Introspective Soul

I love working in Elementary Schools even though that is not where my career started. I was a Middle School/Secondary person who really wanted to teach Middle/High Social Studies and English. I worked in secondary school for the first six years of my educational journey, then when I moved to Maryland, I got my first taste of working with second graders. The story of that journey is quite comical,…

Stillness: Navigating Shame Part II

Instinct naturally directs us to fight or flight in situations when we don’t always know our next steps. It is sometimes easier to run than fight, especially when you’ve exhausted all your strength and resources. It’s simpler to pack it all up and go back to the familiar and comfortable, when situations stretch us out of the realm of comfort and control. The unknown is a scary place. The grey…

I haven’t written or blogged in such a long time. It feels good to be in a space that I can dedicate time back to this passion of mine. It’s been a hell of a year and some change, as I sought to find balance as a school leader during the pandemic. That shit was tough, bruh. I’m here though, and I have plenty of stories to tell and today’s topic is something I’ve wanted to write about for some…

10 ten number with star and golden glitter on black background suitable for icon or typography logo design “Rainy days and Mondays always get me down, but this would go down as the worst in history.” When I created the piece Diagnostic, it had been a few years into my diagnosis and I was trying to find the beauty in being HIV positive, but I was latched on to the stigma. I had heard the horror…

So, birthdays always signify the new year for me. It’s funny because my friends always choose their words, declarations, and images for the year in January, and I always refuse. This is a moment for me to reflect on another year of life and determine what my focus would be. The conversation I had with parents this morning was a reassurance that change, though inevitable, isn’t the horror that we…

Just gotta try…

Recently, I was listening to a song that struck a very powerful memory for me. PJ Morton was on the radio singing “Mountains and Molehills” and it took me back to 9 years ago when I made the trek to Maryland in my father’s truck with $600 in my pocket that I had borrowed from him. I drove through the mountains, through snow and actually lost control of the vehicle at some point in Tennessee. It…

Are you even there, God?

Is Jesus on the main line? Can someone tell him we need him.

Before I journey down this path, I must say that I hesitated even writing this. I’ve talked to very few people about it. I’ve let myself sit with this uncomfortably for over a month because I know how many people I love are devoted Christians. I even asked one of my aunt’s to pray for me because I knew she wouldn’t ask any questions,…

Confronting the Fear…

Friday morning, I sat in a zoom call, trying to recollect myself after hearing and watching the stories of two black men being gunned down; 1 for jogging through a neighborhood, 1 for running from police while on FB live. My boss asked me repeatedly was I ok. She wondered why I was so quiet. The trauma had finally gotten to me and I couldn’t focus. In the midst of this pandemic, I’ve been afraid…

#QuarantineAndCreate #QWhorentineMusic

First of all, TimeHop is the devil. This needed to be said.

I’ve been seeing a lot of my triggers start to resurface as we kicked off the new year. I started reliving some trauma I had faced previously. I started being reminded of how things weighed me down and how poorly I handled them in the past. I started to feel guilty for not being where I wanted to be because I made decisions based on…

New Blog Post Alert: New Norms for 2020 Read. Repost. Reblog. Follow. Subscribe

2019 is coming to a close and I’ve been encouraging you guys to grow and heal all year. Well guess what?  We made it bitch. In light of the year that I’ve had, I decided this year to not do resolutions, but to adopt new norms or standard operations procedures. We’ve been lifting the work of equity, using the protocols from Courageous Conversations about Race, a book by Glenn E. Singleton.  Race…

SDD2: Reliving the Woodrow Wilson

Traveling in this region is already difficult as it is, but one of the landmarks of I-95 is the infamous Woodrow Wilson bridge. People use it for travel, exercise, and in my case, a means to an end. I work in the city and refuse to buy a car or drive, so my travel is restricted to areas that I can metro or Uber to, but at least once a year, I have to cross that bridge on my trek to Chesapeake, VA…