We Run This Mutha!

Yesterday I woke up in somewhat of a somber mood. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I tried my best to shake the feeling. As soon as my feet touched my black hardwood floors I told myself, "Trudi this is going to be a fabulous day!" As the water from the shower came crashing down in my face and the heat hit my body I began to analyze my feelings, "What is it? Why am I in this space first thing this morning?" And I couldn't deny the answer when it immediately came to me, "He should have called by now to apologize..."

As the morning went on and I was sitting in the church pew getting armed in my warrior gear to take on the world and all that could possibly be thrown at me in the week to come, the pastor said something that caught my attention, "You were made to stand out." It immediately brought me back to the somber feeling that had faded just the hour prior and in that moment I declared to myself, "Yes! I was made to stand out!" And standing out from the rest of the women who would have given in by now would not be calling someone who is in the wrong just because I miss them.

The feeling was erased even more when I gyrated and sweat it out in Zumba, but the ultimate distraction and reinforced self control was when my Zumba instructor and I headed over to my girl's house for Mojito Sunday! I don't drink, but I felt like I needed one yesterday. As time passed more women came through to do what we hadn't planned on doing...Relax, relate, release. When I looked around the living room I observed about five conversations taking place between women who needed that connection and the escape from their inner pain and insecurities. It was refreshing to see and comforting to know that I'm not the only one who had to talk myself through the morning into a different, more positive state of mind.


By the time I left my girl's apartment I had made a new friend and plans to hang out with her for the upcoming weekend. As I drove uptown, me, my Zumba instructor and new friend, were claiming that we were strong women who deserved nothing but the best and would settle for nothing less. It's funny how when I woke up yesterday morning I didn't want my day to start and then after my girl time re-boost I didn't want it to end. I told myself that that day would be fabulous and in hindsight I'm seeing how much power there is in the tongue and how necessary it was to kick my shoes off, plop on a couch with a pillow in between my arms and legs and LET LOOSE.

CALVINOGRAPHY presents... EXHIBIT US: Fashion Show Live Window Installation

Through the Fire

"How do you do it? It was just yesterday that you were crying over what he'd done and today you're not giving two shits to the thought of him or this situation. I'm in awe of you." It took a minute for me to process what she had just said and that someone could look at me and my issues and be inspired, moved by the way I'm handling them. What really threw me for a loop was that the woman who spoke is sixteen years my senior and is in "awe" of me?


As we continued talking, her question and statement began to resonate. I would have moments of flashbacks, things I had gone through with him; I'd mentally check out of the conversation and enter some of our darkest places that got me to the mind frame I'm in today. I was pulled back into time, long past and recent when the words that escaped our mouths were so ugly you'd frown at the sight of them, where the anger was so intense you'd black out, turning into the Incredible Hulk, and returning to yourself again at daybreak, when the pain runs so deep that there are no words written in the English dictionary to even express the emotion, where you've compromised YOU for him and you're lost in an abyss of loneliness and confusion.

All of these places I have visited on more than one occasion, hell more than five, and here is a woman telling me she is on awe of me? With each mini earthquake I was rocked, some where 9.5s and others were .1s, but I was moved nonetheless. I remember questioning myself, "when did he become more important than you?" And the scariest part of this conversation was my response, "I don't know." It took me taking a journey to Costa Rica, by myself, endless pages of writing in my journal and midnight hour conversations with God for me to come back to myself. And once I was reacquainted with this women who looked like me, sounded like me, but wasn't the ME that I remembered; she was betta; I knew I was a force to be reckoned with and hell on wheels from that point on.

At that pivotal moment in my life is when I started to own, really own, Trudi and all that embodied my being, good and bad. But even in this epiphany of mine, I still struggle with myself, at times, and with him at others. I haven't mastered how to completely escape those fierce moments when you can turn the house upside down over something that was recklessly said; however, the difference between the other Trudi and this one is my tolerance level. There was something about being burned by fire repeatedly that made me want to stop touching it, in fact, I wanted to avoid it at all cost. You see, he's a firefighter, he is trained and equipped to enter hellish places. Me, I'm armed in my backless sundress and four inch pumps, hot pink lipstick and funky hair, not the ideal or proper gear would you say? Yet, I've managed to come through the fire and I wear my second and third degree burns as a reminder never to forget the road I've traveled in the rediscovery of me. "How do you do it?" She asked. I look at my burns and keep it movin'.