TEATIME TUESDAYS

It turns out Adulting is much like the schoolyard, only with better toys, more lunch money and a later curfew. There's still a cool kids table and a corner for the jocks who only like the popular girlie girls. There are still the wallflowers who are underestimated and misunderstood. And let's not forget the 'I wish I had a little more of this and a little less of that' body-conscious chicks—only now having credit affords many the opportunity for a nip n' tuck. (insert drumroll) Then there are the bullies, the people that don't know who they are, so they make fun of you because, well, they don't know who they are!


High school is now called the workplace. Funday is the staff party, and afterschool clubs are known as happy hour. Assembly is the dreaded staff meeting, report card day is the end-of-year review, and teachers are nothing more than annoying supervisors, only now, in most cases, you are probably better qualified to do their job. Bullies are called Negative Nacy's and Karen's, who always have a problem and find fault in everything you do—usually, these folks have no life of their own. There, of course, is still that one person that's the butt of all the jokes and, on the flip side, there's the most charismatic individual that everyone gravitates toward. AKA, 'the popular kid' that it's more beneficial to befriend than to be enemies with. Like I said, adulting—nothing more than a playground for grown-ups.

In my late teens and early twenties, I remember breaking up with Bugga-boo every five minutes and twenty seconds. Argh! Looking back, that was so silly and super annoying. Why was I like that? 

I suppose it had much to do with emotional immaturity. Me, falling face forward into the status quo of "Reasons why women don't be makin' no sense!" First, I succumbed to a highly contagious disease that many women suffer from, known as the tomfoolery disorder. The most common symptoms are the words fine, nothing and whatever. When it wasn't that, then I caught a bout of good ole-fashioned catty-iitis―where symptoms resulted in slamming down phones and flinging doors shut. As if that wasn't bad enough, I, too, caught the sourpuss bug, which resulted in the incessant need to keep bringing up the past. I mean, rehashing "once upon a time's" more furious than a volcano erupting. (Talk about hell hath no fury...) All of it culminating into an era of what I refer to as the rise of the "Petty Crockers."  These days, we don't bother to go through all that; we use the handy dandy block and delete. 

Secure the bag, sis! Get 'dem coins, miss! Where the money resides! Everywhere we turn these days, it's all about the Benjamins baby. It's no wonder when the word' priority arises, the first thing that comes to mind is 'the budget.' While that's all good and well, I believe that your relationship with money reveals a lot about what you prioritize most in life. What you spend money on first usually indicates who or what has your heart.

I recently heard a sermon snippet where the preacher was listing things in your body that you could live without.  I'd never really given it that much thought simply because we see so many people around us functioning without certain extremities. I mean, that in and of itself shows that life is very doable without some stuff. That made me conclude priorities are not always determined by what's most important on the list but by knowing what you can do without. However, neither of these two extremes can't be understood or achieved without discipline and self-control.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears (in the words of Mark Anthony): To live in a state of denial means every day you wake up and choose violence. Your rejection of reality doesn't make it any less real, nor does your refusal to accept it make it go away.

Have you ever looked back over your life and asked yourself, "What in the Whitney and Bobby was I thinking?" Well, I was sis, sis was me! It all started in the last season (unbeknown to me) of a relationship. I woke up one day and realized the relationship I thought I was in and wanted so badly did not exist. There I was, with this romanticized view of the 'good woman' behind 'the great man.' But in actuality, there was a woman, and there was a man, but they were not moving together. The picture was a far cry from the negative.

I searched high and low for a definition of clarity that would explain exactly what I want to say next. Definitions.net did it justice and defines the word as: free from obscurity and easy to understand. So to be clear, one must be able to first see and then understand.

Secondly, gaining clarity calls for being in control of your thoughts. Research shows we have anywhere from 50,000 to 80,000 thoughts a day! How can you tell anyone else what you think if the things you're considering don't even make sense to you?

From the very moment you open your eyes in the morning, everything you do from that moment on is based on a choice. Snooze or not snooze? Pray or don't pray? Shower, bath or nah? Sweats or jammies? Coffee, tea or both? Toast or cereal? 

On the flip side, there are some things that dictate your life but are based on decisions that have nothing to do with you. Like, you can't decide who your parents are. Nor can you determine when or where you're born, neither when you'll die. All you have at any moment is the moment you have in the now. I heard a preacher say that the understanding of life is not so much found in the answers but in the depth of the question.

All of this then made me wonder, is it your choice whether your life is empty or full? And can you choose what fills your life or what you'll lack? Ultimately can you decide to be or not to be? 

This made me question, "Is it possible to become too familiar in a relationship?" After all, isn't that the goal? To know you as I know myself?

Truth be told, the more you know about people, potentially the less you like them. Usually, the folks you encounter act as a mirror. Sometimes it's a two-way, where you can see them, but they can't see you, or it's just as we know it to be—and what is presented is what is reflected. What a person represents can sometimes show you precisely who you are. Honestly, most of us don't like that feeling. How dare you reveal to me my flaws? How dare you reflect me to me without a filter? I firmly believe in any relationship, be it platonic or otherwise; we're either projecting or reflecting. 

According to one online dictionary, there are 13 definitions for the word toxic. Most of which are derivatives of poison. So essentially, what we're doing when we hold on to our unhealthy traits is the equivalent of scattering droplets of contaminants as we do when setting traps for rodents. We are purposefully and intentionally (whether you admit it or not) destroying whatever we come in contact with. So if you are out here staying toxic even after being told, then fam, you're selfish, trapsy, and must simply hate people.

I remember reading somewhere that you can't be salty and single. Immediately my melanin neck roll ensued, followed by the appropriate "Ooh really now?" dose of sarcasm. Now, what was more real than the statement itself was that at that moment, I wasn't ready to face the truth of what that conversation would reveal. That admission suddenly made me aware that being salty is usually birthed in insecurity and nourished by fear.

It's these would be insignificant facts that made me remember one thing. The more I learn, the less I know. Yet, for most of my life, 'I' had the audacity to think I knew more than I really do. Could no one tell me nothing! This, of course, played out in several intervals during my life. First, as a teenager, when I wanted to defy parental rules. Then in the workplace, when I couldn't stand being corrected, especially openly. But more predominantly in relationships where I thought I was the foremost authority on most subject matters. I don't know; somehow, I kept catching the Black Friday sales on Audacity. I was fully stocked. I mean never rationing or in short supply.