Adiba Nelson

Want to go on a carbs and wine tour of Italy? Break out the leggings and go for it. This time is yours.

Shit. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t get so sassy right now.

My father was an abusive man, plain and simple.

That wasn’t all he was, but to my mother, that's who he was. He was a controlling individual who perhaps took the scripture, “Wives, submit to your husbands” a tad bit too literally — and when my mom didn’t submit, she paid the price. Often with a blow to the head.

Being a body positive/body acceptance activist means that regardless of WHAT shape my body takes at any given point and time in my life, I love it. I am kind to it. I remember that it has the right to love and adoration, first from myself, and then from my man. I remember that all bodies, those bigger than and those smaller than mine, are entitled to the same, and they are no better or worse than my own.

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

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.

Black women were branded as sexually promiscuous and immoral, which in turn was used as justification for sexual trauma/rape.

That man shakes me to my core. Actually, not HIM, per se, but the people who blindly follow him. The out-and-out bigots who will call me the N-word just as easily as they’d call their buddy “Bob.” The people who SWEAR they're not bigots, but support him because they believe in his promise of new jobs and deportations.

[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.

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.