sunday journal excerpt

Excerpt from my journal…

The room was almost full for my panel, one speaker had dropped out leaving more time for the four of us. I spoke then listened to the others; I couldn’t shake that feeling of an unseen baton being passed that stirred in me earlier in the day. A sister panelist took the floor. I listened to her speak about her research that affirmed what I have lived, experienced, taught, and had just spoken about as part of my talk. I listened, bristled, slid forward in my chair when she referred to me as “Auntie”; was taken aback, offended by what I heard as an insult, a diss. Was this young person calling me out of my name in front of a room that I now clearly noted was full of women much younger than myself?

Something came over me when I heard her say it again. As I sat back in my seat, I knew in that moment that a baton was indeed passing.  Though I don’t feel or look my age, my lifespan, with all that has occurred in that arch from birth to now, is unmistakably stamped with the number of years I’ve been blessed with. Because I had shared my exact age with my audience, I realized it and I had been heard, appreciated, revered not dissed. 

I was not prepared for this moment, the moment when one accepts their new seat on the stage, knows that their seat is more like a throne as we ascend to being honored as sage, seasoned, knowledgeable women who have been there, done stuff, lived to tell it, and maybe spilled a little tea in the process.

And so as I jot down my thoughts, I wonder if I can totally let go of that baton while at the same moment, I feel no resistance to the thought. Perhaps it is now time for me to speak in different forums sharing pieces of my story that I hadn’t considered were worth telling in a voice that is toned, rooted in sureness, and quite resounding.

So…

keep your peepers open!® 

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