Thank You 2015- What a time, to be alive!

There are a lot of things I can look back on in this past year and just be so glad that 2015 is closing. But I started to think about what has been good and as I close this chapter, that's what I want to hold on to.

2015 was a year for change and growth for me. I let go of a crutch and took a leap of faith into the unknown, by taking on a new job that pushed me well out of my comfort zone. To say that 2015 was a year of challenges is an understatement and my work-life was a huge testament to that.

I moved, for the first time in almost 6 years I was no longer living on a college campus or in proximity to a college campus. I have been living with two roommates and as the year closes I am finding that I am learning more about myself living with other people and that I am also enjoying this level of independence.

I stepped out and took a little more control over my passions. If you know me, Social Media is kind of my thing. And eventually I want to do something BIG with it (get ready 2016, you ain't seen nothing yet). But I have been feeling like, my passion is just that passion, but not anything that I can base a foundation of skills on. So instead I have decided  to take another leap of faith. I joined a communications team to support brand development and social media marketing and through that I have learned a lot. Being given responsibility of brand management is awesome, scary, but exciting and thrilling all at the same time.  In this same regard, I have also started presenting more around social media and personal brand management. It has propelled my desire to see people embrace social media in a bigger way and has allowed me to provide tips, skills and other training methods around utilizing social media.


While I was saying yes to some life and game changers, I also learned to say "No," this is a big step for me because I generally take on a whole lot more than my body will allow. I see myself as SuperWoman when I look into the mirror, the truth is, I am not. I am just me and even I have my limits.  So I am listening to my limits, I am articulating more often when I hit my wall and I am sticking to those boundaries.

2015 also let me see these things: Gods love through the marriage & engagements of some of my close friends. It has reinvigorated my desire to be in love, to get married and to start a family. 2015 has also allowed me to cheer on my friends and family in their own successes as well.  And while it was a scary and trying time for my family, I saw God's mercy, grace and healing through
His restoration of my cousin who almost died.

I guess I also can't get mad at 2015 when I also entered my 3rd decade. So yes, I am excited to bring on a new year with all of the hopes, anticipation and eagerness of everyone else this time of year. But instead of rushing to say goodbye to all the things that were painful, or frustrating about the year, I am choosing to say Thank You for the good that it brought me. With that, I hope you take a minute to reflect on what 2015 has brought you as you get ready to welcome 2016! And remember continue to #ShatterExpectations

With love,
 Kee

The truth about relationships...

I turned 30  almost a month ago and I think every year we get older we end up finding more about ourselves or get a little bit closer to understanding who we are and why we are here. I personally enjoy the aging because I appreciate the reflection, I appreciate looking back on my life and seeing the chapters of how I got to where I am today.

There's a thought that constantly circles my brain- relationships, people, how we communicate. At the core, we each are just trying to find our way. But when it comes to people we put walls up, guards, set distance between us and other people so that we don't get too close. What are we afraid of though? Are we afraid that someone else can see the truth about us? But isn't that what we are striving for?

Here's what I know and what I continue to set as a core belief especially when it comes to people:
 1. People come to us for a season. God presents people in our lives for a season, some times that season lasts a lifetime and some times that season lasts a page in your life. Having gone through various relationships and seeing distance, space, life and just changes shift who and what we are, is taxing, it's painful at times. You feel loss, shifting relationships especially after time has been spent trusting someone, getting to know them, their families, creating memories. When dealing with the separation the loss, it is tough, but it shouldn't stop you from putting yourself out there and making the effort to get to know someone.

2. Relationships are just showing up when people need you  - This quote comes from the movie, That Awkward Moment (side bar see it) I think fundamentally if you enter relationships knowing that you just need to show up when people need you. Our lives are interactions and opportunities to just make a difference for others around us. Showing up for others means being there when they need someone to provide a shoulder to cry on. Being there when they are happy, celebrating life's triumphs, enjoying just being. You share pieces of yourself and you learn more about how you show up to improve who you are and how you engage with the world around you. When relationships fail, it's often because on one side or the other, you forgot to listen to the other person and show up when they needed you.

3. Is number 2 really that much to ask for? When you think about it, if relationships give you a chance to learn more about yourself and by allowing yourself to be open when interacting with other people, why is it so hard to just be there? Investing time isn't really that much of an effort honestly. Right? I think about this often when it comes to "the castaways" of our society. We have a tendency to hide those that we don't want to associate with, the homeless for example. I have the hardest time interacting with these individuals and all I have to do is just be. Say, "hello" smile, ask them "how their day was." It's all normal conversation. But my interactions with some homeless individuals is, they are often loud, intoxicated, aggressive and then it makes it hard to engage in "normal" conversation. But on the grand scale of things, is it that hard to just be? Why do we make it so much harder to use our words to build people up?

As a Christian I understand that there is power in my words. That I have the ability to speak life for someone else and if I stand on that, then I should be using my words to edify others at all times.

4. Give others breathing room in your life, but also be okay with communicating what you need as well. We have to give people in our relationships the space to enter how they can. We are all in different seasons of our growth in general and that requires time, attention to needs etc. We don't have to settle, if people consistently do not provide you with the reciprocity that you desire in a relationship at some point you have to see that as an opportunity to walk away (point number 1). And most especially when you aren't seeing progress or effort from the other person to do better at point 2. But here is the thing, relationships are two way streets and no one can be inside your head, so if needs aren't being met, you have to be comfortable, open and less walled to SAY WHAT YOU MEAN & MEAN WHAT YOU SAY.

Just some thoughts...

Grief

“Grief is the last act of love we have to give to those we loved. Where there is deep grief, there was great love.”

My community has recently been rocked in a HUGE way. An alum at American University was violently murdered on the 4th of July. As news hit social media on Sunday, I was puzzled why his face and his name was flooding my news feed and timeline. I hadn't expected what I was about to read. 

    I'm not new to death, the sad part is no one really is. We will all experience it in some fashion. But the way that Kevin Sutherland died, was not what I was expecting. We hear these stories of senseless murders of people being tortured, being attacked, but you pray that it won't get close to where you are. You pray that when it comes to that moment, that there is some good in the world that causes people to change. A few months ago another friend of a friend was murdered in his home. And that rocked me to my core. In reading what happened to Kevin I didn't think I could be more sickened. Kevin like Jon Jon, the friend who was murdered in his home were loving caring people. They changed the space around them for the better and they made people better for being around them. 

 I read this article this woman posted. It's so beautifully written and it says all the things you want someone to say. It says all of the things you want to hear and it sets the beginning of healing that is needed when you are grieving. 

I don't know how we move forward. I don't know how I can support my friends who are feeling Kevin's loss more intimately than I can. But here's the thing about grief as much as it hurts for us individually, there is community in grief. There is healing in grief, there is healing in how we celebrate the life that we loss. There is healing in how we live out our lives in honor of the ones we lost. There is healing in recognizing that there is still good in this world, in spite of all the pain that is out there. 

To take from the author: 

Love. 

The Caliber of a Man- Russell Wilson

Hey there,
 Welcome to my blog! I write a few different blogs and posted this one today about Russell Wilson, on my sports blog. If you are interested in sports, you should definitely check out my blog. It is about sports and I write in it often, but from time to time, that sphere of my writing collides with other parts of my identity and where I can create overlap I do. So check out my post below about a recent interview that Russell Wilson was in that has many talking. Hope you enjoy!

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Hey Y'all, it's your favorite SportsGal89 Innnnnnnnnn the Buildin'!
This might be one of the few times that I diverge just a little bit from true conversation around sports and let those of you who only follow this blog, see a little more into my life.

I am a Christian, and probably like many believers and non-believers I am fascinated by the caliber of a man, that is Russell Wilson. He stands apart from many athletes and celebrities in general. When we walk in this world as Christians, we are often battling what our identity means. What I appreciate about Russell Wilson, on a human level, is that he is just solid in who he is through Christ. I love that it's not this show he is putting up, he trusts, believes and stands faithfully on the word of God.

Russell has recently made the spotlight, due to his relationship with singer- Ciara (Update: 9/12/2015- I had originally posted the video here, but then it looks like they took it down. So I found an link to a brief recap of the main points, so check out the brief story )

The news outlets have made this a story that is about him proclaiming his abstinence in his relationship with her, but for me, I am more intrigued just be who he is, what he exudes beyond the fact that he is a high profile celebrity, with another high profile celebrity who happens to be abstaining from sex in their current relationship.

The little tidbits that he shares about how God has changed who he is, how he thinks, the man that he presents himself as to the world, it literally makes me overjoyed. He is a young man that I look up to. I admire his passion, his freedom to express his love for God, his faithfulness to God and his trust in God. I think in this day and age when I think about the world I can raise my children in, I hope that as they look to these men and women who have these extraordinary gifts that they can see more people who are like Russell. It definitely makes me appreciate him as more than just an athlete. I appreciate him as a person. I respect him as a person and I hope and pray that he continues to speak the way he does. I am so in awe of the God that is inside him.

I know I have digressed a little bit from the platform that many of you come to read, but I felt compelled to share this story.

That's all she wrote folks!

#DearWorld Look How Far I've Come...

Hey Y'all:
 I came across this quote and I guess it meant enough to me that I prompted myself to write a blog about it:
 "Resiliency is the capacity of humans to come out of extreme shock, damage, injury and trauma and get back to normal life."

If you are not familiar with my story, then this won't mean much to you. But my middle name should honestly be "Resiliency." My history is littered with experiences that are not supposed to be everyone's life, but it is mine.  I think of my life in chapters based on where I was living and what was happening. If I could title chapter 1 it would be:

 Ohio- where I was founded. I was born in Ohio and my life there was great. But I remember when my innocence was lost (for lack of a better phrase). It started when my cousin moved in. My cousin used to molest me. There must have been a part of me that didn't know it was wrong because  I didn't really say anything.

Then my second loss happened when my parents decided they were going to get a divorce. This shaped entirely the next 10 years of my life. My mom kicked my father out on my birthday. My parents' divorce was ugly. There were huge arguments, big scenes and my cousin and I at the center.
Into the divorce, my cousin acted out and I was on the receiving end one afternoon of a blade to a butcher knife. I didn't get stabbed or anything just threatened- 12 years old and fearing that the one person who kind of understood, was not a friend anymore.

My third loss came when my mom breached custody and moved me to New York and then California. I learned later that the word is abduction, but it took me a while before I could actually say it. During that time I was told I couldn't talk to, or have any interactions with my friends, my family, anyone that was part of my founding.

Chapter 2 would be titled California- where I was formed.
 I didn't know who I was. What I could share, what I couldn't share. I learned in California however, how to stand on my own. My mother suffered from deep depression and in that I lost out on being "raised" for the most part. So my raising came from the high school I was placed in and the friends I bonded with.

End of my freshman year I started using drugs, and continued to use through the middle of my senior year. I don't know what made me different from my friends who had to spend stints in rehab and years after recovering. But I was able to walk away, and while there are days that the memory wakes me up at night, or a smell draws me right back to those days, it's not the forefront of the life that I am walking through.

Junior year was a breaking point, the secret I was holding boiled over when the Feds, the DA and my father "found me." The secret of my abduction was no longer something I could run from. I had to share with my friends around me what had been a truth I was hiding. Although it wasn't immediate this breaking point would ultimately lead to the healing I needed. What it did do was provide me with a sense of stability. Stability in that I had a family to return to and one that has continued to literally nurse me back to life. I could be a shell of the child they last saw at 12, but if it wasn't for their love, I would not be where I am today. .

Chapter 3- DC and this is where I grew up.
 This chapter is still being written, but everything about my life has changed. I have control, I am no longer responding to actions of my parents. I am merely responding to my life. And it is in DC where I found who I am, and continue every day to be blessed with the discovery of this great woman.

So this is me:
If you were to hear the first two chapters of my life, without knowing how it ended, you would expect me to be broken. You would expect me to not be where I am today. You might even expect me to not be smiling, happy or put together. But my life is about #ShatteringExpectations and living beyond the circumstances that have defined me.

(Photo Credit of #DearWorld taken at NASPA 2015)

It's okay to just go...

Hey Y'all:
 So I was reading a little bit from Mandy Hale's The Single Woman: Life, Love and a Dash of Sass . Now I was only reading a little bit because I really wanted to read the book and I saw it in a bookstore so I got through the first section (don't ask why I didn't buy it- that's another story). But I loved what I read. And my current phase of life I am blessed that there is a book like hers out there.

But the reason for this post is because Mandy in her book notes that we need to be able to celebrate our singleness and not feel like we need a relationship to make us feel like we made it or that it makes us us, but that the relationship actually compliments what and who we already are.

This spoke a lot to me especially currently. As we speak (4/25/2015) I am in Nashville. I just finished my FIFTH Half Marathon and I took the trip by myself. I had friends and even others running the race, ask me, "who are you going with." And then I get the puzzled look and the question, "Really?"

Why is that such a thing? Yes, I came by myself. I paid for my flight, I got my hotel and I paid for my ticket on my own. Why do I need a bodyguard or entourage to travel with. This country is beautiful and it needs to be explored and while I would love to have someone to enjoy it with, I don't need anyone but myself to celebrate the life I have and the experience that I am living in. Only in my singleness can I pick up and go visit a new city without having to check-in or see if my significant other wants to come along.

And furthermore, I think the question irritates me merely for being a woman. Guys can travel by themselves and no one would think otherwise, so why can't I do the same? Is it that out of the ordinary for a woman to do so?

I would like to thank my father of my independence, for teaching me to enjoy the cities that I visit and to enjoy the moment. I will say that it really is in these mini vacations that I am truly enjoying what is around me. I live in a world that is go, go, go. And by traveling in my quiet. I get to take stock of what I would normally rush through!

So here is me, Keesha in all of my singleness!
xoxoxoxo

"What I know for sure"...

Hey There,
 It has been a while since I have blogged. So Happy New Year friends! Hope that life has been treating you well.

My sister and I have a mini book club going where we try to challenge ourselves to read a book and we pick a date to talk about it. While we have only read two books in the last two years of our Sister Book club, the books have been powerful and captivating and challenged us to think beyond our current status. This most recent book was "What I know for sure," by Oprah. I recommend EVERY ONE to grab it if you have not.

The book is a collection of lessons that Oprah has been through around different themes- Joy, Gratitude, etc. My sister and I chatted about what we loved about the book last night and then my sister posed the anticipated question- "What do you know for sure?"

When reading this book, you begin to think about what lessons you know. What you carry with you through life and how do you live out those lessons. I knew this question was coming and I spent some time thinking about it. But I still didn't know how or what to articulate. So in the brief few minutes with my sister, I came to this conclusion:
 What I know for sure, is to be comfortable in your own skin. What people don't know about me is I have a passion for supporting young women. I think working in a college environment brings that out in me. But as women our experiences and our identity in the world are cultivated by society and they often conflict with who we are. When I was in my younger years, you couldn't tell me nothing about my life or experiences. I "knew it all," but what I really know is that as women our identities are in conflict all the time. What I know for sure now is that I love getting older, I become more wise and I realize that getting to know me is the most important thing. I am single and knocking on 30s door, and I am okay with that. Because this is my identity right now- single, woman, friend, sister, daughter, niece, cousin, aunt, godmother. I have time for those other identities- wife, mom etc. And for now I want to just enjoy my life.

So if you are reading this, and most importantly women. What do you know for sure?

That's all she wrote....

Seeing yourself reflected through others

"You are an amazing woman with a capacity that inspires me! " - this was a statement provided to me in communication with someone I work closely with in serving in the House. It came at a time, where I wasn't sure my own ability/ strength etc. 

It is something that truly rejuvenates me. I spend so much time giving of myself in every area of who I am that I honestly wonder how I am caring for myself. Over the course of this week, I have been reflecting on what I desire, what I need. People have been asking me about big life decisions and choices and I don't know where to start. And as I am writing this, I am wondering if the reason I don't know where to start is because I don't truly understand or haven't spent enough time getting to know me. 

Hmmmm... I think that is it. I haven't spent enough time getting to know me. Because I am selfless, I put others ahead of me, I think almost as a distraction so that I don't have to spend time focusing on me. But not because I feel it would be vein, I just don't desire to be that raw. It totally makes sense. It's why I don't speak so openly about my abduction, or my trial with drugs. It was part of my life, my experience, but it is not my story now. So I move forward. But I wonder what I am missing out on in not reflecting and not recognizing what I need or want in this life. 

I think this blog went on another tangent, but a good one...
  So back to the comment- "capacity" for what? I think we are all trying to find our purpose. I know I am still trying to figure out mine. It might be why making a career decision is so tough for me. I am not centered, I am restless, I am trying to figure out what my purpose is and that has not yet been answered or revealed, or I just haven't seen it clearly. 

Hmmm, another food for thought. 

Well folks, you are reading my brain at work. Literally... Thanks for providing me the space to process.

That's all she wrote!