I was wrong....

I was very wrong for a very long time about something and its time I owned that and apologized.

For YEARS I thought heterosexuals were crazy. I thought they were certifiable.

Why?

Because often times they were derailing their lives with babies. Yes babies.

I love babies as you know but there are less than ideal situations in which to bring them.

I kept saying

"Why can't y'all just not have sex?"
"I just don't understand why you'd continue to participate in an activity YOU KNOW results in babies if you can't afford one?"
"What the devil is wrong with y'all?"
"Why don't y'all have any self control?!?!"

And now, I'd like to apologize.

I'm sorry. 
I'm very very sorry.

Because now, I get it. I totally get it. I understand what its like to look across the room and be like "Great day in the morning!" I say the same thing when I think of a certain someone. Mere THOUGHT!

You see....I always assumed I was heterosexual. I just defaulted to it. And since I could and have felt deep feelings for boys I assumed that my complete disinterest in them physically was just me being "extra holy."
You see I am a church girl.
A really good one.
And I always thought to myself "When I find a husband, I'll have sex with him because I'm supposed to. I'll do it 3 days a week even if I don't want to because I want to keep him."
You see that?
That's not right.
You're supposed to want to do those things with your spouse.
 This was also a symptom.
I wanted companionship...I didn't necessarily want him.

And when I look back over the years I see that. I was desperate for the companionship. For  commitment. And I wanted to be married, I assumed to a man, because I wanted forever with someone even if this one area of our lives (sex) was something I wanted to do about as much as I wanted to wash dishes by hand. (my friends know hand washing dishes is NOT a thing I do.)

Lets just....not.

And then.....
I came to really realize that you don't have to have any of those things with a guy. You can, in fact, have all of that with a girl. Plus, I'm actually interested in having those things with a girl AND having an intimate relationship with her.  <-----THIS was the thing I'd been missing!

So now I get the desire for intimacy of a sexual nature because I've finally found my own. I thought y'all heteros had no self control, but now I know its literally a fire within. One that is sometimes hard to control.

Lessons from Frozen

Love is an open door.

#VisibilityMatters

Everyone is a bit of a fixer up.

No one is perfect but that doesn't mean they aren't worth your effort, your time, or your love.

You can't change someone because people don't really change. Love's a force as powerful and strange.

You can't change anyone but your love for them can make them want to be better.

True love brings out the best in all of us.

We try to give a perfect effort for those we love. 

Feelings aren't Facts

My love said it.

My mentor said it.

They said it differently, but they both said it.

Separate feelings from facts. Your thinking is bad.

The both said it. That must make it true.



I may feel like a failure but that isn't a fact.

Its back in.....

High and rare form!

Imposter Syndrome is nothing to play with.

Imposter Syndrome is not a game. It is my lived reality.

Yesterday I was told by a medical school that my application decision is on hold.

That's failure. <---That's what this feels like.

I realize that this is because I have this thing...this thing that tells me that perfection is the standard and anything that isn't that is a reflection on me.  Anything that isn't perfection is more evidence that I am not good enough.

Everyone said last year it was my score. Now my score is great. And still this result. <----My mind says "See it wasn't the score. It was you. You're the problem. You're not good enough."

I live with a perpetual soundtrack that tells me "You're not good enough" and I work really hard to keep that volume on low but sometimes...

Times like yesterday...

Its turned all the way up.

Its a battle, and sometimes, it still wins.

::Calls Mentor::

I heard a word...

Y'all just don't know...

The very bright, the brilliant are susceptible to a crippling fear: failure.
Academics are grueling and when you're bright, you believe that they aren't supposed to be. When you've been smart all your life you're unaccustomed to facing academic challenges.

And then one comes along.

And it puts you in the bed. Literally.

Why? Because your expectation is to perform brilliantly at all times. Or at least mine is.

Truth? I'm about to tell y'all some.

Somewhere something happened for me that said "What you do is WHO you are."

I'm not afraid I actually won't do enough. You know why?

I work. Not like I go to my job and work. But I work until I'm physically unable to work any more.

I've only be drunk from alcohol twice. But I have been so tired that I might as well have been drunk in the lab. I have stumbled over stuff, fallen into walls, and used walls to literally keep me upright. Why?
Because I had so little energy that what I did have had to be routed to my brain so that I can accurately do my job or my hands to execute the job. I have worked until I couldn't quite feel my hands. <---Hands or thumbs going numb is the point at which my days have to end. Otherwise your experiments will be messed up. That's nuts...but its how I've lived.

When do I stop confocalling? (laser scanning confocal microscope requires the utmost in ocular precision and it drains your eyes like none other)  When I can no longer focus my eyes. That's when I get in my car and DRIVE 80 miles home. Safe? I think NOT!

But I've done it.

I've had DMSO running down my arms because I needed the data.
(DMSO is toxic and can get into your blood stream through your skin)

I've been sprayed in the face with acid and stayed right there in the lab because I needed the data.
(acid....is acid.)

And y'all I'm not that dedicated. Its not about the work for me. Its about me for me.

I'm not afraid I won't do enough.

I'm afraid I won't be enough. 

I'm afraid I'm not enough. 

Its about who I am.

I'm afraid not only that you will find out that I'm not enough but that's actually true.

I'm trying to prove to myself that I'm enough.

Do you see how that kind of burden could be insane for someone? Its serious.  It's a weight that you can't explain. It's why not getting into med school last year nearly killed me.

It felt like proof that I wasn't enough.  The thing I'd be working so hard to make false was true. The failure I'd been killing myself to avoid being crushed by landed squarely on my head.

This thing I've just described is called Imposter Syndrome.
I have it.
I have it deeply in my spirit.
My mentor gave it a name.
My Love loved me through on of the toughest battles I've ever fought against it.

And now....now I'm working on believing I'm enough within myself.

Blindsided

So I cry fairly often but its not always because I'm sad. I don't know what it is about deeply sexual music but nothing causes my eyes to water faster than music about sex.

I benignly downloaded a few songs from TI and I was hit with

"Take it off girl. Bend over, let me see it."

Had me like....

on my commute this morning.

TI and Breezy slayed this AM and I was completely unprepared. 

I dreamed a dream

Long before I could label anything in my life I knew that my backup plan was more like my primary plan. Lots of girls had these "If we don't get married, we'll just have babies by ourselves and raise them together" plans. I actually have one with some of my friends. But you see, having that plan was always my primary plan even though my friends and I discussed it as an "if, then" situation.

Years before I connected the dots I asked a close friend what she thought of the following....

How would you feel about living together and having kids, each of us having some, and raising them together if we don't get married? We would be committed to our family and what we're doing and faithful, though we wouldn't be having sex with others, and have someone else in our kids lives of equal importance who cared about them and watched them grow up and was excited about them being conceived and all of that. What do you think of that?

Do y'all see what I just described? Essentially living in a woman-led household with two moms without the sex.  I was at the point, willing to forego sex for the commitment and loyalty of such a union. I wanted that kind of commitment with a girl.

And my friend said "Well I want the whole package. I want the sex too."

And we left it there but this was one of the first inklings that I wasn't straight.

I dreamed a dream of a house led by two women, committed to their kids and their family, vacationing together, caring for each other, being there for each other and walking out this thing called life. I dreamed the dream lesbians dream, about what could be. I just didn't know that's what the dream I was dreaming was called.

And now I do.
Now I dream that dream out loud.

Its mine though....

Getting my PhD was strange.

It very much felt like walking into what was mine.

When I graduated for Hampton it all seemed magically. I just went to class, did my work, and for some reason that resulted in getting a piece of paper that means so much to so many. Additionally, it didn't challenge me that much to achieve in undergrad.

Graduate school isn't like that.

As my mentor says "If you were just supposed to have it we'd give it to you at the end of the BS. You gonna earn this PhD."

And that is the literal unfiltered truth.

You earn your PhD.

By the time I got mine, I definitely felt almost like it was owed to me.
It was mine to have.
I walked into my reality.
I already felt like a PhD, but I needed the approval of people with PhDs to get it.

That's the funny thing about PhDs. They are only as valuable as the people giving you yours because its subjective. Yes, you take classes and tests and get grades but there are two things that matter: your candidacy and your defense. 

Your candidacy is when you actually become a PhD candidate. Before that you're just a graduate student and there is no guarantee you'll ever get a PhD. Until you are a candidate, you're nothing. Once you're a candidate, that means they will let you attempt to get a PhD. You still aren't necessarily getting one. Believe THAT!

Candidacy is adjudicated by your graduate committee in my program and that is where PhDs decide whether or not they think you are capable of becoming one of them. They take into consideration your grades but its mostly based on your ability to research something you don't actually work on and present it to your committee in grant format. Your grant is judged and you also have to orally defend it. If you pass you are now eligible to eventually defend your dissertation and earn a PhD.

This entire process is kept to high standards because the people judging you are literally deciding if you are capable of being them. They are looking at your work and determining if they would be willing to give you their degree. That's what happens when a PhD is given. A group of PhDs decide you are their equal and they give you a PhD.  Obviously you earned that PhD, but the standard of what a PhD is maintained but the people with PhDs are deciding whether or not you are their equal. They literally give their degree to you by giving you a PhD.

Its a big deal.

Even though it is a big deal....huge actually, I felt it was mine. It was. It is.

I defended publicly for 1 hour and then 2.5 hours privately for my committee. They then deliberated while I wasn't in the room and then decided that I am one of them. 

I passed, unanimously. 5 male PhDs decided this lady is one of them. 

PhD with a beat face!

What I wore!

I did NOT defend in Uggs but I did wear the hell out of this dress. I wanted my defense outfit to say sexy and brilliant and it said just that!

My sister, my Daddy, and My Love on my right hand.

Time and my doctoral ring on my left!

It feels so good to be a PhD but it feels like its been mine for at least 6 months.  Honestly, when my committee said they thought I could sit for my defense, I knew I had this PhD. That's when I really knew. I've been walking in that reality since April.

I just needed them to say it.

I caught up to my destiny, she took my hand, and she said "Hey girl, I've been waiting on you!"

Evenings with my boy

Nothing else grabs my heart like "Lise, will you play with me?"

Nothing else moves me like hearing him say "Lise" when his mom asks what he's thankful for in his prayers.

This boy has me hook, line, and sinker.

She called me

"Dr."

My mentor, who I've loved up close and from afar, called me Dr. today.

Then she stepped back from the mic and clapped.

For me!

Then she asked "And what are you going to do next?"

I said "I'm going to medical school."

And she said to the crowd "Y'all don't have to do that but that's what she's doing. Medical School. AFTER a PhD. That's for the special few."

They clapped again.

But all I really remember was the way she stepped back and clapped for me.

Yet again....

See... the problem is you're trying to compare your censored relationship with me to ones that are completely open and honest.

You haven't really seen what they look like but you assume they're better than yours.

Ever considered focusing on how you treat me as a way to make our relationship better? No.

It seems we've circled back around to you wanting things that your relationship with me doesn't entitle you to.

Access denied.

P.S. Comparing your relationship with me to the relationship I have with the one I'd like to be my wife is like saying "May the odds NEVER be in my favor."

Agency is sexy!

There's something about trafficking in one's own sexuality that is so powerful. I think the fact that I know no man can have me makes me feel invincible.

I also know that's its distracting as all outside to some. That's something I have no time to care about!

I actually made the decision to wear a body con dress to my PhD defense for this very reason. My breasts, hips, and thighs are glorious and they make me feel like a masterpiece. Nothing boosts my confidence like looking amazing.

I really do love the attention but I also love knowing they can't really ever have this.
Like ever.

I'm in control of my own objectification which means I'm exercising my own agency when I wear whatever I want, low cut or not. I'm permitting you to see all this fineness. The "object" is actually in control of its own exhibition. That's how I own these decisions. They are just that, decisions!

I walked through the hospital cafeteria and had men walk past, stop, and turn around to catch a better look.

I totally understand it.
I get it.
They're awesome.
Look all you want.

The whole or the part

If you accept me, unconditionally and exactly as I am, you'll probably get the gentle, considerate, kind, loving, affectionate, doting side of me because I'm bringing my whole self.  Chances are, many people have seen this whole self interact with people who do accept me without reservation but they themselves haven't experienced that.

The more things I feel I have to modify to be acceptable to you, the more closed off I become. If I'm not open with you because you can't or won't accept all of me, then the parts of me that you want to see aren't going to be as readily visible either. This why you may perceive that I'm more considerate or nicer to other people. I'm more of who I am with them. I'm less of who I am with you.

Consider that.

Also....I realize you're doing the best you can. I acknowledge that and accept that this is your honest effort. Unfortunately, even if this is the best you can do, I'm going to have to manage my interactions with you. You can't have the most authentic version of me because she's a treasure you don't know how to handle. I'm not going to let you into a place you haven't proven you have the right or privilege to be with me because you want to experience what others experience with me.

I'm having an individual relationship with everyone. My inner circle is very very small. Its a handful of people out of almost 8 billion. The inner circle gets me whole. If I'm not able to show up any kind of way with you, then you're not in that handful. Watching that handful interact with me and comparing that to your experiences of me isn't a good idea.

I'm giving you the best I can without giving so much that I could hurt myself. This is it. This is all I have to give.

Take it or leave it.