Adiba Nelson

Adiba Nelson

Bio

Adiba Nelson currently resides in Tucson, AZ with her fiancee, 6 year old daughter, and 2 teenage stepsons-to-be. When she is not advocating for disability rights, performing burlesque, or writing her monthly style column, she is busy managing social media for her local Easter Seals affiliate. She is also the author of the children's book Meet ClaraBelle Blue, and is currently working on the follow up book, ClaraBelle's Big Discovery. You can find Adiba at http://thefullnelson.net/

Adiba Nelson Articles

My Life by Mary J. Blige was the Lemonade of the mid-to-late 90s. Image: Uptown/MCA Records.

Before Lemonade There Was My Life

[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.

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I Don't Love This Parenting Thing

I don't love this. I don't love any part of it. I don't love the fact that a life is in my hands every moment of every day.

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Credit:  Skwid Inc. Photographic Arts

3 Ways Burlesque Has Made Me A Better Mom

"...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.

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You know that old adage, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”? We make good on that. Image: Parkwood Entertainment/screenshot.

Lemonade:  Beyoncé's Visual Telling Of Love

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.

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With the exception of Jennifer Hudson winning an Oscar for her amazing turn as the glamorous yet jilted Effie in Dreamgirls, every single Oscar that a minority actress has won has been for portraying a negative or otherwise stereotypical role.

#OscarsSoWhite: When Art Doesn't Imitate Life

If 93% of the Academy is White, but as of 2014, only 62% of Americans were White, and art is supposed to imitate life...

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I'm a diva. Image: Jade Beall.

I Stand Accused Of Being A Diva

If I had to pinpoint it, I’d say I am a diva because I had a mom who demanded nothing but the very best from me, from how I sat in a chair, to how I entered a room, to what grades I brought home. She demanded the best from me — and now, finally, I am at a point where I demand the very best from myself, and those I surround myself with.

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I’m Becky, and I didn’t even know it. Leave it to the woman I model my hustle after to put my asshole behavior right in my face. Image: Parkwood Entertainment/screenshot.

I'm Becky With The Good Hair: That Time Beyoncé Called Me Out

In my mind, I was Beyoncé, and she was Becky. She was the one he needed to run back to. She was the one who could have his ass, because I was leaving and I wasn’t sorry about it.
Then Lemonade came out and the light bulb came on.

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Postpartum depression is real. Take it from Adiba Nelson.

Postpartum Depression Stole Two Months Of My Life

It was the weirdest thing. I looked at this tiny human and felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. No overwhelming joy at finally meeting this person I’d been so excited for in months prior, no lurking sadness about no longer being pregnant and relishing in those shared “inside mommy’s belly” moments. Just... nothing. My brain said, “You have a baby now,” and that was that.

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Eau de...Black Woman. Yep.

Eau De...Black Woman?

Apparently, we Black women have a smell. And it’s been bottled and labeled and is being offered up for consumption by Sunflower Cosmetics. Yep. You read that right. There is a legitimate company out there who is selling a perfume called “Black Women.” If my girlfriend hadn’t posted a picture of it in a local shop, I would have called her a damn liar.

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Credit: Conny Liegl/Flickr

If My Boyfriend Cheats, Please Don’t Tell Me

I would break girl code. And if you love me, I hope you would do it for me too.

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