2017…
Sho’ll been good to me. ‘For any year that the Lord so spares my life with a new sun is a blessing.
These days I’m always thinking of how I can be a better Brittanie. A kinder, gentler me. Worries that don’t sit with me all day, but left at my bedside during prayer. For the first time ever in my life…and I mean EVER, I like the brown skin girl in the mirror. I want to love her. Learn her. Take care of her. Better her. Forgive her. I’m aspired to be the woman that I claim that I am and I’m thankful for this year, these seasons, and the twenty-eight years of life that have shaped up and shaped out Brittanie Smith.
2017…
Sho’ll been good to me.
1. Patience
I’ve learned about it, and I’m growing through it. There will come a time that I’ll talk about the 11th day. How stressed I was that morning in the kitchen as my boyfriend sat with his bowl of oatmeal. It was me again…teary eyed and a moping mouth. I had failed, I thought. My book had released and the ‘magic’ was not happening; the best sellers’ list, the hundreds of Amazon reviews. I had done this wonderful awesome thing, yet I felt empty. Unfinished. Undone. “Brittanie, it has only been eleven days.” That’s what he said to me…but I had seen it happen around me, but not for me. Why?---‘Cause it’s true when they say trust the process. It’s also true that I in fact had sold a number of copies. I don’t know why I wanted to rush through this beautiful season of my life. I’m finally an author, and that took long enough. I do know now…I love everything about my story, and though I get a little antsy and sometimes discourage I trust so hard nowadays. This last month of the year 2017 I’ve had straight tunnel vision. It has felt amazing to finish another semester of school, another year of life, and another season of love. I’ll wait on the Lord. I look back and think “Here you are. Here you are right now.”
---So here I am. Here I am right now.
2. Consistency
Nothing works without it. NOTHING. Working out. Writing. Blogging. Spiritual journey. In 2017 I fell short every. single. time. I knew it before, but now I know for sure: Nothing will work unless I do. I can’t half ass it. I can’t one week it. I can’t wait until next Monday for it. Life’s way too short to be pussy footing about the things I’m in total control of. 2018 is definitely the year of minimizing my list of super goals, and working on the few things that didn’t necessary work out in 2017. I get it. I got it.
3. Grow My Own Garden
Anybody knows me knows that I’m obsessed with my mother’s mother, and their mothers. My grandmother Vivian, the Gamble ancestry. There are so many things I didn’t get to ask that I find it sometimes unfair. I also think about death…often. Like afraid of it. Like getting to that point and I haven’t finished yet. I haven’t said everything I wanted, written enough books, loved enough people. I become so obsessed with what used to be, what could be, or how it should go that I miss the moments of what is. So consumed with everything and everybody but Brittanie. My grandmother lived a great life. I see it in the children she raised, the church members that mention her, and the impact she’s left on my own life. I’m sure the last thing she would want for me was a worried weary granddaughter. What good will I be for my children and my children’s children if I am not grounded in my own meaningful life? I have learned that I am Brittanie, and that’s a life worth living to its fullest. I have learned to like me, and in the words of the wise Alice Walker “In search of my mother’s garden, I found my own.”
4. People Come. People Go.
….and I used to think this was a bad thing. I so appreciate the forever friendships just as much as the seasonal acquaintances that are like the moon and gone by the morning. I learn myself a little more through human interaction, and it’s ok to have fewer seats at the table.
5. Family is EVERYTHING
I love my family so much! I was able to see them a lot more this year! I definitely value family time a lot differently and I’m so happy about the new memories and the new traditions we’ve made. I never thought I could love a child more than my own, and then my sister had my nephew Carson. He’s brought so much joy to our family and I love him so much. Sean has made me so proud, and he is his momma’s boy always taking care of me. OMG I used to think we were all so dysfunctional, lol. I’ve learned that love is not what it looks like. It’s how it feels.
6. Brittanie
I am the beginning and the ending of this life. It is everything that I make of it.
“I think I will able to, in the end, rise above the clouds and climb the stairs to Heaven, and I will look down on my beautiful life.” -Yayoi Kusama
