined by the time we were divorced.

My sons dad was very controlling so I never got to do anything unless he said I could. He told me how to dress, how to act, talk and even dictated who I could be friends with. I wasn’t allowed to work or hang out. I was so naive that I did whatever he said. People would tell me what he was doing with other women but he convinced me to never believe anyone but him and I did. I had no friends at one point and had shut off all family because he told me to. I felt like I was in a cult by the time the marriage was almost over and I’d started coming to my senses. I walked away with a three year old son and nothing to show for those five years of my life but some good life lessons that I’m very thankful for.

My son and I lived in a homeless shelter for two years which as bad as it may sound was an important building block on my path to getting back on my feet after my divorce. I had cancer while I was there and had it not been for the shelter I may not be here today. That’s a story you can read more about if you click here. It still amazes me to read it and I went through it!

My stepfather passed away in the Iraq war in 2007, while I was in the shelter and it felt like my heart got ripped out when my mom called to tell me. He was everything to me and it hurts like it happened yesterday if I think about it too long today. He’d separated from my mom by this time and was planning to take me with him and his family on a trip to Hawaii when he returned from Iraq. I still made that trip happen later in my life in his honor, twice.

Still in pursuit of my wanderlust journey by any means necessary, in my mid-twenties my son and I took a ride home to Georgia from Texas on the Greyhound bus. It was the absolute worst ride ever. It was almost twice as long as driving yourself with all the stops and very uncomfortable because of the lack of leg space and minimal ability to recline. Although horrific, I was still excited to be traveling. Even if it was just the bus.

I was peering out the window day and night although there wasn’t much to see. The itinerary of stops, which I’d never made on any of the drives back home with my parents were exciting to me. You’d think I was on a sightseeing tour even though all we did was stop for gas, food, a good stretch and to drop off or pick up more passengers. I just loved it all. If you can’t tell I enjoy travel in the smallest ways. It’s just fun to be on the go!

Fast-forward to the fall of 2009 when I rode the train from Texas to Oklahoma to do an egg donation. I was really excited because if never rode on a train besides the one at the fair. While I was working on my bachelor’s degree, I donated my eggs to women doing in-vitro fertilization which was quite an honor. It was my financial lifeline because I chose not to work so I could finish school with the least amount of stress possible. I’d given up college to get married and then again when I got divorced so I didn’t want anything to stop me this time.

I was considered an A+ donor so a couple in another state wanted my eggs. (I go into more details about the process, the one time I died from it and how many more children I have from my donations here.) I chose the train because the ride wasn’t much longer than driving. It was the most comfortable form of transportation I’d ever taken. The space you have on a train is unmatched whether traveling by car, bus or plane. Unless you own the car, bus or plane that is, but how many of us have it like that!

I was excited to check it off my modes of transportation list because I had aunts that lived in New York my whole life who would come home to Georgia for family reunions and funerals on the train when I was little. I was always so intrigued by how their ride was and what it was like so getting to experience it was mind-blowing. God was answering prayers! The seats on the train are extra wide and you have so much leg space you can almost recline flat with room to spare. Like always, I stared out the window the entire ride off and on enjoying my little travel comforts on a high that only those who truly love travel could understand.

Moving forward a few more years, some trials and tribulations and good life lessons later and you have my life now but at the beginning of my quest to travel internationally. I was working in corporate America by accident, just trying to pay off my student loans because I had gone back to college to get a double masters. It was just Gods plan for me to end up where I was. My job is actually what affords me the ability to travel like I do. As much as I wish some company paid for us to go, we pay for it ourselves, but I have some things in the works to change that soon.

When it comes to time off, another question I get asked quite often, our company (Jeremy and I both work for General Motors) is closed on all holidays and we have a great vacation package so I use it wisely. Our manufacturing plant shuts down for extended periods of time for maintenance which is how we take vacations that last two weeks or more. So I do nothing special to be off all the time, just following company rules lol!

I have a few other easy tricks anyone can do when time is a factor to going on trips. Also, be on the lookout for how to have a quick getaway anytime you need one! I also give a few of my travel hacks and some advice on how to make the most of layovers, how to travel cheap and sometimes even for free so don’t forget to read it. If you’re own my email list you’ll get an update as soon as I post it so sign up!

Graduation 2016, Double Masters, Texas Women’s Univ.

When I completed my double masters in the spring of 2016 I took my first international trip to China that summer with my new beau (Jeremy ❤️) on a journey to see all Seven New World Wonders. The Great Wall being the first. I had no reason to choose the seven wonders. I simply figured it would be cool to set a goal and see all seven. I was determined to finally start my international travel journey so I made it happen.

From there on out anyone who follows me on Instagram or wants to check out my page (@intheairwithblair) can see I’ve been going full steam ahead. Without counting, I’d guess we’ve been to 30 countries of the 195 total with a plan to eventually see them all. We’ve seen six of the seven wonders and will take a trip to the seventh no later than my 38th birthday (March 2020).

What started out as a life most of my family would’ve never encouraged me to live has turned into the best choice I could’ve ever made for myself. My biological dad passed away in 2018 and unfortunately never got to experience life. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him in a way because he let people create a fear in him that stopped him from living. He couldn’t see beyond his comfort zone so it confined him to spending decades of his life behind the four walls of his room in my grandmothers house until he died.

I plan to spread pieces of his ashes in the seas I across on my journeys as a way to give him back a little piece of what the world took from him. He may not have taught me a lot about the world or truly raised me like a parent should but his life showed why it’s important to face your fears and live. He may have missed the mark as a parent but he never left us regardless of all he was going through and even helped shape my love for adventure travel. I’m sure there were many times he wanted to leave but he didn’t and that I loved him for.

Now, if you’ve read this far, my goodness, THANK YOU!! Reading is not something people do as much of these days so I truly appreciate your interest in this long recap through parts of my life. Seriously! I’m sure after all that you can see why I’ve felt the need to see more, do more and be more in my life than just work, come home, cook, watch tv, go to sleep and do it all over again. I can’t just exist, I want to live!

There’s so much more I could indulge you in but for the sake of length, I’ll save those moments for another story. Thank you for reading and please check out the rest of my blog. I promise it’s gets juicier!

Support ya girl, share this story with others, Tyler Perry, Ava DuVernay or Lena Waithe might read it and make a movie!!

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