How I Have Stayed Young at Heart

I work with teen aged girls everyday. From the ages 12-18, I get to see what this age group thinks is hip, cool, sweet, dope, the shit, bad, bling, flossin, swaging; I am pretty up to date. I have a 31 year old daughter who is intelligent and socially conscious, who also feels it important to use me as a friend, something I have always discouraged. It just sort of happened and I have had to accept it.

I have a 20 year old son who is working daily, but pretty much stays to himself. He has the same friends he had since junior high and spends time with them. I get to hear what he's listening to, right before I take it out of my CD. We do not talk much, but when we do our conversations are always lengthy and edifying. We spend a lot of our time praising each other. He thinks I am the greatest mother and lately it seems he is getting to know me for the first time. He is maturing and more accepting of me as a woman and not just his mother, but he also is mesmerized by how I know exactly what he wants when it comes to certain things. He has my name tattooed on his forearm. When I saw how huge it was, I was honored and uncomfortable at the same time. On one hand the tattoo validated he understood just how permanently I love him, but it also represent to me, a fanatical quality. I will always be his mother. We share blood. The tattoo seemed overkill to me.

My fifteen year is very assimilated. This drives me crazy that I am raising a beautiful black girl who identifies with white women on the level she does. Her sensibilities are more that of a white girl and boy does she struggle to accept that beautiful nappy hair of hers. Still she is the kindest, most diplomatic person I know. She is intelligent, well read, capable and giving. She is still very infatuated with me to a great degree, yet she is beginning to notice I'm not perfect, but unlike her sister and brother before her, she does not judge me and call me a hypocrite. She actually feels I am doing the best I can. What a blessing. I would be in trouble if she thought she was missing something.

I stay young because I embrace youth and youthfulness. One month and 11 hours from being 50, I feel younger than I ever have. I am presently listening to the group Blackstreet while typing this blog. I enjoy music and dancing just as much or more than I did when I was young. I love to laugh and will until I cry. I am telling ya'll I freely allowed myself to live in the Holy Spirit, praising God constantly and doing my best to do what is right and good. I stopped taking myself so seriously and accepted myself for the beautiful black woman that I am and I have been happy every since. Peace