Adiba Nelson

[CN: mention of suicide] How did we get through love before Lemonade? We examined our lives through Mary’s shamelessly honest storytelling on My Life.

I’m about to bring you some pint-sized deliciousness, and a whole lot of fierce! Meet Ify Ufele, or just Ify if you’re cool like that.

My job is to make you feel — whether it’s lust, pride, anger, guilt, joy, sadness — whatever it is you feel, I want you to feel it.

He opened his mouth and time stood still. My pulse quickened. My heart raced. My eyes filled with tears. And I. WAS. PROUD.

Remember how I told you about the nasty little trolligans (trolls + hooligans = trolligans) that felt the need to show their racist behinds in response to a picture of Aamito Stacie Lagum, a Black model, modeling MAC’s new lipstick? And I slightly hinted at the Instagram clapback on the MAC photo feed. Well, what I didn’t tell you is that there’s an Instagram clapback, and then there’s a BLACK Instagram clapback. The two are worlds apart, and baby I promise you, you have seen nothing until you’ve seen a Black Insta-clapback.

It was the weirdest thing. I looked at this tiny human and felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. No overwhelming joy at finally meeting this person I’d been so excited for in months prior, no lurking sadness about no longer being pregnant and relishing in those shared “inside mommy’s belly” moments. Just... nothing. My brain said, “You have a baby now,” and that was that.

“Why would you do that? You have a daughter. Why would you put yourself in that position?”

Black women have endured the unfathomable. We’ve watched our leaders be assassinated, and our hopes go with them. We’ve watched the nation’s leaders be assassinated, and watched our hopes float away with them too. We’ve buried our 5-year-old daughters after they were bombed to death in church, our 12-year-old sons who were playing in the park, and our 29-year-old daughters who were stopped for simple traffic violations.

That man shakes me to my core. Actually, not HIM, per se, but the people who blindly follow him. The out-and-out bigots who will call me the N-word just as easily as they’d call their buddy “Bob.” The people who SWEAR they're not bigots, but support him because they believe in his promise of new jobs and deportations.

Want to go on a carbs and wine tour of Italy? Break out the leggings and go for it. This time is yours.