The Worst Advice I Ever Gave

A few times a week I volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club in downtown Newport News. Last night while I was there I noticed one of the older girls didn’t look so well. I asked her if she was ok. I thought maybe she was on her monthly cycle and was cramping. Then I thought again; must be a boy. At first she brushed it off, and said she didn’t know what was wrong she just didn’t feel well. I didn’t push her to talk about it. I figured if she wanted to open up to someone she would. Later that evening she came over to me and told me she liked a boy who liked someone else. She told me this boy was her best friend. She said they had been friends for two years and that she had told him a year ago that she liked him. I pride myself on being a good mentor for young girls. I like to think at this point in my life I have a lot to offer in that department. However, when it comes to men, I’m probably just as clueless as they are. The longest relationship I’ve had to date lasted 9 months and for the majority of it I was being held captive, but that’s another story.

So what do you tell a young girl who likes a boy who doesn’t like them? I thought of what my father would say to me. I told her she was beautiful and she would meet so many guys throughout her life it’d make her sick. I told her men would make her crazy. And then I gave her what was probably the worst advice of all. I told her “The best way to get a boy to like you is to pretend like you don’t like him.” While it made her laugh, this is not something I am proud of. What I meant to say was the best way to get a boy to chase you is to pretend like you don’t like him. That doesn’t mean he will like you back, all it means is if he is looking for a challenge and you present one, he will most likely go for it. What I should have told her is the best way to get a guy to like you is to be yourself. It doesn’t mean that every guy will like you, but a guy…the right guy…he will.

I am sure I will have more opportunities to talk to her about guys and how they make us crazy. But this situation made me think about all of the advice I had been given about men over the years. I remember my Dad telling me when I was 13 and boy crazy, “Don’t ever go to a man. Let him come to you.” I didn’t always take heed to that before, but I certainly do now. When I was 15 my oldest sister told me “All men are dogs and should be treated as such.” I just looked at her like she was crazy. My naïve little heart would never allow me to believe such an extreme generalization of men. Plus I knew she was bitter. My Mother’s advice about men was “Don't have sex”, and I didn’t’, not until I was 19 years old, and even then I don’t feel I was mature enough to really conceptualize it or realize how much it would impact my life and my future relationships. As a young adult the majority of my relationship advice came from Sex and the City, but at some point I realized I wasn’t cut from the same cloth as these women and sexing my way through my twenties and hoping someone would stick around was not an ideal way to build a relationship.

And now here I am 24, single, and while I won’t say that I am completely clueless as to how to make a relationship work, I am both exhausted and disinterested in the matter. I feel like worrying about men and relationships is something I have outgrown. Or maybe I just need a break. I just don't understand why women my age spend so much time worrying about something we will never have any control over. No one ever woke up and said "I am going to fall in love today", and actually did. Well, at least no one that I know of. And once you do fall in love whose to say it will even last. I know, I know, I sound like a pessimist, but really think about it. No matter how hard you love someone, how much work you put into a relationship, how much time you invest, that person could decide at any moment they want out. Then what? I'm not saying love isn't worth the risk of getting hurt. Its just not something I choose to overly concern myself with. But I can’t tell that to these girls. That would crush their dreams, for when you are a young and innocent girl and your vision of love has yet to be tainted, love is all you dream about. It is the air that you breathe.

Customized Baby Gear

So I decided to make some customized baby gear for my friends who are expecting a sweet baby girl soon and were having a baby shower. Never did I imagine I would have so much fun and that they would come out so great. I pretty much just raided Michaels, Walmart, and Joanne's for ribbon, decorative flowers, embellishing, hats, headbands, and onesies. Almost nothing I bought was actually for apparel. The flowers I found in the scrap booking section, and the other items were in various locations. I spent quite some time in these stores but it was definitely worth it. You really just have to use your imagination. Everything was placed on with permanent fabric glue except the lettering which was iron on. And that's pretty much it. Oh and the gift box is actually a shoe box I wrapped in a brown paper bag. These will be on my etsy shop WithlovebyJackie ✌️💗♻️

Beautiful to Who?

We've all heard the cliche, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But does that still hold true in American society? Do we decide for ourselves who and what is beautiful? Do we allow others to decide if we are beautiful? Growing up with four older sisters, a very reassuring father, and a mother who is dark in skin tone like me, I never questioned whether or not I was beautiful as a child because it was something I heard all the time. Although my teeth were crooked and I didn't smile much, my family members always made it a point to tell me how pretty I was. As a kid I just went with it, but as I entered Junior High, it began to be something I questioned. I had a self esteem quite contrary to my environment. None of the boys at my school thought I was beautiful. I was teased for being too dark, too short, too skinny etc. All the boys I liked, liked the white girls, the mixed girls, and the girls who were of lighter complexion. Because I am so adaptive in nature I took on other roles. Sometimes I was the smart mouthed mean girl, others times the funny home girl, but most the time I was just quiet. Even to this day I spend a lot of time in my own head.

When I was 18 I cut my hair very short. I started getting so much attention and compliments for being able to pull off a short cut, it made me feel like a completely different person. When I was 19 I got my teeth straightened and began to smile more. Again, people started to look my way. I began to feel more confident and I started to feel as if I was finally coming into my own. I loved taking pictures and posting them on social media. I loved getting dressed up and made up and going out and receiving attention from men. It was all very satisfying....until it wasn't. I began to miss the old me. I hated that when I met men they didn't want to talk to me and only wanted to examine my physical, and tell me how attractive I was. I hated not feeling pretty when I wasn't in heels, makeup, and small skimpy dresses. I hated not feeling like I could be my true self when I was in heels, makeup, and short skimpy dresses (No man wants to debate with you about politics when your half dressed and tipsy). I had developed a false sense of confidence based on the things other people had told me about myself, all my life, and I no longer recognized the person in the mirror. Not once had I really looked in the mirror and decided for myself that I was beautiful inside and out because that's the way God made me.

When I began to focus on who I was as a person rather than how I looked, I began to feel more and more beautiful. I learned that I have a beautiful mind, a beautiful heart, and a beautiful spirit. I learned of my beautiful desire for knowledge, my beautiful yearning to change the world, and my beautiful compassion to help others. Through my relationships I learned that I am an unconditional, forgiving, rational, funny, sometimes crazy, but always devoted, beautiful lover and friend. I discovered my beauty and it had nothing at all to do with anything physical. Although I have grown to love my small yet curvy figure, my dark chocolate skin, and my Halley Berry hair, all of that is just the icing on the cake. Now when I meet a man for the first time and he tells me I'm beautiful, I laugh inside and think to myself "You have no idea how beautiful I am". I don't claim to be without insecurities. My roommate and good friend Sarah is a very pretty, voluptuous white girl and when we go out together the black men flock to her and I'm back in middle school telling jokes. But I understand now that different cultures have different ideas, different concepts, and different standards of physical beauty. In my family black is beautiful. In American culture, European standards of beauty are praised. What's more important is how we define beauty for ourselves. We can spend our whole lives trying to measure up to other peoples standards of physical beauty, or we can just decide to love ourselves for everything we are and everything we are not, and call that beautiful.