Nappily Ever After Quotes

Everyday I receive a lesson that teaches me that I can’t let what others think of me define me.

He had his very own “little white girl” without taking the hit of her actually being white.

Clint. She felt it before she’d met him, years before. The feeling of being trapped in a hole. No growth, no enhancement. Being trapped in this one place and unable to move. It seemed like such a simple plan in the beginning. First high school, then college, then career, then husband and children.

Before, I was brazen, life was a new frontier waiting to be conquered. I had high hopes for this adventure called freedom. Almost the way you feel when you get your first apartment and you tell your parents “so long.” The high comes crashing down as soon as you realize there’s nobody around to scold or reward. With it comes the realization that the people you were so desperately trying to get away from are the ones who gave you definition and character, a daughter, a friend, a sister. All the things that describe who you are. You can’t be a daughter without a parent, you can’t be a friend without friends, you can’t be anything without the other. It’s the yin and yang of life, and I was here without yang. My

The realization of the fact that I didn’t need Clint to feel this happiness made me laugh. At first it came out in a soft giggle, followed by an honest deep belt of laughter. I would be okay. Simple as that, everything would be fine. Like the natural order of the elements, in their perfection and imperfections, like this sea in its ability to provide beauty and warmth and just as quickly create a natural disaster. Storms pass, winds die down, and rain stops falling eventually. I would be all right. Proud that I didn’t need to be the account manager at Donnely Kramer, proud that I didn’t need hair flowing down my back. All I needed was what I had, me. I was grateful for me. I had no right to depend on Clint to make me feel this way. Something so powerful weighing on one man’s shoulders. As

Clint never could get into the split personality thing, acting and talking one way around family and friends, then turning into someone your own mama wouldn’t recognize just to have a conversation with some white folks. He’d never seen the advantage to it. Once Clint had learned that all white people didn’t smell like the Downy fabric softener he’d seen in those commercials, he lost the enchantment. He felt no urge to try to impress them.