TheAyeshaSite

There was a time when I felt like there was something wrong with me, Ayesha Karim. I felt like God hated me and I was scared to look at the sky. I feel like my name makes me special and I have felt that way since I was a 5th grade girl writing poems in my Composition notebook in my school uniform jumper in elementary school (but the school I went to went up to 9th grade). There was a time when being me wasn’t a good thing at all. Being Ayesha was no fun whatsoever and I never thought or would have dared to even dream that one day it would be Ayesha Day everyday so to speak. Now in my 30s I feel like the sun is shining just for me on my best days. I can say with all honesty that liking yourself makes your ordinary life fun, fulfilling and full of symbolic meaning where it would otherwise lack any significance. I got my mother a fairy black mother headwrap I found online. I am so happy I found it and was able to give it to her as a present. Daughters like me congratulate themselves on remembering their moms. I love her though because no one loved me unconditionally but my mother. She is exotic and beautiful.

I am going to be participating in Mercer’s 50th commencement representing the class of 2007 my graduating class. I am so looking forward to it. First the Alumni Success story and now this. I will get my fancy Sophia Loren eyeglasses fixed at Walmart Vision Center and then I’ll be counting down the weeks until May 1, 2017.

 

When I think of amazing women one of the first women I think of is my mother Shellon Karim-Lewis. I was so excited when Edi Giunta told me “Ayesha you nailed voice. Look up Jamaica Kincaid she could be your model author”. I have to say I love Jamaica Kincaid’s writing. She writes such beautiful prose. Lucy was the best book and I am reading Annie John. I loved Alice Walker’s The Color Purple both times I read it. That’s a book that means a lot to me. When I realized how awesome and worthy I was I realized that there are so many African American women just like me who don’t realize just how cool and worthy of happiness and love and just all that life has to offer. My mother is a woman who came to this country when she was 12 years old. My mom has been a nurse since she was seventeen years old. My mom has two Master’s degrees, one is from Hunter College in New York City where she told me she got her BSN when I was two years old. My mother is still  entertaining getting another degree. My mom is cool and motivated and such a remarkable woman and she’s a nurse-midwife too. My mom has done every kind of nursing there is. I am so proud of her and in two years she will turn 60 years old. I am going to try and plan a party for my mom. My mom deserves it. She was always there for me. She makes me a priority in her schedule even with all of the awesome employed woman things she does. She really looks out for me as her daughter. She told me “Ayesha be Independent like mom”. I am doing that. I’m Schizophrenic but I am doing that by pursuing my own interests and hobbies and by volunteering with NAMI Mercer NJ. I am busy and that’s the way I want my life. I can’t say where I’ll be in ten years but it’s going to include my memoir, my poetry, my blog, writing for children and teenagers and of course my Early Childhood Education second BA from NJCU. I also have my part time Mentor job at Mercer that I want to stay at for a few years. I may get my Special Ed cert too!

“Phillis, you will be remembered forever as the first Negro poetess in America and one of the first women to be published in these colonies.” I think of myself as Phillis. Me being an African American poetess published here in America, in New Jersey. I have had successes in poetry and I’m 36 years old. The first major poetry honor came when I was still at AAMH at the program and Shumayl asked me if I would be interested in sharing my poetry at the 2012 AAMH Client Awards dinner. I shared two poems and I felt like a star that night. I was 31 at the time. I just got a poem accepted by an Anthology somewhere in India. I have to send my contributor fee in and once I do that I will have yet another poetry success. Oh and on March 25, 2017 there is a Recovery Poetry Slam at One Yoga in Hightstown, NJ. I plan to read two new poems I have with Schizophrenia in the title at the poetry slam.

There is just Ayesha Karim and her mirror or the mirror and lucky for me self acceptance. I felt like I was in a war with forces that oppose me in the mirror just smiling and feeling good about Ayesha. I remember being in the mirror and feeling like someone saw me smiling and really didn’t like that I liked myself so much. It’s just me and probably the old me that feels the old negative life and old stifling energy. Most people who know my past would say look at Ayesha accepting herself and smiling at her own reflection those are just such wonderful things for an African American woman like her to do.

I love wearing my new dresses in a size 2X. I have new clothes in an XXL and a 2X. Everything from tall leggings to dresses. I love when my dresses or my pants are tall enough for me. I’m 5’9 or 5’10. I’m a tall lady. I love wearing dresses that are no shorter than knee length. I prefer longer dresses to shorter dresses. I love tall leggings and tall pants. I got two pairs of tall pants from my mom that she got me in white and blue. I recently bought three pairs of tall leggings. I just bought a new red dress. I just also bought a pink t-shirt that says ‘AYESHA’ in black on it. I plan to wear it this summer. I want to rock 1-1 1/2 inch heels too! I like heels. Ivanka Trump is 6 feet tall and she rocks heels. I want to do that too! I’m 5’9 or 5’10 and I want to wear heels.

I couldn’t see being called or referred to as a self love advocate in my teenage years or even as a little girl. I was bullied since I was in the first or second grade by older kids in my neighborhood of Old Brooklyn and bullied at the school I went to. I almost drowned when I was eight or nine years old but in my 30s I did a lot of cool stuff. The coolest thing I ever did other than have successes in Poetry was writing my Schizophrenia Memoir. I am still typing it. I think I’ll have 100 pages in a few months and then I will need 100 more pages to have a 200 page memoir (a book). One of the older girls I went to school with invited me to her house and we went to this pool. As I was circling the pool I went from the kiddie pool to the deep end and I almost drowned when I was eight or nine years old. The coolest things that happened to me in my 30s was taking Memoir with Edi for two semesters. I continue working on my memoir now. I’m still connected to Edi and still writing and working on my book: Ayesha’s Story: the Schizophrenia Memoirs.

Me and my Caucasian friends at Mercer and a few friends I went to AAMH program with would joke that if I were a cake I’d be a chocolate cheesecake.  It’s a joke that started when I was a student at Mercer from 1998-2007. It continued with my friend Lori Ann from AAMH. Lori Ann said it was her birthday a few years ago and Fred Howard a mutual male friend told Lori “happy birthday have a slice of chocolate cheesecake”. Lori said he wouldn’t let her choose plain cheesecake or strawberry cheesecake. Lori had no choice but to have a slice of chocolate cheesecake. Fred insisted that she eat that on her birthday.

I am hoping that my memoir I’m writing is right around two hundred pages typed written. My memoir is called Ayesha’s Story: The Schizophrenia Memoirs. So far I have sixty six pages typed written. When I type the rest of Part Three I’ll probably have 100 pages. I have been smoke free for almost three years. In July 2017 I will celebrate three years without a cigarette. I got help from Dr. Maddiah. She prescribed Chantix for me. She seemed to care and I have not so much have smoked one cigarette in almost three years. I spend my extra money on clothes, shoes and jewelry for myself.  I believe I deserve nice things so I buy them. I love JC Penney and Kohls. I recently turned 36 years old and I feel really good about myself in my 30s. I feel attractive in my 30s. I didn’t feel attractive in my 20s. I felt broken and not good about myself when I was a teenager.

I became Ayesha Karim. I became a memoir writer. When I think of book titles one of my first titles for my Memoir was Memories of Me. Then it was a Tale of Three Half Sisters. My three half sisters of course are Alison, Renee and Sarah on my biological father’s side. I feel attractive now in my 30s. I didn’t feel attractive in my 20s. I didn’t feel pretty until a girl I went to high school with told me she thought I was “pretty to be dark skinned”. Her name was Kelly of course and I met her at Mc Corristin high school in September 1994. I had my initial psychotic break in February 1995. I went to Friends Hospital in Philly. I was at Helene Fuld first and then transported there. Right now I am at AAMH since May 2011. I am at the Outpatient services at AAMH. I see Dr. Maddiah and I see Ed Meyers my new therapist. I need to call Ed Meyers to set up a therapy session.