The Grace and Courage weekend- part 1.

I, Annetta Mother Smith, had not abandoned you, I haven’t written in 3 weeks because of poor health. But now I am on my way up, I must say, I have so much to be grateful for.

I decided to make a fuss over my 30th birthday. Why? My actual 30th birthday was only 2 months after my dad’s passing and I didn’t feel like celebrating. I felt like going through the motions. So now I’m in the mood to celebrate, I planned a very “me” bash. I could call this whole weekend “the Grace and Courage Weekend” it was wonderful. I invited 3 friends from different stages of my life. My friend that has known me since childhood, my post divorce friend and my post father’s passing friend. I wanted to have a fun time with like minded, successful women. Each is successful in their own right. And its very different kinds of success. All of which I wish to emulate.

Childhood Friend (CF)

Firstly there’s my childhood friend. This weekend was picked because her birthday is the middle of the next week and I wanted to make sure that my weekend was before hers. She has the legitimate right to celebrate her own birthday regardless of if I’ve had a crummy year.

She is successful in her career and her bravery. Her own father passed away in 2018 funeral in 2019 and she handled it with exceptional courage, heaven knows. I remember her giving her father’s tribute and I was in awe, because I thought I’d have a total mental breakdown to have to speak about my father when he had died in public, in front of people. But no. She did it with poise and grace and gave a moving tribute to her father. (I sat crying in the background, it was my first ever funeral and I was very very depressed and abused.) I held onto my father so tightly because I never wanted to let him go. 3 years later I did. I had to do everything she did and so I know what it means to do it. But that is just regular grieving right? She also had to do it BLACK. i.e. operate in a world as a black woman in a culture where you are not respected, and the wishes of the controlling majority are carried out. And that may not include the deceased. I too have had to do it black and its that extra layer of difficulty that sometimes rubs salt in the wound. She’s also incredibly successful in her career, she works in a very high-profile job, she’s stable and she took the time she needed to grieve after her father’s passing. She was his main carer. I’m beyond proud to know her. She then, shortly after her father’s passing went to start and complete her masters. As someone who is studying shortly after the passing of a loved one, I know how hard that is too. She’s someone I’m proud to call friend. We don’t talk as often as I’d like, and this was my way of reaching out. She’s still important to me and I want her to be there in my life. After all, my kids need to be calling her Auntie. She’s the closest I had to a sister, we were always together.

Post Divorce Friend( PDF)

Next we have post divorce friend. I met her at my lowest point. She didn’t even know me that well and she did things for me no one else thought to. Trips to spas, York, she did the photoshoot, she checked in on me regularly when my dad was passing. She’s always done the most and I appreciate the hell out of her. Lord knows there has been an over-abundance of tearful conversations these past 2 years and I’m looking forward to a sunnier time but when times were down, she was there. She lives a glamourous lifestyle, which whilst I can’t do in whole, I can do it in parts. My parts I enjoy because, it was only through her I learnt I deserved to be treated well. I like nice things. I love being cherished. I am special and she has really made me raise my game. If you saw the scruffy person who met her in 2020 and then me now. You would thank God Almighty for her. Seriously. The levelling up journey has been fierce.  She has had to pull my standards up by my bootstraps. Thanks to her I have a killer skincare routine and have stopped dressing in my ex’s jeans because I’m not poor. Financially I have improved somewhat since I met her however, my concept of money has improved drastically. I don’t have an impoverished mindset anymore. I don’t fear spending money on myself, because I was taught by my ex that I was “too much” and “selfish.” And that was when I was asking for below the bare minimum. He’d die if he saw me now! I’m well maintained, spending my money on things that matter to me, still got my strong saving streak though. She’s opened my eyes to things like the plight of black women in the UK and the USA. I lived a pretty individual life. I’m not community minded. I still am not, I believe in individual decisions, and a fair level playing field for all. I am aware that the playing field is not yet level, (George Flloyd, Child X UK) however I can’t change a system, I can however encourage people to make better choices to not fall into systematic traps.

I am proud to be a black woman, I can’t say I have always have been. I guess I can wear my Africana and eat my jolofrice with an additional peace because we’ve discussed a lot of things together that allowed me to come to terms with what blackness means to me. (hint, whatever the hell I want it to be) and I don’t think I can marry the kind of man I want without being completely at peace with who I am. Which has meant I needed the conversations we’ve been having in order to marry. My ex wanted blackness to be a party trick so he’d look good at weddings but I want a husband where my position in the world is acknowledged as a part of me, so when he gets the haircare bill? Blackness, when he gets to send money to my mother? Blackness, when he gets to learn about slavery and Africa? Blackness. When he gets to learn about institutional racism? Blackness.   Only then can you enjoy my precious Jolofrice and plantain and wear Africana knowing you have earnt your place at the table and can empathise with everyone else at that table. Notice that this man “gets to” as in he is afforded the opportunity to. He is not obligated to. If he does not take the whole package, I will have made him aware of the exits on arrival. These conversations needed to be had, because I’d spent so much of my life on survival mode, removing parts of me that aren’t acceptable to everyone else. But then what is left of me? What is left FOR me? To quote a Hanson song called Kiss me when you come home. “Sometimes, I need more than what’s left at the end of the day…” I do, but that’s a separate conversation. This is the friend that brought me an awareness that I am a person and I have needs and wants too and those are totally valid and can and should be pursued. And I am grateful.

This brings me onto Friend 3.

Post dad’s passing friend. PDPF

I met her at a horrible time of my life, and if I had not met my post divorce friend I would not have recognised what a blessing she is. Why? Because post divorce friend showed me that there is a life for a black woman who embraces her blackness. Post dad’s passing friend showed me what that life is. Standards, I have written before. My ex would have collapsed under the burden of 1 of those standards. I was always made to feel inferior for asking for anything, even though I was giving so much more. Then there is the PDPF, she has standards I wouldn’t have even dreamt of when I was 25. She lives her life so effortlessly authentic, which means her life is true to herself, she has so many interests, like me. She’s successfully started so many businesses and projects and is a varied and well travelled and learned woman. I’m just trying to start 1. She’s done the thing I’ve always wanted to do. Emigrate. And she’s done it twice. She’s had to live with incredible tenacity to live the past 2 years with the changes in her life and she is so knowledgeable about everything I want to be knowledgeable about. When my dad passed I realised I had lost the link to my history. Which meant that my children would not know truly where they come from. She is providing for her child a link to her history (and me) which when you have it, its a luxury, when you don’t have it, it becomes a quest. My parents grew up in Freetown and were not bothered about teaching me about my history, because everyone assumed there would be time. Well, dad’s gone so we ran out of time. So I need to find out for myself. She lives with a certainty which comes from knowing who you are and where you come from. I had 1 lesson on the slave trade, and I know all my family are former slaves. Because we’re all Creoles. But other than that. What else?

She lives how I wish to live, she is a mother but that is a part of her, not a personality type. I have previously written about the cult of motherhood where people get sucked into the personality type being some self-sacrificing, horse willing to be beaten to death by a system that holds motherhood, when done perfectly on a pedestal.  God forbid you so much as bottle feed your baby you will burn in hell as a bad mother. No, she doesn’t subscribe to that. She is herself and that doesn’t make her less of a mother, it makes her more of one, because the women who do the above end up divorced and bitter because their husbands/partners don’t do the same amount of self sacrificing that they do, because men aren’t held to the same standards as women are. I say it again. You don’t rise to the occasion, you fall to your standards. The standards for men are too low when it come to parenting.

And because she lives so authentically, there is so much more room for joy in her life, and therefore joy in her families lives. Life is busy, we all know, but we don’t take the time and she and her husband have prioritised living a joyful and abundant life. Which makes someone like me dare to dream that it is possible for me too. Because I value those things, joy, peace abundance of good food, stimulating conversation with pleasant company (hint Mexico may be the key)

As you can see, my friends live different, but wonderful lives and they emulate the values I wish to pursue. They live with Grace and Courage and that is why they are my friends. I’m imagining this will be part of a 4 part-er, so stick with me.

Grace and Courage.

Annetta Mother Smith