Me: He said some blatantly racist things to his supposed friend!!🥾😡
God: I know. Forgive for they know not what they do.
Me: He KNEW. HE CHOSE THOSE AWFUL WORDS!!😠✋️
God: How will he ever learn and grow lest you teach?
Me: I’m tired, God. Tired of having to teach folks how to not treat my black skin as a crime!! Did you know I can’t show anger or any negative emotions with black emojis as they default to the yellow, considered white, color pallet..
I can
💃🏿😠🫵🏾🫴🏿🫶🏿🤲🏿🙆🏿♀️🧏🏿♀️👩🏿🎓👸🏿👩🏿🦼🏃🏿♀️🛀🏿
Yet, I can’t be upset as MY BLACK SELF. I’M NOT ASHAMED TO BE ME. I LOVE ME SOME ME!!
God: I know. Forgiveness is asked by ME. Do I not forgive you?
I need to start there. Because if I’m going to introduce myself—really introduce myself—I don’t want to begin with a website.
I don’t want to begin with something that happened to me. I don’t want to begin with a list of things I have survived, things I have accomplished, or things somebody else might use to explain who I am.
I was me looooooong before I was a blog.
I was a little girl who loved words. I remember sitting in doctors’ offices reading Reader’s Digest. And no, I wasn’t just some bored little kid grabbing whatever happened to be sitting on the table. I was drawn to it.
I loved the motivational things. The encouraging things. The words that could make somebody think differently, laugh unexpectedly, or feel a little better than they did before they read them.
I loved Quotable Quotes. I loved Life in These United States. I loved Laughter, the Best Medicine.
Long before I had a blog, I was collecting words. Long before I had readers, I was reading.
Long before I knew exactly what I would do with my voice, I was listening for voices that made life a little lighter, a little wiser, a little more hopeful.
And somewhere along the way, I started writing too. I’ve written all my life.
Writing wasn’t invented for me by a website. It wasn’t something I suddenly discovered because life became difficult and I needed somewhere to put my thoughts.
Words were already mine. Encouragement was already mine.
For a long time, I have tried to READ something, WRITE something, and LISTEN to something positive every day.
Feed your mind something worth carrying. Put something worthwhile back into the world. Listen for something that reminds you there is still goodness here.
That rhythm did not suddenly become meaningful because my circumstances changed.
It was already mine.
And then there was another dream.
I wanted to be a motivational speaker.
There was just one teeny-tiny problem: I was terrified of public speaking. 🤣 Apparently my heart had ambitions my nerves had not approved.
But I wanted the microphone anyway. 🎤
I wanted words to do out loud what I already knew they could do on a page. I wanted to encourage people. I wanted to speak into somebody’s life and leave something there that might help them keep going.
Eventually, I did speak. I had to give a speech to graduate. A teacher helped teach me about the written word and the spoken word. Later, I joined a speaking group. I volunteered helping abused children. I gave presentations.
I was scared.
And I enjoyed it anyway.
Somewhere in all those years—the reading, the writing, the listening, the speaking, the serving—there was one ridiculously simple thing underneath everything.
I wanted to love the world. 🌎
That’s it.
I wanted somebody who felt alone to feel less alone. I wanted somebody who was ready to stop to take one more step. I wanted somebody who had forgotten their worth to encounter a few words that might remind them:
Your life matters.
Eventually, there was a blog.
Why Can’t I Be Loud?!
But please understand the order.
The blog didn’t make the woman.
The woman made the blog.
The blog simply gave something that was already living inside me another place to go. Another microphone. Another page. Another doorway. Another way to reach toward somebody I may never meet and say:
Come here. Sit with me awhile.
And if I’m really introducing myself, I can’t skip one particular word.
Ugly.
There. I said it.
I was called ugly.
I’m not going to pretty that part up now. Words matter, especially when they find you young. Ugly informed my world. It affected beauty. Belonging. Being seen. Being wanted. Being included. Being looked at—and being looked past.
But there is something I refuse to give that word:
My love.
Ugly informed my world.
Ugly did NOT inform my love.
Cruelty does not get to come back years later and collect credit for the woman I became. I will not hand it that trophy.
I did not learn to love the world because somebody taught me what cruelty felt like. The people who hurt me do not get authorship credit for my heart.
That heart was mine.
And God loved me as I was. Not some someday version of me. Not the version somebody else might find prettier, quieter, easier, more acceptable, or more convenient.
Me.
And somewhere along this life, I learned something else too:
I love me.
This face is mine. This laughter is mine. This faith is mine. These questions are mine. These words are mine. This heart is mine.
This voice is mine.
And then—the stroke came.
I will not introduce the woman I am today and pretend it didn’t happen.
But listen carefully:
My story does not begin with my stroke.
The stroke did not give me my purpose. It did not make me a writer. It did not teach me to love words. It did not put encouragement in my heart. It did not give me my desire to speak. It did not create my love for the world.
I brought all of that INTO the stroke.
And that distinction matters.
Because the stroke came for some of the very things I had spent my life using:
My voice.
My words.
My hands.
The little girl who loved words grew into a woman who wrote them—and now sometimes I have to fight just to get those words where I want them to go. The woman who dreamed about microphones grew into a woman who found her voice—and now sometimes I have to fight for that voice.
The writer has words inside her—and sometimes her own hands fight her over putting them onto the page.
There is something almost unspeakably cruel about that.
But I am speaking it anyway. 🎤
Because I’m still here.
And maybe Why Can’t I Be Loud?! means something even deeper to me now. I asked a question about voice.
Then life came for my literal voice.
And I am still answering.
I. AM. HERE.
My voice may be different. It is still mine. My words may take longer to reach you. They are still mine. My hands may fight me while I try to put those words into the world.
They are still mine.
And I am still writing. Still speaking. Still laughing. Still questioning. Still believing. Still learning. Still loving.
Still I rise.
Not because suffering made me extraordinary. Not because every painful thing needs a pretty lesson attached to it. Not because I am interested in performing strength for anybody.
I rise because I am still here.
And Beloveds, here is the part I desperately want you to understand:
I am fighting for these words because I still want to give them to you.
For you, Beloveds.
That little girl picked up words because something in them called to her. This grown woman keeps fighting to put words into the world because somewhere out there is another human being who may need one.
Maybe you need to hear that your life is not finished. Maybe you need somebody to sit beside you without demanding that you clean yourself up first. Maybe you need permission to laugh while you’re hurting. Maybe you need to be angry. Maybe you need to grieve. Maybe you need to begin again.
Maybe you just need somebody somewhere on this great big planet to say:
I see you.
You matter to me.
You are not alone.
Then come sit with me.
Bring yourself. Bring the beautiful and the ugly. Bring the questions and the mess. Bring the faith and the doubt. Bring the laughter that shows up at absolutely inappropriate times. 🤣 Bring whatever voice you have today.
You don’t have to sound like me. You don’t have to believe everything I believe. You don’t have to live where I live, look like I look, love like I love, speak like I speak, move like I move, or understand the world exactly the way I do.
There is still a chair here for you.
Because this was never about making the whole world Cassandra. Good grief. One is plenty. 🤣
This is about loving the whole world while letting people remain themselves.
So let me introduce myself.
I am Cassandra.
I am the little girl who loved words. I am the woman who kept writing them. I am the scared woman who wanted the microphone anyway. I am the woman who was called ugly and refused to surrender her love.
I am the woman God loved then and loves now. I am the woman who learned to love herself. I am the woman whose body now sometimes fights her for her voice, her words, and her hands.
And I am the woman who keeps reaching for the microphone anyway. 🎤
Same heart. Same mission. Different settings.
ALL OF ME.
I am still writing.
I am not done.
And neither are you.
So take the step. Then take another one. And another. 🥾
One step. One step. One step.
However long I have a voice, I intend to use it. However long I have words, I intend to give them. However I have to get those words from my heart into this world, I intend to try.
Still I rise.
For you, Beloveds.
For love.
For this great big messy, hurting, beautiful world. 🌎
And because after all this, somebody is inevitably still going to ask:
Why can’t I be loud?!
Well…
Who said I can’t? 🎤
Asking for A Friend, Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Note: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!
Tonight we went a long way around to arrive at something that has actually been here all along.
Why Can’t I Be Loud? was never simply about being loud. It was about having a voice.
It was about refusing to let this world decide whose voice deserves room, whose story deserves to be heard, whose difference makes them inconvenient, or whose pain should be made quiet so everybody else can remain comfortable.
And somewhere in all of tonight’s music, memories, laughter, hurt, photographs, fishing poles, empty chairs, chains and rebirth, the message became clearer.
I see you.
Not the version of you somebody else decided you ought to become. Not only the polished you. Not only the healed you. Not only the easy-to-love you.
You.
I know something about what it feels like to believe you are the one nobody will choose. I know what it means to carry words spoken over you long after the people who said them have gone home. I know what being called ugly can do to a heart.
But I also know this:
God loved me then.
God loves me now.
And I learned to love me, too.
So when I tell you that your life matters to me, those are not decorative words at the bottom of a post. That is the work. That is the reason I keep opening the door. That is why there are two chairs instead of one and two fishing poles waiting beside them.
🎣🪑 🪑🎣
Come sit with me.
Bring your story.
Bring your laughter. Bring your questions. Bring your faith or your uncertainty. Bring your scars, your accent, your anger, your joy, your difference, your whole complicated self.
You do not have to become somebody else before there is a chair for you.
Maybe that is what all these playlists and stories and conversations have been doing. They have been fishing for something bigger than any one song, movie, photograph, country, race, body, language or life.
Fishing for love.
Fishing for one another.
Fishing for a world where seeing somebody different does not make us retreat, but makes us curious enough to pull up another chair.
Because I don’t want to love only the people who look like me.
I want us to love the whole world together.
🌎
That is why I keep saying:
One step. One step. One step.
Because changing the world sounds impossible.
Loving the human being sitting in the other chair does not.
And maybe enough of those little acts of love eventually become something enormous.
A chain transformed.
A life reborn.
A voice recovered.
A lonely table with another chair pulled up beside it.
A world remembering that we belong to one another.
So after everything tonight, I think the summary may actually be very simple:
You matter to me.
I see you.
You are loved.
You are not alone.
And whatever tried to convince you that you had to disappear in order to belong—
Nah, fam.
There is room here for your voice.
Keep on being…YOU!
🌎❤️🔥🪑🪑🎣🎣
Asking for A Friend, Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Note: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!
Because apparently God will use whatever is lying around when He wants me to notice something. 🤣
I was getting dressed, working with this body of mine, doing what has become normal:
figuring it out.
Not necessarily doing something the way I used to do it.
Not necessarily doing it the way somebody else would.
Just figuring out how this body can get it done.
👘
And somewhere in all that maneuvering, adjusting, pulling, reaching, twisting, and making the clothes cooperate, a thought hit me:
I couldn’t have done this hard right-handed.
Ironically.
🤯🤯🤯
Because my dominant hand used to be the hand I depended on.
The hand that knew what to do without being told.
The hand I probably barely thought about.
Then life changed.
My body changed.
And suddenly the side that wasn’t supposed to be the star had to learn some lines.
👀
And apparently she has been studying.
🤣
Because there I was—
getting myself together,
putting on my clothes,
working out this kimono,
and realizing that some of the things I have learned to do now might actually be harder if I tried to do them the old way.
WHEW.
👘🤯
Then came the headset.
🎧
Y’all.
I realized I had been putting my headset on backwards.
🤣🤣🤣
So what was supposed to be coming through one side was coming through the other.
I had been listening to the world backward.
And somehow…
I WAS STILL LISTENING.
👀
Now hold on.
Because THAT got me.
My headset was backwards.
My sound was coming to me differently.
And I suddenly thought about this body that sometimes does the opposite of what I expect it to do.
The signals don’t always travel the way they once did.
The side I once depended on isn’t necessarily the side doing the work now.
Sometimes I have to approach something backward.
Sideways.
Opposite.
With the other hand.
From another angle.
With another method.
And yet—
I am still here doing it.
😭❤️🔥
Maybe different isn’t always less.
Maybe sometimes different is simply:
the way through.
Maybe I have spent so much time noticing what my body cannot do the old way that I almost missed what it has quietly been learning to do another way.
👘🎧🧠❤️🔥
That kimono wasn’t just clothing this morning.
That backwards headset wasn’t just a funny mistake.
They made me notice something.
I have been adapting.
Learning.
Problem-solving.
Listening.
Living.
And sometimes doing things in ways I never would have discovered if life hadn’t forced me to learn another side of myself.
😭
I couldn’t have done this hard right-handed.
Read that again.
The hand I once would’ve automatically chosen might actually have made today’s task harder.
The hand I didn’t choose had something to teach me.
🤯
And maybe that’s bigger than hands.
Sometimes the route we would have chosen isn’t the route that teaches us what we’re capable of.
Sometimes what feels backward is still moving us forward.
Sometimes the other side has been learning while we were grieving the side we lost.
And sometimes you look down at yourself wearing your kimono, realize your headset has been backwards, think about the absolute ridiculousness and wonder of this whole journey and have only one thing left to say:
WON’T HE DO IT!!
🙌🏿🙌🏿🙌🏿😭❤️🔥
Beloveds,
however you have to get there today—
left-handed,
right-handed,
backward,
sideways,
slowly,
awkwardly,
with three attempts and a prayer—
GET THERE YOUR WAY.
Different does not automatically mean deficient.
Sometimes different is evidence that you are still learning how to live.
Why Can't I Be Loud?! 