I am the child of Traci Michelle Adedeji. She is this amazonian powerhouse that commands whatever room she enters and presents her brilliance with an eire ease and grace so much so that my sisters and I have nicknamed her Traci DIVA. The name fits perfectly for all the reasons I've just described, but also because when she walks there is always a curious wind blowing her hair and clothes into perfect place and the sense that she hears her own music to amp up the steps her three inch heels lead her forward with. She's the woman who kept her last name once she got rid of the asshole she was married to mainly because it was a conversation piece (sort of in the vein of Tina Turner at the courthouse divorcing Ike). She's the woman who is just as at home in baggy sweat pants and uggs as she is in the middle of a night club in a mini skirt and heels running a sexy game night. She is phenomenal, and brilliant, and beautiful, and quite a role model to have, but it seems like my sisters and I divided up her genes because I didn't get any of that sass and divaness and it occurs to me that in this next phase of my life I need some of them.
I recognize confidence and ease with people as things one has to acquire on their own, its just that it seems so easy for my mother, to be the focus of attention and to be able to express herself so brilliantly while I get hot, and my face starts to literally burn, and my speech speeds up and starts to slur, and I feel my ulcer acting up, so it puts me in a pretty precarious place with a hell of a learning curve to contend with. I have confidence that i'll get it together in a hurry, because what she did give me was the smart ass, overthinking, passionate, fighter genes in spades, I just find it interesting how different you can be from your parents, and how much those differences become evident as you get older.
*tear* Baby Therese, you, too have an inner diva. It's there in your ability to make anything from a table to a birthday present special in a way that only you can. It's there in the way you can take a sparkly brooch and turn a coat or hat into something no one else has (and have old me telling you that you look like a doll baby).
ReplyDeleteBut more importantly, it's there in your ability to call a "Big Bag of Bullshit" a "Big Bag of Bullshit". It's there in the way you fearlessly made this big career move. Yes, you were scared. But you had faith in your talent and did the damned thing!
Please don't think that my ability to be out front came naturally or is easy. Like you, my face gets hot, my tummy tumbles and I feel like I am tripping over my words. Funny thing, though, is that no one seems to notice that but me.
You are brilliantly talented and everyone who knows you thinks so. You just need to get in touch with your inner diva. Let that bitch free!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZJmOyA60Lo&mode=related&search (you can be the one in the yellow shirt if you want.....)