YOU ARE NOT A QUESTION MARK!

Happy last week of May! I had to check my calendar twice to really see if it was indeed the last week of May! I’m so used to having Memorial Weekend actually be the last week of May so celebrating it last weekend kind of threw off. Was I the only one who felt this way or did some of you feel this too? 

We are officially done with Taurus season so for anyone who had a birthday, Happy belated birthday! We are now in Gemini season! Happy birthday to all my Geminis! As usual, I have a few family members who are Geminis also and will be celebrating those birthdays in the month of June. 

The next few months are going to be busy! I checked my calendar and almost every weekend, there is an event going on! However, I know that not every event will require my presence and I get to pick and choose which event I have the energy to attend. It’s all about balance and prioritizing. 

This time of the year gives me pause to think about my journey. I can’t believe that I graduated with my graduate degree in 2008! It’s been seventeen years! Some days, it feels like it hasn’t been that long and some days, it’s like “Oh yeah! It’s definitely been that long!” 

Graduation brings a lot of memories and nostalgia as I think back about being a 25 year old with lots of hopes, naivety, and expectations about what I thought my path would look like (thank god it didn’t go as planned!). 

So many of the women that I went to school with or grew up with all got engaged and married (literally the day after their commencement).  Unfortunately, I also saw many of them forgo their dreams to follow their boyfriends or their significant other to support their dreams while putting theirs on the backburner (even after they received their degrees of job offers). 

My intention to never shame or judge other people and especially other women; and one of the things that I could never understand was when I saw a bright, intelligent, woman, who worked so hard to accomplish her degree, goals, and dreams who halted their ambitions to wait around or be the question mark in someone’s future. They diminished their accolades to be ambivalent in someone else’s goals and intentions. 

Sadly, a lot of them will later reveal to me the regrets that they had in not following their passions,  intuition, and dreams because in the process of being the ambivalence in someone else’s life, they lost their identity.  Now, they are trying to find who they are beyond the roles and responsibilities society has deemed for them. 

Society and movies have romanticized being the question mark. How many of us have swooned when we hear “I’ll be here waiting when you’re ready.” Talk about swoon worthy!!! 😍. In my 20s, that line would have gotten me or I may have been willing to wait for someone. Fortunately for me, there was no one who I liked enough to make me wait around for them to get their shit together. 

From my own upbringing and the professional work I did, I saw too much of what happens when someone allows themselves to be the question mark and be the ambivalence in someone’s life. I saw the anger, resentment, and regret when someone allowed themselves to be the question mark.

I want to emphasize that I am not putting the blame on people who have chosen this path. Oftentimes, people allow themselves to be the question mark due to unhealed wounds/trauma, low self esteem, scarcity, fear, and allowing others to dictate on what we should want because it is the “safe” path, especially when you came from instability or it’s the expectation due to class, religion, and cultural expectations. 

My readers are diverse in age from young women in their late teens to retirees in their 60s. Regardless of where you are in life, never accept being someone or something’s question mark. Don’t allow yourself to be less than simply because they don’t know who they are, what they want or don’t want. You should BE what they want and if you’re not? MOVE ON! Say peace out and embrace the rejection because that was the blessing that you needed in protecting yourself. 

I am working hard on healing myself so that I can become the woman, boss, aunt, role-model that I would have loved to have as a young girl and young woman growing up. As the aunt to three outspoken (ages 14, 12, 18 mos) nieces, here’s why I would teach them on why they shouldn't wait around to be a question mark; foremost, life is too short to sit in someone else’s uncertainty.

I would explain what it means to "wait to be a question mark"

It means:

• Waiting for someone to choose you
  
  
• Waiting for a sign that you're enough
  
  
• Waiting for permission to go after what you already know you want
  
  
• Sitting in indecision, hoping the situation becomes clearer — instead of getting clarity  yourself. 

• A question mark is passive. It asks. It waits.
  
  

Here are the reasons why you shouldn't wait and be a “question mark:”

 It Keeps You Powerless:  Waiting around turns your life into a reaction, not a creation. You’re letting them decide if you’re good enough and essentially, you become the placeholder for them. You're waiting around to be convenient for them. Once you’re done being convenient, they no longer have use of you and will have no problem moving on without a thought or consideration of your feelings. If someone’s unsure about you, always be DAMN be sure about yourself! 

• 
  Time Doesn't Pause for Clarity: I want to clarify that taking time in silence can lead to clarity. However, every “maybe” that you take, can  steal your momentum. Unfortunately, growth doesn’t happen in limbo — it happens in motion. You don’t find purpose by waiting, you build it by choosing.

• 
  Indecision Drains Confidence: The truth is things get harder when you keep saying “maybe,” “not today,” or “I’ll do it next year.” Ever notice that the longer you wait, the stronger the doubt? When you linger in doubt, the harder it becomes to trust yourself, which keeps you stuck in that question mark. I suffered through this when I stalled myself from being a content creator and came up with every excuse on why I didn’t start my Youtube Channel. The funny thing was, I created all the things I needed in Canva but never uploaded any of my videos! In my overthinking, I realized that I self-abandoned myself and my dreams. I told myself “never again” will I allow indecision to stall me from creating the life I want. I learned that confidence is born in decisions, not perfection.

• 
  You're Meant to Be the Answer, Not the Question: You are not here to be an afterthought, a backup plan, an optional choice, or the  placeholder.  You’re here to be the damn answer. Stop being a question mark in places you’re meant to be the period — or better yet, the exclamation point and OWN IT! 

When in doubt, here are some points to remember: 

• Choose clarity over comfort.
  
  
• Walk away from “maybe.”
  
  
• Be bold enough to close doors that stay halfway open.
  
  
• Give yourself the love, opportunity, and certainty you keep waiting to receive from others.
  
  

These are the words that I will pass down to my nieces. That they don’t need to be chosen. They get to CHOOSE. I would empower them to not put  their life on hold for anyone or anything simply because other people can’t get their shit together. I would tell them that I would rather they try, learn, and if they were ever to fail, at least they had the confidence and courage to make the commitment than allow fear and uncertainty to stop them from trying.  

Ladies, throughout history, we’ve been taught that we would be so fortunate and  “lucky” to be picked and chosen. That we should accept being the question mark, wait around, until someone finally sees our worth and value, and is ready to choose us because we’re disposable. 

For the first time in history, women and especially young women like our nieces and daughters, don’t have to follow the same path, continue with the unhealed patterns, and are no longer waiting  around because someone is unsure of them. If someone is unsure of them and wants to put them in “situationships,” they can simply walk away because they will no longer accept being the question mark in someone else's story.  They are the DAMN EXCLAMATION POINT! THE PRESENT AND FUTURE BELONGS TO ALL THE FABULOUS QUEENS OUT THERE WHO AREN'T WAITING AROUND TO BE CHOSEN BUT ARE DOING THE CHOOSING! ALWAYS CHOOSE YOU! 😘