Preparing for the Next Step

Lately I've been meditating on the fact that before there's a new beginning, there's an ending. I have less than two weeks left at my job and I'm excited that after two years, I'm moving on. When you first start a career in television news, you're often told to start small. Those who would mentor you then advice that in order to get your career where it ultimately should be that every two years you should move on to a bigger market. Well, I started not so small and I guess that's part of the reason I was a freelancer and not a full-time employee for so long. Anyway, I'm going from Market #27 to Market #1 so I guess I'm heeding the advice that I've been given.

The bad news is that I'm still very nervous about moving to NYC. It's all a bit overwhelming closing up shop, planning a move, finding an affordable apartment, financing everything and just thinking about getting set up in "the big city."

The good news is that I may have found a roommate. So let's all pray that this works out and it makes things a lot easier for me.

More to come, stay tuned.

5:43 p.m.

Every July 8th @ 5:43pm I have a vain moment because it's the exact moment I was born & in my head today Jay-Z's "Every Day A Star Is Born"

Operation Summer Reading: BITNB

This morning I finished Helena Andrews' book "Bitch Is The New Black," as has been said and as has been written it's a delightful and charming book about a young woman growing up, living life, and coming into her own. While Andrews has said in past interviews that she doesn't want her work being labeled as a black version of "Sex and the City" she succeeds in convincing me that her story is about more than sex in the city. Yes, there are stories about her flings and rememberances of those encounters that she wished could have been more, but the totality of her work is quite substantive.

Her memoir is it's own unique story about coming of age in a time when her generation, my generation has been told it can go through experiencing the turmoil which sometimes accompanies living life, finding and then losing love, and trying to sustain relationships, and still in the end have hope that we will find contentment. I might have to steal a page from her playbook which she says worked, "Mentally fast-forwarding through all the boring stuff in order to one day get to the good parts helped some." I mean I have to cope right. We've been told once and again such contradictory things as you can have it all, and no you really cannot have it all, because you want what you want all at once. Andrews reminds me that growing into adulthood will be about more than my "full-time job" and my "part-time life." Yes, please tell me there's more to moving further away from 21 and closer to the rest of my life than that.

The book I only learned was a collection of essays once I started reading it, but in the end it was story which explored the complicated and complex life it talked about in such a refreshing way. And yes while reading a memoir sometimes makes one feel like a voyeur, Helena (I can call her that now) invites us into her world willingly and makes us feel as though we can be right at home being her friend.

And, if you're still wondering what a young black man can get from a book that will be the beach read for a gazillion little Ms.'s this summer true stories, good stories break through those seen and unseen barriers. We can all learn life lessons from stories which talk about successes, failures, getting up and falling down, and ultimately enjoying who the hell we are.

She get it from her momma

So I'm a little more than a month away from having to pick up my life and move from Baltimore to NYC and I can admit I'm a little stressed. I still haven't found an apartment or a roommate, paying to move into an apartment is going to more than likely make me broke, it'll be my first time living on my own, and I'm leaving all that is familiar and in my mind normal.

My mom always says pray on it, and I know she gets this from the infinite wisdom that was her momma and my grandmother. Yes, I've also heard it from other sources that God will not put on me more than I can bear. But sometimes I want a response that is more sympathetic or empathetic and that does acknowledges my feelings as real.

But I'm going to breathe because though I couldn't find the song on YouTube I found the lyrics and these words "If you pray don't worry But If you're gonna worry, don't pray" do mean something to me.

So since she get it from her momma, I should take it from my momma not to worry so much.

I Love .... Teedra Moses