Favor-Minded

Hello beautiful people. I know I've been gone for a minute, I returned to ATL and basically hit the ground running. I closed out the last of my grant writing contracts, cleaned my apartment, and did some other stuff. For those who followed me on my last blog, I just wanted to assure you that this one is here to stay. Consistency is the name of the game this time around. This doesn't necessarily mean that you'll get a blog post every other day (New York *** is just a different me). However, you will hear from me. 

Today's blog post titled favor-minded is something different for me. I'm going to start off with a Bible quote. Ruth 2:10 says "At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She exclaimed, "Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me a foreigner?" This comes from a little Word of the Day passage that my mom sent me. I'm not gonna lie, a lot of times I get annoyed when my mom sends these. I have my own Word of the Day books (I may not use them all the time, but I do have them!) But honestly though, it often feels like it comes with hints of judgement, especially because she doesn't send these to my older sister. Regardless, I allowed myself to receive this message in particular and it was good for me. The ones she sends aren't bad at all, it just rubs me the wrong way. I don't know. All I can say is that if you grew up Christian and have stopped going or possibly ventured outside of church, and especially if you have ever experienced life through the lens of the phenomenon "Obedient Black Girl or Good Girl Syndrome" (which most Black Christian girls do growing up) then you know how I'm feeling or what I'm saying right now. And I want to be clear, this is in no way shape or form a dig at Christianity (we don't do that here). Christianity has quite literally been the foundation of how I've come to know and experience God. Based on my own experiences, I don't believe in limiting my relationship to Him to the teachings of a single book, pastor, or church. 

I like Word of the Day passages a lot. I've even shared them with friends (non-Christians) before, and they enjoyed them too. For me, they reconceptualize the Bible in terms of real life which not only can be insightful but feels a lot more realistic and a lot less judgmental. This is a big buy in for me as I tend to look at spirituality from a lens of gray area rather than black & white. Anyway, in this particular passage it talks about how much favor can make a difference in your life. Basically, this woman was a widow in a foreign country suffering through a famine. Both her and her mother-in-law were dying. But everyday this girl would go out to the fields and pick up grains from the reapers, split them with her mom in law, and eat them. She ended up getting real cool with the owner of the field, and that guy basically ended up telling his reapers to leave handfuls behind for her. After this, they were no longer dying of hunger, they had abundance. Moral of the story is keep your head up, and from my own takeaway show gratitude to receive more. 

I won't say that these are things that I struggle with, but I will say that these are things that I am working on, especially the whole this is happening for me and not to me concept. In the world of content creation, it's extremely easy to get discouraged. There have been times when people have straight up ripped off my work and gotten more likes and/or made more money off of it than I have. While I've never struggled to come up with a good idea (new sh*t coming! lol), something I have struggled with is popularity. Well, except that one time in high school senior year (iykyk type sh*t lol, but if you wanna know just ask, it's nothing crazy lol). Anyway, because I'm an overthinker and can be sometimes too critical of myself, it can be really hard on me to see other people prospering when they've stolen my ideas. Or even if no one is stealing from me, just not getting the recognition I deserved has been extremely hard on me, and quite frankly something I've struggled with for a long time (since I was like 16, I'm coming up on 26). If we wanna talk just in terms of writing, I've seen people copy my last blog. Only one person actually reached out to me to ask me about my process and ask for advice, of which I was more than happy to share. My philosophy on knowledge has always been sharing is caring, never been one to gatekeep. I remember when I shut that first blog down people started saying things to me like "Oh, why'd you stop?" or "I was enjoying it." And while these are all great compliments that I genuinely appreciated; I just remember feeling like what the f*ck because while I was writing none of these people were even saying anything. It was always people I never even knew read my stuff that had the most to say after it ended. To me, it wasn't that I felt that it was ingenuine, but I did feel like where was the love when it was going? Especially because that could have been the thing that kept me going.

I understand my position in the world as a Black woman, and how people can misunderstand my energy as being intimidating. However, I am human at the end of the day, and as someone who often shows love and to support to others via sharing knowledge, letting them know I liked their work, putting others onto their stuff, or helping them make connections, I would love to feel the love too. I'm not telling you this so that you feel bad for me or anything nor am I like trying to point fingers here. I decided to quit on my own. But, if we're going to do this, and do it better this time around, it requires a level of openness and honesty from me so that you and I can build up a rapport and help each other out. I'll bring the messages and the music, and all I truly ask in return is that if you f*ck with what's going on here, just say something. If you're shy, that's fine. Maybe throw a like on an Instagram pic, swipe on a story, share or something, I don't know. But it's too many people watching and not saying anything; closed mouths don't get fed (this is directed towards me). In the spirit of gratitude though, let me acknowledge the people who have and continue to support both publicly and privately. I have so much love for the ever growing #Knightingale community. I always appreciate the love that I receive even if it's just one person because it helps me feel that all of the thought, effort, integrity, obsession, and late nights I put into my work is worth it and that I am appreciated and valued. 

I say all this to say that although I'm trying to look at my glass as half full and not half empty, I'm not gone sit here and lie, it's hard out here. The other day someone asked me how things were, and in my best attempt to not be negative, I responded "Everything is everything." Because it is. All any of us can do is take it one day at a time, when that's been too much, I've been trying to do an hour.

Peace In the Middle East,

Princess <3

P.S. Thank you for all your love and donations, I really appreciate y'all. As an update, I did make it back to the hotel after staying with friends in NYC and having an allergic reaction to their cat (lol). 

ALSO, I almost freaking forgot, but Joyce Wrice liked my pic! I had her song (Freddie Gibbs slid OMG) attached to the first pic I uploaded from my NYC series, and I was taking a nap one day and woke up and it was just like Joyce Wrice liked your pic. I just thought that was cool of her. Very appreciative. It was also very helpful for me because I've been trying to get more engagement (not just eyes) on my page, and I thought that a cool way to do that was by tagging the artists whose song I use but I kept going back and forth about it for a hot minute because I don't like how it can be misconstrued or come off thirsty especially if it's male artists. So, I was taking them down, but when she like the pic I was like ok yeah this is ok, just relax.