Level 1

I’ve had writers block for a few months now. I haven’t known what to write about. What would resonate with my readers. What would be perceived well. What would be understood. What was worthy of a stand-alone blog.

I lost my voice. The last blog scared me. It wasn’t perceived well. I was victim blamed. I was slut shamed. I was tried. I fought administration. I was threatened. I gave up. I felt helpless. I felt like a victim and that was never my intention. I never wanted any of that. I shut down. I gave up on school.

I prayed for law school. I cried for law school. I yearned for law school. I gave up my entire life for law school. I moved 800 miles for law school. I left my family and friends. I came to Baton Rouge so strong. I did what I consider to be what I’m best at, which is writing, I wrote a blog and I let negativity and misunderstanding destroy me. I let that traumatic moment and the backlash of the blog change me from victor to victim. I shut down and I almost flunked out of school.

Second chances don’t come frequently. This is mine. I got in my head, and I let a lot of people who won’t matter in the next two years get to me. That’s a disservice to who I am and who I want to be. Who I will become. I’m not letting that happen again.

This blog, as are all the others, is about growth. True growth. Since 2017 I have been on cyclical patterns. The exact same thing has been happening to me, like a video game. God has been testing me to break the patterns that have caused me so much pain and depression for the past FIVE years. I’ve been chasing myself on this “finding myself” journey for FIVE years. I finally feel found. I finally feel like myself.

This blog is how I finally beat Level 1. How I finally felt true growth. How I finally felt like myself again. Unapologetically.

Read this blog with “Slow Wine” by Tony! Toni! Ton! Fun fact: This is one of my favorite songs. It reminds me of car rides to Winchester to visit my Grandma with my dad. I’ll always be a slow R&B lover because of him. I think its something special we share, and it gives me grown vibes. Very on brand for this blog.

Last semester any minor or major inconvenience broke me. My maintenance man, my tires blowing out on campus or the highway, not getting invited to a party, sexual assault, totaling my first car ever. I would close my blinds, starve myself and just be sad. Maybe wouldn’t do any homework. Go to class unprepared. Just sit in my sadness. I was extremely depressed. It was rock bottom.

Eventually I found a therapist and that truly helped, but the focus I’m trying to draw attention to is my state of mind.

New State of Mind on: School

After the new year, when I came back to Louisiana, when I tell yall I had a “I don’t give a fuck” attitude. I don’t know how it happened. I don’t have a recipe, a think piece or a step-by-step tutorial. It just happened. I came in with the mindset of “If I can’t control the outcome, I’m not going to trip. I’m rolling with whatever this year gives me and prioritizing myself.”

No matter what inconvenience hit me, I let that mess ride. I was put in Lawyering Process II (a remedial class for students who didn’t perform as well as the university deems fit). I took that mess in stride. I knew I was lucky and blessed to even be enrolled this semester, so I was big chilling in LP II. I’m going to let it build me up and leave it at that.

New State of Mind on: Social Life

I noticed I wasn’t being invited to 1L functions and outings. I was bothered. I was hurt. I was sad. I still have a degree to finish. I still have bills to pay. I still have a booty to grow. I practiced cooking and binged watched Euphoria and DopeSick.

I had to sit back and realize why did I care about losing certain things and not being included. I realized that I enjoyed being in the mix just for the simple fact of saying I was included, but what was that? What was that doing for my character development?

I realized that despite being an only child and preferring being alone, when I had no choice but to be alone, I was lonely. I didn’t like it. I didn’t know how to entertain myself or be absolutely okay with just my own company. I feel like that was a test in itself from God. Can you truly be alone? Discover yourself. Allow yourself to dance in your kitchen with just your underwear. Sing at the top of your lungs in your shower. Be the weirdest weird you can be and love the fuck out of yourself in those intimate moments.

I’m the stiffest, most tense person there is. God removed everyone so I could sit with myself. Learn myself. Enjoy myself. And ultimately find myself.

The weeks after I felt like I had no one here, were the most self discovering and peaceful weeks I have ever experienced since moving here. Maybe even in life. I became content with being alone and I became secure with not being included.

My mindset changed from “let this destroy you” to “let this build you.”

New State of Mind on: Love and Dating

I was in a situationship with this young man from 2019 to 2021. He was all over me when I came home for Homecoming in 2021. He was blocked from 2019- 2021. He unblocked himself from my phone during the Bar Crawl at homecoming. He was coming on hard. I wasn’t impressed so I turned him down. Fast forward to me coming back to Louisiana. He texted me and said he had a girlfriend. The whole time you were all over me? That’s a blog for the old me. I said okay and left him alone. He continued to press and on New Year’s Eve I told him “I would never be anyone’s #2 in 2022.”

As corny as that verse sounds, that was my motto for 2022. It truly set the stage. I created a boundary for this man and I was determined to keep it. God showed me plenty of times how wrong this man was for me. I just pray he shows his girlfriend the same one day.

I did get his Hulu password in 2022 though. After three years of tears, I deserved to binge watch Snowfall and Family Guy at his expense. I definitely endorse using these young men ladies.

Letting go of someone who had become so familiar and safe to me for the past three years was actually cake. I wish I could make this long analysis of it was so hard, but it wasn’t. It was easy. It was something that I should have done years ago. I asked him why he kept bothering me when he knew he didn’t want me (yes, I sent him Fantasia’s “Free

Yourself” from iTunes, because I can make a joke about anything.)

His response: I let him.

Sometimes you have to let these young men tell you about yourself and change immediately! There was nothing but truth in that statement, and from then on out I never let that young man have access to me again.

It felt liberating. I said no. I moved on and I didn’t wish him bad in the end. I knew where I wanted to end up and I knew he would always be stagnant. I realized we would always be in different chapters, and I wasn’t in the business of reviewing mastered material.

I met a new young man in Baton Rouge. Fine. Fine. Did I mention this young man was fine? A tree that I was ready to climb. We had a really nice first date and I was drawn to him. He was so sweet and an actual gentleman. But when I fall, I have this urge to self sabotage. I couldn’t tell if my gut feeling was self sabotage or a warning that I was on Level 1 again.

The level where everything is going great, you get sprung, they don’t want you, but you end of having sex anyway and boom bam look at you, you’re in a situationship where you’ll be the only one who ends up hurt.

Men in my life have constantly made it very apparent that I was not the one worth being in a relationship with, but I was worth having sex with. That’s traumatic. That’s triggering. If I hear those words, I’m instantly taken back to a dark place of low self worth.

So I made the executive decision of not allowing that to happen. I asked him what his expectations were and he said a relationship was not an expectation of his. A relationship is an expectation of mine, so I told him we weren’t in alignment.

I left things where they were. On good terms with fond memories, but no chance of any future where I wasn’t a priority.

Why? Because I’m not anyone’s #2 in 2022.

Everyone has a right to be selfish. I wholeheartedly believe that everyone should be selfish to a certain extent. How you want to live your life is something you should absolutely be selfish about. So I don’t fault him for being selfish to his goals.

Me walking away is me being selfish to mine. I know what I currently desire and I have no plans of faltering on that.

What’s the alternative? Being alone. And I’ve grown to the point of appreciating and loving just being with myself.

That’s mastery. That’s beating Level 1.

And though I cried, and was really sad to let someone who I really liked go, the overwhelming pride and comfort I had for myself after it was done was more rewarding than a temporary companionship could ever be.

I chose me. I’m going to continue choosing me and that’s okay. In the end everything will be okay.

Life is full of twists and turns and patterns, the only way to beat them is to take them in stride. Accept what is and what isn’t. Beat each level one and at a time and fall in love with yourself throughout the process.

There are so many people who will choose you. You cannot focus on the ones who will not.

I let a fine one go and that mess really made me cry all night, literally. But I’m striving to be the woman who breaks hearts and turns down proposals so this is child’s play for her.

New State of Mind on: The Blog Moving Forward

Remember how I said the last blog wasn’t perceived well? You would think by the time you amass to professional school that people would be above gossip, but the harsh reality is gossip can even be found in nursing homes. I had to swallow the pill of “I don’t write for those around me, I write for those who feel me.” It’s literally “The girls who get it? Get it, and the girls who don’t? Don’t. Obviously, you don’t get it because you aren’t that girl. Got it?”

Your Curlfriend is for who needs it. Who she speaks to and who feels her. Always and forever. Thank you to those who have been here since 2017 and those who are just feeling her now.

Her purpose will always be to resonate and help whoever needs to hear her work on themselves, just like I’ll be working on me.

Glow and Grow,

Jess