You Are Enough: Self-Love

As Valentine's Day approaches 💘, I have a message for those ladies who are struggling with either being single, solidifying a budding new relationship, or keeping an existing relationship. 💯

I have been single now for a little over a year 📆, and this is has proven to be the most important and best time in my life. 🎉My ex was the love of my life, or so I thought. 👫There was never going to be another like him; no one as smart as him, as considerate as him, as thoughtful as him, or as funny as him. 👰🏽We liked nearly all the same things, such as music, movies, books, friends, etc. 💑We clicked instantly. We had similar upbringings, and similar views on life, once again... or so I thought. 🙎🏽I sacrificed time with myself, with my family, with my friends, with my career, and with my pre-established personal goals. 🙍🏽I spent all my time and energy on this relationship, and I was utterly exhausted. 🛌🤕I could not figure out what I was doing wrong, or what I could possibly do differently.😰

Truth is, it didn't matter if it was him or some other guy who made me feel more special than the last: I did not love myself enough to make a healthy relationship work. 👎🏽I also did not trust God enough. I did not trust God to bring me the man that He wanted for my life in a reasonable amount of time-as in, before the age of 45. ⏱👀 So I was willing to go to the ends of the Earth (e.g. NYC streets, self-help books, online relationship blogs, therapists, YOU NAME IT! 😂) for the one whom I thought was meant to be mine.

Well... It. Does. Not. Work.! 🤦🏽‍♀️I've tried everything, including:

“Black Privilege”

Being Black means that I have been through endless tests/trials/persecution/suffering in my short lifetime....and it will likely continue until my dying day. Yet, racism from the current President-elect and any other politician will not affect me. How, you ask? By the grace of God and something else called 'Black Privilege.' 

Black Privilege is a concept recently introduced to me by the promotion of Comedian Charlemagne Tha God's upcoming book. From my point of view, Black Privilege is the unmatched ability to create opportunity versus the automatic inheritance associated with White Privilege; it represents strength that is immeasurable, faith that is unbreakable, and a resilience so present throughout history that it is now endemic to our race. For the other Americans stricken with grief and fear after Election Night, I share with you this illustration of drawing strength by simply remembering whence you've come. 

God's favor has delivered me from: child abuse, neglect, abandonment, drugs/crime, welfare/poverty, poor education systems, domestic violence, severe emotional distress, and a ZERO OPPORTUNITY environment. Despite being bounced around, having to raise my own siblings, being overworked as early as high school, and basically growing up way too soon, I overcome.

Because of His favor, I...