Sandcastles

Greetings and Welcome to the first blogpost of my Senior Year. Sorry it's a few days late, but y'know life.

Thank you to those who have been keeping up with me and my blog so far, and thank you to possibly some new readers as I've met quite a few people this past month!

Here's an update on my life:

• At the beginning of this month I worked my last day at Abbott's and was pretty happy about that. Along with that I journeyed back up to UVM to start RA Training! I've met so many fantastic people on the WDW/MSH staff and feel so lucky and blessed to be as close as I am to as many people as I am on the staff. I hope this year continues to grant blessings like these and I can't wait to develop stronger relationships with not only my staff, but my residents (who seem very nice and respectful), my family, my chosen family & friends here at UVM, and the people on UPB!
• Unfortunately, I had to drop out of one of my commitments for this school year, Peer Advising. I realized, on the first day of training, that I was going to be able to give as much time and energy of myself as was required while still maintaining the devotion I have to the other organizations I'm a part of and responsibilities I already have. 
• Another sorta unfortunate circumstance, Nicki Minaj rescheduled her concert so I won't see her on October 5th, HOWEVER, I'm still coming home because I need to take Genesis out to dinner like I promised her and I also have a Dentist's Appointment 
• SPEAKING OF, Genesis Jewel Williams, my first 1st little cousin, had a monumental birthday this past Thursday! Genesis is now a TEENAGER. 13 years old! My goodness, I'm crying just thinking about it. A lot of people are probably wondering "wow why does he have so many feelings about this oh my goodness won't he just stop crying." But no, seriously, Genesis is the first person in my life that I can consistently remember being a part of my life from her birth up until now. This is an extremely powerful time for me because I've watched her grow into someone so strong, intelligent, funny, and talented and I've watched myself grow in how I interact with her and my other two little cousins and just how full my heart is able to be. I enjoy being around them and I cannot wait to talk to Genesis about how 8th grade is going and can't wait to see Valentino and Abbott in October and just be surrounded by people whom I love. I'm so grateful to have them in my life.
• My classes seem to be doing well so far and I'm excited for them! I'm taking Neurobiology, Advanced Cognitive Neuroscience, Religion in America, Interpretation of Religion, and also finally got into Emotional Development & Temperament! I think each of the classes are going to be challenging, but I'm hoping, and believe that I'm up for that challenge!
• I'm excited to begin UPB stuff soon and all the other great things I'm doing this semester!! Also, I think I have a really good plan for going to the gym and my diet so I'm excited to start that up soon. I'll probably have much more to say about those things in my next blog post.

Onto the more Beyoncèsque part of my blog post!!

"Sandcastles" is probably the most emotional song on the album. The themes (and chapters) explored thus far in the album/film were Intuition, Denial, Anger, Apathy, Emptiness (Loss), Accountability, and Reformation. "Sandcastles" is the song featured in the 8th chapter of Lemonade on Forgiveness. 

Beyoncè starts the chapter by stating "Baptize me... now that reconciliation is possible. If we're gonna heal, let it be glorious." I think this is a very powerful moment in the film. Beyoncè has seemingly dealt with so much and has shown it all in the previous 7 chapters, but she is still able to forgive- still willing to heal and to let that healing be glorious. Later on in the chapter she states: "Do you remember being born? Are you thankful? Are the hips that cracked, the deep velvet of your mother... and her mother... and her mother?" I think that this is also extremely powerful, not just for this moment in the film, but also for me. 

There's a Nicki Minaj lyric from her 2014 The Pinkprint album opener "All Thing Go" where she states "I love my mother more than life itself and that's a fact. I'd give it all if somehow I could just rekindle that. She never understands why I'm so overprotective; the more I work, the more I feel like somehow they're neglected." This is extremely important to me as a self-proclaimed mama's boy. I want my mother to be able to feel this way; like I'm thankful for being born, because, for the most part, I am. I want her to know that I love her more than life itself because she is such a special human being to me. I am so blessed to have been given the opportunities that I have been given and none of it would've been possible without my family, and more specifically, without my mommy. 

Before the song plays, Beyoncè closes up the spoken-word poetry part with "there is a curse that will be broken," which I think specifically pertains to the curse of fidelity and pain in her family line, in her blood. 

I'd love to give a lot of thought to how I feel about forgiveness, but I feel like there's still a lot of soul-searching I have to do in order to know exactly how I feel about forgiveness. I feel like, in my life, I've been way too forgiving to other people in terms of when they've hurt me and that's led to a lot of drama and pain in my personal life and I'm trying to not feel that way ever again, but again, it hasn't come up since people like that have left my life. In addition to this, I've felt like I haven't been very good at forgiving myself, which is such a hard thing to overcome. I've attacked myself and doubted myself and have hurt myself when it hasn't been necessary and I have a lot of healing to do in terms of self-love and whatnot. I'm excited for that part of my journey. 

"Sandcastles" itself is filled with passion. It's the only part of the film in which Jay makes an appearance. There are a lot of intimate moments that Jay and Bey share throughout the song and the vocals that Beyoncè bursts through with are just so extremely powerful and moving. I think the most touching, powerful lyric for the song is "and your heart is broken 'cause I walked away. Show me your scars and I won't walk away, and I know I promised that I couldn't stay, baby- every promise don't work out that way, no no no no no. Every promise don't work out that way." I think it's just so important that people remain vulnerable to not only the ones they love, but to themselves so that they can grow. 

I think that, in order to practice self-love to the best of our abilities, we also need to be vulnerable with and to one another. 

See yall next month and thanks for reading. :)