Tag: love

Born Worthy

You do not always have to be doing something. You were born worthy.

On Tuesday, May 26, 2026, I turned 39.

And unlike previous years, I didn’t post much about it.

Aside from my stories, I didn’t post the usual cute pic.

It wasn’t because I was sad or ungrateful. I just didn’t feel like it this year.

Where I am usually super excited and bubbly, my mood on my birthday this year was that of Proverbs 27:2, “Let another man praise you, and not your own mouth–a stranger and not your own lips.”

This year, I didn’t feel like broadcasting the day of my birth. As much as I want people to remember me, I also want to let go of the need to control it.

If I were to be remembered, I want it to be a natural, organic occurrence, not a social media notification.

Strangely, I’ve had people say, “I didn’t get a notification.”

I thought it was weird their need to tell me they didn’t know because Facebook didn’t remind them. Just say you forgot, lol.

This further solidified for me why I was not motivated to post about it.

I like surprises and random acts of kindness I didn’t see coming. I don’t want to have to keep repeating the basics.

It reminded me of the quote floating around somewhere that says, “let people do what they want to do, so you can see what they’d rather do,” or some variation.

I prolly butchered that, but the overall point is to let people be themselves and allow their actions, not just their words, to reveal their true character.

I chose to let go of the need to control people’s remembering me, without holding it against those who did not.

In whatever circumstance, I have learned to be content.

These are the thoughts I am still mulling over, praying over, and meditating on in this final year of my 30s.

My key takeaway during these musings was to remember that whether I hosted a grand gesture or sat home in my pajamas eating my favorite snacks (and did), I am worthy regardless.

And so are you.

We do not have to be doing something to earn the title. We have inherit value and inherit dignity.

The 30s have been especially challenging, but I look forward to seeing what this year has to offer as I prepare for my ascension into the next phase of my life.

I cannot believe I will be 40 next year.

Do it hurt, ya’ll?

Slow Down: Why You Don’t Need to Rush the End of the Year

This is the time of year when many of us are inundated with a call to “finish the year strong.”

A time when we will be pressured by businesses, organizations, and entrepreneurial gurus to race to the finish line. Social media posts will bombard us with how many days of the year are left, year-end discounts, constant promotions, and posts about how much we’ve grown before the year is even over.

But rushing into the new year doesn’t guarantee a fresh start. Sometimes, it just carries our burnout into January.

Yes, we know. January is not the start of a New Year. Anyone who has done the tiniest bit of research knows that a real new year starts in the spring, when everything is reborn, not in the dead of winter. Stay with me tho.

We’ve all experienced or witnessed the last-minute scramble of trying to summarize the year without fully processing it: trying to complete a weight loss program, write a book, or achieve financial goals in just 10 days. Office parties, school events, family gatherings, all crammed together to see who can win the most before January first.

It can feel like we’re running from something. Perhaps a feeling of not having done “enough,” maybe comparison, and maybe the belief that value is measured by productivity.

It’s already happening with Black Friday sales. As you may have noticed, I rarely have one. I have nothing against them, and I am sure I’ll have something special in the future. Maybe even next year. But for now, it just all feels so exhausting.

I’M TIRED YA’LL.

If you are also tired, remember there is nothing wrong with slowing down at a time when everyone is speeding up. If you are a nature person like me, you know nothing blooms all year long. We were born from the Earth, yet we move opposite to it.

While humans rush to prove their year was meaningful to other flawed humans, nature is slowing down for the winter months. Animals are hibernating, finding ways to escape the cold, and trees have shed their leaves, with plants stopping growth to conserve energy. Even the soil rests, with nutrients being regenerated under frost and snow.

Meanwhile, my neighbor blows his leaves every morning. Poor thing. I want so badly to tell him they are just going to fall again. Let them leaves alone. They are doing what they are supposed to do and helping the soil in the process.

On this side of the Earth, humans accelerate and accomplish as much as possible before the final countdown. But for other living things?

For them, this is a period of rest and preparation for spring.

Slowing down isn’t about doing nothing. It’s about doing what matters with intention.

When we slow down, we reclaim time.

We notice the beauty in ordinary moments, and we greet the “new year” with clarity rather than exhaustion.

Instead of rushing to create a version of ourselves that looks good on paper, we can walk grounded, nourished, and whole.

The end of the year is not a deadline.

It’s a doorway.

Walk through it gently.

Breaking From Tradition Can Be a Good Thing

My big brother Ray, nieces Gigi, Jamie, Brook, and Me

Some families keep their history alive around picnic tables, their roots watered each summer by laughter, shared meals, and stories that stretch back generations.

Mine did not.

On my mother’s side, there were no great migrations back home for a weekend, no sea of matching shirts declaring our kinship, no annual roll call of who had been born, married, or passed on.

I didn’t grow up with the smell of charcoal and cousins’ laughter drifting across a summer lawn, the kind of memory stitched into photo albums and passed down like a family recipe. Family reunions simply weren’t our thing. There were no matching T-shirts, no group photos under a banner.

Cousin Laura, Pam, and Me sitting in the back of this truck like some thugs, lol

The closest I came to that sense of gathering was at Chicago block parties. We’d shut down the street, our banquet hall, line the sidewalks with tables and sizzling grills, and open the fire hydrant so the water arched into the air like a silver ribbon. Kids ran barefoot through a cracked-open hydrant, laughing because this time, no one called the police.

Music pulsed from speakers, and for one day, neighbors felt like cousins, and the whole block became family.

But it wasn’t our family.

Six years ago, this ended with our generation.

Jeremiah in the background (Nephew), Big Sissy Pamela, and Lil Cuzzo Angela

What began as a simple backyard barbecue has grown, year after year, into something bigger that we can finally call by its true name: a Family Reunion.

It’s a strange and humbling thing to realize we’re the aunts and unks now—the ones setting the tone, carrying the stories, and shaping the memories for our children.

We’ve rewritten the narrative we inherited.

Many of us are building marriages we’re proud of, raising children under our own roofs, and pursuing careers that light us up. We are not lost to the streets, not numbed by addiction, not absent from the lives we brought into this world.

Aunt Barbara, Lil Reg, and his daughters, Gigi and Brooklyn

Instead, we have passports now. We take our children to see oceans they’ve never touched, mountains they’ve never climbed, cities that speak in languages they’ve never heard. We give them richer experiences, not just with our words but with our lives.

Sometimes, breaking from tradition can be a good thing!

My crazy sisters and me: Yecheilyah, Tracey, Pam, and photo bombed by her daughter, Jamie.

If We Were Having Coffee Right Now

Please, come in!

I know it’s been a while since we last spoke. Here, let me get your coat.

Shake the chill from your bones and leave the weight of the world at the door.

Speaking of the door, there is a shoe rack next to you. Go ahead and remove your shoes. I have some footies you can slip into. I hope you like the color black.

I took the liberty of roasting the coffee beans with a whisper of cinnamon and French Vanilla cream. I hope that’s okay.

Sit. Let the loveseat cradle you. Relax yourself. You are home. I’ll open the curtains so the light can spill in on us.

Here’s your coffee. Let your hands wrap around the warmth of the mug, and the heat seep into your skin like an unspoken promise—exhale as long as you need.

The world outside can wait. Here, in this quiet space, there is no rush, no burden too heavy, only the sound of our voices, the comfort of shared silence, and the rich laughter of coffee poured into porcelain.

Let’s drink deep and savor the moment—just you, just me, just the steady rhythm of being.

Now that you have your mug and are snug like a bug in a rug, here’s what I’ve been up to lately…

Why Not Joy?

Spent time with these cuties this weekend!


Why write poems about joy in such a time as this?

This has been a constant question in the back of my mind. It is not something anyone has asked of me personally, but something that the subconscious, always overthinking part of my brain asks when it wishes to second-guess itself. And, in the rebuke of these thoughts, I answer:

“Why not joy?”

I do not mean always being happy when discussing cultivating a spirit of joy. No one is always joyful in the basic sense of the word. I do not mean toxic positivity or whatever that’s supposed to mean.

In the same way that we embrace anger, grief, and frustration (which are normal and have their place), we can also embrace more joy and gratitude. If sadness and depression suck our bones dry and drain our life force, then joy and gratitude can be a powerful life-saving nourishment.

As I’ve said in Black Joy: “Nobody talks about society’s addiction to Black trauma / how much more profitable it is to talk about pain than poems/depression than joy.”

This constant cycle of death and war is draining to the soul and rotten to the bones. Where do we find or hold onto our sanity without joy? Have we forgotten that it has always been here with us? If enslaved people found joy, why not us? Or do we believe we are that special of a generation that we can survive without it?

In “The Role of Joy and Imagination in a Revolution,” author Marii Herlinger writes: “White supremacy culture values objectivity, overworking, and neglecting self-care — joy interrupts that. White supremacy culture teaches us to be individualistic, self-serving, and distrustful of each other — love interrupts that. Therefore, joy, imagination and love are revolutionary tools which actively defy capitalism and white supremacy.”

Sounds like a page out of Tricia Hersey’s book!

Speaking of Hersey, in the same way that resting more does not make one lazy, nor is it the same thing as being idle (you can be well-rested and still do the work), more joy does not make one blind to the atrocities of the world. On the contrary, it can help one to see things more clearly by stepping outside of the chaos. As Jaiya John puts it, “It can be a revolutionary act of love for yourself and others to not let yourself be sped up by the pace of a toxic, anxious, frantic, desperate, traumatized culture. Stay slow, my friend. Everything beautiful in you is gestating.”

This year, our poetry contest theme is joy, so I want to give you more to consider as you pen your entry!

The Latin word for Joy is gaudium, meaning to rejoice. Think of a time when you found joy in the unexpected. How did that make you feel? In what ways did you rejoice?

I cannot wait to read/hear your masterpiece!

We accept entries from October 21st through December 1st!

PS. I just found out this blog has been listed among Feedspot’s 30 Best Self-Help Book Blogs and Websites of 2024! Thank ya’ll for rocking with me!

Angels in Black Skin

Listen, yesterday started out annoying and frustrating for me.

Watching all these Black people walk past my table and frown at the title of my book (Black History Facts You Didn’t Learn in School) was disheartening and sad.

It wasn’t about the money. It never is. It was about the sheer audacity of people to be offended.

I wanted to run to the bathroom and burst into tears at the arrogance of a people with no interest in their own history. There was even an interracial couple who walked by, him Black, her white.

Chile, do you know this man looked at his white friend/wife/woman and asked if she wanted the book while laughing as they walked on?

Trifling does not even begin to describe the moment.

But then…

There was an older Black man. He walked by my table and dropped a crinkled 20, whispering, “Keep doing what you are doing.”

You have to understand how he did it.

In African American families, elders (grandma’s, grandpa’s, aunts, uncles, etc.) will hug you and whisper in your ear, “How you?” While slipping cash into the palm of your hand.

There is no conversation about it and they are not interested in your explanations. It is simply an act of love wrapped tight in spiritual discernment. You need this even if you don’t think you do.

You could be struggling with bills.

You could be frustrated.

You could be facing any unforeseen tragedy, and this person who has lived long enough to know what love looks like in the flesh slips you with just enough money to cover whatever was bothering you.

Now, I was not in a financial catastrophe but a spiritual one. An emotional one. One that almost made me pack up my things and walk out the door.

There is something about not being appreciated that sends me boiling.

My tolerance is zero.

But then, here comes an angel, dressed casually, with a brimmed hat and gray beard wrapped in golden black skin.

He drops a 20 on my table like it was the sweaty palm of my hand and whispered words of confidence into my spirit without losing stride. He spoke while walking, always keeping sight of his mission.

This man’s simple act gave me everything I needed to keep going.

People took notice, stopping at my table suddenly, almost like they had been commanded to.

There is no moral to this story that you have not already read.

No. This is not the angel man, lol.

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Want a signed paperback? Click here!

Winners: Yecheilyah’s 6th Annual Poetry Contest 2023

Congratulations to the winners of this year’s poetry contest. We crown you, poetic scholars, for your commitment and dedication to poetic excellence on this 28th day of December 2023.

#1: Chandra T. Mountain

“I’m Living”

@musings.from.my.younger.self

#2: S.R. Graham

“What I Lack”

@thesensualgenius

#3: Samuel Olopade

“Grace”

@ _olops_

#4: Adariyah Ysrayl

“Grace”

@adariyahysrayl

Congratulations!!

And congratulations to everyone who participated! There would be no contest without your support. Keep an eye out for the individual spotlight interviews of each poet and details on Yecheilyah’s Annual Poetry Contest, 2024!