TheAyeshaSite

That is a funny statement for a person to make but I am so satisfied with myself and I’m much less loveable. I am one of the most self centered people I know. I still buy myself more Christmas gifts than I buy everybody on my Christmas list put together. I am telling no lies. I am an African genius and an African nut at the same time. I love my SZ life. I sing myself. I am a poet. Shout out to Walt Whitman. We are poets. I may call the choir at the local church to praise God for poetry and professional writing like blogging.

Sometimes I hear Michael Steele’s voice saying sweet things to me, Ayesha Karim. He seems to be so nice. He said “the same attitude if not outcome” and I was thrilled that “the(my) attitude has changed”. Wow that was incredible.  If my attitude has changed then so will the outcome. He’s really dreamy. I could French kiss him. I really never saw Prince Georges County, Maryland before but I want to see it one day. A man like him with all that wealth and a life in pictures to go along with it like Rome is crazy to me but Rome is in his 20s and I’m in my 30s and Michael Steele is in his early 60s. I cannot stop thinking about Michael Steele.

This is the story of a little black girl named Ayesha Karim who was bullied since elementary school and never dealt with her feelings until one day she acknowledged that she had used stuffing her feelings as a way of not dealing with her feelings. This little black girl became herself in her 30s. She is an inspiration to women everywhere that regardless of where you come from , where your mom or dad came from, what you do for a living or if you have a disability of any kind that you can learn to love and accept yourself as the Queen you are and as a daughter of your creator God. God approved of Ayesha and so she approved of herself. Ayesha lives with her parents in their lovely Princeton Junction home and has a cat named Melody.

There are a few “extraordinary” people the world says are so successful, have ideal lives and basically these people live lives other people wish they could live. I feel like I am an attractive African American woman. I don’t see my flaws. I see lovely eyes when I see myself. I see melanin in my skin that makes me a Melanin Queen. I don’t see anything wrong with my eyes, my nose, my lips or my dark skin. I love the way God chose to create me. Yes people with white skin are privileged over darker others but that is just reality and the way it is. I am comfortable being dark skinned and I wouldn’t want to be white or light skinned. I know if my grandparents could see me now they’d say our Ayesha is doing so well. There is a God she’s living proof. We remember her as a little girl. They would be so proud. I dedicated my chapbook to all the people I wanted to thank in the Acknowledgements section at the end of my chapbook!

Pastor Joel Osteen says “no one can beat you at being you” and “you are anointed to be you”. I love those words Pastor Joel said and I would think I’m in a good place in 2017 that began to be a good start of my 30s back in 2011 or 2012. I know I deserve the best in life. I know that nobody is better than I am. I consider myself to be an important person. I see myself as deserving expensive costume pearl earrings and expensive costume pearl necklaces and fake diamond earrings. There is no limit to what I would give myself, to my mother or even my best girlfriends, to anyone I become involved with who will become my partner. I’m only sexually attracted to men. No boys allowed! I remember how much I liked Rome. Rome was in his mid-20s or is in his mid-late 20s and Rome is so cute. He has a good life. We took a few breaks together. Rome said nice things to me!

I feel so comfortable in my own skin in my 30s that you know something it really surprises me. In my teens before I was fifteen years old I felt so bad about myself. I only had one girl I went to the same high school with tell me “Ayesha you’re pretty” (to be dark skinned she added). I remember this broken unbearable feeling inside of me that fragmented everything I thought or did. I stared into space in my late 20s even when I started to get involved with NAMI Mercer. The people I had known for years looked at me for the first time not staring into space but feeling much better, knowing them and feeling good to be connected with them. I am social with Just Friends social group through NAMI Mercer and I’m a volunteer. I’m a poet and a writer too! Maddy Monheit is in charge of the NAMI Mercer newsletter and she published my first poem in the January 2013 newsletter. I have a poem in the May 2017 newsletter coming soon!

Getting compliments for wearing cool hats (from my motorcycle hat to my cowboy hats of which I have four in all), sharing my story, being a Mentor at my alma mater Mercer, volunteering at NAMI Mercer, writing/typing my memoir, writing poetry, my blogging on TheAyeshaSite.com and taking WRAP class for the third time. On May 1st I will contact Janet about taking responsibility for NAMI Connection as long as she can find another co-facilitator. I will email Janet about NAMI Connection and let all my friends in Just Friends social group know I have a poem coming out in the May 2017 NAMI Mercer newsletter on April 30, 2017. I need to buy a scrapbook from Michael’s craft store for all my happy poetry memories and memoir memories still in the making…

I love sharing my story. My other friends at NAMI Mercer and NAMI NJ love sharing their stories too. We (consumers) find strength in sharing our stories of learning to live with and accept ourselves and that we have mental illnesses. There are physical disabilities and mental health problems or mental illnesses. I have a mental illness and I have lived with this illness since I was fourteen years old and then a sophomore in high school. I was still able to have a good life despite me being African American. I always had opportunities and options available to me since high school and the early onset of my mental illness. My life is still a good life despite difficulties I really love my life. I am writing a memoir I call Ayesha’ story The SZ Memoirs, I have this writing blog, I am a poet and have had successes in poetry and I write for children. I also have a BA in Creative Writing and I’m working on a second BA in Early Childhood Education. I couldn’t be happier for how my life turned out. I wouldn’t change anything about my life.

I was talking to a white Caucasian man one day and after he said “I’m White” I remembered Joel Osteen saying “I’m White” while doing a sermon about Mary Bethune the great African American woman pioneer who founded Bethune-Cookman College an HBCU. A racist white man once said “Mary is not no African/Black name”. I thought my name is Ayesha Karim, my name is of Arabic origin like many African American women and Hispanic women born after 1970. I still remember the popular Hispanic woman singer Thalia Soda and how pretty her Arabic name is. The Arabic language is a part of Spanish language. Many Arabs or North Africans have black eyes like many African Americans and Hispanics. I learned that when I took Hispanic Culture my last semester at Mercer in the Spring of 2007. It was a very interesting course to take. I got an A in it too!

You know the saying “experience is the best teacher”. That is the most true saying in life. I think of the way the other kids that were like me treated me when I was a little girl child and I shudder. I grew from a little hurt black girl to a 36 year old black woman who loves and accepts herself. You can’t tell me there is no God. God made self acceptance and self love possible for me in my 30s. I don’t feel average or less than any other woman. I feel like the African American woman I am is the woman I want to be. I see people obsessed with tanning and I see black people bleaching their permanent tans to look white and it messes with my head sometimes. I get really dark in the summer and so does my Indian friend Mike but I see that as a beautiful thing and something to embrace about Ayesha. I remember when I was a little girl I did not see this “Ayesha Day” coming and it only took until my 31st birthday. I was just in my 20s not too long ago. Here I am!