My name wasn't supposed to be what it is. I was supposed to be a boy or so everyone thought. My mom heard nothing but "You're carrying like its a boy" or "You're definitely having a boy!" Poor me had a boy name and not one consideration for the fact that these folks did not in fact have a crystal ball OR a state of the art ultrasound to see that I was decidedly female.
That's BayBesha. I got her for my 1st birthday and we've got a good thing going.
Anyways, I was born female. XX all the way. And this female needed a name. I was at first going to be NP which changed to NI but thankfully the N dropped out (My aunt to whom I'm eternally grateful because that I was NOT CUTE AT ALL), the P moved forward, and the N was the filler name of the late 80s. So why talk about my name? Well because I thought naming this blog had meaning too.
This space here is called Trading Up for now because that's what this feels like. I've been on autopilot a long time. You see I got into grad school after what was arguably the most pivotal experience of my young adulthood. I wasn't serious about research at all. In fact, I did it for the money. As a undergrad, research pays like gangbusters and I was all about the Benjamins! But serious things happened while I was dabbling in research.
I had broken up with my longterm college sweetheart weeks before starting this research program at UNC. I'd finally had enough of what was an emotionally and occasionally physically abusive relationship. Shannon and Sarah didn't know what was really going down with my ex and I and ML did and this was one of those ugly cry situations. Anyway, I was super deep into my faith, spending tons of time in my Bible and in prayer. I got home from work everyday and literally laid of the floor of my dorm room ( I know….ewww gross but being prostrate before the Lord was my thing then) and worshiped. I sang, I cried, I prayed, and I sho nuff believed and still do. Well apparently my roommate at the time saw me. She didn't really stay in the room since she was a UNC student during the school year and had her own off campus digs but apparently on a few occasions she saw that me and Jesus, we were serious.
So that summer went on by and I developed meaningful relationships with lots of women. One of them was AV. I should specify that AV wasn't always her name. She was at first Dr. A. Eventually we moved to AV with this A representing Aunt and V her first name because that's what we became. Dr. A was bread and butter! Do you hear me? I would sit in her office for hours talking through whatever was on my mind and this woman….Dr. A was a busy lady. But she was never too busy to let me sit in her office for 3 hours and tell her about my life. The reason this whole office visitation started was because I had inadvertently put my foot in my mouth.
So check it! We were having a cross talk which is where faculty talks to students but not from the lofty position of tenure but from the "I've been there, I've cried those tears AND repeated those experiments" place. We were having one of those and I said something and she caught everything I was saying. I made some kind of snide comment about how you can't take everyone everywhere and you gotta leave some folks behind cause they weren't smart enough/weren't like you <---yea I was dripping with humility and pleasing personality! Dr. A saw that AND me, turned that on its head, and in the end I came up to her and said "How can I say this better?" She told me "The mark of a good person is one that hears a criticism and seeks to understand how you correct it" and she smiled at me and told me to email her and make an appointment.
That first appointment was nothing I could have expected. She sat across from me and listened. She listened for where the pain was coming from and she searched it out. And she loved on me while she did so. In 10 short weeks she became the most influential person in my life because I had a void. A "adult woman who believes in me and thinks I'm special and great JUST THE WAY I AM" void. You see that ex. He'd effectively separated me from my family but he'd also shown me some twisted kind of acceptance. Don't ask me. I'm still not sure I fully understand that relationship but I'm glad I went through it cause it taught me a few valuable lessons about listening, about resilience and resolve, and about how to delight in helping someone else become not just regular great but epic great (S/O to ML who hated his by the way and it was mutual lol)
Anyway, Dr. A was my therapy through that and a whole lot of other issues. You see I'm not the smallest girl in the world but my kid sister was a varsity cheerleader. Yea so you can imagine that weight was a topic of conversation and sometimes the only one and you know what? I wasn't pregnant, on drugs, or failing out of college. I didn't have a sealed juvenile record nor had I ever wrecked a car. And those things didn't matter because the one thing I was doing wrong was fork management (S/O to Dr. M)! And that was the hill my parents wanted to die on and one Dr. A never visited. Not once.
So I met with her and told my roommate when I saw her that Dr. A was, not only the bee's knees, but bread and melted butter!
Now, how did she go from Dr. A to AV? Well simple. I asked her. It was our last banquet for the end of our program and I walked up to her, after consulting Jesus, and said "Can I call you AV?" And she smiled real big and said "Of course." The rest was history.
The next day or our final day, we were standing outside a building cause the fire alarm went off and she started laughing and wrapped her arm around my shoulders and that became us. We use to say "They don't know us like we know us" and they didn't and still don't.
So a few weeks later this roommate called my cell phone. Now this roommate was NOTORIOUS for not answering her cell phone. She called me around 9 pm. And she said words that changed my life "Phil, you have faith like no one I know and I need you to pray for me."
Uhhhhh what?
She went on to say that her father had died that morning in a motorcycle accident and her mother was in critical condition. In one of the clearest times in my life of the Lord speaking to me He said "She's an orphan." No fanfare. No nothing. Just like He was sitting there with me and I knew. Her mother would die too. And not 12 hours after her dad died at 11 something AM her mother too passed away.
I wanted to be effective in this. I wanted to do this right. So I prayed a prayer I've never prayed since and don't ever desire to feel again. I asked God to show me what if feels like to be an orphan. And let me tell you. I SHO NUFF ugly cried it up for hours that night. And the next day was a Sunday.
Now of course I wanted to talk to AV about this situation but seeing as I only had her office number I was OUT. OF. LUCK. So I was supposed to meet with AV on Tuesday anyway for our weekly chit chat. And I got an email from her.
Meeting Cancelled
Now I 'm not necessarily an email hoarder BUT this particular relationship stands alone in the history of my dealings with mentors so I have all those emails. This is what she said
Today, I just had a student emergency happen that I have to take care of today, so I will not be able to meet. I hate to put you on hold, but my Chancellor asked me to help with this. Since I will have to attend a funeral as the university representative and am not sure when it will be, I'll have to wait to reschedule our meeting.This is a pretty tough situation, and I will appreciate your prayers for the student and for all involved.
I remember it like yesterday. I immediate called her and said "You know about roommate?"
She replied "What you know about roommate?" And we were off to the races. We were tag teaming roommate and keeping each other abreast of the situation as it evolved. Roommate wanted to invite AV to the double funeral for her parents and of course AV was there. AV was gonna be there no matter what because that's who AV is. She really knew Dr. A through me but when she called the school to let them know she wouldn't be at school she asked for Dr. A. Now this is significant because Dr. A wasn't in her major. She didn't even know Dr. A as AV like I did but she knew she needed Dr. A and Dr. A isn't one to disappoint. And when I told AV that my parents weren't going to pay for me to go to the double funeral of my 10 week roommate in New Jersey she made sure I got there. That's who AV is. She gets it done or got it done back then. We went to that double wake and double funeral together. We sat next to each other and when roommate got up to eulogize her parents, PLURAL, AV looked squarely at me with tears on the edge of her lashes and said "This, this I can't do" and she handed me a tissue, took my hand, and we both cried and dabbed out eyes.
We spent the next year being something mighty special. I could call her and text her any time. I look back at some of these emails and they floor me. We couldn't have been closer. We aren't that way any more and one of these days when I'm missing her I'll cry over my laptop and tell you how AV went back to Dr. A. And yes its a sad story and it involves actual therapy with a therapist, ML being completely pissed along with the other besties, and what felt like a death in my own life.
But I digress….where was I?
Why this story? Right yes. Well I'll tell you why. This is when I decided to get a PhD. Dr. A had one and here she was making this massive impression on Roommate and really being in the trenches with during the worst situation of her entire life. She'd also changed me life for the better and this is what I wanted. I wanted to be in a position to be in relationship with students who could literally bring me their burdens and I'd have the privilege and honor of bearing them right along side the student.
Now I'm not saying there aren't breakthroughs to be made as a PhD. There most definitely are BUT you can't walk through anything with anyone when your own life is bearing burden enough because you don't love what you do. And I don't. So I'm trading up. I'm moving into my calling. I'm getting off autopilot and firmly taking grasp of my own life. I'm moving on purpose and purpose is scary. You see while I was content to just be in grad school I won hundred's of thousands of dollars in research money. I excelled.
Quite literally the most important discovery I've made in 5 years. What is it? Oh its just the ability to remotely kill cancer with magnetic nano particles that are specifically taken up into the deadliest of breast cancers…yea EXCELLING!
I am excelling. To this day I earned candidacy in 57 minutes. The average candidacy exam is 2-3 hours and your girl busted that out in 57 bossy educated Black girl minutes. S/O to Hampton!
I traveled around the country and the world….for free. I sure did go to Australia for my birthday for the low low price of….free. But you see this is what I call my early retirement. Why? Because its leisurely. If I don't come to work for a week, someone might notice. My work husband definitely will but honestly no one will miss me.
The work husband and my bossy twist out!
That's not acceptable. I want my life to matter. I want my presence or lack there of to mean something. And I want to use my gifts. I'm still fascinated by pregnancy. I'm still totally enthralled in medicine as ML would tell you. Oh and you wanna blow ML's mind? I can be on vacation in 36 hours. I could be at her house tomorrow before dinner if I wanted to be. Yea I mean in 17 hours. Why? Because that's how research is. You do your experiments and when you're done, you can do whatever you want. You decide when experiments when they start and stop and if they start at all! Want to work overnight and relax during the days? Sure! Want to work weekends and take off Monday and Tuesday every week? Why not. Want to stay home for no reason today and tomorrow? Do you boo! That's what grad school is like and its real cute until its not. And its not any more.
I'm trading up. Or trying to. I made the mistake of understudying for my MCAT in the fall and having to take a January MCAT which went swimmingly but I missed out on a lot of schools. Fortunately, my two top choices took my January MCAT and we're waiting and seeing.We're in the waiting and seeing…oh and the writing part. I've got two papers to put out in the next couple weeks in addition to getting the blog together but I've got sue stories y'all. Some SHO NUFF stories to tell you. Y'all come back now...
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