unbecoming

Unbecoming: a word generally applied to the bad girls. Usually denoting qualities deemed unattractive or vulgar by society with the added layer of misogyny, classist, and racial dynamics - anyone seen fraternizing with this woman might be endangering their whole social standing by association and therefore was to be avoided at all costs.

As I reflect on the last year, I feel like I’ve entered a time warp. A year ago, I didn't foresee this outcome. A year ago, I was pondering what we’d do to celebrate my husband’s 40th birthday. We’d recently returned from a family Christmas trip to Belgium. I was applying to school. I didn’t see this coming, although friends of mine say they saw the writing on the wall and it was just a matter of time.

I’ve described the last year, as I’ve been going back to college after a 17 year hiatus and the process of separating/divorce as a process of deconstructing, dismantling, unfolding, and YES, unbecoming.

I’m actively scrutinizing and rebuilding the foundations of my life. At best, it’s gratifying and I feel ownership over my decisions and my life. At worst, I feel adrift and destabilized and crushing guilt, afraid I've made the worst decision of my life. However, as my lord and savior Cher says, do something that scares you.

Olivia Dean’s Baby Steps and Lizzo’s Coconut Oil have been synchronously following me everywhere I go, in super markets and radio, reminding me that I have great capacity for difficult things. I am tenacious & the baddest bitch in any room. Gasp! How unbecoming!

Every day, I am making full bodied steps every day in a direction I never thought I'd be taking, even as onlookers might observe me and have their questions, their judgements, or perhaps have no idea what’s going on and hypothesizing silently as they see my posts come up on social media. Contrary to popular belief, I've been painting my eyebrows weird colors for years before it became trendy & I finally decided to bite the bullet and bleach them this year. But anyone who’s known me for any length of time knows weird aesthetic decisions are not NEW for me. But I make these steps, even when unsure, in full faith that this next chapter, I’m engaging intentionally. Doing it on purpose.

So If you’ve been wondering, yes, I have been up to my eyeballs in “character development”, carried on the wing tips of Spirit, and I am determined to shape it into something beautiful.