Thanks again Natasha - great read! Honest, open, raw, but also beautiful and engaging.

what strikes me is the realization I had doing career counseling 6 years ago - that my brain was hard-wired to equate success with hard work. I thought if I worked as hard as I could, did as much as I could for everyone, I would be successful and that would make me happy. Truth is, at 52 years old, I finally realized I had a choice - I could choose to dismantle the hardwiring, or just keep repeating what I was taught when I was too young to hear my own voice.

Since then I've been peeling back the onion, one layer at a time. but you make an excellent point- that counselor was a luxury most people, and especially women of color do not have.

Society is ass-backwards & upside down and until radical changes occur, figuring out who we are is not only difficult, but discouraged.

Let's both keep doing it anyway, because the alternative is worse!

And like many, when no one is watching I am singing ridiculous made up songs to my dog:

(To the tune of the old Oscar Mayer bologna commercial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRKTXCRqRXQ):

My doggy has a first name,

it's L - I -L -A,

My doggy has a second name,

It's Play, play, play, play, play,

Oh, I love to be with her every day,

and if you ask me why I'll say,

Cause Lila dog, she has a way,

of making everything OK!!

THANK YOU, GIRL!!