Some of those days were bitterly cold. The kind of cold that if I wasn’t wearing gloves, it felt like the tips of my fingers were turning into icicles. Some of those days, had turned to nights when my train was late. Walking home from the train station, which was at least 2 miles from home, was literally like walking through a blizzard–even if there wasn’t any snow. No matter how many layers of clothes I was wearing, the wind would whip through my hood and hat, smack at my face, taunting tears of exasperation to find me. Some of them days, those tears found me. My car service hadn’t come or the wait was too long. I had started walking… I would call my parents, nearly hyperventilating to please pick me up and take me the rest of the way home.
I was walking because at the time, I didn’t have a car. I had lost my brand new bright silver Sebring when I lost my job as a Manager for a marketing merchandising company. It was also around the same time I started Eye Candy Brand and we had just stopped doing our party in Atlantic City called Coyote Ugly Tuesdays and just started doing our party in Philly at the actual Coyote Ugly Philadelphia. Our event was called Eye Candy Brand Sundays. I didn’t mind not having a car. The train was close enough. Walking to it was good exercise, particularly with our dance rehearsal schedule. I could get anywhere I needed to go either by train or by car service. The coldest days gave me pause. But most days I simply did what I had to do. It was also around the time I met Colby Colb, he invited me on Single in the City and my radio career on 100.3 The Beat was about to take off.
For at least 3 months after I got that phone call that literally changed my life– the call where Colby asked me to fill in for him on Afternoon Drive, I walked those 2 miles to the train station, to board a train several hours earlier than my shift, got to work at least an hour early and talked to a lot of you every week day and some week ends about stuff that became important to all of us. It all evolved, of course, into great debates and discussion on my award winning hip hop talk show “On the Real with Envy” and has evolved further into what I’m about to embark upon in the coming months.
It’s no wonder that when my fiasco with two different tires happened this week, three days apart—the second a few too many blocks away from my house (at night)– with high heels on and market bags in tow, I didn’t bother to call anybody. I simply tramped that mile home– singing as I went– as an ode to my past. That past that led me triumphantly to my future in Philadelphia commercial radio, which, of course, is now one of the most awesome parts of my past. I also had no qualms with scheduling that car service for 3am to take me to work. Doing so reminded me of where and how far I’ve come. It gave me hope that all the things I talk about on this blog and all the experiences I’ve had along the way were not for nothing. I experienced them for a reason. It’s also a testament to the idea that no matter how many things we accomplish, we must keep our ties to our past. It grounds us. Keeps us hungry. Keep us on path.
I get it. I get the “weird” label a lot. The label is given lovingly, I think. I don’t mind. I’ve come to learn that being considered “weird” is parallel to being considered an individual. Being someone unlike anyone else. Being myself. Not very many people know how exactly to be themselves. To think for themselves. To experience their lives as an unusually refreshingly unique individual. To dig deeper than the superficial about them and those around them and know what it feels like to live in concert with the rhythm of their own drum.
A lot of us have spent so long trying to please everybody around us–parents, peer group, friends, foes, bosses, situations, whatever, that we wouldn’t have the slightest clue what it means to truly be our truest self. The lot of us don’t know what our drum beat sounds like. The lot of us are lost in a sea of everyone else’s opinion of us and no rightly idea what our own voice is telling is to do. Which, explains why the lot of us are bitter and miserable, no matter how blessed our lives may be.
I don’t know why having to walk my heeled fabulous self home from my flat tired car earlier this week reminded me of this. I have no idea why taking that car service to work, gave me a refresher course of where and how far I have come. Maybe it’s because I remember how superficial I was. I mean, granted, I’ve always been a bit weird. Always. At first, I rebelled and kindof stayed weird. And then, after getting verbally beaten enough about it, I began to conform a bit. I still kept my more strong willed individualistic ways, but I wanted to be liked. I didn’t always want to be deemed the black sheep everybody pointed fingers at by way of my being so different. I started second guessing my very existence sometimes, which caused a great deal of anxiety about just about everything I wanted to do with my life. The knots in my stomach became so great, sometimes I would be paralyzed by fear enough to make stupid choices and sometimes to do absolutely nothing.
Fast forward to that very first day on the radio. I was in the studio with my very first producer Renard “pretty toes Renny”. I was so nervous and I remember it vividly. On the one hand, I was going with the “hot girl” theme I was brought on to portray. But on the other, there was something in me, my truest self, that wanted to come out. It wanted to be present. It wanted to set me apart from what was already around me and popular. It wanted to try new things and would get rebuffed by my PD. It wanted to go against the grain. It wanted to create. It wanted to be a trail blazer. Tears would well up in my eyes when Colby told me “NO” about something I wanted to do.
It was funny because some stuff, I would simply do anyway and once it worked, I couldn’t be denied. Some things would take some time–like my talk show. Which actually manifested after Aubrei was born. “On the Real with Envy” was actually the first time in my radio career where my truest self was allowed to be. We created some amazing things with that show that even now has never been duplicated. The production was flawless. The ideas were both off the wall and relevant to the time. We were nominated for an A.I.R. Award after only 6 months on the air. The next year, we were nominated for 4 and walked away with 2–Best Public Affairs Show and Best Talk Show Host. That accomplishment nailed the coffin of my superficial self and propelled me full speed ahead of allowing my truest self to take the reigns of my life and my career.
I have to add that it hasn’t been all awards and accomplishments. Being an individual, especially around so many people who stay stuck in their own very limited and superficial worlds AND holding positions of power (seemingly) over your life and career makes life very interesting and complicated. With an unintentional stomp on the wrong toe, individual thinkers and doers can find their way to hard times faster than a Polar Bear on a melting ice cap. It’s been hard. As far as I’ve come from those many moons ago where I had to walk 2 miles each way to catch my train, to get to work, sometimes in the very bitter cold– it’s not a far fetched idea to find those days again. Just me, my dream, (and now my kid), and a really long walk–in fabulous heels of all things–all in hopes of reaching “home” safely.
I can say with some amount of authority that part of my journey has been about finding again my sense of individuality. It’s been about reacquainting myself with all of those things that made my mother bristle with both awe and disgust because of her uncomfortability with my utter “weirdness”. The same goes with my journey toward my ideal loving relationship. The challenge of meeting and finding myself “madly” in love with someone who shares my thirst for awesomeness and individuality, while challenging the status quo in a way that makes the whole world a better place to exist for everyone– is definitely an up hill battle. But it’s not impossible.
I reason with myself almost daily–“since God made someone just like me, God made someone just FOR me. My patience wanes sometimes about it, but you know what? No matter how impatient I want to be, He will happen in my life exactly when he’s supposed to happen. I can be impatient all I want. No sense in wasting everybody’s time by settling for somebody who thinks I’m weird and trying to convert them (or some poor soul who tries to convert me back to normalcy *awkward*). Might as well keep on with what I’m up to and let the divine right him find his way to where he’s supposed to be.
Therein lies the point of this post, I suppose. Our journey in this life is an awesome one. We sometimes can make sense of our current path, by finding wisdom from where we’ve come. I found mine from two flat tires in three days and having to tramp the last mile “home”–if only to remember that I am here to be an individual, and blaze my own trails for the good of the ALL. Where will you find yours?
The moral of this story? Um…let me think. Nope, none to be found here. Just some food for thought. Thank you for reading this though. Peace and abundant blessings. Love, -e-