It’s All About You Girl: A Word for 2024

Deni Made Using Canva

Some words from Janelle Monae have been on my mind a lot lately. Not only recently, but really since her Essence Fest performance last year. Those words are:

“To the lives we lead, to the dreams we chase, to the moments we gon’ make, and the fucked up shit we can’t erase.”

She said it again during her Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve performance of “Champagne Shit” and it had me thinking. Of course, I naturally found it a whole word, but then I REALLY started thinking about it…

I didn’t celebrate my wins and successes enough last year. I didn’t honor the dreams I’m chasing enough last year. I don’t feel like I really appreciated certain moments enough. And I really sometimes am a prisoner of my mindset in the way of overthinking about past mistakes or what I think other people feel about what I’m doing and not allowing myself to move on and do what makes me happy. This introspective thinking coupled with Janelle’s speech has led me to one of my mantras (Janelle’s speech) and my words for the year:

Unapologetic and Unbothered or Unapologetically Unbothered

*Janelle Monae picture courtesy of The Grape Juice*

Oftentimes, I feel we allow ourselves to get so bogged down by the opinions and paths of others, that we don’t dance in our light. We don’t march to the beat of our own drum because we’re too worried about what the other drum major in the other band is doing.

I wouldn’t say 2023 was bad for me, but, I will say that it held a lot of unexpected twists and turns. Some things I definitely didn’t see coming. The Lord taught me a lot, He showed me a lot. As I reflect on everything he’s showed me, I feel like last year lit a fire in me that had started dwindling. I allowed a lot of situations that dampened my mood to dampen my spirit.

Not in 2024.

I allowed the sourness of my mood from how some situations panned out to stop me from pursuing so many things I wanted to do. I took a “no” or a deferred decision as a sign that I wasn’t good enough in my craft. I compared my life to others’ lives and timetables a lot, something that will only rob you of your joy. I constantly thought that since I was 27 and haven’t achieved what I thought I would by this time in my life, make me think that I was failing at life right now. This is something I can effectively preach to other people without fail. Reminding friends and acquaintances that just because you don’t have your life figured out by 25 doesn’t make you a failure. And there I was, downing myself like my life was over when I hadn’t even peaked yet.

One of the biggest driving forces behind this renewed confidence and wanting to pursue the best life possible for myself — is my daughter.

I look in those big, brown, beautiful eyes and I see someone who’s watching my every move. At her young age, she has no idea what’s really going on. She doesn’t know about Mommy’s internal struggles with where she is in life right now. She doesn’t know that Mommy doubts herself often and worries about if her abilities will be enough to get where she wants to be. She just looks at me and sees her Mommy. She’s going to have her eyes on me for a long time, looking up to me. Hell, even at now 28, I still look up to my Momma. I want to be like my Momma to this day. I pray that is exactly how Reyna feels about me. She’s my newest (and smallest) driving force. I look at that sweet little face and I can’t let her down. I have to be able to teach her that you go after whatever you want in this life. No one is going to hand it to you. If you have a passion for something and you love something enough, you do it. You push yourself and you go for everything you want. There will be times you doubt yourself and times you question what the hell you’re doing, but you go for it anyway.

So that’s why, I’m choosing 2024 as my year to be unapologetically unbothered.

I’m going to live life being my authentic self and be fully unapologetic about it. Living as my full self. No more dimming my light. No more being afraid to be my full-bodied self. No more being nervous to step into the version of myself that exists carefree and fearlessly in my head.

And I’m going to be unbothered while doing so.

Who cares who doesn’t like it? Who cares if it’s too much. Who cares who doesn’t understand why I do what I do. The only thing that matters is that I’m happy and I’m thriving.

Another word that’s going to be following me throughout the year is…

Consistency

Looking back on 2023, there were a lot of things that I feel like I would do differently if given the chance. While we’ll always have something that we wish we could do differently, it’s ultimately up to us to make sure we are taking care of what we need to do.

Even with my content creation, which is truly a passion of mine, I found myself at different periods throughout last year and the year before questioning if it was truly for me and if I really loved it. This was very much so, unlike me. I LOVE what I do. It truly brings me joy to be able to do what I do. I started doing this because I love it and ultimately have used it to remind me of what I would love to do with the rest of my life. Which is why I’m pursuing what I am in college. Because of content creation and my passion for it.

A little more consistency would have gone a long way for me the past two years and I’m not about to stop doing what I love because I fell in a well of second-guessing. We’re just going to switch up our mindset and couple it with the unapologetically unbothered mantra. Because another reason for the lack of consistency and growth was because I was so busy comparing my life, content, and success to other creators. I don’t plan on doing that ever again.

Another quote to live by is:

Table for Two: Dreamland BBQ in Downtown Montgomery

Comparison is the thief of joy.

At my big age, we’re too old to not be doing all the things that make us happy and feel whole. So I propose we do all that makes us happy and fulfilled and I also propose a toast that, again, we keep Janelle Monae’s words in mind this year:

“To the lives we lead, to the dreams we chase, to the moments that we make, and the fucked up shit we can’t erase.”