You Inspire Me

hey zesters
   so i have been doing some thinking :) and my thought was yes i have a lot of people in my life that encourage me to be a better person. however i have two people that i would say encourage me to be a better person, friend, sister, woman, christian  and most importunately a better me. i love both of these women from the bottom of my heart and i am glad that i don't have to know life without them :) they have taught me so much about God, life, being natural, and being a strong independent black woman. they have prayed with me cried with me, walked around to major cites of the world with me and i really just there for me when i need them.   
     my aunt Carolyn is my dad's younger sister and the bad ass of the family ( she is not one that you want to cross) i have know this forever one of my first memoirs of my auntie, was the night my younger sister was born :) we had all been at the hospital all day and i believe that visiting time was over , so my auntie packed up me, my twin sister, and my younger brother and drove us home. not sure why i remember this part but she opened all the cabinets looking for something to make use for dinner i think we had top roman and pudding of something like that then she put my brother down to bed :) it was then our turn to get ready for bed so we got to have a bubble bath and i remember her telling us when all the bubbles were gone and our fingers look like raisins then it was time to get out :) then right before bed we got to seat in a triangle and we rolled the ball for a bit. my aunt has never been a sideline person in my life, i remember visiting her when she was at Hayward State and the only time that i think i lost contact with her for any about of time is when she lived in Oregon. i know that my auntie is one person that i can call day or night with any problem. she encourages me to stand up for me and for what i believe is right no matter who the person is and for this my auntie will always be a rock star bad ass in my book :)
       I met Marshae my first week of school at Portland community , i remember her being super quite that first week. and for some reason i was drawn to her i wanted to know her secret. she was  the intern for Intervaristy that year and they were doing the hands project where they would ask a question and you would write your answer on your hand then they would take a picture of it and hang it on a poster :) the first time i talked to Shae i wasn't sure why she felt so close being so new i didn't want to get to close i had made my mind up that i was only going to be in Portland one term and then i was going to head back to my school in California. ask any ( mostly shae ) and she will tell you that i hated Portland and i hated that i had to be here but i was falling in love with the people that i met. about 3 years ago i started going though an identity crisis it all started with a conversation that i had with my then 8 year old brother. she was a major part of helping walk though the ups and downs of why i was feeling the way that i was feeling a few months into my crisis i was sitting at home talking to some housemates when she walks in and starts talking with us, then almost out of the blue she says "who wants to go to Africa with me" she tells us that she would be co leading a team of students on a missions trip to Mozambique. i sat there thinking oh they are all going to have a good time a few weeks later i got a text and an email saying fill this out and send it back to me ASAP so i did ( i still wasn't sure if i was going to get picked to go ) but i was after a few misfortune events we were told that our team was not going to Mozambique that we where going to go to Egypt with other team :)  few months later we were in one of the hottest dustiest places that i have ever been it was a once in a life time chances and shae had chosen me  to go with her :) there are times where i feel like she doesn't like me and when i tell her that she reminds me that i am an extrovert and she an introvert and that we process thoughts and life around us in different ways :) she has tried her best to be a little more out going with me and i a little calmer with her but i have to say that she is one of the most beautiful, (inside and out ) heartfelt genuine people that i have the honor to have in my life :)




Auntie and Shae you are both amazing women and i thank you for every conversation, meal made with/for for all the randomness/ awesomeness    i'm glad that you are in my life and that you inspire me to be the best me that i can be :)


Love Annette