Mami Moments: Creating Who I Want to Be

It's the middle of the night. I fell asleep with the frog princess last night. It never fails to surprise me. One minute I am wide awake and the next I'm waking up wondering what happened. I think I have it figured out. She lulls me to sleep with her rhythmic breathing. When she's awake, I'm fine. It's when her breathing slows and her words cease that the magic happens. The sound transports me to a time when that little body would lie comfortably on my chest and those little lungs would take in air in the same way they do now.

I woke up 2 minutes before midnight. I still had work to finish up for school. Work that wasn't going to get done in 2 minutes. I'm tired of stressing. Tired of trying to be perfect in school and by extension driving myself mad because there's just too much going on. I fell back asleep, lulled once again by the little body probably dreaming of dancing and snacks.

Waking up from my slumber at 3, I made my way to zenMami to get work done. Of course, at 3 a.m. Blackboard goes down for maintenance every night. So I caught up on messages, and scrolled down my timeline. There, I found Jada. And I found words to reflect upon. Lots of them. These caught my eye though:

I love these words. I have been struggling lately. Wanting to stop and smell the roses but feeling as if I had to keep going to fulfill...what? To prove that I can have everything on my plate and make straight A's? To post 3 times a week? To get more business? I don't want to make choices in order to wield a certain outcome. It's been stressful. And it's not the person I want to be.

Ultimately it comes down to that sleeping child and the calm I feel when I listen to her breathing. The choices I make and how they affect her. The choices I will change starting today so that I am not negatively affected.

I want to create the person that I want to be proud of. The person that I want that little body to be proud of. And I don't want to live my life with regrets. Don't want to walk in the what if's puddles that sometimes seem inevitable at certain stages of our lives.

Today my word is FIERCE (a): (of a feeling, emotion, or action) Showing a heartfelt and powerful intensity. What word defines you and allows you to get closer to creating the person who you want to be?