When I was in a graduate program some years ago, I was at the onset of a divorce. I did not know it then, but somewhere wrapped up in all those feelings that pushed us apart was the feeling of inadequacy. Again, at the time, I did not feel as though I was inadequate in any way. No! It would take many moons and many flailing emotions before I would come to that conclusion. Also unbeknownst to me was not only did I feel inadequate in that relationship, the feeling of inadequacy had followed me through the years, beginning when I was just a small girl. Even if I did not know how to categorize or explain it, it was there.

Last year, I wrote about the emotional rollercoaster. The emphasis was on how we let people take us up and down, dictating how we feel, thus guiding our moods and actions. There is nothing like riding the wave of emotions. I still struggle with that from time to time, but I’d like to think that I have experienced some growth. What I have noticed, though, is that although I do a pretty decent job of not letting others dictate my mood, I have not done so well in the department of self-regulation. One moment I’m feeling positive, and the next I am allowing my own negative thoughts to take over. Am I steering myself off a cliff? Am I guilty of destroying the aura I say I want to protect? Am I the real reason for my life’s motion sickness?

I was standing in the main office when a coworker came in looking very distressed. Initially, I decided not to say anything because I could hear the agitation in her voice as she responded to my hello. I figured she was probably just having a bad morning. Maybe she’d just ended a draining phone call as she left her vehicle. Maybe she scorched the eggs and had to give the children cold cereal instead. Maybe she just woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I really did not know. So, I decided to look away.

On a recent flight, I was sandwiched between two strangers. As if the middle seat isn’t already bad, being stuck for three plus hours between people you do not know makes it even more crappy. I so badly wanted that window seat, but I was stuck feeling like that small kid who was always told to sit in the middle because you are small and the only person who can fit. As my flight neighbors busily tapped away on their laptops and shuffled through papers, I noticed that they were both actually working. Geesh! I must be a slacker. There was surely something I could tap about also. I could crank out a weekly memo to my staff, research ramping up student academic discourse, find a new place for my mom, read all there is to know about potty training my feisty toddler, the list is actually endless. Like seriously, I have work, work to do. I literally had hours of uninterrupted time that could have been used toward being productive. I couldn’t possibly justify engaging in or with anything else.

I walked past two people the other day just in time to hear one tell the other that she was weird. I cringed at what I thought the response might be. You know name calling can get ugly. To my surprise, although very direct, the reply was polite. “I embrace my weirdness,” she answered in a soft, calm tone. I think the name caller was surprised as well. Maybe she made the statement in hopes of getting a loud reaction. Had she hoped that accusing her of being weird would evoke a big response? When I was in my quiet space thinking about their exchange, I realized that her response was big. It was impactful and “powerful(ly) important.”

Just recently, I let myself get wrapped up in thoughts about why a friend of mine hadn’t congratulated me for a recent accomplishment. At first, I wondered if maybe they didn’t see it as a big deal since I always have something going on. Then I thought it must be the usual jealousy thing. You know we are quick to blame it on that. Finally, I thought maybe they just don’t give a flying… I’ll just stop there. Some would say the bigger problem was why I felt that getting their praise was necessary. The more I thought about it, the more I came to the conclusion that their lack of acknowledgement was obviously an issue for me. I sat with that for a while before I finally had to check myself. Had I even acknowledged my own wins?

Apparently, the familiar adage, “I have to laugh to keep from crying,” still holds true. Is this what some women are doing when they laugh at the daily memes that make us the butt of all jokes? What’s with this targeting of women, specifically black women, up and down social media timelines? Even more disheartening is the fact that women are doing a great deal of the laughing. Why must the joke always be on us? There are so many things wrong with this picture. The obvious being the existence of a platform that negatively targets and insults women.

I will always remember the first time. It was pretty intense. No, not that first time. The first time I got slapped clean in the face with an U.I.T.M.A.M. Yes, an Underhanded Insult to Me About Me. In THE face. The nerve, right? Insults themselves can be a lot to take, but a sneaky sneak dis dead to the face… powerful! You have to be a Bad Mama Jama to slight someone to their face and pass it off as easy conversation. Either that or a hurt, scarred individual attempting to pass off the damage. Actually, the latter is most fitting. I just decided. It’s like they say. Hurt people, hurt people. Or at least they try to anyway. But this hurt doesn’t always come as the result of having had someone drag them through the mud or jilt them at the alter. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve been physically or mentally abused by a loved one either. But more so, hurt by life and their place in it. Or, as I would eventually find out, your place in it.

It’s pretty routine to sit down with my man and unwind over dinner as we dish out the happenings of the day. My stories are usually a little more colorful than his, but I own that. On any given day, I can go through every color in the box if I allow myself to be subjected to the madness. I’ve chalked it up to the fact that I get agitated more easily than does he and am a little less forgiving of ill-mannered behaviors. One day, after listening to one of my very long sagas, he calmly said to me, “You can’t keep letting people take you on a rollercoaster.” He said this while moving his arm in a waving motion. At the moment, I was more stuck on the movement of his arm than on what he was actually saying. Is he mocking me right now? Time after time, he’d say this to me. And I’d think to myself, “What is this reference to a rollercoaster, and why is he gesturing like I’m an idiot?”

Making time to hang with the girls takes hours of planning, sometimes weeks, even months. When the time comes, Hallelujah! It is on. The time to laugh at sidesplitting gags, toast over long awaited accomplishments and cry over heart-rending defeats has finally arrived. There is nothing like getting together with your girls. But how much of our “girl time” is spent enjoying the girls? How many times do we tune out tales of the latest crush to check messages, respond to the pinging of our social media notifications or pause for a selfie or two? Too many to count. Girl time quickly turns into me time with our girls as a pretty backdrop. Seriously? Surprisingly, our biggest distractions don’t come from our electronic devices. Our biggest distraction is focusing on self.