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For the ones who have used your magic to lift, protect, and illuminate everybody else… rest is our new resistance. Rest & shine, my loves. Rest & shine.
“A woman is free if she lives by her own standards and creates her own destiny.” —Mary McLeod Bethune, educator, philanthropist, activist
read that the part of the brain that stores music, prayer, poetry, and art is the last and least affected by Alzheimer’s.” “The temporal lobe?”
We so rarely truly see people in their hurt. It’s even rarer not to flinch—not to look away from another’s pain.
“Forty’s not bad. Actually I’m having the time of my life. My career is on fire. I know myself better than I ever have. In my twenties, I was just running. Always in the streets and for what? In my thirties, I started asking big questions and looking for answers. Now I know exactly who I am and what I want. And I can finally afford myself.”
“Kids aren’t for everyone. Society tells us that, and there are a lot of abused, neglected, unloved kids in the world because women caved to antiquated gendered expectations.
“We are not magic,” she says. “We are resilient. It’s not a wand. It’s work. We work harder and shine brighter to survive. Excellence for us has been a matter of necessity. In a climate where less than half a percent of venture capital funding goes to Black women, women founders still perform sixty-three percent better than all-male founding teams in the first round. With those odds, we can’t leave our success to chance and we for sure can’t depend on magic.”
It’s not hard information to find, but sometimes when we have a lot going on, we just don’t occur to ourselves. And a friend sending you something you could have easily found on your own prompts you to act.
won’t be led around by my heart and my pussy with some man holding the leash.
People always ask why I don’t want kids, like it’s not enough to just know you don’t. I don’t ask anyone to defend their decision to have children. So why should I have to defend my decision not to?”
There are women like me who are mothering in our own ways, but have never carried a child or been a parent. We’re teachers and mentors and social workers and godmothers. We find ways to pour love into the world, to shape the world for good without bearing a child. It’s not about our wombs. It’s about our hearts and how we share them. That is bodily agency—me getting to decide what I do with my body in this life.”
I honestly think most people are gender fluid. Society just locks us into these heteronormative roles before we have a chance to consider everything on the menu.”
The world isn’t designed for women like me. Women who’d rather be single literally for years than settle for a partner not worthy of her. A woman who doesn’t want to be a mother, and assumes the rich auntie role with panache, but occasionally feels left out on game night.
“You deserve it, too,” Soledad says softly, “but you are someone who deserves all things, not just one.”
“The right one won’t ask you to give up your dreams, but will care just as much as you do about them.”
I hate my inner voice sometimes. She’s such a bitch. Don’t let me get away with nothing.
There are parts of you that want to be held, want to be needed and loved. That is just as emotionally valid as the parts of you that crave independence.
“You can’t earn enough. You can’t achieve enough. Ambition for things and accolades is a bottomless pit. It’s all you can eat, but you never get full.”
“My life won’t be measured just in what I did, but who I did it with. Who I chose to be in friendship with. In relationship with. I think that’s where real contentment is found, and I think I could find it with you.”
“I know you would because that’s the kind of person you are. Your big heart, that generosity, is one of my favorite things about you. You always extend it to everyone else. It’s time you let someone do that for you. Let me do that for you.” “I’ve been doing me for a long time. I pride myself on my independence.” “I don’t want to take that from you, but I also don’t want you worrying about people thinking you’re using me to get ahead. I’ve learned to block out the noise of other people’s opinions and live my life the way I want to. The way that makes me happy, and you make me happy, Hen.”
Father, forgive me for I have whored.
I’ve lived many places, but nothing has ever compared to the ocean for me. Raging tumult one minute and placid the next. Fickle and fathoms deep. It was fascination at first sight.
Strength is not always control. Sometimes it’s surrender.”
“Bible say the love of money is the root of all evil, not money itself. So just do the right things with what you got.”
Are there words in the lexicography of human emotion for how it feels to lose the love of your life? It’s articulated in wails and tears, in the impenetrable loneliness that comes with losing such a vital part of who you are. Your person, closer than anyone to you, is now irretrievable, beyond reach. A mourning with no sunrise. You never know what to say when faced with that kind of devastation. I’ve learned to say nothing at all.
That I’d choose him again and again. That I feel safer with him than any man I’ve ever been with. That when I’m in his arms, even though it’s soon and fast, choosing him feels like choosing me because sometimes I’m not sure where he ends and I begin. I never knew I could be completely my own person and completely someone else’s, but that’s the beautiful dichotomy of being with Maverick.
“I know you said once it’s not Black Girl Magic, but you are magic, Hendrix Barry.
