21.

Tomorrow I am turning 21. A full on, completely legal adult. Yay, I can buy my own alcohol! But that's really it. I don't feel any different. I'm not acting any different. Personally, I am not in the place I wanted to be when I turned 21. And for a few days, I have been dwelling on that fact. I haven't graduated from college yet, I don't have the greatest job, and I don't even have my license yet (don't make fun of me). But, I must say, I'm farther than I was last year. I have a higher GPA, more career opportunities, a great boyfriend, and even more supportive people around me. I notice my mistakes, and I don't regret making them because I am headstrong and more determined because of them. But I can't help to think: what could I have done better? What advice can I give to people who aren't yet 21 so that they don't make the same mistakes I have made? Well, here they are:

1. Go to community college first. When you are just stepping out of high school and just leaving from under your parents' roof and rules, you are vulnerable. Whether you got plastered throughout high school or not, college is a whole different ball park. High school gives a slight leniency because they want you to get the hell out. In college, they could care less. It is your job to achieve your dreams at this point, not theirs. And being 18, overly excited, and vulnerable, it's very easy to mess up. It's easy to drink all night and live the TV version of college that you saw on American Pie 2. So, my advice is go to community college first. Yeah, you may be upset that you have to live another two years with your parents, but you will have an associates' degree, a lot of credits to transfer, and your head will be on a little straighter than the clumsy-brained freshmen that walk onto college campuses looking for the nearest bottle of Burnetts (ew). 

2. Significant other is exactly that. Being so young, of course you're going to want to experience certain things like a drunken one-night stand, falling in love, or being so freshly single from your long, drawn-out high school relationship that you are happy that you can screw up (no pun intended). And it is completely okay to want to do these things. And, not to sound like Mommy Dear or anything, but my only advice to you is don't lose yourself. I have seen many men and women lose parts of themselves inside of scandalous college sexual relation every weekend, and I have also seen men and women lose themselves because they are so deeply infatuated with their new boyfriend/girlfriend that they cast all of their dreams and hard work aside and forget what they have made it so far for. You are young. Experience life while you don't have all of the responsibilities. And by life, I don't mean experiencing every nearby penis or vagina. I mean, do community service. Volunteer. Get an internship. Join a club or make a club. Play a sport. Do movie night with your girls or game night with your guys. Pledge a sorority/fraternity. Experience college (and if you aren't planning on going to college) experience life in your young age. Take life by the horns and run with it because these are the golden years. Take advantage of your opportunities. Do you really want to just be able to tell your kids, "oh yeah, I had lots of alcohol and sex in college...that's about it"? Significant other is exactly that, other. Not husband, not whole entire life wrapped inside a person. Other. Your life should not be revolved around this person, nor should your sole happiness be based on this person. Make sure you are happy and the SO should be happy as well BEFORE you guys start anything serious. You should not make each other happy, but happier. Build each other. Complement each other. Support each other. Believe in each other. And everything else will come from there. 

3. Get a job. Seriously. You are not a senior in high school anymore. If you do not already have a job, go get one. I did not make this mistake, but I am still giving this advice because I have seen this mistake made numerous times. Your mother and father are not obliged to look after you anymore. I'm sure they will, but you have to show some initiative. Do you really want to be 20 years old still asking your mom for money to go to the movies? I'm sure you want to feel adult when you leave high school, so you have to act adult too, and adults don't just depend on Mommy and Daddy for everything. Get out there and grind. Whether you're working at McDonalds or at the nearest firm as an intern, WORK. Hard work always pays off. 

4. Don't let your living space become uncontrollably messy. Every young adult has this problem, unless you are OCD or an absolute beat freak, which is okay--no judgment here. But speaking for myself, this happened to me soooooo often (and still does). When you are so wrapped up in the hustle and bustle of classes, extracurriculars, friends, making dining hours, studying, doing homework, and finding time to watch the newest episode of Teen Wolf, it's hard to manage a clean room. And if you're not on a college campus, if you're in community college or just working, even the hustle and bustle of work and perhaps class and making time for friends and extracurriculars can be hassling. So your room can either be cluttered with some clothes on the floor or it can look like that line in Frank Ocean's song Thinking Bout You "a tornado flew around the room before you came." And that has been me more times than one. So, advice is to clean your room every Friday before you go out so that throughout the week, you aren't even more stressed than you already are because the room is messy-- it will be cleaned Friday. And you have to stick to it, the cleaning Friday part. Because, trust me, once you miss one Friday, it's all downhill from there. A messy room provokes a messy brain, and causes more somewhat depression and stress after a long day. So just clean on Friday if it gets too messy, and try to tidy up throughout the week. 

5. Don't pig out. Work out. I get it. You worked a double shift and you just want some Five Guys. Or maybe you have two exams and you need some Sour Patch Kids and three cans of Starbucks' Double Shot espresso. Or maybe you're super drunk and you want to eat three packs of Ramen (I call it oodles n noodles). Slip ups happen, we all like to get a little greasy sometimes. But what you don't want to do is continue this routine every day. Cafeteria food in itself is not very healthy in college, and to top it all off, you're surrounded by pizza places and diners and Chinese food and all the things that don't taste like the crappy caf food. If you pig out, you need to work out. Even if you don't pig out, work out. The Freshman 15 didn't happen to me until my junior year, but it happened nonetheless. Stress causes weight gain, as well as not getting enough sleep. Sounds like young adulthood right? Getting hammered, eating greasy food, getting four hours of sleep, and doing this all weekend until you realize you have a paper due Monday. Stress, lack of sleep, pigging out. If you work out, you can relieve stress, you will get a wonderful night's rest from the workout, and you worked off the piggy. Shit happens, just make sure you clean it up. 

6. Find three hobbies. I actually saw this on a website called Daily Zen List while I was on Stumbleupon the other day and I thought it was magnificent. Find three hobbies: one that makes you money, one that keeps you in shape, and one that unlocks your creativity. This is great advice. In this way, you can be well-balanced in the ways of art, the ways of fitness, and the ways of entrepreneurship and finance. In times of stress, you can relate to any or all of these hobbies to release your mind. And if they all have benefits, then why not? You can enhance a talent, enhance your finances, and enhance your body muscle. Sounds like a plan to me. 

If I had done all of this, I would be closer to graduating, I'd have a banging body, I wouldn't be so stressed all the time, and I would probably have more money. But I'm working towards it and I won't quit. I won't ever be content if I know I can achieve more. I guess that's my last piece of advice. Never be okay with where you are. Always try to progress. Always be hungry. If you work hard, you can have whatever you desire. Have a hungry mind and a motivated body and the rest will come. 

Happy 21st to me!

-Kendra

the meaning behind the name.

I have been promoting my blog on different social media sites like Instagram and Twitter, hoping people would read and understand what I've had to say. Thankfully, they have. One of my friends have requested a topic that I think is quite unique, so I decided to expand on it. 

Q: Your name on Instagram is flawlesshysteria and your blog name is divine-delirium. Since they are so closely related, what do those names mean to you on a personal level?

I have always been told that I was pretty or beautiful or stunning, etc etc. Even when I was much younger, people would stop my mother and compliment her on how beautiful I was, and I would just smile and accept. All of these compliments would make someone cocky, supposedly, or narcissistic. Not me. I have always been humbled when someone calls me beautiful because I believe that beauty is more than just a pretty face. Beauty is having the ability to make heads turn from your confidence and style and poise and glowing personality. Beauty is hard work and perseverance and patience. Beauty is ambition put into action. Beauty is being comfortable in your natural skin and being okay with the world seeing you just as you are. Beauty is being you and fully you, not altering a thing for a soul. Beauty is when you walk into a room and people don't just notice your physical presence, but also feel your enigmatic aura around them. And maybe when people have called me beautiful, they didn't mean to go that deep. But that's how I see it, and that is how I take the compliment every time. 

There are many words associated with the word beautiful, like pulchritudinous, flawless, stunning, capturing, divine. I chose the word flawless because although I am flawed, I recognize, accept, and flaunt my flaws, therefore making me flawless. I chose the word divine because the thoughts that come from my mind are synonymous to how I feel as a person--nothing less than divine. Not perfect, but perfectly tainted--divine. 

I know a lot of people, and people who have associated with me know that I am wild and crazy. And by that I don't mean standing on tables and doing the Coyote Ugly (not saying I wouldn't either haha). I mean I am never afraid to be my weird, awkward, goofy, outgoing self, no matter who is around or who is watching. I don't live for others, I live for myself. So you best believe that I will act as myself and show my true colors to everyone who encounters me. When I was younger, I was teased and taunted. Not only because I had a slight unibrow and a shadow of a stache, but also because I was so quirky. I made weird faces and weird noises and I wasn't like everyone else. And we all know that when people don't understand something, they make fun of it. That was me, the one no one understood. And after trying to cover up that side of me and trying to be "normal" for pretty much all of middle school and a little piece of high school, I decided that there's no such thing as normal, and if there is, I don't want to be it if that mean I'm not being myself. So I embrace any time someone calls me weird or crazy or goofy because that's exactly what I am and I am happy to be who I am. That is the reason why I chose the words hysteria and delirium, because they are better words for crazy. 

So all in all, flawlesshysteria and divine-delirium define me in two short words. I am crazy and beautiful, and I love me that way. 

N.

"Stupid head!" "Butt face!" "Ugly!" "Yo momma!" 

I was taunted as a kid. I had a little excess facial hair, and I was taller than any boy I encountered (plus, I was a tad awkward). Kids called me all kinda of names: a man, she-woman, jolly green giant, bearded lady (I didn't have a beard), among a slew of other names. But now puberty has done me well. I'm beautiful and smart and still awkward and people love me, and though I will never forget the kids who called me these names, I have bigger and better things to worry about than dwell on the past...which leads me to this story. 

On April 4, 2014 I was a contestant in the Alpha Phi Alpha Miss Black and Gold District Pageant. In this pageant, there was a "question round". What that means is that each woman is asked a question, in which she doesn't know the context, and the woman must answer in the most poised and educated way possible. 

We all received the same question: do you feel that the use of the n-word is a problem in our society?

I had not known how the other ladies answered, because we were led into different rooms so we wouldn't hear the question or answer of the lady before us. 

I walked on stage elegantly and nervously, wearing a gorgeous gold sequined mermaid gown, and prepared for my question. 

"Do you feel that the use of the n-word is a problem in our society?"

I paused. I wasn't expecting this kind of question, and Lord did I want to win this for my school more than anything at that moment. But as I thought on how to answer the question, and as I reviewed all the faces in front of me, anxiously waiting on my answer, I realized that what I wanted more than this win, was to be honest with everyone who came to support me that day, and to be honest with myself. I answered the question in the most honest way I knew, and I would like to expand on my thought on this topic in this post. 

Like my intro paragraph, I was teased and taunted throughout elementary, middle, and a piece of high school (I started getting my eyebrows done in my sophomore year, so the excess facial hair was no longer an issue). Now, I will be 21 in two weeks. I have a beautiful boyfriend, a cool job, ambitions, a killer smile, and lots of friends who love who I am. I'm not 9 years old anymore, and although those cruel words from those kids hurt me then, I'm not affected by it in the least now. 

The word "nigger" was created by old white racists as a way to make sure black people knew that they were not like everyone else, that they were beneath the rest. Black people were degraded for years by this term, and, when someone is purposely trying to be racist, we still are. 

You'll hear the word "nigger" used by 11-year-old white boys on XBOX Live on Call of Duty. You'll hear the word "nigger" from drunk frat boys who may get in a slight dispute with a nearby black guy who hit on his girlfriend. But black people changed this word to mean something social. We have always been a race to change something negative into a positive, to flip something from cynicism to optimism. We changed "nigger" to "nigga" and used it amongst each other so that others using it on is wouldn't hurt us. And now, it's used in rap songs, as words of endearment among friends. It is no longer seen as a bad thing, and to continue to compare a black kid calling a friend his "nigga" to a white slave master calling his slaves "niggers" is so demeaning. And by demeaning, I mean to contradict our creative and witty attempts to stay strong throughout the racism by changing a racist term to a term of endearment is demeaning. It's just like being called names in elementary. Are you really going to live in the past over some name blacks were called years ago? We can recognize it but we can move past it. We have a black president, and so many other black people have made significant footprints on our society, footprints that are way more significant and should be more important than the word nigga. Society's focus is too much on the negative past more than the positive present. Just let it go, my nigga. Let it go. We have become so much more than a word from years ago, so what's wrong with a "hey man, you my nigga" every now and then? Nothing. It's so small compared to everything else black people have accomplished. Let us have what we created to relate to each other! What harm is it doing? None. So just get over it! No harm done. 

Nigga nigga nigga. 

life of a college student

Two days ago, I received an email from the college I attend, Frostburg State, saying that they have withdrawn me from the university because of my inability to pay the rest of my bill for the spring semester.

If anything, I was hurt. Baffled. Pissed. Disappointed.

And not disappointed in Frostburg. No, not at all. They are just doing business by all means necessary and I understand that. More disappointed in the way my life has decided to pan out. Disappointed in the cards I was dealt and the way I have played them. I guess my poker face hasn't been too phenomenal to say the least, because I have allowed any and every tough obstacle in my life to affect how I played my cards, and I have ultimately failed myself in the process.

I have spent my whole life as a dependent of my mother, who has always worked her ass off to make sure that I attain the best education, clothes on my back, food on my plate. It has always just been me and my mom against the world, a two-woman team facing a world full of wolves. I always felt sorry for the wolves...

But now, I am under the impression that the wolves won this hand. The wolves chewed me up and spat me out and left me and my mother helpless and defenseless. I'll be 21 in three weeks, I still work as a sales associate at Urban Outfitters, I don't have my degree yet (not super close, either), and I feel as though I am incapable of taking care of myself as a grown woman. And that sucks tremendously because this whole time I'm sitting here thinking I had the perfect plan, paved the yellow brick road for myself and I thought I followed it to a tee. I thought I had it in the bag, that I was surpassing so many others my age and that I was doing well.

My mother said that she would pay for college during my senior year of high school. I have transferred schools three times for various reasons, but I was determined to stay at Frostburg and bang out these last few months and get my degree. I made Dean's List for Spring 2014 and I worked my ass off--I hardly partied, never hung out with my friends, fully dedicated myself to my studies.
And, for all of this hard work, I can't continue my college education for monetary reasons. And I realize then that I'm not so different.

Yes, I'm brilliant. I'm beautiful. I'm spunky and determined. But there are many others just like me who are staggered by the lack of help from the government to pay for school. I received no financial aid for this past year because "my mother makes too much money", even as a single mom who lives paycheck to paycheck because she pays for my schooling. There are so many others just like me who don't have enough credentials to get a well-paying job to help pay for school significantly, but work two to three jobs, driving themselves up two walls and down two more, to pay for 12 credits. The cards we are dealt at this point are not fairly dealt to us. We are chained to a chair and thrown cards and are not given a choice on how to play them because the government never gave us a proper choice. Either be rich or commit mental and emotional suicide every semester in hopes of finding finances for college. That's what happens to us. We are the lambs, and they are the wolves. And they deal the hands and play them, too. We are a generation that has so much talent and determination and intelligence and perseverance and diligence, all trapped in bodies and minds that have no way to pay for a college education. We are forced to cry out for help and, most of the time, our cries are answered by a fat tuition bill and a lifetime of student loan paybacks. We are a generation that is forced to feel helpless when all we need is a chance. All we need is an open window of opportunity and we will climb through it, even if we cut ourselves on the broken glass. We may be helpless, but we are determined.

I can do so many things with the cards I have been dealt. I can be a model, an actress, a screenwriter, a journalist, an editor...all I need is the chance.