A Decade? Since When (2000-2009)

I am actively celebrating Old Year's today. Today is the day that I look back over the last year and laugh, cry, reminisce, regret, whatever. But what is special about this day, is that I leave it all behind, and get ready for tomorrow. It is symbolic of what I do everyday anyway for a few minutes, but today, I try to spend a lot of time doing it. What is especially special about this Old Year's Day, is that i am blessed to have lived through an entire DECADE! This is my first decade as an adult, and the last 10 years have proved to be formative--full of mistakes, mishaps, wondrous times, beautiful creations, and lots of love. I am most thankful for the love that I have experienced over the last 10 years. Take a glimpse back with me at all the FUN times I have experienced, and some of the sad times too....

2000- I pledged Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated. These were the best of times and the worst of times, all rolled into one. I yearned for sisterhood and what I obtained from my process filled that void in a very strange way. This was An Experience that changed my life forever and helped me realize how strong I really am. This was also the year that I met Phylissa A. Smith-Deroze. I love her and am so thankful for her!

2001- This was the year that my best friend and I became 'Best Friends' though I suspect we were besties on sight! We spent every waking moment of college together. This was also the year I had my heart broken again and again by a man that I have loved like no other, but never loved me like that in return. I am thankful he is out of my life though, or I would not be who I am today. This was also the year my grandfather died...he was ripped from our family years earlier and his death seems so unfinished.

2002-This was the year that I graduated from College. God help the rest of the world, because I was coming!! I was in a hurry to get out of Tallahassee, and out into the world waiting to swallow me up whole! I had so many good memories of college, but the terrible ones just stuck out like glass shards in my memory. Goodbye FSU, hello Brooklyn! But I was especially thankful that I had graduated, and had done so with two degrees.

2003- This was the year I became a Spanish teacher, a GED Program Administrator, a After School Tutor, and started attending the Brooklyn Tabernacle. I felt so at home in Brooklyn! I was so glad to be a part of my new church family too! I also met my sister and brother for the first time in my entire life. I felt so overjoyed, but angry and confused. My father was a real live rolling stone!

2004-Transitions Ministry happened started early this year. This would be the love of my life for the next 5 years. I don't know where I would be today with out Brian and Susan Pettrey, Nana Nuamah, Gabby Portalatin, Niyah Rahmaan and a host of other folks, who helped me through one of the roughest years of my life! I was just coming to terms with the fact that my dad was never going to be who I wanted him to be in my life, and I was just going to have to live with that fact.

2005- This was the year that I become close with a woman name Joni Schwartz. She helped me not take myself so seriously, and is the reason why I am at Penn State University as a doctoral student today! If it was not for her, I would not even have begun to think in that direction, much less submit an application to the program. Her soft persistence and her prayers for me, gave me the strength, and continue to give the the strength to be here.

2006-This year, I became the Director of the Learning Resource Center at Katharine Gibbs School in Manhattan. This was hands down the most creative job that I have had, allowing me to realize so much of my potential as an educator. I am thankful to Niyah Rahmaan, who followed the leading of the Lord to even refer me for this job! It changed my life. And helped me to realize how amazing being a leader really was, but how difficult it was as well. Truly, to whom much is given, much is required.

2007- I know that so many awesome things happened in this year but it was all a blur. From Church to Work to boyfriend to everything else, I was running on empty. I know for sure I was working 70 hour weeks and still serving full time in the Choir, volunteering elsewhere, becoming consumed with the lives of my students, and trying to figure out if I wanted to marry the guy I was dating. 2007 Seemed to pass in a daze....and I was just waiting for something new...It was also the first rumblings deep down in my belly about this exciting man named Barack Obama, who was creating such a ruckus on the political scene! Who was this stranger?

2008-This year was the explosion my life and release in my soul! I got accepted to the Penn State's Graduate School for a PhD, I was getting ready to move out of my beloved home, away from my Beloved Roommate of four-and-a-half years Saara, who had seen me through two boyfriends and a host of flings, and about 6 cycles of depression. And in the midst of all that, I quit my job early to Join the Barack Obama Campaign. I can't even believe it as a type it...but I joined and I worked hard as hell, and we WON! we WON!!!!!!!! I met so many beautiful people on this campaign who I love dearly and are close to my heart. I also fell in love on the campaign, a love which I thought would last but alas...the story ends as abruptly as it begins...

2009- After starting the New Year off Wonderful and Awful all at once, I get it together. I start my first semester at Penn State. I meet some fantastic people, and make my way out of a deep depression. I was just beginning to deal with the fact that my mama had moved to Kuwait a few months earlier, that her life was in a shambles and so was mine. But somehow, we both got it together. I took a huge leap with my new Penn State Friends and Ran for Secretary of the BGSA. I don't regret it one bit. I also celebrated 10 years as a PBHS Graduate and caught up with some lovely friends from the olden days (one of whom, Brit Brit, i will be ringing in the new year with)! I also met a friend that is close and dear to my heart, and I hope that things with us continue to grow. He is so special to me and is such a wonderful person!! Him and I are kindred spirits. I am hoping that 2010 brings pleasant surprises in that department.

I left out a million things but those are the highlights. My life now at Penn State is different, but it has become lovely. I am so happy to see where life has taken me, and I am even more excited to see what the next 10 years as an adult will be like. I may regret some of the decisions I have made, the men that I have loved, and the people who I have allowed to enter my life, but I can't say that I regret being where I am right now. Life has been awesome, and for that I am especially thankful and humbled.

In 2010, I look forward to the wonderfully strange thing that has become my life.

My Motto for the New Year: 'Use things, not people; Love people, not things.' --big tex