Okay, okay, I'm awake...

Make Up: Michelle Threatt
Wardrobe: ThinkColor & UpJunkFashions
Stylists: Shawanna Davis
Photographer: Brandon Banks

Its been a weird year. Not like I haven't had other weird years, but this one might take the cake. I had the pleasure of having my eyes opened wider than I ever imagined and comforts ripped from me in the most abrupt way.

Nothing would have prepared me for all the twists and turns that ensued these past couple of months. But sometimes you just have to go through the fire and taste the flames to see how much heat you can stand.

The speculating surrounding me and things I was once attached to...interesting. 

On some sites people are annoyed with me and don't understand why I can't just... or why I won't just...And to these people I'd like to say … Shit Happens.

On some sites people are supporting me and looking forward my next moves. And to those people I say thank you, from the bottom of my heart. But that “thank you” doesn't come without its own set of worries.

Keeping it 100, I feel an overwhelming pressure to be great...like so many people are rooting for me so hard, that its absolutely impossible for me to even dance on the edge of mediocrity. Not saying that I'd want to do that, but damn.

The influx of tweets, DM's, emails, messages, tags I get everyday with people telling me that they KNOW I've got some amazing things in the works, I want to be hit them back, like, “Hey, hold up there”.

Now, this isn't me putting myself down or anything, it's really me just admitting how much I don't wanna disappoint anyone. I have a ton of ideas in my head, and naturally I think they're all brilliant. But what artist doesn't think each of their ideas is a golden master piece... seriously?

So I did what anyone with lots of ambition, loyal supporters, and ripening creativity would do; I retreated inside my head for a couple weeks and wallowed in my self-induced writers block, unsure of what to do or how to do it. 

I thought I was attempting to figure out my voice, my passion, my stories, my purpose and I swear, I was deep off in some psychological abyss looking for the meaning of life. But my dad pulled me back with five of the simplest words ever:

DO WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY

And just like that it dawned it on me.

Okay, well not that moment, but the next morning when I woke up. I went to my computer and I just started writing. I couldn't type fast enough. 

Now mind you, my writers block had been so crazy the last couple weeks it could've gotten certified. But it was, just flowing. How was this possible? It was possible because I stopped tripping about stuff that didn't even really exist. I was worried about limitations I had put on myself. I stopped thinking about pleasing people, and what others might want or need. All of this, all of it, was stupid. I just needed to write what I wanted to write. 'Cause really that's all I can do, right?

As an artist, you create from your heart, from a personal place, and that's the most important part of what we do it and why we do it. If people decide to like whatever you create, that's just a bonus. So I'm writing, and I'm writing from my heart.

And when its all said and done, I hope ya'll like it, but it won't be required.