Adiba Nelson

Being a body positive/body acceptance activist means that regardless of WHAT shape my body takes at any given point and time in my life, I love it. I am kind to it. I remember that it has the right to love and adoration, first from myself, and then from my man. I remember that all bodies, those bigger than and those smaller than mine, are entitled to the same, and they are no better or worse than my own.

Nicely done, MAC. Nicely done.

Give me a minute please. I’m a little busy trying to decide if I should throw something, burn something, take my eyes out and dip them in bleach after reading that shit, have a woosa moment, or just. fucking. drink.

If I had to pinpoint it, I’d say I am a diva because I had a mom who demanded nothing but the very best from me, from how I sat in a chair, to how I entered a room, to what grades I brought home. She demanded the best from me — and now, finally, I am at a point where I demand the very best from myself, and those I surround myself with.

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.

How do you go from two extremely different individuals living life separately to two extremely different individuals merging their separate lives into one loving family portrait — all while avoiding a cosmic meltdown? Very, very carefully. And with a bottle of wine… or 50.

The universe always knows, and so what it does in all its lovely knowing, is it clears a path for you. When the universe sees that things have reached the point where they stand to steer you off your path, it will clear a way for you to continue moving onward and upward.

I think we can all agree that there is an incredible amount of power in being a woman. We run corporations, households, and our own glittery, mashed-up, sometimes-so-fucked-up-I-wanna-hide-under-a-blanket-and-never-come-out-again lives. And we do it as gracefully as we possibly can. And while we’re doing it, we have a soundtrack playing in the background.

Where did you even get that statistic from? Did you make it up?

Then we had that talk that made my eye twitch: the budget talk.