Adiba Nelson

I applaud you for being here. I applaud you for giving life the five fingers of death and deciding to show up for whatever the day brings — every day.

I think we can all agree that there is an incredible amount of power in being a woman. We run corporations, households, and our own glittery, mashed-up, sometimes-so-fucked-up-I-wanna-hide-under-a-blanket-and-never-come-out-again lives. And we do it as gracefully as we possibly can. And while we’re doing it, we have a soundtrack playing in the background.

"...do you know what happens in lightly buzzed stupors? You get brave. Really brave. So, I signed up for it. In my lightly buzzed stupor I signed up for the burlesque mentorship program.

This was how my eating disorder began. This is when I first consciously ate my emotions. THIS is when I said, “I don’t need you to love me. I don’t need to love myself. I don’t need to feel or be felt. Hear or be heard. See or be seen. I just need to eat. I just need to eat because food will never judge me. Food will never leave me (unless I make it leave me, which I did. In college. A LOT.).

[CN: mention of suicide] How did we get through love before Lemonade? We examined our lives through Mary’s shamelessly honest storytelling on My Life.

How do you go from two extremely different individuals living life separately to two extremely different individuals merging their separate lives into one loving family portrait — all while avoiding a cosmic meltdown? Very, very carefully. And with a bottle of wine… or 50.

He opened his mouth and time stood still. My pulse quickened. My heart raced. My eyes filled with tears. And I. WAS. PROUD.

While most of my friends on social media are in a complete uproar over season four of Orange Is The New Black (OITNB to the rest of us), I am standing at full attention, giving Jenji Kohan the loudest slow clap in the history of slow claps.

There wasn’t going to be any sparkle. There wasn’t going to be any new mommy magic.

Enter: Lemonade. [...] Beyoncé reminds us that she is as real a woman as the rest of us. She is a strong woman, yet made even stronger in her ability to start anew.