This post is inspired by my friend Lamont. Thank you for curing my years-long writer’s block and inspiring me.

It’s also dedicated to my Friend La Ferne, yes, that was me. Ok, I’ll write. 🙏

Also to Leila, who told me how something I wrote helped her. So here goes.

There’s a situation that happened over the weekend that pissed me off. I’m not going into it because I’m a private and the details wouldn’t give this post more context.

After spending half a day pondering and then the other half asking those that I respect and trust for their outsider view to my not really complex-but-complex-to-me-cause-I’m-in the middle-of-this-shitstorm-of-a-situation (but not really a shitstorm to others, but sort of you’ve ever been in these emotional landscapes)

(Note: when you need to ask others, you’re just confirming what is already true and in front of you. You ask, hoping your instinct isn’t right and that you won’t have to enact the inevitable that is surely right around the corner).

I went to sleep, woke up, went to work early to prep for a meeting and then had coffee with my work wives and caught up on the happenings of all that the new year has brought in for us all. Much love to my ladies, who are so strong and resilient that make me wish that they’re rubbing off on me and making me a little bit more like them.

The rest of the day was a blur and busy and then right before going to bed it dawned on me.

There was a scenario, that had been going on in my life I was unsure of how to gauge because it involves other people, other parties.

With so many moving parts like the gears of a watch, we synchronized and I was imported into a world that wasn’t mine partially by choice and necessity.

But it’s been a month. And I realized I wasn’t happy. Or so, Tracy pointed it out to me. I wasn’t being myself. I had been walking on eggshells breaking my own rule of allowing emotional labor to rule in my own personal life.

Let me explain, at work, we are forced to nod and smile and say “Yes”, “Please”, “Thank you”, “You’re Welcome” when we really want to say “Shut up”, “Fuck you” or “Please go away” or “I quit this bitch” or “I quit this, bitch!”. The point is, I go on censoring myself in my professional life. I don’t like censoring myself in my personal life because I’m not that good at wearing masks and pretending everything is ok because I’m not a fembot or Stepford wife. I have this dumb shit (called feelings) that I’m trying to manage as a full-time job (just like you) and being authentic for yourself is just as important (if not more so) than being authentic for others.

Anyhoo, I realized in my late-night moment of clarity, that monthly reviews are amazing. I am so guilty of staying in things, jobs, relationships, homes, situations much too long, though I should have left much earlier. Haven’t we all in some capacity or another at one (or many points in our life?!). I suspect it’s that the being in the thick of it syndrome that affords a person, a lack of clarity or perspective by being right in the middle of the situation. You can’t see things like an outsider because you’re the exact opposite: a participant, who only sees and feels from your own perspective.

Well though it may be the blind leading the blind, let me introduce this new thing I deduced for all my life’s problems: 1-month reviews.

At every month milestone, ask yourself the following :

“Am I happy?”

“Is this making my life/ things better or easier?”

“What is this costing me?” (Note: it’s not always a financial question or answer)

“Do I want to do this for another month/quarter/year/decade?” (Note: this measures your true happiness factor and sometimes longevity is measured by tolerance and tolerance can be factored by changing a few conditions)

After answering those questions, you’ll know if somethings gotta change in your life or not. You’ll know if you want to deal with it another month or give it up and make room for something better.

You do the 1-month review because they pass and they will slowly make up your year. A month is a good measure of time a short term unit to let things play out or long enough to allow a story or situation to unwind and work itself out or just abruptly end.

This post has been brought to you by this, which we all saw last summer.

And the fact sometimes you just gotta quit this bitch! & quit this, bitch!