Happy Monday to all you phenomenal women out there! For all that you do effortlessly and naturally, the mundane and the sublime… remember to not forget who you are and hold your head high. Have a phenomenal week, everyone!

Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
‘Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

excerpt from Maya Angelou’s  Phenomenal Woman

I too have unsung lullabies inside me but I doubt that I will ever overcome the shame to be able to candidly talk about it. It’s not that I have no regrets… it’s just not how I’m wired. It happened, and that’s that.

But often I will look at my daughters and marvel at how beautiful they are. How absolutely gifted young ladies they are. How amazing they are as human beings…

And I thank my lucky stars and look to the skies to offer my gratitude for at one time I thought I would never be redeemed.

And I hold on a little tighter to that song that remains trapped in my heart, forever unsung. Maybe there will be a day when it will finally be heard but in the meantime it must be silenced in shame.

I just came from visiting Feisty Momma’s blog  and found a very helpful link that she shared for NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) prompts. If you didn’t already know or noticed, I’ve been posting everyday so far this month. That’s because I signed up to do just that for this month. Don’t get all impressed just yet, some people have been doing this all year! It’s not that easy, let me tell you.

There have been days when I’m just like a blank slate. Open to possibilities but still blank nonetheless. It’s not that easy to ramble stuff off everyday! So prompts help a lot to fill in those blanks. Usually I use my email Inbox and Photobucket to prompt me to write about something or anything and it works pretty well most of the time. If all else fails, I turn to facebook or YouTube. Oh, food blog hopping works too. Sometimes. But when I look at food I’m more likely to get hungry then need something to eat, then get in the kitchen and end up cooking something, then I’d have to photo it, then I’d have to write down notes before I forget, then I’d have to clean up….  You know how the rest goes. Before you know it I’m dozing in front of the TV with a bowl full of ice cream melting on my lap.

What I learned from Dexie’s blog today is a ready made prompts list for all of 30 days in November! Now why didn’t I find this before now? It’s called the 30 Days of Truth and Blessings and it is a list of 30 questions that you can answer and craft a post from it. Pretty cool, huh?

Here’s a sample list from the first 15 days:

Day 01 — Something you hate about yourself.
Day 02 — Something you love about yourself.
Day 03 — Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 04 — Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 05 — Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 06 — Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 07 — Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 08 — Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
Day 09 — Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10 — Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11 — Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12 — Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13 — A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)
Day 14 — A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15 — Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.

Today, the questions is: Someone or something you definitely could live without.

I’m lucky, I suppose, that there isn’t anyone in my life that I could live without. For the ‘something’ that I could definitely live without… I would have to say having my monthly cycle. Oh yeah, I’m the only one I know so far who has been looking forward to menopause. I have been so ready to be done with this mess since my youngest daughter was born 12 years ago!

For the last couple of years, I have been eagerly anticipating signs of its impending doom. Whenever I get hot, I wonder, ‘Is this is it? should I wait for the flash?’ Whenever I have a tapering down of the flow, I hold my breath and wish… this could be it! Then of course the deluge comes. I haven’t skipped yet, which they say is another sign. I just hope I don’t lose the crapshoot and end up with a year long period like I’ve heard some people going through because that would just tell me how someone up there must really hate me.

Teenagers nowadays think nothing of giving each other hugs to greet each other. It is how we raised them. We raised them to show affection, we raised them to love. We also raised them to respect. We raised them to recognize the boundaries of what is right, what is wrong and what is acceptable behavior and what is not.

The other day when I picked her up from school, she was livid. She was outraged that on two separate occasions that day, two boys she considered as friends hugged her as is their usual way greeting each other. The first incident happened between classes. Her friend hugged her but in addition nuzzled her neck and kissed her neck. She said she was disgusted but was too shocked to say anything at the time. A little while later as she was going in to the classroom, another boy did the same thing to her. Whether the two contrived to do this to her or not, she is not sure. She is sure of how it made her feel. It made her feel uncomfortable and it made her feel dirty. She ran into the shower as soon as she got home to wash it all off. The thing is, you can not simply wash off the feeling of having been violated leaves behind.

You can’t simply chuck it to teenage hormones and that boys will be boys. Was she partly responsible for having been subjected to this? Should she consider changing the way she relates to her friends and should she be the one compelled to change classes so she does not have to deal with them again? The answer is a resounding NO.
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