No time to read? Press the orange play button above to listen instead.
Growing up I was not considered the one who would get us out the hood.
That was my older sister, Jasmine and man was she talented.
She was the cheerleader, the dancer, the performer.
And I’m not talking just for fun, she did these things competitively and won first place every single time. To the point where she literally had a room in my Grandma’s basement dedicated to her trophies.
And not only was she talented in those ways, she was talented socially too. Very popular, everyone knew her, and her personality just shined.
Then there was me.
The quiet one.
The semi-smart one.
The talentless one.
The one who tried cheerleading, then quit.
The one who tried dance, then quit.
The one who tried performing, and sucked.
So at an early age I just accepted the fact that I didn’t have a talent. And that I would just be the little sister of someone who did.
I wasn’t mad about it though, because it was all I knew.
And my Mom played a role in it as well.
With all of my sister’s ventures, whether it was cheerleading, dance, oratory competitions or pageants, my mother was the quintessential stage mom.
She was the one writing the award-winning speeches for my sister, staying up all night making sure she performed it perfectly. She was driving my sister to the dance practices, signing her up for the pageants, shopping for gowns, screaming for her at the cheer competitions.
It was giving Momager, and rightfully so! This was her first daughter and she saw that she could be a star.
And then there was me, the quintessential oops baby.
Literally, my existence was an oops. Here’s a little backstory on how I was born:
In 1990, my parents had my sister, and got married a couple of months later.
And In 1991, my dad began cheating on my mom with a woman we’ll call “Leena.”
My mom, who at the time was a hot-headed Scorpio from the Southside of Chicago, with a new baby and a cheating husband, did what any 26-year old woman would do after finding out such a thing…
She beat his side chick up.
…And busted out the windows of his car *whispers* with my sister in the backseat, and damaged her own car by rear-ending his several times until she got her frustrations out.
In short, she was mad.
And honestly, I don’t blame her.
26-year old me wish a nigga would!
But now 30-year old me is like, ehh I would just walk away. And I’m sure 30-year old her would feel the same. But I digress.
Anywho, after the beating up and busting of windows, my dad continued to see Leena and put his raw penis inside of her, resulting in a new baby boy.
Yes, a year after my sister was born and my parents were married, my dad cheated and got another woman pregnant.
Scandalous.
And according to my mom, she was through.
There was no more coming back, no more trying to make it work.
However, she would still let my dad get my sister, but their bond was broken.
The son was born and my dad went from having one kid and one wife, to two kids, a wife and a baby momma.
But one night, roughly two years later, my dad is dropping my sister off at home when he comes inside.
My mom and dad end up talking, catching up I suppose, and yup you guessed it!
He whips out that raw penis yet again and puts it in my mom.
And months later she finds out she’s pregnant.
And no, she is not happy about it.
So her first thought is what many probably consider when they find themselves in a situation like this.
Abort!!
And again, I don’t blame her.
Your estranged husband cheated, and after beating up the girl, banging up you and his car, him begging and pleading for his family back, you being done, him having another baby, yall slipping up, then finding out you’re pregnant?
Who wouldn’t even think about abortion?
Well, although she thought about it, and had the money for it, and ignored my dad begging her not to get rid of it, and her having a dream about a baby with cute fat cheeks in a casket, she decided not to…
And I was born.
Jalyssa Tonyea Woodall aka their oops baby.
And although my parents love me, the reality is they were not expecting me to be here.
Now let’s fast-forward to me witnessing my mom be the perfect stage mom, for my sister.
And me just watching.
At this point my dad was completely out of the picture and out having more babies (yup, another one with Miss Leena too), so to say me having a talent was never even discussed, or explored, or prioritized, would be spot on.
But thankfully it takes a village to raise a child, insert Richard.
Or BuBu as we called him (because we black and everybody in my family got a nickname).
BuBu was my mom’s dad aka my grandpa, and he sparked my first potential talent.
When I was young, had to be 3-4 years old, BuBu and I would sit in the living room watching TV and he would have me write the alphabet time and time again. I would do good, but for whatever reason I would always write the letter “S” backwards and he’d be like, “no this way, try again Lele.”
It went from writing letters to coloring books.
Again, we would be in the living room on the couch and BuBu would have me color, and would peek over every so often to remind me to “stay in the lines.”
It went from coloring books, to notebook paper and crayons, and with this, I’d draw pictures.
My most popular one being of my Aunt and Uncle Earnest. I drew them in their church clothes, bible in hand.
My Aunt actually found it a few years ago and gave it to me. I’m going to include it below.
A couple of years after that, we got our first home computer and I spent countless hours on Microsoft Paint, creating whatever came to mind.
Then I found my way to Microsoft Word, making flyers for my two businesses: Le Nails and Le’s Cleaning Services
At this point I’m like 9-years old, but just like now, I was serious about my business!
I can remember getting the flyers printed and putting them in our neighbor’s mailboxes. I ended up having a couple of clients too!
Now you may be thinking, what does this have to do with talent? Or your momma beating up Miss Leena? Or your dad having fitty-leven children?
Let me explain.
When I hear the word talent, my mind instantly goes to the top four: singing, dancing, playing an instrument, or a sport.
But if we look up the definition of talented (fact about me I love looking up definitions), it means “having a natural aptitude or skill for something.”
Now when I think of who is “supposed” to help their children explore their talents, I think of two people: the parents.
But as I explained above, my mom was too busy pouring into her first kid, the one she actually wanted. And my dad was too busy bussin in bitches.
So for the longest I didn’t think I had a talent.
But thank God for my Grandpa BuBu.
Because although I can’t sing like Beyonce, and unlike Shakira my hips do lie. And even though I never stuck with a sport long enough to see if I’m any good, and the one time I tried to play the recorder in 3rd grade, I quit before I could even get good (another story on my relationship with quitting coming soon).
One thing I’ve always had a “natural aptitude or skill for” is being very detailed.
Me being very detailed, is what got me to writing the letter S correctly.
Me being very detailed, is what got me to always color in the lines.
Me being very detailed, is what got me to drawing pictures of the people and things around me.
It’s s what led me to designing on Microsoft Paint and Word.
It’s what landed me into the graphic design program in college.
It’s what landed me into the web design program in grad school. It’s what landed me in the marketing world.
Me being very detailed, is what led to me creating this blog, writing these stories, and now talking to you.
And me being very detailed helped me see that maybe I wasn’t talentless all along.
Til next time, peace.
