As a 36 year old black woman who had her first child "late in life" while married, this event stayed with me for a while in life. My beautiful mother used to tell us to "be careful who you have babies by".  Being the youngest girl in my family, I was often coined the favorite or the good girl.  Honestly, I sort of felt that way because I typically did not get in trouble with my parents.  At an early age, after watching my siblings get in trouble for various reasons it clicked within me not to do it and BAM! I don't get in trouble LOL!

Growing up, my family was pretty much the only family or one of the few black families with two parent households. Back then it didn't mean much to me, but now as a wife and mom seeing how those factors played a major role in how I function within these new roles. Don't get me wrong, coming from a single parent home does not destine one for a bad relational future.  Witnessing my parents go through their ups and downs within their marriage, yet stick it out until now in 2020 celebrating 40+ years of marriage. I do believe relational foundations are laid early that affect one in adulthood.

During  middle school in the late 1990s was the biggest downer in my life and at 36 still affects me to this day. My dad worked nights and my mom worked during the day, so him not being home at night was nothing new.  Eventually, things begin to noticeably change around the home and he wasn't home consistently. We lived in a two story white house, on the right was large bay window on the first floor and my eldest sister had the pleasure of the best room with the balcony above the bowed bay window. On the left sits, two identical windows, aligned symmetrically in between worn black shutters.  The second floor window dawned my parents bedroom. One afternoon, I heard my parents arguing and being nosey peeped into parents room. Finding my mom lifting that wide, heavy window up and threw shoes at my dad’s car as he drove out the driveway. Seeing that exchange changed me on the inside. Almost immediately removing emotion from my heart in order to comfort my mother who just cried at the edge of her bed and I just held her letting her know everything was okay. Later finding out that my dad cheated on my mom, altering my mindset on love and relationships forever.  Various events occurred since that revelation and vowed to never allow a man to have that amount of control over me, emotionally.

Over the years, I was okay with being single with the expectation of avoiding any type of hurt.  Yet early on I ended up in a relationship that wasn't necessarily the healthiest, allowing things that I wouldn't have normally allowed.  Yet consciously aware that I was avoiding emotionally vulnerability. Ironically, he reminded me of my dad, hence their close relationship at the time. (That's another blog for another time). The experience coupled with that of my family past brought me to a crossroads of decisions to make in life.

One direction lead toward a path of continuing to pick up beautifully laid bricks off the road, adding to the custom wall I had built for my emotional protection. The other road was full of thick, dense fog with the inability to see my hand in raised in front of me. Many of my peers, friends, and family endured this crossroad.  Was my life destined for single motherhood, singleness, complicated relationships, serial dating etc? All I knew was that the brick laid road, although I was in control, led to nowhere and growing isolation.

Late Fall of 2014, this crossroad was ever present in my life. Wanting to take that chance and walk the foggy road of the unknown. October 2014, one Sunday I was at church and literally begged God to remove all the distractions and vowing singleness.  Yet a friend of mine wanted to introduce me to a family friend of hers. With some hesitation, I went ahead and agreed. She showed me some pictures of him and I was "heeyyy, okay" LOL! Needless to say but we hit it off pretty quickly, leading to marriage a year and a half later and baby Czaria a year thereafter.

With all of that background, I will forever tell anyone to travel the unknown road regardless of their past experiences.  Walk with caution, but be open to love and new adventures. I'll share our full love story on another post. This blog is a product of walking down the foggy road.  Not knowing where this will take me, yet I'm open to the journey. Post college graduation in 2005, I had a taste of stepping out in faith when I moved to the Philadelphia area.  Which was one the greatest faith walks I've taken.

With all that has developed over the years, I will always recommend taking the road less traveled when you are at a crossroad in your life. There are a few things to take into consideration when faced with making a decision.

1. Evaluate where you are in life - At the time, I had no children and no major commitments (companion, career, location). Being at that point in life, what could have been lost, since I had everything to gain. If you have one or all of those factors to consider, talk to those that will directly be affected by your choices. Then move forward accordingly.

2. Don't devour the whole pie- Seeing that multiple factors are in play when decisions are being made.  Many people go by the just jump theory. Some may think jumping is fully going all in, when just taking a step or two is jumping without jeopardizing all responsibilities. As I build my blog, quitting my job can't happen because I have dependents. So, I'm using my time off to just start this journey aka my first bite and it tastes good.

3. Never regret, just learn - that's it, life happens whether we want it to or not. With the events that are not ideal, take the good out of it and move on. Your past has already occurred and nothing will change, so again, just move on. Every experience in life is a learning experience, either positive or negative. I'm not an expert at blogging and will expect errors on my behalf.  Overall, once I learn the correct process the error won't occur again.

What are some events that changed your life for the better and what are you challenging yourself with these days?