THE BOSS

This installment has been dying to be born for some time... Finally I decided that it was an idea who's time has come. I really want to kind of talk to the kiddies about INDEPENDENCE... the LIBERTY to do just as you please. The power to do whatever you want to do in your own time. This is a PRIVILEGE that we sometimes take for granted. I can think of so many situations and times that I have been stymied and stagnant.. not flourishing,and literally feeling as though I might die if I didn't step up and take my share of chances.. face the rain and create my own realities. The first moment that I remember feeling suffocated came to me when I was a high schooler.. I had to be a Senior at the time.. I was just literally screaming silently.... I felt I had no voice.. no say in how I wanted to be perceived, how I wanted my life to go or what direction that I hoped to take. A miserable moment for JaYLuv.... So I set about to seize control in the only way that I knew...MY PERSONA... I grew my fingernails as LONG as I possibly could. Looking back I realize that this was a SERIOUS FAUX PAS... but at the time my visage was the only thing that I could seize dominion over. My parents screamed in AGONY over these perfectly manicured talons I so defiantly grew, begging me...even offering me money to cut them. I REFUSED realizing that THIS was the ONLY way that I could assert my burgeoning independence while still under the reign of my SHELTERING but WELL meaning parents... Well as I grew in life it seemed to be a pattern that I went from one "parent" to another be it in the form of boyfriends to dominant friends... Always I was content to let others take the lead, make the decisions and tell me which way to go.. It felt safer that way.. This was a very seductive way to live. .. I still felt as years went on, that I was crying out... with NO voice. I felt as th0ugh I had NO say in my own life.. because I had been allowing others to make the decisions for me... At some point and time it was just not enough for me to hand the choices over to someone else to handle. I felt like it was time for me to step up.... TO TAKE MY SHARE OF CHANCES... I immediately ended my relationship, moved into my own place.... totally confused. I felt totally lost in the city of Atlanta.... But at the same time I felt like Dorothy in The Wiz because I felt as though I was standing on Shakey ground at the same time believing in me and knowing that I had ALL the answers there inside ME.. I was grown up enough that I shouldn't have been so afraid.. but I had been 20+ years allowing someone else to make my decisions.. I just had to step out and blindly trust that everything that was happening and gonna happen would be positive... To go out and have FUN.. to date.. to have BAD dates.. to dance til I sweat.. to drink til I got sick and end up at some strange house with some strange man (this actually happened only once).. I had to open myself to these things.. and when I did....I FOUND MY VOICE. I FOUND ME... I stopped asking the "WHO ARE YOUUU" and "WHAT IS THE NEED..WHATS GONNA MAKE YOU HAPPY?" At this point, I make EVERY DECISION... being a single parent really had force me to step up and stand up... at this moment, I decide how I want to govern myself. I make ALL the choices from writing and signing ALL the checks to how the money is spent. I do what I want to with my time. I make the decisions about ALL aspects regarding my life and business.. I LOVE IT... Finally..... I AM..........THE BOSS