My Student Loans Can Kiss My A$$

I was reading this blog about how a single mom was dealing with having to pay back student loans and I must say this blog was EVERYTHING! This is how I feel every time when my automatic debt comes out of my account for my massive student loans.  Read it!

Why I simply Dont Give a Damn About my $100k+

I went to community college right after high school because I was not ready for a real 4 year college and I dint have the grades either. I graduated high school with a .74…how you say, I only had one class my last year of high school and I had work study for the rest of my school day. 

So when I got out of high school moved about an hour away and went to a community college. I moved far enough that I felt the experience of going to college but not too far because I still needed my parents.

I meet a guy and ended up getting pregnant. Me and the guy moved in and played house for a while. And when that didn’t work I moved back home. Meanwhile i took some time off for college. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do about college. Everyone would tell me that you need a college education if you want to go anywhere so I went back after having my 1^st kid. Then I got pregnant again with my 2^nd son. I know I know ...don't judge me....So at this point I really don’t know what to do. I have two kids at this point, do I go back to school or not? After some time away from school I went back to school after someone told me about an Online university that you can do and you don’t have to step foot on a campus. 

SO I was down and decided that I would rather go to school online when I felt like it vs having to go to class and trying to find someone to watch my boys.

NO ONE told me that going to school online would end up costing me over $100K in student loans. I mean I knew I had racked up a lot of student loans but I didn’t think it costed me over $100K….I had a true WTF moment. Like how sway….HOW???????

So I was dreading the day that school was going to be over because how in the world was I going to pay back this loan? I had read articles and heard of people having to pay back $1200+ a month in student loans. That was more then what I was paying in rent at the time. I was making less than $40k a year and taking care of two boys alone. 

I was really stressing because I had no clue what I was going to do. So I as I got ready for school to be done at the same time my lease was almost up at my apartment and I wanted to move. Was I going to move into another apartment  or what? I had toyed with the idea of buying a home but I didn't know if I was ready or about that home ownership life yet. After talking about it with a few friends, boyfriend and co worker I thought,  might as well. 

I was a few month shy of my 30^th birthday when I bought my first house and then later I bought my 1^st car. So far everything was looking good.

 BUT then my last class finished up and I was officially done with school. Its 2016 and I have an Associate’s degree in business, a Bachelor’s degree in Finance and a MBA in finance. I wanted to get a job in corporate finance but I keep running into the same issue you don’t have enough experience….of course I don’t I just got out of school…duh…Why do companies require you to have all this experience plus your degree when they are just going to train you how THEY do the process at THEIR company? Makes no sense to me.

Really?

Meanwhile I’m still stressing about my student loans when a good coworker of mines told me about student loan forgiveness that the government give those who has student loans. I was pumped so I looked it up Department of Education to see just what she was talking about and they had a few options on ways to help pay back student loans. So I applied thinking nothing much was going to come from it because it all sounded too good to be true and in a few months I got a letter saying that I was approved for the student loan prepayment option and my 1^st payment would be .15! YUP 15 CENTS!!! I was about to pay a years worth of payments if was the whole entire amount.

I was PUMPED I sure did send them their .15! And I did so for a few months. Then after about 6 months I had to send more information and then they upped my payment to $15 a month for a year. Each year you have to re-apply and update your information. I’m on the re payment plan called pay as you earn or income based repayment option.

 So my payment is based on how much I earn. Which is not a bad deal. And after 120 payments my loans will be forgiven which is about 10 years (if you work for the state or government) or 20 years if you work in the public sector. IM GAME!

So I owe over $100K in student loans and I don’t even care. My credit score is a 725 and I own my home with $50+ in equity and I’m not even worried or stressed.

If I had to do it all over again I would. I would definitely be more mindful about how much loan money I was using AND about getting those fat refund checks…which is money that I gotta pay back. But at the end of the day when I look at ALL 3 of my college degrees it makes me proud that as a black single mother of 2 boys I did it. No one can take away the fact that I have 3 college degrees. I DID THAT! So I’m not going to feel bad about it or worry every time I look at Credit Karma my balance is just as much as my house, lol. 

Debt is something we will always have in life and something we can’t run from. I’m glad that it is being managed and it’s something that isn’t hurting my overall credit score.

So I say to those who are not sure about getting a student loan…do what’s best for you. But don’t stress over spilled milk, get a cat to lick it up for you!

SO I say the hell with my student loans they can kiss my entire ass!!!

Moving on from bitterness

There was a time when I was bitter. I was bitter because I felt wronged and I was angry. I didn’t know yet how to deal with my anger so I turned it into bitterness. Bitterness for my situation that I felt I was in because of the actions of others. I was bitter because I felt that I was wronged by someone that I thought had my back and I was bitter for being left alone. I was bitter for a few years to the point I could not let anyone in. I fought against everyone and everything and my reasoning behind it was its everyone else issue not mines because I knew who I was or at least I thought I knew who I was. I was angry at someone for years because they put me in my position of hopelessness. “They did this to me”, “it was their fault”, I would tell myself and I was stuck in bitterness.

So are bitter? If so then why? Are you jealous? Do you hold grudges and you act out to get attention? Are you always negative or a Debbie downer? When we are bitter how many of us really will admit to that? It’s easy to say that your mad or you don’t like something but how many of us are willing to say that we are bitter? And if you admit to it do you know why? I know of some women and men  that have been bitter for YEARS and I just don’t understand how you can be stuck in one emotion for so long? And it also makes me want to ask  if that is how you feel after all these years what have you done to change the situation?

Are you going to be the change you wanna see?   I think for me I hate when I see people that look like me (black) stuck in one negative emotion. If you complain about finding a man okay well what are you doing to find one? If you tried online dating try something else…if you have tried more than 2 or 3 things then maybe it’s not your time to find a man. you are letting your frustrating of cant finding someone turn you bitter. IF your complain about your child’s father look at the situation and see what you can do to change if…if you have tried everything then ask yourself why are you really mad? Are you mad that he has moved on and you haven’t? Or are you mad that you are the primary parent and you have to take on all the reasonability? Either way your anger isn’t going to help you raise a child. I can understand the frustration of having to be the sole parent and seeing the other parent not having to struggle or be a part of the daily parenting but that’s life. The only thing you can control is your home and what you do…what the other parent is doing isn’t going to do anything for you but frustrate you and then make you bitter about it.

The way I moved on from bitterness is I questioned myself.  I wanted to know why I was mad. So since I asked the question now I have to find the answer. After confronting those who I felt wronged me I realized something.  The only person that is going to care about you is you. And I had to realize that people are going to do what they feel is best for them and sometimes that means at your expense. I thought I was mad at the person who I felt done me wrong, whole time I should have realized that the person did what they needed to do to protect them and I need to do the same. Now I’m not excusing people who are out here doing harm to people or who are out here trying to hurt someone but what I’m saying is once you feel that a person has wronged you how are you doing to move on from it?

If your baby daddy left you and now your mad…..how are you going to move on from it?

If your boyfriend broke up with you after 5 years…how are you going to move on from it?

If you take 5 steps forward just to be knocked down 8…how are you going to move on from it?

I think when you are stuck in one emotion and you can’t move on…the problems is yours now and you cant blame anyone but you.

The aftermath of a family secret part 1.

What are the next steps when you a family secret comes out? Is there a blue print or a how to guide of how to deal with it or haw to handle it? Are you supposed to talk about it? Or don’t talk about it? What do you do? I thought about what are the next steps for that young lady on “Iyalna: fix my life”. Where will she go? How will she heal? What will she do next? There are clearly people around her that would much rather give in to her anger then really talk about the issue.  Are they helping or hurting?

One thing I didn’t tell you about my story is after I learn about my own family secret was how everyone else around me treated me after I finally found out. Not knowing something that everyone knows is like being blinded folded and trying to walk down the street while everyone else around you can see that there really isn’t a street to walk down.

The moment that my brother told me that my “mom” wasn’t my mom, and my “sister” was my mom. My whole world went upside down. The 1^st question was so if I have another mother out there why didn’t she raise me? Who was she? Where is she? So being in middle school and dealing with an identity crisis isn’t fun I can tell you that I was a black girl lost and I was angry and confused. There was one person in my life whom I felt that no matter what I could be safe with and that was my father’s mother, my grandma. She was a true old school short little black woman who walked around in her house coat and her slippers dragging her feet shuffling around her house with a bonnet on her head or a wig, lol you know the salt and pepper wig that almost every older black women own. And she only wears it to church or to “make market”. She was also the type of women would always wanted to feed you even if you wasn’t hungry. She was my best friend and the one person that had my back no matter what.

So one weekend we went to my grandma’s this was very typical we would go over to her house almost every other weekend. This weekend was extra exciting for me because it was right after I found out the news and my parents were still trying to lie about it at this point. I needed this visit so bad I need to talk to someone, I needed some type of comfort and I knew she would give me. As soon as the car stop I jumped out so fast…now that I think about it the car might have been almost stopped, lol. I didn’t care I needed my grandma…I busted through that door ran to her room and jump in her bed. She had that type of bed you had to jump in because it was so high. She must have known that I needed her not to say anything and I just wanted her arms around me. She smelled like bengay and moth balls. Which might have not been the best smell in the world but it was the small of my grandmother, and it smelled good to me because it was her sent!  I can never forget it. So after the longest hug in the world she pulls me away from her grabs my chin and looks me in my face and tells me, “you only need to get answers from one person and I think you should go and get them. Now I wish I had more for you but I don’t, I love you and don’t you ever forget that I AM YOUR GRANDMA” I didn’t have a change to even talk and that women knew what to say. Now mind you I’m 10 and I have no idea how to even process all this nor did I have the words to say, but she knew what I needed when I didn’t even know. And for me that was the only thing I needed to know that it was true YES I was not being raised by my biological parents.

So once my parents got out of their own denial and told me the truth. I had planned to meet this mystery woman that same summer and after that I planned to go back to my grandma’s house to tell her the news about my trip. During the next few months the truth started to come out more and more. Let me tell you news travels FAST and this was wayyy before the internet or social media, cell phones, texting or any of that. Every time we went to another family member’s house someone was always saying something to me. Again let me remind you I’m around 9/10 years old when I found out and I’m still trying to deal with it. What annoyed me about everything was how people treated me…those older called brothers and sisters teased me, those same brothers and sisters told me that I was now their niece and to stop calling them sister or brother. Other family members I felt like didn’t even talk to me. Family members told me to stop calling my mom and dad…mom and dad because they weren’t my parents. There was so much gossip I just couldn’t take it. I most avoided even getting out the car when we went places because I didn’t want to hear what anyone had to say about me or the new realization I found out. I was the black sheep an outcast and the one thing that didn’t fit. My ties to the family had changed now and I felt as if I was in the “cool kids club” anymore.

I tell this story because in a family when a secret comes out no one really knows how to deal with it. My parent avoided it, siblings teased me, some people avoided me, and others just acted like nothing even happened. Heck there were still people acting like it was a secret. How are you supposed to act once you know what everyone else already knew? And how that you do know why are people treating you different? I’m the same person... right?

Just Smile

How many times has someone told you to smile? 😊NOW I'm talking to my ladies right now.....And you look up at them and give them either a real smile or a fake one? For me I just don’t understand the question.  And this question is usually asked by MEN. Why are you asking me to smile? What is that doing for you? Who really walks around with a smile plastered on their face all the time and if they do always have a smile I bet some people are looking at that person like something is really wrong with them. 

Come on lets be real if you saw a man or a women walking down the street with a huge Kool aid smile on their face and NO ONE around them they aren’t on the phone or reading a book or even listening to something they are alone walking down the street with a huge smile. What are your first thoughts? ME I’m thinking this person is crazy or high. I hate when someone asks or tells me to smile. Better yet I hate when someone tells me to smile. I don’t know maybe it’s the women in me saying who are you to tell me what to do? Or is that a black thing?? Mmmm??? Anyway.... like WTF smile?? For what? And why? Are you asking me to smile  because I’m a women and you think I need to be happy happy happy all the time? Or do you think I have a nice smile and you want to see it? Or do you see a little black girl and you don’t want me to be angry? WHAT IS IN A SMILE? I don’t know about you but when a man requires me to smile I give them the opposite of that….I give them resting bitch face…WHAT?

Story time: I use to work as a teller and one time a man came up to my window and I greeted him asked him how I could help him and he goes, smile it’s a beautiful day… WARNING: now I’m going to portray a typical stereotype about African American women that some might find upsetting so be ready…….. ….SO I looked at him with my faced just as tight as I could make it and said, “Excuse me? You say what now? Because I thought I asked how I could help you, not how you wanted my face to look?” and he responded back to me by saying… “I was just saying it’s a nice day outside and you in here looking all mean, I bet you have a pretty smile and you should smile more.” I again face tight and lips pressed now I’m leaning towards him because I’m at work and I'm trying to be cool, and I say “sir, I’m going to ask you again how I can help you today?” he must have really need a smile because he says to me, “oh so I’m not going to get a smile?” at this point I’m beyond annoyed because if he was trying to get my number he failed…and if he was trying to make conversation again he failed. And if he was trying to be nice again HE FAILED. I’m thinking to myself at this point why does he need this smile so bad? What is in it for him? Why do I need to smile? Why is he requesting that I smile? Now I do work in customer service and I should be more friendly I get that BUT one thing you NOT GONNA  DO *Hand clap* 👏 is tell me what do to…what bills are you paying…..wait wait….let me get back to the story I was having a moment there…..So I say to him, “my dog died and I didn’t feel like smiling so if we could move on to the transaction that would be nice.”

 

Now I tell this story because I really don’t understand WHY people (men) request smiles from random strangers or even people you work with or family? WHY do you want or need me to smile? OKAY I know you’re thinking , whats the big deal and you're right when you see a smiling face looking at you, you tend to smile back. Smiles are like yawns in that you tend to repeat them if you see them…they are infectious and they make people feel all warm inside. And yes I do smile often in fact but I don’t smile on command and I find it wired when people say, “oh you should smile” or “Why aren’t you smiling?” So my question to you is: Does it bother you when someone asks you to smile?

I think men use this great line opener as a way to be nice but I think they don’t understand that asking a women to smile is annoying because I have yet see a man tell another man to smile or ask for a smile. I don’t care if I’m at work, outside pumping gas or at the gas station pumping gas….DONT ask me to smile…I’m not here for you. What are your thoughts?

Why do Black families have so many secrets?

Over this past weekend I was watching “Iynala: fix my life” and she was attempting to help a young lady named Kamiyah/Alexis that was kidnapped at birth and didn’t find out until she was 19 years old. As I watch this young lady struggle with her feelings I felt her pain and I understood her anger.

                     http://www.oprah.com/app/iyanla-fix-my-life-full-episodes.html

 I was in her same shoes. Anyone that knows me knows that I was raised by my grandmother and I was very young when I found out. Watching this young lady struggle with who to love, her anger and where to lay her loyalty hat made me questioned why do Black families have so many secrets? WHY???

 I grew up like any other child in the late 80’s I came from a middle class family with older brothers and sister, 12 to be exact. I had a great mother and father and life was good. I was a huge daddy’s girl growing up and I was super spoiled you name it I had it including multiple homes, toys, clothes games and went on many vacations…. the works. I was living the kid dream. Then one day my mother’s (when I mention my mother I’m talking about the women who raised me not my birth mother) father got sick and ended up in the hospital. Come to find out he had cancer and was dying. During this time was hard on the whole family and we were losing a great man. I can remember sitting in the hospital in front of his room while my mom and her sisters where visiting with my grandfather. Then a family member came up to me and says, “WOW, you sure do look like your mother.”  I just nodded because a lot people thought this and has said this to me and it was nothing new. BUT for some reason he just keep going ON and ON about how much I looked like my mother…then he turns to someone else and goes, “HEY don’t she look like her mother? She looks so much like NAME…” and then one of the older members in my family hushed him up real quick and told him to shut up…NOW I’m confused because why would he call my mother by someone else's name…and not just anything name…my sisters name WAYMIN NOW??? 

  

Now at this point I was around 9 or 10 and I pays it no mind…of course I look like my sister and mother…duh….we are family I’m supposed to look like him. So I’m still sitting at the hospital and that same family member comes back to tell me once again I looked like my mother and used that same wrong name again and he wouldn’t let it go. SO I asked my mom why he keeps calling her by my sisters name? What was he talking about? And as good old southern black women do she looked at me and said, “I’m your momma and that’s that.” So I left it alone…..BUT something about the whole situation didn’t sit well with me….So we went back home and I started looking at pictures and questioned why I looked like some members but not others…My parents would reassure me that they were my parents and to just leave it alone. 

SO I went to my older brother who was the only brother that was living with us at the time and I asked him because I knew he wouldn’t lie to me. And we sat down in his room and he closed the door slightly and told me the truth. I was in shock so much I didn’t react…I couldn't cry, or anything I was just shocked. How could they lie? How could everyone lie to me? Months later my parents finally told me the truth and allowed me to reach out to the women who I thought was my sister but was really my mother. I had sooo many questions and no one could give me the answers or wanted to give me the answers. EVEN after I found out the truth, here we are still with the secrets. My whole 10 years of life were a lie…I didn’t really have 12 older brothers and sisters; I had 12 aunts and uncles… I wasn’t the youngest, I was the oldest even my name was a lie…at that point of my life I was LOST. Who was I? Was I a Carter or a Lansdowne?

So I ask again why do black families have so many secrets. How could everyone around me lie to me? Why did they lie? Did they think they were doing me a favor? When were they going to tell me? Where they even going to tell me the truth? Luckily for me I found out about my true identity very early in life so I had some time to deal with it. But unfortunately for the young lady that was on  “Iylana: Fix my life” she found out later in life. Which is why I think her anger is what it is. I have also seen so many things online about how everyone around her is catering to her and she needs a reality check…BUT my thing is if you have been in a situation like that you have no clue what it’s like losing your identity like that. NOW I think she was wrong for how she was choosing to display her anger BUT I can understand her anger.

I think some black families don’t know how to deal with traumatic events and instead of talking about it they chose to hide it. Old school black folks have been hushing people up for generations and generations. It’s easy not to talk then to talk. Does this have anything to do with the oppression we faced as slaves? Is this something we want to continue to past down for our children and their children? 

For me I made a promise that I will be the change that I wanted to see happen. SO when my kids were at an age I thought they could understand I told them about who my mother really was and what they meant to them, because up to this point they only knew one grandmother and not about my bio- mother. In my family we have no deep rooting family secrets! I’m not my parents before me or their parent before them.