jackpot.

daddy taught me how to play jack when i was a little girl.  bounce the little starfish looking piece and try to grab as many marbles before catching the starfish looking piece. it sounds a lot more complicated than it is. i watched my father eagerly wondering who taught him. with my big brown eyes, i wondered why we had to scoop all the marbles, why not just one? why risk dropping the starfish for all the marbles when we could have just scooped up one or two and manage to get the starfish at the same time? why would my father take such a risk? looking back at the whole experience now, why the f.ck was i so scared?

take the risk ms. lloyd. take the f.cking risk. it's seems easy to say but we often stand in the way of our own progress.  there are no safe roads unless safe and unfulfilled are synonymous and no one bothered to tell me.  i think my biggest fear is conquering myself.  who am i to be great? isn't that a speech somewhere? it most certainly is true.  i think about it all the time - what gives a girl born and raised between the south bronx and the west indies the right to be something fabulous? what gives a teenage mother the place to talk about places that come out of storybooks? what puts little old me in the position to talk about anything? absolutely nothing but Jesus was born in a manger between three horses and piles of straw so who am i NOT to be great? i've noticed that most of the time we're not comfortable in our own skin. we fuss and fight with ourselves about doing what is acceptable for everyone else when the truth is that everyone else won't care as much or as long as you do.
i'm a babbling writer, a sarcastic mother and a guarded woman which really means i'm hard to please. but that's me and there's nothing to fear in that.  i cannot gauge my success numerically in those three spaces.  i can only be me and i can only do what makes the writer, the mother and the woman happy.  whatever it is, it has nothing to do with anyone else. and maybe the fear is that my road to happiness will only make me happy which seems pretty lonely.  however, i made the decision a long time ago that i would rather be happy by myself than miserable with the whole world.
make yourself happy first, if for no other reason than it reduces wrinkles.  you want to go to beauty school? save your pennies and go. you want to take a road trip cross country? save your quarters and go? you want to go natural because the perm is thinning out your edges? do what's right to save your edges if that makes you happy.  i'm just saying.
fear is something we pick up along the way but we don't need to take it wherever we go. i can't tell you when or why i bothered letting fear come between me and the things i wanted to pursue.  while my father was teaching me this game, i was consumed by the fear of losing.  but now i realize that my daddy wasn't teaching me marbles, he was teaching me how to take risks. whether i drop the starfish or not, at least i'll have a chance to come back with some colorful marbles.