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| Atrocious Bobbi Boss (Visso) |
You see, this actually all started in Yahoo! Yes, Yahoo! I'll never forget that fateful day when the statement came down that they were actually shutting down Yahoo Voices (if that's the correct name for it), I began my quest to find a social medium that wouldn't go away and/or continually dismantle its products thus, disenfranchising its users. Well hello to the wonderful world of Google! I've never looked back at Yahoo for anything!
I cannot say the same regarding this post because as it concludes a blog that spans more than 7 years - I have had to look back. When I first began blogging I had no idea the impact it would have on my life. Heck, I was simply looking for an outlet to vent my fear, frustration, anger, grief, and even very liberating moments I encountered all while trying to find 'me'.
Not too long before I began blogging I had completed my tenure in Boise, Idaho and moved back home (Phoenix, AZ) temporarily with plans on fulfilling a stint with Americorps. My orders never came through for some apparent reason and boy...was I glad. Because everything that happened after my move back were life events that would have been difficult to face without the familiarity and support of family, home, and friends.
During my blogging "lifetime" I ended a tumultuous relationship, I suffered a terrible spine injury that changed my whole life, I became a grandmother (that too changed my whole life), I witnessed what I call "Dignity in Death", the passing of my beloved mother who through Breast Cancer lived everyday with her dignity, her conscious mind, and her grateful heart for God and her family that she deeply cherished, I gained the best son-in-law a mother could ever hope for (great husband and dad), I lived to witness the first bi-racial (African American and Irish) President of the United States of America, my baby brother re-married, I watched my daughters continue their education (earning their undergrad and graduate degrees), I buried a dear childhood friend, my most favored aunt, an uncle, and a beloved cousin, I lived through the biggest recession of the 21st Century, and I started my own company (Vision From The Inside Consulting), I was blessed with two more beautiful granddaughters, I even went to live with my youngest daughter in Las Vegas, Nevada for a while and after all of this...I turned 50!
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| (After the Party - Florida) |
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| (South Beach - Miami) |
I chronicled my life so to speak, during a time when I was trying to know myself after marriage, after raising children single-handedly for 20+ years and now, living the life as the IRS deems: Single - No Dependents. Who? Me?
Yes, me. A woman who really wanted nothing more than to have purpose and meaning in her life. A woman who had big dreams and extensive plans on how she was going to change the world! I wasn't going to be mediocre neither plain and boring...I was going out with a bang!!! I was going to show others how it was done. But something else happened after the children were reared. Something happened after all those years of struggle being a single mother at a very very young age. Something else happened!!! Life happened - again!!!
No one could have ever made me believe that I would see sunsets sitting at a kitchen table for weeks that ran into years. No one could have ever made me believe that my "get up and go would actually get up and went". No one could ever have made me believe that the internal light would go out and I wouldn't be able to "see" my way. No one told me, neither prepared me for the day when it would only be faith that I would live by. No one told me that I wouldn't be anyone's little girl anymore and that everyone would have to die. No one told me that my footprints would disappear from the earth and live now only in my mind. No one told me that the elders I so easily went to for advice, support, love and wisdom would have to bow down to die...no one told me that I would be left alone in a world that has no love for its own kind.
It was as though I was slung away from everything familiar and spent the last 7 years groping in the darkness. It's almost like being in the dark for such a prolonged time that I forgot myself; I forgot what I looked like.
But something so profound occurred recently while visiting with friends in Sacramento, California. A few weeks prior to going there I did the usual, had my hair done (you know getting ready for the Easter thing with family and such) and acting on the advice from a sales girl at the local beauty supply store - I purchased the poorest quality of tangled fibers perpetrating as human hair as one could get. That mess gave me such a horrifying experience that my good friend had to take it out while visiting Sacramento.
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| Severe Outbreak |
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| Severe Outbreak |
If this had been my first encounter with poor quality hair products and/or even services that I have received over time from individuals bloating their expert CV's on haircare, I would be flat out lying. Over the years, I have encountered the worst and I have encountered some of the best of hairstylists, haircare products, and manufactured hair - but this time, it was different.
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| Another Costly Mishap |
It was not until now that I came full circle and stepped into the woman of yesteryear who was a woman who embodied freedom, liberality, self-expression, and most importantly, authenticity. This was the woman I set out to be so many years ago!!!
The conscious woman, the feeling and caring woman, the guiltless, unbridled, non-cowering woman that has always lived to meet challenges of the unexpected, who would strike out with a bag and a prayer and land on her feet - on top. The woman that danced in the rain, played in the ocean, and loved to set off fireworks in the crowd. She finally made it back from those deep dark oceans that kept her from getting her footing; from clenched fists to open arms she was back.
And it happened sitting at the kitchen table, in Sacramento, after making the statement, "here I was returning to Arizona with a scarf on my head," I heard a voice coming from behind. The voice of the next generation of young strong, determined, self-thinking African American women of whom must define their own beauty according to their standards and not those of Hollywood, Vogue, neither black rappers. This voice stated, "No, you're actually going home now as the real you." [Explosion occurred and the darkness was shattered]
She was right. I came home. I came back. --Kimetta
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| Finally.... |
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| Me! |
