Farewell. This is my last blog. Seriously. I’m retiring. Not like when Jay-Z told us the Black Album was his last album in 2003 and has come out with five albums since. I’m serious. This is my last blog.
I remember sitting at my kitchen table writing my first blog post on September 8, 2015. I wrote: “This blog will be a journey. My journey to adopting a fit, happy, and healthy lifestyle.” I remember thinking, There is no reason to be nervous; no one even knows this blog exists yet.
My first blogs -- let’s be honest -- were boring posts about clean eating, yoga, and juicing. Good information, but boring nonetheless. I wasn’t taking any risks. I wasn’t telling any compelling stories. I was playing it safe. Yes, I love yoga and eating healthy is important, but there was a bigger story I was supposed to tell.
The first piece that really scared me to write was, “My Husband Didn’t Make Me Happy.” Unlike my first several blogs, I knew people would read this piece. I wasn’t playing it safe. I was taking a risk. My journey wasn’t about fitness, it was about happiness, and this blog was my first time really publicly grappling with the role I played in creating my own happiness. (I won’t be writing a follow-up piece, although so many people have requested it. But I will say this, I am in an amazing relationship with an amazing man. And the only reason that I am in such a healthy, loving, and supportive relationship now is because I dealt with some bad habits and learned how to make myself happy. I figured out my role in the dysfunction to make sure I didn’t find myself in the same pattern again. And now, I get to reap the benefits of that work with a romantic and loving man who supports me, encourages me, loves me, cooks for me, makes me laugh, and loves me the way that I want and deserve to be loved. He’s also my freelance editor. Advice: Do not settle. If you are not happy with your relationship, leave, and do your work. But I digress.)
After writing my divorce blog, I had a hard time going back to writing my traditional (read: boring) entries. I started tackling topics like judgment, failure, quitting, feminism, and Blackness. I saw my words as a tool to educate. I was trying to convince, to explain, to justify. And then this quotation from Toni Morrison hit me like a ton of bricks.
“The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.” - Toni Morrison
I was so busy explaining that I wasn’t spending enough time doing. I wasn’t building. I was just talking. My last blog, “A Black Woman's Response to “Straight Black Men Are the White People of Black People” made a lot of Black men mad. I was getting angry emails and my inbox was flooding with defensive counter-arguments, opinions, and accusations. I was frustrated. Was I actually educating, were we actually getting somewhere, or were we just talking in circles? It dawned on me, “None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”
So, I won’t be blogging anymore. There will be no more explaining, or justifying, or talking. Only building. My newly created platform, BLK + GRN, is the only premium purveyor of clean, all natural, Black-owned products. I was tired of complaining about brands neglecting Black women, so I created a platform that promotes and supports them and their brands. I was tired of using toxic products that were negatively impacting my health, so I created a way to easily find better, healthier options. I was tired of just talking about the economic problems impacting Black people, so I decided to find a way to circulate our dollars within our own community. I created what I felt was missing. Basically, to paraphrase Miss Cardi B, “I don’t blog no more, I make money moves.”
My blog will be discontinued on December 31, 2017. In honor of all my readers, subscribers, and followers who have supported me these 2+ years, you can get 20% off your first order on BLK + GRN with the code DRKRISTIANH until December 31. Come and join the movement.
And as always, live happy, healthy, and free.