A Seat at My Table
I love, love, love music.
If you really know me, then you know that. So, when Solange came out with her album....A Seat at the Table....you just don't know (hands raised!)
I have been waiting for a way to describe how that album was really speaking to my life, but I probably just needed to say how my life was speaking to my life or something along those lines.
So back to the music. If you have never listened to her album, you may be lost in the analogies or not understand why I am even starting this post with accolades to her and that album. Solange has a song titled "Cranes in the Sky." Without me knowing her ties and purpose behind writing the song, I couldn't stop playing it on repeat. I felt like she had taken my entire 20s and put it into a song for me to hear, then was describing where I was currently at in life. Her entire album was actually an unraveling of my life. No exaggeration or dramatization, the entire album I love....the instrumentation, the lyrics. This post is not about the damn album though, lol!
I was giving you a seat at MY table. See, Solange recently released an interview with her sister and discussed the "why" behind her album among other things.
Why did her album speak to my soul?
Have a seat.
The lyrics, I could feel. I tried to drink it away. I tried to dance it away. I tried to traveled 70 states. I ran my credit card bill up. I tried to run it away. Ok....this isn't the correct order, but these are in the song. What was "it?"
That pain of feeling lost, afraid, uncertain, empowered, then put that on repeat. The growth that comes after you make a big life change and go through some real life stuff! The changes I experienced during my late 20s, early 30s were some of the most life-altering, growth producing moments of my life. I felt the rise, plateau, down-ward spiral, loss, shifts, darkness, renewal, and so much in the past several years. So, this album was really speaking to me.
My "it" that I buried was my feelings of pain. I always felt my emotions never seemed to matter much to those closest to me. Matter of fact, I seemed to get more love from strangers than the people I let in or the people that were just in (insert some family). I would never understand. It's kind of like the Robin Williams effect, you know, where you feel alone in a world full of people that seemingly like and love you? Actually, I still don't understand. I had to learn to let it go. It is an adaptive and growing process. I thought that pleasing everyone else would make life okay. Ignoring my feelings or diminishing them was actually killing me, a little at a time. For so long, I let everyone everyone just walk over my heart, all because I didn't want to feel like I was navigating this world alone. Funny thing, my momma used to say "you came into this world alone, and you will leave this world alone." I just did not want to believe that to be true. I had to go through that feeling of being alone. With my thoughts, with my emotions, with this world. I had to understand that human compassion is at an all-time low and although my heart may be soft in areas, that is not the case for everyone.
I tried to dance it away. It only provided temporary relief. Once the sweat and adrenaline was gone, the pain would return. I tried to drink it away. While the sips provide a buzz and a brief mental escape, sober life is always real. I let my lover go. A relationship that is emotionally unhealthy for one is emotionally unhealthy for both. When you're young and still growing then do very adult-like things, like get married without building an entire solid foundation--that is a set-up for growing pains. Some can make it through, I couldn't stay. What's best for the individual is not often best understood by the world. I tried to sex it away. Temporary encounters, brief moments of action, and then thinking like what the hell? God, be looking out. I tried to read it away. Reading helped some. Reading about emotional intelligence, God, the universe, love languages, spiritual alignment, humor, credit, law of attraction, men, women, biology, conspiracy theory, attachment, detachment, plus many other things did help. I had to unravel my brain from everything that I had been spoon-fed from a child to pretty much now. I had to face "it."
It was consuming me until I just let go. I kind of think of that term, conscious uncoupling. I had to do that with a lot of things in my life because to everyone else on the outside, my life was popping. Internally, I could not breathe.
There's things I knew I was wasn't going to be able to control, like my mom dying or the behavior of everyone else. I only had control how I was going to react to every single thing around me. Suffocate from it all, or let go and go through it and start emotionally clean. I could control if I was going to be happy. I had to understand that I was always good enough. I had to see my worth and hold myself accountable. See, in the end, people will tell you that they want you to be happy. It may be true, depending on the source. I've learned that some are genuine with that statement and some only mean that if they can stay attached.
Yeah, conscious uncoupling to those things in life that drain your soul, do not make you happy, do not match or add to your value.
So, music. It is beyond therapeutic to me. In my alone time, in my happy times, sad and in-between, a song can do so much. Cranes in the Sky just really spoke to my life. I get it now. This game called life....where I fit in. I understand that I am so valuable, so rare, so great. That the love I have to give is so great, there is no need for me to settle for just enough. There is no room to be afraid of your own greatness. That divine timing is real. Opportunities are plenty. That I enjoy the sun on my skin. That once you let go, you can breathe. Let God do the work. Live on purpose and in purpose...then breathe again.
Yeah, it took me 32 years to figure that out, my 33rd year I exercised it.
I know that God has some great things in store for me. My growth and learning is making room for all that.
See, I'm like a human unicorn.
I am Jackie
If you really know me, then you know that. So, when Solange came out with her album....A Seat at the Table....you just don't know (hands raised!)
I have been waiting for a way to describe how that album was really speaking to my life, but I probably just needed to say how my life was speaking to my life or something along those lines.
So back to the music. If you have never listened to her album, you may be lost in the analogies or not understand why I am even starting this post with accolades to her and that album. Solange has a song titled "Cranes in the Sky." Without me knowing her ties and purpose behind writing the song, I couldn't stop playing it on repeat. I felt like she had taken my entire 20s and put it into a song for me to hear, then was describing where I was currently at in life. Her entire album was actually an unraveling of my life. No exaggeration or dramatization, the entire album I love....the instrumentation, the lyrics. This post is not about the damn album though, lol!
I was giving you a seat at MY table. See, Solange recently released an interview with her sister and discussed the "why" behind her album among other things.
Why did her album speak to my soul?
Have a seat.
That pain of feeling lost, afraid, uncertain, empowered, then put that on repeat. The growth that comes after you make a big life change and go through some real life stuff! The changes I experienced during my late 20s, early 30s were some of the most life-altering, growth producing moments of my life. I felt the rise, plateau, down-ward spiral, loss, shifts, darkness, renewal, and so much in the past several years. So, this album was really speaking to me.
My "it" that I buried was my feelings of pain. I always felt my emotions never seemed to matter much to those closest to me. Matter of fact, I seemed to get more love from strangers than the people I let in or the people that were just in (insert some family). I would never understand. It's kind of like the Robin Williams effect, you know, where you feel alone in a world full of people that seemingly like and love you? Actually, I still don't understand. I had to learn to let it go. It is an adaptive and growing process. I thought that pleasing everyone else would make life okay. Ignoring my feelings or diminishing them was actually killing me, a little at a time. For so long, I let everyone everyone just walk over my heart, all because I didn't want to feel like I was navigating this world alone. Funny thing, my momma used to say "you came into this world alone, and you will leave this world alone." I just did not want to believe that to be true. I had to go through that feeling of being alone. With my thoughts, with my emotions, with this world. I had to understand that human compassion is at an all-time low and although my heart may be soft in areas, that is not the case for everyone.
I tried to dance it away. It only provided temporary relief. Once the sweat and adrenaline was gone, the pain would return. I tried to drink it away. While the sips provide a buzz and a brief mental escape, sober life is always real. I let my lover go. A relationship that is emotionally unhealthy for one is emotionally unhealthy for both. When you're young and still growing then do very adult-like things, like get married without building an entire solid foundation--that is a set-up for growing pains. Some can make it through, I couldn't stay. What's best for the individual is not often best understood by the world. I tried to sex it away. Temporary encounters, brief moments of action, and then thinking like what the hell? God, be looking out. I tried to read it away. Reading helped some. Reading about emotional intelligence, God, the universe, love languages, spiritual alignment, humor, credit, law of attraction, men, women, biology, conspiracy theory, attachment, detachment, plus many other things did help. I had to unravel my brain from everything that I had been spoon-fed from a child to pretty much now. I had to face "it."
It was consuming me until I just let go. I kind of think of that term, conscious uncoupling. I had to do that with a lot of things in my life because to everyone else on the outside, my life was popping. Internally, I could not breathe.
There's things I knew I was wasn't going to be able to control, like my mom dying or the behavior of everyone else. I only had control how I was going to react to every single thing around me. Suffocate from it all, or let go and go through it and start emotionally clean. I could control if I was going to be happy. I had to understand that I was always good enough. I had to see my worth and hold myself accountable. See, in the end, people will tell you that they want you to be happy. It may be true, depending on the source. I've learned that some are genuine with that statement and some only mean that if they can stay attached.
Yeah, conscious uncoupling to those things in life that drain your soul, do not make you happy, do not match or add to your value.
So, music. It is beyond therapeutic to me. In my alone time, in my happy times, sad and in-between, a song can do so much. Cranes in the Sky just really spoke to my life. I get it now. This game called life....where I fit in. I understand that I am so valuable, so rare, so great. That the love I have to give is so great, there is no need for me to settle for just enough. There is no room to be afraid of your own greatness. That divine timing is real. Opportunities are plenty. That I enjoy the sun on my skin. That once you let go, you can breathe. Let God do the work. Live on purpose and in purpose...then breathe again.
Yeah, it took me 32 years to figure that out, my 33rd year I exercised it.
I know that God has some great things in store for me. My growth and learning is making room for all that.
See, I'm like a human unicorn.
I am Jackie
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