Two weeks ago,  I turned 37.  For the first time in a while, I wasn’t alone or feeling lonely (on a birthday).   In fact, I now know I am in a good place.

Despite some of the chaos that’s been happening through the year, I find I am more secure and stable in who I am, what I want and where I am going.  I am certain of the people I have surrounding me.  I am certain there is a specific direction.  I may not always know where I’m going to land, but I can say that the road I’m traveling has been a good trip thus far.

May 29th restored me.  I shed some things I had been carrying for a while – doubt, uncertainty?  Yeah – it was time to leave them where it came from.  Best to send them right back.  Serves no use most of the time.  Or at least it wasn’t serving me.

Without further adieu, here are my “Thoughts on 37″: 

1. Being three (3) years away from 40 is a serious wake-up call.
2. 37 is no different from any other year. It’s just I’m different.  I’m a better me.  Lens is clearer.
3. I feel like a unicorn at 37. At 40 I plan to feel like a fairy or a fairy queen.  When I was 25 I wasn’t even thinking about 40!! I’m staying young.
4. I like to hear good news (see Philippians 4:8).  If you’re a nay-saying bad news bringer, I’m not checking for you and you must exit stage left immediately.
5. Time is more important, more precious.   There is less time today than yesterday.  I’m going to spend it in a good place.
6. This doesn’t mean tears won’t be shed.  Heartbreak isn’t a friend of mine.  It does mean, I’m less tolerant of people who bring this into my life consistently.
7. It also means being able to go through things without getting stuck.  If there’s something happening, I need to get through it, experience it, process it, thank God I made it through it and then keep on walking.  Never look back.  I’m in no mood to turn into a pillar of salt.
8. It also means being able to forgive.
9. A disagreement doesn’t have to mean a dissolution (most times).
10. Random: I’m wearing shades of red lipstick and loving it (you thought I was about to mention something about 50 Shades of Grey didn’t you? Nasty! Ha ha! Just kidding. Another story for another day).  All this to say, it’s been important for me to break out of my comfort zone on some things.
11. There is a lesson in it all.  The good.  The bad. The traumatic.  The heart wrenching.  I’m taking notes.  I don’t like repeating classes.
12. Motherhood and marriage are still close to my heart.
13. It’s more important than ever to value my personal story and share it.
14. My commitment to transparency and honesty is still a full-fledged journey.  Although I’m honest there are still many secret chambers of my heart I keep locked away for safe keeping.
15. My level of discernment is off the charts these days.  If it ain’t right, it ain’t right.  If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck – guess what?
16. Even though my discernment is off the charts, I  really don’t know too much of shit anymore (ironic? yes. Crazy? No.).  The longer I’m living I’m realizing there is so much more I don’t know than I do know.
17. I am aware, more than ever, of my personal boundaries & deal breakers.
18. As much as I love to teach and give, to help,  there will be times I cannot teach, I cannot give or offer help.  Sometimes I need to sit back, enjoy the ride and keep my mouth shut.  In fact, many things don’t need to be fixed or tampered with by me.  God’s got it under control.    (see #16 on discernment)
19. I am aware of things I can handle, tolerate, deal with, make work.  I’m not talking myself into or out of what my gut is telling me to do or not to do.
20. Sometimes, I’m not going to get an apology – and it’s ok. It’s not right, but it’s ok.  I’m just going to have to press on.  (See #8)
21. God reeeeeeeaaaaaaallllllyyyyy loves me (and you).  I can’t even begin to tell all the stories on here – I will divulge some about how He’s rescued and steered me all these years.  Whew!!!
22. Reading and prayer are keys to knowledge.  As is surrounding myself with the people who I believe have wise counsel.  I should never be afraid to ask for help or counsel especially when seeking the right people to help me. In other words, I’m not seeking water in the desert.  I only ask those I know have been where I’m at and where I’m trying to go.
23. Everything is fine, in right order – just as it is. Right now.  Romans 8:28

Anyone else crossed this threshold?  Can you feel me?  My sisters over 40 – what was this time like in your life as you began to approach it?  Any wisdom you can impart?

Love,

Rae

Tonight I have so much I want to say, but I can’t.  It doesn’t mean I’m holding back.  I’m not.

But when I began to write, when I began this blog, I imposed a rule that my good friend, my brother and I had.  There were some stories we wouldn’t share in real time.  They were too fresh.  Too open.  Like having a wound, an injury where you’re “cut to the white meat,”as the old folks used to say.  The moments and the memories you want to keep to yourself.  You can’t really share them with anyone else.  Maybe because they think you’re crazy? But mostly because you just want to hold them close.  Hold them so they never really leave your arms.  Hold them because you want to protect the others on the opposite end of the story.

Mostly because I rarely write in real time.  As in I don’t think I should.  I could.  I have the capacity to do so.  I have amazing stories to tell – but such is my life.  I could say all that happens from day to day, but it doesn’t serve my life cause and path.   Maybe if my blog was anonymous? But there are people who live to figure out identities.  And rightfully, I wouldn’t have met some of the amazing people in my life now if I wrote this without a name or a face.

See there is a consequence to writing in real time.  There are real people involved.  People I love.  It’s not to say I never will.  I will probably have someone live blog/live tweet my wedding one day with real time photos of the preparation for the event. It’s just to say I have the desire to protect people I care for and although there is much to be said in real time, I cannot blog about things in real time.  Because I write, because I blog, I never want anyone to feel as if their story isn’t safe.  It is.  The love, the secrets, the stories, the time spent, the crying, the confessions… they are all safe.

Maybe one day, when my life mirrors the African-American DC version of The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, I’ll blog about my children and my husband and his friends.  My friends and sisters.  My urban garden.  My real-time recipes.  Of course I want you to know I am fully aware my life doesn’t mirror Ree’s life but Lord knows, if I can end up on a farm and making it happen like she does…. y’all will have many stories to read.  Regardless, there are many stories to be told.  By the way, do you know who the Pioneer Woman is?  Get in to her!  I love and adore her!!

I could tell you about the dinners I cook. Someday I will.  I can tell you how much love I put into it.  Didn’t know I cooked?  I do.  And I LOVE to cook.  I make amazing meals.  Meals filled with love and care, with adoration and life.

But I won’t because that’s who I am.

But y’all know where this is going right?

Is there such a thing as a statute of limitations when it comes down to people and love?  < You of course knew I was going to bring all of this up right?

Can love expire?  Is there a time to admit it all and come clean?  Can there be a safe space to talk about it where it doesn’t hurt anyone? Is there a space and time when I can express all of it and it won’t turn a person away, he won’t run?  Is there a space to make sure all of it can be shared in real time?

I don’t have the answer.

But tonight, I have a series of songs playing in the playlist in my mind, with a series of thoughts.  I think about things that were shared, things that were spoken.  I think about all of the things that are felt but not said.  The things that go unsaid.  The things I know to be true but just can’t put to words.

The stories will come in time.  Some of them will never see the light of day.  They will only exist between God, me and the third party.  There will be other stories  I save for my memoir.

There are stories I still think about today, 15 years out, where I still think I cannot tell the entire story.  It’s like a good journalist, a good reporter never revealing his/her source.  I have to be content in knowing the story without ever telling it.  Having had the experience, but never sharing it with anyone.

But the point in writing is to share and that I do.  To teach or to evoke emotion and that happens every day.

The point is to protect who and what I love.  To be able to still connect with everyone who reads and still be real.
To be able to say there is a time to talk, there is a time to shut up, there is a time to love and protect.  A time to sit still, be still.  There is a time to question and a time to know.

In all things you do, do them for the sake of love.  It’s the only thing that will ever last.

Love,

Rae

God clearly loves fools and babies.

I fall under both categories.  I am His baby and I surely act a fool. I have done outrageously foolish things and have made a whole set of specialized foolish decisions.  Repeatedly and without abandon.  Smiling and excited and acting like I was doing the right damn thing.  Really.  No faking.  I talk it ’cause I live it. Ward 7 DC. Repping fo’ the D. by way of Bomingham (aka Birmingham).  Yeah, I’m trill.  Even on my kindest, sweetest days I can rep. I have been known as ride or die.  Mostly I was a rider.

GOD has the best and most unique sense of humor I’ve ever come to know.  If you don’t think so, just look at the variety of human beings He’s placed on this earth and all of the crazy and funny things we do.  I’d like to think laughing was invented by Him.  It’s said, “If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans.”  Needless to say, He must get a regular full belly chuckle out of me.  Hell, I laugh at me many days.

With all of the hardcore in me, I’m as soft as room temperature butter.  I cry at love scenes and movies and when Benji finally makes his way home.  I get upset when I see children who look like they don’t have anyone who cares about their whereabouts.  I love love.   I love my family.  I love my friends.  I love writing.  I love fresh flowers and good pizza and cheap wine.  I. Just. Love. Period.  As I’ve also been advised by my friend Henry, I’m a softy.

And because I’m a lover and not a fighter, I’m often the vulnerable one.  I’m the girl who likes to put herself on the line and admit she’s in love.  Even when it isn’t recommended, I’ll do it because I always secretly hope I’ll meet the one (or a facsimile thereof) who loves me as much (and shows me) as I admit I love him. In the end, it makes me susceptible to many things – both good and bad.  There is much to be said for that kind of vulnerability.

I also realize how rare it is these days.

Has anyone read Watchman Nee’s The Release of the Spirit?  It talks about how God consecrates us.  How much our makeup is like the construction of the egg.  With a hard outer shell.  The egg white and the yolk.  And how God causes that outer shell to crack and fortifies us so that when others look to us, they see God and not just us with our flaws and difficulties.  If they do see those flaws, it’s that moment people see the flaws as divine.  Really, this is a blessing.

The reality of it is vulnerability is a blessing for the following reasons:

1. It cracks you wide open.  Whether good or bad, there’s no expansion, growth, metamorphosis or increase when you stay in your shell.
2. It frees you.  Being bound is the worst thing in the world.
3. It frees and helps others.  Seeing someone who isn’t bound up, isn’t shackled, encourages and builds up others.

So I could be called foolish in some ways.  I mean I’m not over here draining my bank account and giving money out.  I’m just open to all of the good and the possibilities that can come my way.

Writing over this last month has made me extremely vulnerable.  Anyone who is a creative, who shares publicly?  Vulnerable. Anyone who decides to love another human or quasi-human? Vulnerable.  Starting a new job, business, personal endeavor? Vulnerable.

There’s no real way to avoid it.  At some point in time, we’ll all be ass out.  It seems I’m often ass out but it becomes me. I just decided I didn’t want to run and hide anymore.  It takes too much effort and time.

So here I am.  Sometimes with my ass flapping in the wind, sometimes flying by the seat of my pants.  There are times when it definitely backfires, but more times than not, my vulnerability has richly rewarded me. Sometimes I’m embarrassed.  But the vulnerability has been an asset.  I’ve learned to turn it into one.

I’ve found my greatest love, my greatest lessons and my greatest gains in these moments.   But really, what do we have to lose?  What could we gain from it?

Love,
Rae

Are you always on time? Early?  Do you turn in your projects weeks before deadline? Are you the person who has their Christmas shopping done with the presents wrapped by October? Do you plan meals out for months in advance?  Do you follow your budget?  Are you disciplined?

Then this post is NOT for you.  It’s for the procrastinators such as myself.  But if you’re orderly, we still love you. In fact, us procrastinators need you in our lives.

Hello, my name is Raegan Mathis and I am President and Founder of the Negro Procrastination Society for Colored Folk.

I accepted this position last week after God and I had a talk.  Actually, we were boxing – I box with Him a lot.  I lose all the time, but I’m like Jacob in that way.  We have regular talks about blessings.  This time was no different – I still lost. I win, because I lost.

Mostly because I felt convicted about the areas of my life where I’m slacking.  There was this realization I’m giving too much attention to the wrong areas of my life.  It’s more so that the priorities I have are being set out in the wrong order.  Period.  I have priorities.  However all of them aren’t in first place for attention.  Not only that, but I’m not working at my best possible potential and I need to figure out why.  Is it fear? If so, of what?

Really, it comes down to compartmentalizing and focusing respectively on things in a more efficient and satisfying way than I have been.

In other words, it’s time to go hard or go home. It basically comes down to the fact that I need to stop that shit.  At this point in my life, there is too much at stake to lose something because I sit on the opportunity until the last minute,  then want to cry and lay out because I missed out.  I have control over seizing those opportunities or not.

What’s interesting is I don’t know where I get this procrastination gene from.  Both of my parents are mad organized and in fact have OCD to a certain extent about how they want things, about being on time, about planning early to the best of their abilities. I am really crazy about certain things – like the bathroom and kitchen being clean, my bedroom being clean, no dishes in the sink, whether or not I turned the stove off (I’ve been known to come back home and check it), I check for my phone, keys and wallet all the time.  I know.  But when it comes down to work – job, blog, book, apps for opportunities, business things for life, I clock out sometimes.  I wait until the very last minute to make things happen.

I think it’s because I’ve gotten away with it too many times.  There have been so many times, I’ve been able to “pull it off” so to speak that I’m exhilarated by the rush I get when make things happen.  But why do I have to be like that? That whole – let me leave at 3pm when I know I have a flight at 5pm and it might take 45 minutes to get to the airport, but I’ll make it business…is not the business.  It’s almost like I’m daring myself to see if I can do it.

It’s the wrong attitude.

I don’t want to keep testing the waters on things.  I just need to get busy and at the very least, do the work I need to do.  Be on time, be early.  Get the work done I’ve set out to do or have on my plate.

I mean, how else do you succeed? Sure there are people who receive everything just handed to them – but there’s a cost.  There’s always a cost.  Procrastination has a cost too.  And I can definitely say I’ve paid the price for it over the years.  I was thinking about two things – Marianne Williamson said, if I may paraphrase it to read as I understand it – that God basically holds your blessings for you.  They are yours.  So it’s not like He’s out here giving away your book deal or that house you have your eyes on.  Then there is the other side – how many times was God ready to give me something but I wasn’t ready?  I hadn’t done the necessary work to even handle what He was going to put on the table.   So I’m the one who’s holding God up?  How is He going to give me anything else when I’m not properly caring for what He’s given me now?

Yeah, I need to get myself together.

As we watch people succeed and get the things they want out of life, it’s not that they’re smarter or better.  Maybe they are better at what they’re doing than others, but mostly it’s because they are working.  And they’re working hard.  They’re working when we’re procrastinating.  They’re up making designs and plans.  In other words, excuse my french, they’re not fucking around all the time.

Procrastinators are a unique group.  I’ve read something to the tune of us being perfectionists.  We wait until the last minute because we know we won’t get it just the way we want it.  Again, my theory is that I’m bored and not using my gifts in the right way – mostly why I started this blog.  This for sure happens at work where I have a project that has 7568 parts to it or more and I’m like ohhh, lemme just wait one week until it’s due and I have to stay up all night, all week, in order to get it done. Who does that? I do.

I also believe many procrastinators are at damn near genius level.  Like how else, besides for the grace of God do we manage to pull things off? That’s a blessing.  That’s ingenuity.  But we’re using that power in the wrong way.

It should be used to get ahead – not keep up.

I know if I stopped procrastinating, I’d win more.  I wouldn’t have room to be upset.  I’d know I had put forth my best effort. Procrastination is self-sabotage in it’s worst form.  Mostly because it’s a silent, slow way to sabotage our own success.

Fact: Did you know that ONE(1) hour of proper planning will save you 200 hours of correction?

I want you to think about it.  How many hours have I spent chasing my tail all because I was too lazy, too afraid, too nervous, too whatever to do the one hour of work I needed to do that would change my life?

Look, planning and preparation and the non-slack for whatever it is I want to do will not only bless and honor my life, but it gives me the chance to bless and honor the lives of my family and friends.  I get to help them when I have time and money.  I love my life and I love myself.  When I’m procrastinating all of the time, it doesn’t show the love.  When I procrastinate, I’m saying things aren’t important enough, I’m not important enough, to handle these things in advance.

I call foolishness and bullshit.  Because we know better.  I’ve been out here doing what I want to do, when I should be doing what I’m supposed to do.

Sidenote: I started reading Judy Smith’s Good Self, Bad Self and it’s about managing your good and bad qualities (self) to avoid crisis. She says the very qualities that make us successful are the same ones that can take us down.  The quality in itself has both a good property when managed correctly and a bad one when not – opposite sides of the coin.  That thing right there sat me down and made me think.  I’m still reading and still thinking.  Like – if I know by waiting until the last minute will produce nothing but a headache and possible failure, why do I do it?  Is that a quality I can turn on it’s head?  What’s the opposite side of this and how do I get to it? When I get the answers – because I will – I will report back.  Wayment – do you know the answer to this? Leave me a comment below.

One other thing, sometimes, procrastinating makes us feel better.  Having to actually DO something may mean it’s not something we hate or dread.  In fact, maybe we know it’s going to be painful.  Hence why we’re ignoring it.  Hmmmm….but maybe it still needs to be done.  There’s too much to list on all of the things I don’t want to do, but I will say when I do the things I’ve been avoiding, I feel better about myself and it causes less worry.  Avoidance doesn’t make the matter go away. It’s like hiding under the covers as a child from the monsters in your closet. If they really are in there do the covers save us?

So today, if there’s something you’ve been putting off that you know will benefit your life, let’s stop right now and spend one uninterrupted hour just doing that thing.  It may be research, a phone call, looking for something you’ve lost, prepping your family for something, putting in that job application, going to the doctor,  searching for new opportunities or brainstorming.  It could also mean, just cleaning your house so you can see the floor and actually use your kitchen.  I’m just saying.

What’s been your experience procrastinating? Any recovering procrastinators out there? Any advice on how you managed to change?  Comment below or tweet me @fromraewithlove.  If you’d like to join the Negro Procrastination Society, just tweet me and let me know.  We’ll have to keep an eye on each other.

I’m going to do better.  We’re going to do better.

Love,

Rae

My name is Blossom
I was raised in a lions den
My name is Blossom
I was raised in a lions den
My nightly occupation
Stealing other womens men
I’m an evil evil woman
But I want to do a man some good
I’m an evil evil woman
But I want to do a man some good
I’m Gina Lola Bridgietta
I ain’t red riding hood
If you don’t like my peaches, baby, why do you shake my tree?
If you don’t like my peaches, baby, why do you shake my tree?
Get out of my orchid, baby
Let my peach tree be
Now don’t you ooh skoodla doo skoodli dee
And I won’t ya ya doo doo
If you don’t ooh skookdla doo
Then I won’t ya ya doo doo
So don’t you ooh skoodla doo skoodli dee
And I won’t ya ya doo doo
Some men like me cause I’m happy
Some think I’m snappy
Some call me honey
And some think I’ve got
But Grey Brown told me that I was built for speed
You put them all together
Everything a good man needs
You put them all together
Everything a good man needs

– Blossom’s Blues

The titles says it all.  Do you understand what it really means?

In my version, it asks what does it mean to really have someone who’s interested in you?  Or not.  I mean, in other words….

If you’re not interested, why are you steaming up my tail???

It may be Blossom’s Blues, but damn if I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about.

Ever been with someone who is hot one day and cold the next?  I can’t.  I think I used to be able to tolerate it, but at this point in the game, I can’t handle it any more.  So, if you’re shaking my tree, you better be loving these peaches.

Was just listening to this song the other day coming home thinking about all of the places and stages of being I’ve been in with relationships.  You’re into him, he’s not into you.  He’s into you, you’re not into him. The two of you are just friends with benefits.  You are getting benefits, he’s getting none.  He’s getting benefits…you’re getting few.  Y’all bye.  I can’t!!!!  Does anyone feel me?

I think about this time last year and I was in a totally different dynamic than I am now.  In fact, I feel bad for that position that I was in at the time.  It wasn’t something I would take on now.  I should have been in a very different position altogether.  While I wouldn’t do it again, I am thankful for the lessons it taught me because it launched me on to other lessons that needed to be learned during 2011 so I could move on to the goodness of 2012.  And trust me — 2012 is shaping up to be beautiful.  I am thankful for all of God’s blessings.

Funny how God allows you to go through certain things, plow through the fields and the layers in order to get to your best self, your best life, your best “crop” so to speak.

I say all that to say, I’m working on a balance as we speak.   Accepting grace.  Putting it all together.  Preserving my peaches.  No more tree shaking for me.

Where are you in this year?  Allowing people to shake your tree? Collecting and preserving your own peaches?  I mean, tell me…how are you?