Self-Love Series: Queen

Wow....wow. The contributor for today's self-love series is Queen, who is an excellent example of who I would like to be one day. She exudes self-love and confidence, its kind of her "thing". Its an honor to have her share and give words of wisdom!  

Self-Love Series Day 10:

A Teary Foundation

My tears are defiant and demanding.

They tell me when they will fall, or not.  They dig into my soul and take my emotions hostage.  Then, I imagine, they conquer my heart and sling it about until it’s worn and exhausted.  My tears are terribly annoying because they tend to control me.  As far back as my mind can reach, I’ve succumb to the overflow of my tears.  Yet, I am thankful for their existence; each one, one by one, has glued into each other and given me foundation.

Heartbreak and my introduction to lost love accompanied my first real cry-fest.  He was the most solid thing I’d known for 13 years.  Stern and powerful, he drilled me with pride and culture knowing he wouldn’t last.  I was nothing, at this point in life, except his daughter.  I was his spitting image and proud to be.  He was important to the people and I cherished his very breath, even the last one I saw him take.  I cherished it.  My tears flushed my hurt, my pain, my failing belief in the God who’d called my father home.  Those tears, Daddy’s tears – I called them, stayed with me for many years.  I imagine that I never stopped crying those tears.  They just melted into newer tears as they formed.

Love visited again, a few years later.  But it was just a veil for torture and pain.  He broke my heart and my spirit.  He told me I was fat, mouthy and that only he could love me.  I was nothing special, again.  He had separated me from my friends and my family.  He was all I had and he was destroying me.  He was literally tearing me apart.  But I had my freedom-seeking tears.  They took over and they kept me sane.  Those tears were new and they embraced Daddy’s tears while I became more lost in self.  I was nearly inexistent spiritually, mentally.

But I started to get better.  I started to live and love again.  I began to see me and love was growing inside of me.  Then God came back and took Mama, my earth angel.  My tears came back with a vengeance.  Angry tears stowed away in my soul and separated me from feeling anything but pain.  Everything that lived in me, wept.    Daddy’s tears, my Freedom-Seeking tears, and now Mama’s tears all overcame me.  I was no more.  I was nothing, again.

One day, my eyes met the rising sun and I didn’t feel like crying anymore.  In fact, I began to feel again.  My soul opened up and offered my tears rest.  More importantly, I could see me, freely.  God had blessed me with years of tears that peeled away the pain of life.  There was nothing left but who I was to become.  I was now just me and I loved me, finally.  The tearful foundation was now steady.  Not only did I now know how to master pain thru tears, I was gifted by God with the ability to cry for others.  I’d finally stepped into myself and I accepted me.  As perfectly imperfect as I was, I loved me.

Through years of devastation, I was stripped of flesh and reborn into a woman who would create a Queendom built on a foundation ordained by her own tears.

Funmi F. Franklin is a native Mississippian who has dedicated her life to promoting progression in the capital city of Jackson and all over the state.  She is the founder/principal of HATHOR, LLC d/b/a Thick And Proud Sisters-TAPS.   Affectionately known as Queen, she is has accepted her life’s work and passion for bringing unity and development to women by providing avenues for women to heal themselves emotionally and spiritually and thus encouraging the same for other women. She is a writer, poet and advocate for sisterhood.  She pins an opinion column for the Jackson Free Press that tackles issues that face all women, particularly black women.

Queen is a loving mother and wife who lives and breathes Jackson, MS.

Please stop by for this weeks Self-love series, the contributors are slowly becoming closer to my heart. I have asked women who are my foundation to leave a post for you guys!

If you missed last week's posts check them out. Let me know what you think below.