Introducing a Possible...Bahama Mama

Editor's Note: as the name suggests, this blog features the views of 5 very different women and the possible -- meaning from time to time we will feature other writers beyond the 5 in the mix. Today we debut our first possible, Bahama Mama. Hope you enjoy!

Bahama Mama: Chilled and sweet with just enough hidden intoxication to keep you on your toes. A mother of two who is following the unorthodox map of a quarter life crisis. Grasping at life with the eager hands of a child and forging a path to build strength, character and knowledge to pass onto her children. For it is not expendable riches that keep generations wealthy, but indispensable wisdom that allows us conquer all of life's pitfalls.

My favorite Christmas movie is A Christmas Carol. Okay, it is actually the story of Ebenezer Scrooge that is my favorite. It doesn’t matter how the story is being brought to me, whether it’s an adaptation of the Charles Dickens original, the eighties flick starring James Belushi, or the animated version featuring none other than Mr. Fred Flintstone, I always enjoy the tale. This is my flick of choice because at the end I always think about the different stages in my life. If I had the opportunity to go back, like Ebenezer, I wonder what goals, passions and dreams I would cling to.

I know that if I looked back on my life as a child, one of my goals would not have been to be a single mother of two, in her mid-twenties with so many questions to life unanswered. I ran this by my therapist ( and yes I am a black woman who goes to counseling!), and she logically told me “your twenties are a time when you’re finding out what to do. You’re finding yourself.” I laughed a bit derisively, ‘cause clearly this woman didn’t know the stress that I was going through. I didn’t have time to find myself. Between the drama with their father, working and meeting the needs of my daughters who are a day shy of being a year apart, my mind could not fathom the thought that I even had the right to find out who I was. Because it is the thoughts of many Americans that by the time we have children, we should “know ourselves” or “have it together”.

It wasn’t the pain of childbirth, or the sleepless nights that followed which had me looking around and thinking “what the hell?” It was the shock that set in after I began to comprehend that I was too busy for me. I was so lost in being a mom, a girlfriend, a daughter, and all the other labels I carried, that I started to fold under the pressure. But like many black women before me, my back was bent, but not broken. My spirit was ailing and in need of some serious medicine. So, I stopped and thought about me. As moms we tend to take care of everyone but self, but how can we love and nurture our children, when we don’t love and nurture ourselves? Its impossible ladies.

I began to think about all the things that I wanted before I had children. I thought about the hobbies that I liked to do, the people I liked to be around and I started to make time for me. It was hard, but I handed over some responsibility to their father (and we’ll talk about that later!), and did me. Heather Headley said it best “I need some me time”. It doesn’t matter what you do with those moments, which should never be stolen because you have a right to not cook dinner all the time, or to hand the kids over at bath time. Read a book, go to a movie, do anything that YOU want to do. And ladies (moms, wives, girlfriends, lovers) contrary to what some think, we all need that time to step back, look at our lives, and reassess the situation to make sure that we are happy. Though my life is no where near what I envisioned it to be at this time, I’m learning, growing and becoming a damn better person in the process.