I just realized that I have had my blog for over a year. Congratulations to me : )

My very first post was about transformation in January of 2021. I’ve used this blog to help and heal. I’d just lost my job of 8 years and I was reflecting on my next steps. I started 2021 pursuing my doctoral degree and working to get my dialysis tech training. I have since paused my pursuit for my PhD. I haven’t learned to manage helping my husband through sick days and managing my time around it. I am pretty strong most days, but my coping devices during bad times are less than desirable. I have found a way to fill the “why” in what I wanted to get from obtaining my PhD…I found a way to help others. I have been able to make a pretty nice side gig / hustle out of my Vision Board workshops, which lead to me creating Vision Board clip art books. Both are going well and I have hit some pretty admirable milestones. I have sold over 100 books and I have been contracted to facilitate workshops in the Flint public schools. :)

Yet when my husband has a bad bout and I am sitting on my couch, I replay so many things in my mind. I am working on being nicer to me, but I keep questioning the perception of me. I think I am direct and truthful. I don’t ever intentionally hurt anyone. I know that I HAVE cut into a few people with my slick tongue and smart mouth. I am completely aware of this. I also know that this got me a reputation of being a tough ass. Which I am. But in the eight years that I worked for my company I hired and fired quite a few people. Some awful, some incompetent. But never, did I ever have to pack up their things in a box and give it to them. I always allowed the person to pack up their own things and leave with dignity. Laughing, I remember one time, we had an acting manager fire a guy. The guy was running around the office and the manager and security has me stand at one of the doors to stop the guy as he ran back and forth to each door.

I was not allowed to re-enter the building and pack up my eight years worth of stuff. I often wonder WHAT THE FUCK did they think I would do? Slap someone? Have I ever slapped anyone at the job? Was I really deemed that threatening? What was it about me, that of the hundreds of people that were fired, I could not pack up my own items and walk out of the building with dignity? I own that I put myself in the situation to lose my job, I also feel like it was a blessing to my husband and myself, that I did. But the self-doubting, fragile Tameka wonders what someone saw that made them think that I was too dangerous to be let back into the building…am I a monster?