Looking Back On My Year

This is what my happiness jar looked like coming to the end of 2014. I just finished reading through my happy moments. There were so many! I was surprised by how many notes I put in there because there were times I forgot about the jar for weeks. I noticed that I had a lot of the little things documented. I love that. I'm proud of myself for finding joy in the little things. I hope to carry that into 2015.

Although these were small notes on small pieces of paper, I was able to see the ways in which I've grown. I'm so glad I was able to look back on that. Hopefully, I will be able to grow more and continue to be comfortable in my own skin.

Next time I would make sure to add the dates to every note and to try to put moments in the jar the day they happened. I say that because there were things I added to my jar from previous weeks and my feelings about those moments had changed. I feel like it was important to be authentic. To be happy in the moment. Hopefully next year I can add to my jar closer to when the moment happens.

My happiness jar showed me that it was a good year and I'm very thankful for it. Here's to 2015!!

Books of 2014

I love books! At the beginning of 2014 I made a goal to read more. That was going well and I was reading for pleasure and loving it. Then I started grad school and reading for fun took a back seat but I'm so glad I got to read each and everyone of these books this year. Here is the list with links to my blog posts about them:

• For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange
• Mom and Me and Mom by Maya Angelou
• Sister Citizen by Melissa Harris-Perry
• The Other Side of Paradise by Staceyann Chin
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
• On The Come Up by Hannah Weyer
• Things I Should Have Told My Daughter by Pearl Cleage

Mom & Me & Mom

It's no secret that I love Maya Angelou. I feel that she's guiding me through life. I'll jump at any chance to read more of her words and learn from her. I've already shared quotes from this book on my blog. This book really spoke to me. It was so intimate and personal. I loved it.

Favorite quotes:

• "Love heals. Heals and liberates."
•  "I may never be known as a philanthropist, but I certainly want to be known as charitable."

 Must read for all my Maya admirers!

Books I Read: Things I Should Have Told My Daughter

Things I Should Have Told My Daughter by Pearl Cleage

I looked into reading this book after seeing Pearl Cleage on Melissa Harris-Perry's show. My favorite thing about this book is that these are her actual journal entries from a decade of her life. It really made me want to journal more. I really need to work on writing more. At least once a week. I did enjoy following her life and I feel like this is a book I can go back and read during different stages of my own life.

Here are some quotes that I loved:

• "I will claim myself for myself."
• "I told a student today: You shouldn't be so hard on yourself. Praise yourself as much as you fuss at yourself.' And I could have been talking to myself. And I was. And I will."

I think this is a great read for women, activist women, women of color--particularly black women, and writers. I really enjoyed it.  

Books I Read: Sister Citizen

Sister Citizen by Melissa V. Harris-Perry

I read this book earlier in the year and I absolutely loved it. I had so many thoughts on it that I never even took the time to sit down and write about it. I wrote all over the pages and  I have stickers over this whole book. I don't even know where to begin.

My favorite aspects of this book:

• The connections made between American classics like Their Eyes Were Watching God or For Colored Girls and the issues that Black women in America face daily. 
• I loved the use of poetry, quotes, and imagery. I wasn't expecting that in a political book.
• I really enjoyed the quotes from various women from different places. I think it's so important for people's voices and experiences to be shared. 
• The range of topics the book covered. It raises discussion of religion, strength, beauty, disasters, and so much more. It reaffirms the importance of looking at every aspect of life. We have to be aware of how race, gender, class, past experience, religion, etc all intersect to shape our lives. All of those pieces to our individual puzzles mean something. They set us apart from one another and we have to recognize those differences.

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This is what the book looked like after I was done:

I'll select a few of the quotes I highlighted:

• "It is so easy to be hopeful in the day time when you can see the things you wish on. But it is was night,  it stayed night. Night was striding across nothingness with the whole round world i his hands." -Zora Neale Hurston
• "...this book makes the claim that the internal, psychological, emotional, and personal experiences of black women are inherently political. They are political because black women in America have always had to wrestle with derogatory assumptions about their character and identity. These assumptions shape the social world that black women must accommodate or resist in an effort to preserve their authentic selves and to secure recognition as citizens. This is less a book about what black women do to become first-class citizens than one about how they feel while they are in that struggle."
• "If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression." - Combahee River Collective
•  "Sometimes black women can conquer negative myths, sometimes they are defeated, and sometimes they choose not to fight. Whatever the outcome, we can better understand sisters as citizens when we appreciate the crooked room in which they struggle to stand upright."
• "...shamed individuals see themselves as particularly worthy of punishment. Shame eats away at self-esteem and makes every social role more difficult."
• "If African-American women are led to believe that strength is an essential, inborn characteristic--a racial rule--then showing weakness or asking for help becomes traitorous."

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I think everyone should read this book. 

Celebrating Me: December 6th

It's already December! How did that happen?

This past month has been very eventful. It's been an emotional roller coaster but that's okay. It's important to recognize that you will go through many different feelings an emotions during the course of a day, or week, or month, even from one minute tot he next. I may joke sometimes and say that I'm over emotional like it's a bad thing but I don't really think there's anything wrong with feeling things. What's important is that we don't let any one feeling define us and we don't let ourselves see our emotions and feelings as flaws. Additionally, we can't forget that emotions are not flaws in other people. If someone is expressing anger it is because they are angry about something and that it a human emotion. They are not inherently angry.  The same goes for all other emotions and feelings.

I started reading Robin Roberts' Everybody's Got Something and I've been enjoying it so far. I'm really glad I picked it up!

This time of year is my favorite because I feel that this time of year is about love and spending time with people you care about. It's about showing people how much you care for them and keeping them close. It's a great time of year.

Today, I'm feeling great because it's the weekend, I had a wonderful Friday, and I was very productive. I'm feeling slightly stressed as the end of my first semester of grad school comes to an end but I've been working on being more organized and I know that I can get my stuff done. I'm excited that winter is finally here. It's time for hot chocolate and fuzzy slippers. I'm really excited.



My quote of the day is:

"I've learned that I still have a lot to learn."

-Maya Angelou

Your life matters. You are beautiful. You deserve to be here. You deserve the right to feel and have the space to express those feelings. You are enough. ♥