TheAyeshaSite

The more I love and accept myself the more I’m sure that God loves me. I don’t think any love compares to the love God has for me. Not even my mother loves me as a much as God loves me. God said “Ayesha I approve of you so you can approve of yourself”. I am not the type of person who tries to be someone I’m not. I’ll never forget Edi Giunta. I became a writer in her Memoir class. She said “Ayesha you are a writer”. She empowered me. I don’t know of one other professor in the English department that would’ve done that and open up her home to me and invited me to Memoirfests.  I did not know that would’ve happened. I am writing my memoir I call Ayesha’s Story and I will continue writing poetry into my 40s and 50s. I will keep this writing blog too! The course I’m taking with The Institute of Children’s Lit is going well too! I’m working on Assignment Three and it’s supposed to be an exercise that is supposed to be 500 words.

People seem to be very interested in my memoir that I wrote in Edi Giunta’s Advanced Memoir class. So far I have 66 pages of a typed written memoir that includes the eighteen page memoir I wrote in Edi’s Advanced Memoir class plus more. I almost have seventy pages. I am going to have 100 pages once I finish typing Part Three and I am really excited about it. Once I have the hundred pages typed up I will show it to Edi. I’ll print all one hundred pages out and find a way to add another 100 pages to it so I can have a two hundred page memoir: a book I will call Ayesha’s Story: The Schizophrenia Memoirs.

From writing my  memoir to loving and accepting myself the way I am in my 30s. I’m doing my own thing. I’m not seeking approval and I have no enemies. I am not looking too much at that woman and what she’s doing and I’m not looking at that guy over there and what he’s doing. I’m charting my own course in  life. From writing this memoir I call Ayesha’s Story to putting on lipstick in my bedroom mirror and admiring myself. I learned the secret to happiness just being who I am and not wanting what other people have. I have enough. I don’t want more and I wouldn’t want less. I’m good! If I find a man in the next four years that will be great! I want a partner or a boyfriend. I already have admirers Black and White. I always have. I don’t look at Race as long as the man is handsome and  a nice person I’d date him. I hope we can have a baby too!

I am a self love advocate. I encourage others to love yourself and to put yourself first. You only get one life. Life is so much more fun when you treat yourself to a handbag, jewelry, lingerie, perfume and clothes if you are a woman. Men can treat themselves to Calvin Klein underwear and cologne I don’t know. Guys are different. Women love designer clothes preferably New York brands. I personally love Liz Claiborne and Anne Klein. I also love Calvin Klein. I never thought that the hurt little black girl that I was at 8 or 9 years old would grow up into this (Ayesha) Black woman who has admirers of different races and who overall people seem to like. I never knew I’d become a poet much less a writer but I love that I became a writer and I am a Cave Canem workshop poet. I had many of my poems published in the newsletter at NAMI Mercer!

When I was growing up I was not a happy little black girl. I was often bullied by older kids and bullied by kids my age. I have no regrets. There’s nothing I would change though because I like my life and I have a lot going for me. Harvard Extension School is encouraging me to come to Harvard to get my Master in Liberal Arts degree in Creative Writing and Lit. I am 36 years old, I’m African American and people say “wow Ayesha really likes herself”. I’m a woman like any other woman but my race is a factor in my life. I love my life. I volunteer with NAMI Mercer in different ways. I’m taking the WRAP class for the third time. Last night was our first class. We meet once a week on Wednesdays at 6pm and we end at 8:30pm at the NAMI Mercer center. I filled out the Pre-WRAP survey. I put my name on it. I have to remember to fill out the Post-WRAP survey and to do the same thing on our last night of WRAP sometime in late-April. I believe in myself that’s how I know there is a God. I’m not perfect nobody is, but I feel like I deserve the best that life has to offer. I am going to get my second BA in Early Childhood Education and then I’m going to find a part time job as a Kindergarten teacher. I love and accept myself! I don’t want to be anyone else. I feel like God approved of me so I can go ahead and approve of myself. I want to promote how awesome I am! Self love isn’t against God’s plan for my life. I love my Mentor job too! I will remember my Mentor job at Mercer fondly as something I was able to do on a part time basis in my mid-late 30s. I work on Tuesdays and Thursdays at Mercer.

My goal is to have 90-100 pages typed written for Parts One and Two and then to add 30-40 pages when I type Part Three.  That gives me 120 to 140 pages in all. I plan to add all nine or ten of my poems that I published to this book and write a definition of schizophrenia at the beginning of the book and also the list of symptoms of schizophrenia from the DSM V. My goal is to have 120 pages or 40,000 words by next January 2018. I will be 37 years old next January 28, 2018. My goal for then is to have 120 pages typed written or 40,000 words. By the following summer I hope to have 60,000 words and have a book!

I made peace with my illness. I don’t blame anyone else for my illness and I admit and accept that I have a mental illness. I am thinking how I cannot wait until May 1st so I can tell Janet that I can go back to co-facilitating the NAMI Connection support group. I’m starting WRAP on March 8, 2017 for the third time I’m taking the WRAP class. I will take WRAP five times over the next four years. WRAP is a good class. On March 8, 2017 I will be taking the WRAP class for the third time. People will say “Ayesha took WRAP three times already my goodness!” Tammy Garrison took WRAP six times before she got a job at Hamilton Public Library. I work at Mercer as a Mentor for the DREAM program and this will be my second full semester working there (almost three semesters in all) by May 2017.

I may not be in a relationship but I am enjoying my life being single. I’m mingling even though I’m single. I have my part time job at Mercer as a Mentor for the DREAM program. I’m back in college working on my Early Childhood Education 38 credit co-major. I am writing a memoir. I am taking a course at The Institute of Children’s Lit. There are ten assignments for the Children’s Lit course I’m taking at The Institute and so far I’m on Assignment Three. Assignment Three is a 500-word exercise. We don’t have to make up a story like we did for the first two assignments. My  memoir is 60 pages long so far but I have a bit of typing to do to add another ten to twenty or more pages to my memoir.  I enjoy being a woman but you know what, I feel like my skin color is beautiful just the way it is. I go from milk chocolate to dark chocolate in the summer. Eye love and  self love (both)! I feel so good on the inside about who I am now that I’m in my 30s! I wish I knew in my 20s what I know in my 30s. There is nothing with God on my side that I cannot do or try to overcome: like quitting smoking and like my diagnosis of SZ! God is with me. I smile in my bedroom mirror with lipstick on because I know God sees me.

On Tuesday February 21, 2017 it was the Black Lives Matter event at NJCU in GSUB 129. It was one of Professor Edi Giunta’s Memoir events. Edi celebrated 20 years at NJCU teaching Memoir to college students at NJCU this Spring 2017. I congratulated her and stood at the microphone as the event began after everyone had gotten there. In my page long notes I shared my story and I thanked Edi. I shared first before any of the scheduled readers or presenters read or shared. Thanks to Rashad. He was leading the event and he let me go first. That was not planned. I am thankful that Rashad did that for me. He’s awesome!

When I was a little girl I was criticized a lot for a child. When I was a teenager I had issues with myself that I did not know would actually go away. People that know my history know how roots of criticism started from an early age. I am relaxing into being myself now in my 30s but the idea of me really doing that just blows my mind even as I type this blog post. I never knew any kind of healing from Schizophrenia was even possible. Science says mental illness is basically a life long difficult struggle but in just 10 years I went from a Mercer graduate to being on payroll at Mercer working as a Mentor for the DREAM program giving back to my school. I love being an African American woman. I wouldn’t be a different race or be someone else. My roots are deep. “Some say the blacker the berry the sweeter the juice (Pac) says the darker the flesh and the deeper the roots.” I like that statement. I love my EBONY magazines and my Essence magazines and being Black.