a day in the life of alicia stef

me: mom, i want to move to Paris
mahjah: okay

I stared at my berry for at least ten minutes waiting for her to say something else. it didn't even say she was typing. doesn't she know she can't play like this on bbm? how could i possibly tell my mother that her oldest baby was planning to move halfway across the world and the only thing that she could say was "okay"?! so i called her:

me: mom!
mahjah: yes?
me: I just told you I want to move to Paris and you said nothing!
mahjah: Stef, a half hour ago you were talking to me about business school.

when i was two my godmother bought me Fisher Price 1-2-3 skates. i later upgraded to big kid skates, stuck Stacey for her rollerblades and learned to do fancy things like skate backwards. i found my calling-- i wanna be a figure skater. not that rollerblading = ice skating.

Dr. Shepherd was the greatest. she was tall, had nice hair and seemed to always know what she was talking about, and i'm sure she did because she made sure that we were never sick for long. i wanted to be a pediatrician just like her.

and then i'd enroll at Harvard, Yale, Columbia or Princeton. i knew i was smart and smart people go to ivy league schools, right? so, i'll just apply to all four. i mean, when you were 10, did you really know that there were actually eight?

fuck an ivy. i'm gonna do something black. that's right, i'm going to Morgan State.

and I'm gonna be a banker because I'm good at math and my mom has been working for Chase since I learned to count. and i'm also great with kids, so I'm gonna be a teacher too. just like Mommy.

seriously tho, I'm going to Duke. i don't care if i'm a sophomore in high school and haven't seen a SAT. and you, teacher, i don't care if you think we're all nuts for talking about these schools as if it's possible to know exactly where we'll be in two years. so take your skepticism, and make your list of schools each of us says we'll attend. you're right, we probably won't even apply. you say i need more people? well, here's 1400. they're my classmates at Duke.

and then there was finance. TFA to take care of those loans, and, of course, cuz sus' luh da kids. something in media. magazine publishing. fashion? ahhh, advertising, finally.

there are scenes of my future that play on repeat, on a continuous loop, all in my head. so vivid. bright, sunshine, beaches, water. i see happiness. being a boss and crushing my industry. making a difference. having family all around me. building my own family. a great home. great friends. and those Louis bags. can't even count them anymore. but even though i have an idea of what i want my life to look like, the steps to ensure that this dream can become a tangible photograph, a snapshot of me living in that moment, seem almost impossible to enumerate. instead, i come up with one bright idea after another of what path i can take my life down, instead of actually fashioning my own and making these dreams more than just. examples of success abound around me. and i get it. ive been blessed to make it this far, and i have the tools to make incredible progress, but something's keeping me back.

several times a day i repeat to myself, "the only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work hard for them." as michelle o. has so graciously pointed out, that something is me.

more challenging than a friday sudoku puzzle. my beautiful nightmare. trying to figure it all out. these passions and these talents that are waiting to be realized. actualized. beating myself up because i know what i need to do, i'm just not doing it. there's so much that goes through my head but i'm not expressing it. a constant struggle to just do it.

welcome to my blog.