Transparency time: I cried the first time I heard brown skin girl by Beyoncé. I had to try and hold back the ugly cry in front of my family. Some of you understand why, but for those who don’t; We dark skin women have this on going battle with our self esteem for a long time and as a kid lighter skin is all I saw on every single medium. Then I grew up in the 90’s and early 2000’s when “light skin was in”; that’s literally the saying “light skin is in”. Do you know what did to my self esteem? I hated taking photos of myself, I would stay out of the sun. Forget about dating, if you liked a guy the first thing you would think about is 'I hope he likes dark skin girls'. The list goes on that we would need a book to write about it. Anyway...
While watching Beyoncé’s beautiful ‘Black is King’ music visuals, brown skin girls came on, all these emotions, thoughts in my head, flashbacks to my childhood, I broke down. Because, in truth, I needed that song when I was a kid; and to see Sage watching the video, dancing, singing along, taking the words in, and comprehending, it made me feel so happy. I kind of felt like a kid again, sort of. Even though I tell Sage every single day, you’re a black girl, we are great, fearless, smart, etc etc. In addition to talking about black hair and how versatile it is, just so she doesn’t feel like it’s lesser than that girl with long wavy hair. However, truthfully, there’s but so much I can do to make her confident in her own skin, she has to see it as well. I am so grateful for that song, it couldn't have come at a better time. I can’t even listen to it without choking up.
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How many times have you ask for advice as a new parent on how's parenthood, or how to get through a certain as easy and as fast as possible?
Last night was my wake up call. Being a parent of two children is a kick in the gut challenge, that no one can prepare you for; and it is crazy that I am having this epiphany now. Last night the kids and I went to bed, both are co-sleepers so they are still bunking in our room until further notice. I placed Ollie in the bassinet when he fell asleep and then I cuddled Sage to sleep. As I dozed off in REM, I heard a blood curdling scream in my right ear. It was Ollie, screaming from the top of his lungs and I couldn't figure out why for the life of me. Then suddenly after 5 mins of trying to figure out whats wrong and what looks like me trying to wake him up, he fell back asleep like nothing happened. Oliver had a night terror. I've never experienced anything like this before. Even though I had Sage sleeping with my since birth, She's never woke up wailing before. Night terrors can be caused by several things, some say it could be due to over stimulation through out the day or before bed and the child is just reacting to it, which what I think is what happened. Though we are on a strict bedtime routine, occasionally we'll get off track with TV and good night plays with dad. I have decided to not do that anymore and keep every night calm.
But the reason I decided to share this because, when I posted about that night on my IG stories, most of my friends reached out to comfort. And even though I am truly appreciative of them offering their space to me to vent, I realized, there's no actual guide to parenthood. You have to ride out this journey, alone. You can read a whole manuscript on what could happen, but truthfully, every child is different and you just never know what hand you are dealt. We can only offer advice on what might work, just don't quote me. I am at the very beginning of motherhood and though I am tired, I some days can not be bothered and I am ready for bed by 8pm. By the end of the day I'll chuckle to myself and say my kids are really funny and drive me nuts but I love them, and I am sure I'll be laughing at all this crazy journey when I am old. One of my friends on IG told me you have to deal with it one day at a time, literally, and I would say "in parenthood, there are no two days the same" Every day you'll deal with something different. Stop expecting things to be smooth and know that you have a lot of bumpy roads ahead.... and thats OK! Every journey has its own
Thank you for reading...
