Everytime I leave home it is hard. And no matter how many times it happens I still feel that slight bit of "what am I doing this for?" The answer is always the same. Because I have to. I have to for me.I knew at a very young age I wanted to get married and have children. What girl didn't I thought? In my case, I also knew I wanted a career. Somethig substantial I told myself. My first substantial is when I thought I wanted to be a lawyer.
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As time went on I came to know that it did not matter what I wanted to become. It mattered more how I wanted to feel. And every since my late 30's I have been chasing my feelings. Trying really hard at times to keep up with my feelings. I needed to feel at all times that I was doing something that made a difference. That was my filter when deciding between one job and another. How did it make me feel?. I turned down one job that paid a whole lot of money. I would have been marketing beer. Not for me. Another time, and again for a lot of money, I quit a job. This time because it involved marketing cigarettes. In both cases, I yielded to my feelings.
Like a lot of women, I choose to work. I don't really have to work. I choose to work because it fills me up. It completes me. It makes me in fact a better person at home. Each day I walk out that door I feel like I am leaving a part of me out there in a way that really matters inside me.
I don't judge in any fashion moms who stay at home. In a very big way I envy their committment, even their ability to do one very important thing extremely well. I can't. I know I can't. I starve for the attention and accolades the outside world brings me because of the work I do. I get my oxygen, my fix from completing a project on time, from seeing the look in other's eyes when a black female entrepreneur walks in the boardroom. I like that my kids see me making such a big difference among men.
So I leave home over and over again. There are times I have missed some pretty big events back home because of work. Those days I cried into a hotel pillow like any self-respecting momma CEO should.

My relief comes in knowing I have the full support of those I leave behind. We know we are no good without each other. And at times we will leave home only to return again.

It is spring. And with this changing to a new season comes some pretty predictable goings on. You ladies might be familiar with many of them. If you are even remotely involved with someone who loves to golf, then you are likely familiar with all of them. 

I call this first one "The  you don't want to go with me, you will only be bored" trick. And for awhile this one works, until you call his bluff and con or guilt him into buying you clubs with cute hats on them, matching bag, pink balls and cute shoes with the spikey thingies on them.

The second one is "I am not really going golfing I am just going out to "hit some balls." You don't want to go, it is hot and not much variety. They call it the driving range. Just a bunch of dudes tightening up their swing. Nah you wouldn't enjoy that." That works until you say, "I will just go with you and check it out, see if it is something I might like. My swing needs improvement too. Gotta start somewhere."

Then there is, "Oh no, none of the other wives are going, and you will mess up the foursome. Why don't you call Paul's wife, see what she is doing. Y'all might want to go get your hair done." That is until you say, "What's WRONG WITH MY HAIR?" Needless to say he just messed up his foursome. He ain't going nowhere.

Then he tries the, "I am just going to play NINE holes with the fellas. We need to talk business. I shouldn't be long. I will take you to get something to eat when I get back." Like something to eat is going to make up for what will surely be 19 holes, I meant 18 holes and plenty of replay discussion at the clubhouse afterwards.

Then comes the player's play right out of the old school player's playbook. "Hey I am just going to run a few errands. Shouldn't be long. Why don't you and I go hit some balls when I get back." 

I fall for that one every season.

What he doesn't know. I have been taking private lessons along with Paul's wife, while they thought we were getting our hair done. And while they were playing "nine" holes.

And we are saddling up. Oh and we will need a new golf bag to match our new clubs this season. We outgrew the other ones.

Whose Tee is it? And I ain't walking. And since we are out here, I brought a list of things we should talk about. Call it business.

It is not unusual to find ourselves in situations where we need a clear way out or through or over or under. Times when the elements seem to overtake us and simply relying on the moment is not clear enough or good enough to serve the purpose at hand. These are those times we find  ourselves suffering, fighting to see to the other side. The air is heavy, thick and cloudy with the unknown. We feel the gravity against us and it becomes apparent that we need help that in the moment we can't provide ourselves. So we look for angles.

​Angles come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes they don't appear to fit the circumstance so we ignore them, push them aside, toss them into the corner. That's because they may be foreign to us. They were not what we expected, what we planned for. In our minimalist view, we excuse them, putting distance between ourselves and the angle at hand. Where we think we need money to solve our problem the angle may appear as prayer. Where we think we need rescue, the angle may appear as covering. A covering of conversation or company or insight. Where we might believe we need companionship, the angle may indeed appear as kindred friendship that morphs into something more meaningful over time.

​Too often these angles never have a chance to fit the situation because we don't give them a chance to be angles. We shun them and characterize them as unwelcome intrusions. And such a pity is this shunning. The pity is we never stopped to ask, from where did this help come from? We never asked because we had our mind made up. We try to reshape the angle, never realizing the angle was an angel of God's choosing. But we missed that because we never asked the question, from where does my help come from? We were so busy trying to create the angle, we missed the angel that God sent.

She was not feeling like herself. She could not put her finger on exactly what was askew but it was something and everything perhaps. Not exactly a sadness feeling just not the gleeful happiness she had grown accustomed to. Yet and still, the band had to play. The show must go on. So she dressed and sprayed and prepped and she opened the door and walked outside. She walked out and pretended to be awesome.

And on the that day she had the great fortune to bump into LIFTED. Lifted seem to come out of nowhere, somewhere. He looked ordinary. He seemed to be on his way to somewhere important so she was careful not to hold him too long. Their encounter began with him, not her. He simply said, "What a day, mine has not been extraordinary." And that is how they met. And what was she to do with such a proclamation as that? So she said nothing. And with that silence he filled it with the following.

We are not promised perfection, or excellence, or trial-free days on earth. We are not ensured that there will not be struggle or fear or pain or sorrow. We are not guaranteed riches or fortune or prosperity. None of these is ours just because we ask it and especially because we might expect it. But there is something more special more lasting, more promised than all of these. It is the gift of knowing we will never suffer alone. There is the knowing that there is someone who has suffered all of these long before we existed. He did-so selflessly. He did so when it became our turn we would not suffer in vain. Ours is temporary because He paid the ultimate price of suffering. He did so when it became our turn we would be LIFTED. And ours would be temporary.

She straightened up and she walked onward and she looked up. And she knew she was lifted.

It is just terrible to be tricked. I am not just talking about the type of childish trick that leaves everyone peeing in their pants as it unfolds. Like when my big brother used to put a pale of water over the slightly ajar door and just as some unsuspecting someone enters, the water comes crashing down on them. This trick works with water balloons too. No need to ask me how I know. Or the trick where that same big brother told me he would pay me a dollar to help him clean out our ginormous fish tank with nasty stinking snails littering the insides.

For a dollar I jumped at the chance. First he told me we must get the water out. Made sense to me. He insisted I stretch the cutoff water hose as tight as it would go. He placed one end in the tank and as calmly as he could muster, told me to suck hard as I can on the other end of the hose just long enough to begin the water siphoning. I did of course. Moments into this nasty business, I sucked a mother snail into my throat. My brother laughed so hard he fell against the fish tank almost bringing it crashing to the floor. I could have sworn he peed his pants watching me trying to hack up that nasty slimy snail running all around the living room arms flailing in the air like a mad woman.

Did I mention he once shot me in the butt with a BB-gun after he gave me a 5 second head start to run or that he tied me around the tree in the front yard with just my underwear on in three feet of snow and without shoes? All the result of tricks by the way. The snow was a double-dare. He dared me to run to the curb and back for more dough. When I reached out to the patio door to return, he slammed it in my face. When he finally let me in all while dying laughing, I insisted on the money he promised. When I would not give up asking, he tied me around the tree. My mother beat him for that. That's when I got my laugh.

The tricks that were played on me made me stronger indeed. I learned to see the various angles in people's motives. I learned that you must listen to both what they are telling you and what they are not telling you. I got it down to a simple rule. I ask myself, does this scenario even make sense? That usually helps me sniff out the motivation behind a thing. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

One last story. Once my same crazy brother made fish bait shaped like small cookie dough. It was convincingly persuasive all even and brown and round and glistening on that cookie sheet. All in even rows. Trouble is it was nothing of the sort. There were worms and crud and guts in them. He called me into the kitchen and said, "I made cookie dough but it is not ready yet." They are on the counter in these even rows. "Don't you dare touch them", he chided. This story does not end well. Suffice to say, he made me finish what I started.

Be happy I did not end on the story where he made me hold dog poo in my hand for an hour because I would not take my turn and clean it up. That trick really stank.

What does not kill you makes you wonder.

Well I suppose the first thing we ought to do is define greatness. So while you take a moment to decide that for yourself allow me to set the framework for this discussion. I can't define greatness, nor can your neighbor for you, but you can for you. Because greatness is in the eye of the beholder. One person's greatness can be perceived as another's mediocrity.

My grandmother was great. She was the first African-American female hired by General Motors way back when neither ...women or African-Americans were plentiful on factory lines. There was a sort of nepotism in the factory business and after Grandma Hazel got on she brought on many others afterwards. Yes, Grandma Hazel was great. She stayed at General Motors long after she should have given her age. They liked my Grandmother so much they paid her to come in but she was no longer allowed to work on the factory floor. Too dangerous I suppose. Instead she would crochet. Yes she crocheted hats, scarves, socks, mittens for everyone who worked there. Every day she came in took her place somewhere in a quiet space and she crocheted. I can just imagine her white bosses being fitted for their winter hat and mittens during their breaks.

It wasn't until she ran out of things and people to crochet for did she finally relent and agreed to fully retire. The last thing she crocheted was toilet tissue covers. Or so the legend goes. Once she had digressed to toilet tissue covers she collected her yarn, her crochet needles and went home. They will never forget my Grandma Hazel and they might even miss her mittens and scarves. In my eyes, Grandma Hazel was indeed great.

So how do I define great? I define it quite simply. Great is as great does. It is making something out of nothing or making something that exists better. Great is inertia. It is a constant flow of improvement. It is energy. It is a levity of high spirit and laughter. Greatness is going against the grain. Greatness is daring to be useful. Greatness is doing what you once believed was impossible for you.

Greatness is inside each of us

The power of the written word is awesome. The way ideas can be transferred and words ordered to create mindsets and stir emotion is a wondrous thing. When you come across someone, anyone who paints with words it is intoxicating. You will go out of your way to connect with their magic. You are drawn in and you want their words to quench your thirst.  Being able to enlighten others is a gift. It is also a huge responsibility.

Words shape opinion, drive behavior, change trajectories, and mold the very spirit of those they touch. Words heal and they hurt. I learned a new word recently: Il'lu'mine. It means to light up, brighten. It means to enlighten spiritually or intellectually. To truly enlighten, one must choose their words very carefully.

Imagine you only had a few words to choose from. Take the Taki Taki language for example. This English Créole language spoken by South Americans in the country of Suriname has just 340 words. Contrast this to the nearly 200,00 words in American English. Shakespeare himself invented 1,700 new words.

We waste a lot of words. We leave some of the best words on the table to be written or spoken by others. On an average day a woman will speak 20,000 words versus a man's 7,000. I won't say anymore about that.

I have a general rule about words. It is simple. I am the first to speak good about others and the first to speak good about myself. I think and use bad words extremely sparingly, period. I know the power of words. I have been on both sides of the pendulum good and bad. When words are used they stick around. They create their own history.

Before I write or speak using my words I ask myself what kind of moment am I trying to create? Asking myself this question illumines what follows next. Words shape beliefs. Words take on stories of their own.

I start each day using my words on myself. I usually start with "You are fearfully and wonderfully made."

For those who may need a little new meaning: Not meant for just anyone

I know you did not mean to. So I am going to give you an out. The out is that you don't have to keep saying it. By that I mean I have heard it a million times. And guess what? I know you did not mean to because if I believed you meant to, I would have left you a long time ago. The problem for me now though is precisely that...your did not mean to.

Let's examine all the things you do not mean to do. Use punishing words directed toward me, withhold affection, intentionally deceive me, allow things to fester, become apathetic, underestimate my value, check out, stay out, freak out when you do not get your way. Did I leave anything out?

So yes, I realize you did not mean to. We can agree on that point. What follows though is my point.

What makes matters worse is the fact that by not meaning to, you do anyway. Everything you do or don't do under the protective shield of "Did not mean to" you still do. Whether you meant to or not, you are consistently able to follow through with it. 

You follow through because it is part of who you are. In short, it does not matter if you meant to, you chose to and what you did not mean to do still hurts. So your not meaning to does not make it less painful.

So now comes my true meaning. I am going to do something I meant to do a long time ago. I am no longer going to accept your non-meaningful intentions. From this point forward, I will look at you through the lens of the action itself. Let the meaning fall where it may. We are lifting that protective shield and exposing meaning for what it really is. And in case you were wondering, I meant every word.
I meant to.