...Plain Upon Tablets

I was blessed to have a grandmother with six beautiful sisters--women who were bold, funny, kind, encouraging, and faithful among so many other wonderful things. Let's get BOLD! In picture: back row l-r: Aunt Caroline, Aunt Lee, Grandma Audrey; front row l-r: Aunt Margie, Aunt Blanche, and Aunt Ethel; missing from pic: Aunt Edna When my grandmother Audrey passed in 1998, one of these awesome women stepped up to encourage me along my journey: my aunt Blanche. My Grandma Audrey and me at my B.A. graduation My grandmother was a fervent believer of God. Never knew anyone who believed more or loved him more (though my mom is close behind her and Aunt Blanche is tied). She was the one who constantly kept me in the faith, and she was the one left heartbroken when I had my moment of disbelief in God. She wouldn't know that losing her and then my grandfather four months later would only deepen that disbelief. My great-aunt Blanche About a year after Grandma passed, Aunt Blanche began w...

I received some news today. The stage was set for it three weeks ago, and today confirmed it. I have diabetes. Out of all illnesses you can get, diabetes has been #1 on my Please, Dear God, not that  list my whole life. I've had great aunts and uncles that had it and saw some of the more extreme effects of it, and wanted nothing to do with it, ever. Three weeks ago, blood work results came back. Sugar was pretty high. My doctor decided to schedule more blood work within a two to three-week span of time. I had that done this past Friday. Today, after smiling and talking with my bestie about my good talk with my dissertation chair, after declaring the completion of my dissertation, after excitedly telling bestie of new writing project; the call came. About the norm in a roller coaster life in which at 1:59 you can be on Cloudy Infinity and at 1:59:10, you can hear the thud and the crack of bones as you fall back to earth. Doctor told me the number was lower, but that...

I. Am. Tired. This is a major truth for me these days. I am physically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically, socially, spiritually (every "-ally" you can find) tired. The month of May was one in which so many things took place, ending in an ultimate pain and sadness that I know will take awhile to deal with. I dealt with the end of a semester that was painful and wrong on a few levels, I dealt with my first May Seminar class, which started right as the painfully wrong semester was ending, I dealt with pressures of a personal online project I took on and that kept me stressed, and I dealt with learning that my father was gravely ill and eventually had passed. Some might wonder why I would put my dad last on this list. Surely he was more important than everything else, and this is true. But what the above is, is a culmination of pain, stress, and exhaustion that exploded with the death of my father. During May, I didn't go to church. Didn't once open my bible. And I...

I have a good author-friend named Fon James whose latest novel is titled Forward March . I remember doing editorial work on the novel for Fon last year, and when I read the title, I smiled. Each word in that title illustrates a movement, and every time I read the words, I think about my life and where it's going or not going and how, at the end of the day, it's about the Forward March. Even when insanity brews in your life, you have to forward march . Yes, there is time to stand still, to deal with the insanity, to listen to God and have him aid you in your movement, but the result is always about the forward march . It's funny how the mind works. I wasn't sure what I would mention here today. I wasn't sure I would mention anything. My life over the past week has been pretty uneventful, and to be honest, I've been having a fluctuating mood--moving from pure happiness or abysmal sadness in the matter of minutes, and I wasn't really in the mood to talk about i...

First full week of school kicked off last week. I'm excited, nervous about the semester. I'm excited because every class I'm taking will provide a practical benefit almost immediately to me. For example, my grants/proposal class will enable me to submit a proposal to a conference, to develop a proposal for a non-profit organization, and to develop an academic or industry proposal...with a purpose . Last semester was heavy in theory, in the foundation, the understanding of all the things we will be doing. It got very tedious, very fast with the mounds upon mounds of words to read and dear God, try to understand in order to articulate a fairly intelligent response. I've always been good at doing . Not to say I'm bad at thinking and understanding , but if you give me a task, the task will get done , and usually, done well . So though there is a lot of work to be done this semester, the act of doing is right up my alley. Having said this, the first week, week and a ha...

Earlier today, I was trying to get up the energy to leave the house and run some errands when my baby bro called. I plopped onto the sofa and chatted with him about his new license and his need for insurance for his new-old car. After the conversation ended, I remained on the sofa, kneeling upon it, arms resting on one of the sofa arms, just being. Then I saw it. The bible. It sat on the end table. Dust laid on its cover. It had been awhile since I had opened it. Though I felt something jump within me when I saw it, I wasn't sure I wanted to touch it. I always got this way when I was depressed. For nearly three weeks, I have been battling depression, and every day, the anxiety and issues that come from it have increased. I've battled depression most of my life though it wasn't 'til about nine years ago that I was diagnosed with clinical depression (or Major Depressive Disorder , specifically Atypical Depression . I went through three years of psychotherapy and the takin...

This time next week, I will have only two final exams to write to conclude my first semester in the doctoral program, and once I'm "done" done, there will be a celebratory, reflective post here. For now, I want to talk about BEING GRATEFUL. The Monday before Thanksgiving I was battling some big-time depression, and the Monday after Thanksgiving I was talking about being done with NaNoWriMo. Totally missed out on that great Thanksgiving tradition of talking about what you're grateful for. I'm grateful (and blessed because for me they go hand-in-hand) to have a God who looks out for me when I don't look out for myself . He really is the reason I have come this far and that I can see some light at the end of this tunnel. He never let me forget (even when I tried) my intelligence and my strength. He always had just the right word to calm me. He always knew who needed to call me, or who needed to invite me to lunch to talk, or who needed to tweet me so that we coul...

It's hard. Letting God navigate. You want so hard to be in control, to fix everything, to make everything perfect. It's like you don't even know the truth: nobody is perfect. It's been one of those things I've been learning this semester. Nobody's perfect. I'm not perfect. Things will happen. I'll want to give up. People will try to make me feel better. I will not listen to them. God will help me even when I don't feel like being helped. Repeat. And repeat, and repeat, and repeat. These days, God has plenty of reasons to not be happy with me. For one thing, I haven't been going to church faithfully, and even though I'm not the person to hang my faith on weekly church amen , I do enjoy going to church. Life has just been so hectic, so crazy that my sleeping schedule has been off and come Saturday night, I'm trying to justify getting up early to do work instead of going to church. Yeah, it's been that bad. The last several months have b...

Last week, I was in woest me mode to the Nth degree. I was so sure my creativity was dead and then several people - to include professors, fellows, friends, and family - reassured me that it wasn't dead. In fact, not only was my literary creativity being nurtured to resurrect later, but also my academic creativity was in full swing. I never looked at what I'm doing now, that is being a doctoral student, as something creative because creativity for me was storytelling. Throughout my woest me mode, I talked to God a lot. I kept reassuring him that my whining would cease, that I was going to pull out of this, that I knew this was just a bump in the road and I could always get up from the fall, dust myself off, and keep on, keeping on. I could hear him laugh; he already knew this and more. He wanted me to move from thinking about getting better to actually doing better. I don't think it was a coincidence that I played Mary Mary's song " Get Up " nearly on repea...

I'm a bit bitter these days. A little salty. A smidgen of angry. Why? Because Creativity is dead. Well, at least for me. Why? One word: school. This doctoral program is a full-time job. It can take upwards of 40 hours a week (more once you start researching for papers and projects beyond the required "in class" work) to do all the reading and preparing to be brilliant in the classroom. And it's not a 9 to 5 job where you do work that doesn't tax your mind, therefore, leaving you feeling energetic and refreshed and ready to conquer the world creatively. Oftentimes, in fact, I'm mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually exhausted and want nothing to do but some mindless activity or sleep (which is a rarity in itself). This is not me complaining, mind you. I accept what is necessary to do. As I've stated numerous times throughout this blog, it was my destiny to be here, and because of my pact with God, I'm in it to win it. That being said, it doe...

Life these days is hectic, fast-paced, blurred, awesome, worrisome...and many, many more adjectives. Since school started on August 27th, I have been chained to words, a plethora of words on philosophy, technology, writing, and all these words swirl in my mind in a harried pace, and most of the time, I am unable to capture the significant points of these words to make meaning. It is a daunting task. At least three times I told myself I wasn't cut out for this, and one time last week, I actually thought about bolting from a classroom as my eyes blurred with pending tears, my heart raced, and my mind whispered, "You're not smart enough to be here." And for the first time since I've moved, I had the ache of loneliness. That day, the day I almost ran from class, packed my bags, and hightailed it out of Lubbock, I got home and realized there were no siblings to crack a joke to make me laugh. There was no hug to chase a frown away. There was no "Come on now. You go...

I'm crying. Which, in and of itself, is nothing new. I'm an emotional person. At church, I was called "The Cryer." These days, my emotions stem from one important thing: I'm moving. In 11 days, I will be packing up my girlfriend's car, and she and I will be taking the 11+ hour trek to Lubbock, Texas, where she will stay a few days to get me acclimated and then I will be ALONE. The alone part doesn't bother me too much. Been craving silence. Separation for awhile now after playing Mom for siblings for years and not having the space to pray, cry, scream, speak in tongues, everything like I feel. The move part, however, is taking its toll. In a way, I've been a wanderer most of my life. To avoid family troubles and to, in a way, run away from myself, I've lived in Chicago and Jersey and Louisiana. Chicago and Jersey were short stints, but here in Louisiana, I made a life . I've lived here for eight years. I licked the wounds of losing m...