Lipstick Fashion Mascara

After grabbing the Sunday New York Times yesterday morning I started to get really deep into my thoughts.

Initially after staring at the paper for a moment I really wanted to scream and run around Starbucks. After I thought about it; my mom may not like the idea of having to get me out of jail in Baltimore. So I chilled.

Once I had my chai tea in hand I thought about how awesome it is to have our first African American president elected for a second term! My great grandma, who lived to be 96 said she’d never thought she would see the day, I think she smiled for months every time she saw President Obama on television. She came from a time when blacks cooked and cleaned homes for wealthy people.

Now that I have divulged a smidgen of my family history; let me get back to my revelation I had at Starbucks.

While I’m elated to have our President in office another four years, I think about how easy his life could have been had he said he was done. President Obama could have made history and then walked away from the White House partially unscathed, and back to a life with his family in Chicago. Seeing as though work still needs to be done in our country and in the world- he chose to run for a second term and won.

We will observe Martin Luther King, Jr. day today. Another great example of someone who could have stayed quiet and went with the status quo. He put himself and his family in a position where people wanted them dead. I’m sure he knew this with every sermon, movement and speech.

You can see the parallels in the lives of both Dr.King and President Obama. Uncomfortable would be an understatement.

I think about all the sacrifices my mom made to send me to school (thankfully I do not have student loan debt to my ears). To make sure she paid her mortgage so we could have a front and backyard to play in, summer vacations and exposure to so many other things. I doubt any of the above were always easy.

Moving halfway across the country away from my family, going away for college- wasn’t exactly a cake walk. I could have stayed in Cincinnati where the cost of living is half of what it is here, and be around everything I have always known.  That uneasy feeling is often followed by something really great.

All of my rambling can be summed up in my favorite poem by Robert Frost.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

I need to start getting the feeling of uneasiness as it relates to home ownership (I want a brownstone BAD), my responsibilities at work and taking smart risks in general. Sorry for my rambling. It has been forever since I have done a ‘aside’ post. I hope you all have a great week!