Me, Myself and I

I like being alone.

When I’m alone, I feel as though I am completely free—I can do what I want, when I want, how I want and there’s no one pressuring, critiquing or judging me while I do it. I can feel and express any emotions I had to suppress during the day in the privacy of my room or empty house (if I’m lucky, lol) with no repercussion. I can be me—unapologetically. Being alone has become something that I truly enjoy. And I am almost NEVER bored—there is always something I can do: sleep, eat, watch TV, blog, vlog (video blogging), write, surf the internet, sing, dance, research random topics, take online personality quizzes (I can literally do that for hours), read…the list goes on and on. There’s nothing quite like enjoying your own company.

I didn’t always like being alone. When I was younger, I would find myself instantly feeling lonely if I wasn’t around people. I also had a lot of “I’m bored” moments. I hated being alone so much I fought to keep toxic, unhealthy and abusive relationships. Even though these relationships hurt me immensely, I stuck around because the thought of being with myself seemed to be much worse than being with people who took every opportunity to tear me down. I was so desperate to not be alone, that I tried to change myself to please others. I literally made a list of things certain people said I should change and devoted a summer to trying to implement those changes.

Fortunately, I realized that trying to be someone I’m not was much worse than being myself and being alone from time to time. So, my Operation: Change Jenai was terminated after a few weeks. I then began focusing on myself—finding out what I need, want, think, and feel—I began figuring out who I am, and ultimately, who I want to be.

Since then, I’ve found myself wanting to spend a lot of quality time with me, myself and I. And I don’t just spend a lot of quality time with myself in the house (even though I am a homebody!), but I’ve went to the mall, to restaurants, to parks—I especially enjoy driving by myself, it’s such a relaxing experience.

Spending all this time with myself has allowed me to truly learn and work toward accepting that I’m

• An Emotional Woman: I feel deeply. More deeply than the people around me. In a world where a lot of people attempt to hide their feelings, I wear my heart on my sleeve.
• Awkward: While I can perform well in social situations, I am still prone to causing socially awkward moments. I may make too much or too little eye contact, talk too much and/or too fast, use words that may not actually exist, not know what to say and cause uncomfortable silences and sometimes I want to avoid creating a potential awkward social situation so much that I just go out of my way to avoid making contact with people altogether. It’s hard out here for an awkward black woman.
• A Beautiful Black Woman: I used to want to want to be a really light-skinned woman with long, straight hair. I didn’t like my black features—I wanted white features. I now embrace my lovely brown skin and soft, short, thick natural hair. I am proud of the melanin in my skin.
• Christian: I realize that it’s only because of God that I have come this far. I make sure to acknowledge this fact. His love for me is what saved me, and I want to share His love with others, in the hopes that it brings them closer to God and transforms them. I want to learn how to trust God fully, to accept His will wholeheartedly and to be the woman He created me to be. I have spent the majority of my life running from God, but not anymore. Instead of running from Him, I am now running into His arms.
• Feminist/Womanist: For many years, I’ve tried to avoid calling myself a feminist or saying/doing things that would cause people to label me as such. I had allowed the negative stereotypes and the stigma that society had attached to feminism to deter me from embracing it completely. But I know what feminism truly is, why I believe in it and why it’s important to me. With that in mind, I’ve decided to stop allowing society to scare me out of owning my beliefs.

Being a black woman, a Christian, awkward, a feminist and emotional all have negative stereotypes associated with them, but I am not those stereotypes--I am Jenai and I represent each of these labels in my own unique way. I no longer want to run from myself or allow people to make me feel bad about who I am.

It feels like forever since I’ve felt lonely. I am so glad that I can finally enjoy my own company. I can’t wait for the day when I can honestly say that I love myself as much and in the same way God does.

Kindest Regards,

Jenai H.