Leaping off the cliff!!

I thought I loved my job , really I did like 4 years ago, ha ha, seems like ages since I felt like that but after 7 years in the same job (would have been 8 except that I quit for 11 months once) I am really very tired of it. Don't get me wrong I have a good boss, much much better than most and I make a good salary not great but good and the job itself isn't bad but at this point in my life it just isn't enough, it's not at all what I want to be doing with my life 10 years from now, a year from now or even now. I guess what happened is that while still in the process of learning me I have found that I don't want the conventional nine to five desk job, wearing the power suit and all that. Nope! I want to inspire with the words I write, to inspire and to motivate and I also want to capture the beauty around me with my camera for the world to appreciate and enjoy. That is my passion! At 31 I am tired of settling for less than what I want to do, I want to live my dream but the more I think about it the more I realize that it's like leaping off a cliff without a parachute and no bridge in view. Hmm Scary isn't it? but it's amazing how no matter how much we want things to change in our lives, fear of the unknown tends to keep us cripled and firmly glued to the spot where we are, dreaming of all that could be but afraid to let it be. And so I stand at the edge and wait!

Family Reunion-Belonging is a Beautiful thing!

I am just about ready to do back flips, jump and touch the roof and spin on my head. Why, you ask? Well because I have just started meeting family that I didn't know I had and learning so much about my family and by extension about myself as well.
It is so great to meet the people that are a part of you and you are a part of them. It's funny how you think you know yourself so well, all the quirks, imperfections and personality traits you think makes you unique, then you find your family and find out that some of those things that you thought were uniquely you are actually family traits. I thought I would be unhappy or disappointed to find out I am not the uniquely different individual I thought I was but quite the opposite has happened. I am ecstatic to find that there are a whole bunch of people with similar personality traits like mine. There is this deep sense of belonging to see a photo of a family member you didn't know and realize they look just like you. It gives me thrill to talk to members of my family and realize we say the same crazy things and thing very much alike. It simply puts a smile on my face and this warm fuzzy feeling in my heart.
I have always wanted to be a part of a big, close knitted family and finding out that I actually am a part of one is an awesome start to my 2009.
Learning who I am as an individual and learning to love that person once I found her has been a long hard journey that has brought me to the place where I can celebrate me. Finding my family at this point in my life and learning how very much I belong to and with them is like the icing on the cake.
So now plans for a Family Reunion in 2010 are afoot and to say that I am excited is an understatement. Excitement just doesn't cut it, I am beside myself! I get to meet more people who are just like me and that can be nothing but good. The end result-I will have learned so much more about this person that looks back at me in the mirror and love her even more!
Charles Family Reunion 2K10-can't wait!!!!!!!

2009 - Endless Possibilities

Today is the day before 'Old Year's Day' as we call it here in the West Indies or the day before 'New Year's Eve' if you are American but whatever you want to call it, the year is at an end. Hmmm, it's the time of the year when we all do some soul searching, self-assessment and inventory of our year's endeavors so that we can set new goals and resolutions for the bright new year ahead. So let's look at my year.
2008, What a year this has been!!!! There have been trials, pains, disappointments, fears, points of weakness and feelings of failure, times when I have dared to dream and times when I lock my dreams in a box, times when I am certain I can move mountains and times when I ask "who am I kidding". As I said before, What a year it has been! Yet here I am at the end of it and hope is still alive in me. Yes this year was a year when I thought it would drown (hope that is) but coming to the end of one of the hardest years of my life, I look to 2009 with hope. Hope, because I am a child of God and therefore I have nothing to fear. Hope , because God has proven over and over that He will never fail me. Hope, because I know God's promises are true. Hope, because my God has given me wings and I will fly!
So yes I am a bit bruised and scarred after the fight I had this year but like Joshua I will bring down Jericho's wall and like Caleb I will take my mountain. So I wait as the final hours pass in 2008, I wait for the bells to toll the beginning of 2009 and I greet it believing it will be a year of endless possibilities, a year to climb a mountain, a year of receiving what I have been believing for. 2009 is MINE!!

Looking back to the future

The knowledge of who we are must first be proceeded by the understanding of who we were in line with where we came from, followed by the vision of who we will be by way of where we are going.

I have not long ago learned of the infamous and getting more so, Willie Lynch Letter and found it quite interesting. As a christian I have come to the realization that there are not coincidences and as I read the letter as a black woman I could not help but see the stark similarities between what was written and the culture prevavlent in the West Indies. Who was Willie Lynch everyone asks, and when did he write and deliver such a speech that cannot seem to be found anywhere in history? Whether or not there was an actual West Indian plantation owner by that name or not, who actually lived in the 1700s or 1800s or 1900s for that matter or whether the letter is the compilation of a African-American who majored or minored in American history to me does not seem to be the most important aspect; what is important is the fact that fundamental points of this letter is true both in the West Indies and America. In getting so carried away by the existance or non-existance of the man we miss the point that though there may not have been an actual "Making of a slave Handbook" the results of this non-existant handbook or plan can still be seen today.

To see the issues brought to the fore by this letter as a blame game or even an escuse to hide behind is, to continue to be the victim of slavery and the rules of the making of a slave as explained by the author of the letter be it Willie Lynch or John Doe.
What this writing illuminates is the destruction of a race, a sex and a people by not another race but by the devil himself. No human being could have master-minded any plan that could have been that successful for that long and no matter who the critic is, the cripled mentality of the black man is no myth or conspiracy theory, it is a fact. What it all comes down to is this; the devil devised a plan that would strike where he knew he was strongest; in the mind and he simple saw an opportunity which man provided him with by our need to suppress one another in order to succeed.

To return to my opening statement we must look at knowledge of where have been as a means to change where are going but we could not change what we did not know. Now that we have the knowledge of the mental conditions and breaking of slavery we can do what need to be done; change our mentality by renewing our minds.

To Be continued........

Can't despute, I am blessed!

Well, I've just watched a close friend of mine have a very low moment and she's been having quite a few these past few months where her children are concerned and one thing she said to me is that I don't know how blessed (well she used the word lucky but I prefer blessed) I am. Well that's where she's wrong cuz I do know. I try to take stock and remind myself of that everyday cuz you know what I realized, as bad as u think things are in your life rest assured they are worse in some else's and that kind of puts things into perspective. So no everything isn't all great neither is it how I'd like it to be right now but things are good, no scrap that they're Great and I am blessed! I just wish she'd see that she is too. We're not blessed in the same areas but she's quite blessed herself and I think maybe God orchestrated it that way so that we can help each other out wherever each lack. I could have the totally pessimistic look on life and be totally unhappy because everything isn't peachy but you know what, I realized a while back that it takes more energy to be angry, discruntled and unhappy and besides it's simply much more fun to approach life with a smile. Now don't get me wrong sometimes my smile sapps a bit and sometimes it gets turned up side down and sometimes it turns to tears but I try not to let that last for too long. I mean sometimes you've just got to cry, scream or have a small hissy fit but then you get over it and move on with a smile because you realize you've got the rest of your life in front of you. Life is a choice and I choose to live it with a smile. I realize that everyone can't be me but I wish they'd try to look at life a little differently every once in a while and maybe just maybe they might find a few things to be thankful for.

Later!

Day 1

Well, I Have finally set up my own blog and I am quite excited. There is soo much I have to write since wrting is my passion, but we'll take it slow.

Until tomorrow, TTFN!!