I am finishing up my pieces for the week.
I used to do three. Every day.
Why?
It’s to keep me from doing 30! 🥰😂🤷♀️🥸
I can’t help it. I love thinking about folk. I love encouraging. I love, love, absolutely love to love.
I love you.
See!?🥰
Words are important to me. Always have been. I never heard ‘I love you’ from my parents. They were old school. Meaning they were never taught HOW to express their feels in word form or affection form.
Mom showed her love through her cooking and acts of service. She fought health issues but cooked for everyone.
Dad showed his love, I guess in his mind, through hard raising. He spared not the rod, ow. He did teach me to love learning as he took us to the library on the regular.
Anywho, I had been talking to a friend about my writing. He had FINALLY got around to the wonder of me and insisted I had to go viral somehow. Apparently, there is a real need for folk to know they are loved and not alone. Who knew?…*Cassandra finds it amusing how men folk think they are terribly wise when they give women folk ideas women folk already knew and had*
He said the writing etiquette was generally three pieces of content daily. Don’t ask me where three came from.
I figured I needed to whittle down to somewhere less than 10. Unless emergencies arise, and I just HAD to share.
Three worked for quite a while. One day, my heart only felt like writing two pieces. Stubbornly, I made myself write a third piece.
I asked myself WHY three were necessary? They weren’t. I then asked myself if it was more important to keep a habit or was I willing to modify said habit?
Now, I write two pieces. There may be times when I do just one…hhmm. Nah!🥰🥸😂
The point is, beloveds, is to set your own number. Yes, it’s good, and needed to get the counsel of folk.
As it is your life, you get the last word. That is, after mom, dad, significant other, God, Life and The Universe, your job and every other person who likes to run your life. You get to squeeze in there somewhere. 😉🤗🤣
I think this is piece number two so I had best stop here. Best not do a third after all the carrying on about stopping with two…hhmmm.
Ppssst. Don’t tell, beloveds, I feel another piece scrambling around. Speaking of scrambling…
brb,
Cassandra
#YourLifeMattersToMe
Note: Be encouraged. Nuff said. Oh yea, I love you.♥️🥰
- SUNDAY WITH CASSANDRA. IT ME!
- MOVIE SATURDAY WITH CASSANDRA🌎🎬👩🏿🦼🍿🌎
- (no title)
- Today…
- 🎬 MAYBE THEY WEREN’T “TOO BLACK.” MAYBE I WAS STILL HOLDING THE RULER. 🪑🔑Beloveds,I told you I caught myself watching Black romance movies and thinking:Too loud.Too boisterous.Too Black.😳And the Holy Spirit convicted me.Then I watched Deliver Us from Eva.WHEW.👀Because suddenly I wasn’t only watching Eva.I was looking at the ruler I sometimes used to measure everybody.Let’s start with Eva.She’s intelligent, professional, beautiful, protective, loving, bossy, controlling, loyal and complicated.All of it.🔑She doesn’t have to become either the Angry Black Woman Who Needs Taming or the Strong Black Woman Whose Every Choice Must Be Defended.Eva needs correction AND Eva deserves dignity.She helped raise her sisters after their parents died. Protection became part of her identity.But eventually protection sometimes became control.⛓️ If I don’t manage everybody, everything will fall apart.🔑 I can love grown people without controlling grown people.Her sisters need a key too.You cannot keep handing somebody the clipboard to your life and then get mad because she keeps writing on it.🤣Eva has to stop managing.Her sisters have to start owning.Everybody gets a chair.🪑And YES—THE MEN TOO.🤣🪑🪑🪑🪑Ray begins by deceiving Eva.That matters.But eventually “the problem” becomes a person to him.Eva.And Ray changes.🔑 Sometimes genuinely knowing somebody destroys the caricature we created from a distance.But Ray deserves his own humanity too.He’s working, dreaming, saving, flawed, funny, romantic, masculine and tender.He doesn’t need to become a CEO before he’s worthy of love.There’s that ten-times-better ruler again.👀Then Mike.Mike has a legitimate frustration with Eva’s interference.His solution?SIR. SIT DOWN.🪑🤣Because here’s another key:🔑 A legitimate grievance does not automatically make every remedy legitimate.Pain deserves acknowledgment.Choices still require accountability.Then Tim made me ask:What does a Black man have to look like before we consider him “man enough”?Dominant?Always in charge?Never soft?Never uncertain?Why?Tim doesn’t need more masculinity.He needs his voice.🔑A loud Black woman shouldn’t have to shrink.A quieter Black man shouldn’t have to perform dominance.Both get chairs.And Darrell?🤣Some people are intellectual heavyweights.And some people are…Darrell.🤣❤️HE GETS A CHAIR TOO.Intelligence isn’t the admission price for dignity.Sophistication isn’t the admission price for love.Black people are allowed to be ordinary.Goofy.Messy.Wrong.Funny.Tender.Brilliant.Ridiculous.Rich.Poor.Loud.Quiet.Human.And suddenly the Holy Spirit’s conviction went deeper.Maybe I had become nervous when Black characters weren’t representing us “well enough.”What will THEY think?Why are they so loud?Why aren’t they more polished?More educated?More professional?More respectable?More…acceptable?😳And suddenly I’m not watching a movie.I’m conducting a performance review of Blackness.⛓️That’s exhausting.Because Black characters should not have to carry the reputation of an entire people on their backs.And sometimes, without realizing it—we help load the backpack.That was part of what the Holy Spirit showed me.Not merely:Cassandra, look at them.But:Cassandra, look at your ruler.👀Who handed it to you?Why are you still carrying it?And I knew part of the answer.Ten times better.There was love and survival inside what Black folk taught me.They were preparing me for an unfair world.But:“You may have to be ten times better to receive the opportunity”can quietly become:“Black people SHOULD be ten times better.”NO.❤️🩹I reject that.Black excellence is beautiful.Black dignity is unconditional.Eva gets correction and dignity.Ray gets tenderness and accountability.Mike gets frustration and responsibility.Tim gets quietness and voice.Darrell gets goofiness and dignity.The sisters get love and agency.Nobody has to become less Black.Nobody has to become ten times more human.EVERYBODY GETS A CHAIR.🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑And maybe that’s what the Holy Spirit was really asking me:Cassandra, why are you still holding the ruler?😳My answer?I’m learning to put it down.🔑And maybe you have one too.Race.Education.Disability.Age.Money.Accent.Religion.Politics.Body size.Mental illness.Addiction.Sexuality.Somebody whose life simply doesn’t look like yours.Don’t perform an answer for me.Be honest with you. For, HIM.🙏🏿What ruler are you carrying?Who handed it to you?Who have you measured with it?Have you measured yourself with it too?And if the Holy Spirit is showing it to you, maybe He isn’t giving you the ruler so you can beat yourself with it.Maybe He’s saying:Child. You don’t need that anymore.Put it down.🔑❤️🩹Pull up your chair.🪑Let somebody else pull up theirs.And let people be fully human in front of you.Including—you.👩🏿🦼💃🏿❤️🔥🌎Asking for A Friend,Cassandra#YourLifeMattersToMeNote: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!Unapologetically His.Unapologetically yours.
Why Can't I Be Loud?! 