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Letting go doesn’t mean giving up; it means moving on. It is one of the hardest things a person can do.
Starting at birth, we grasp on to anything we can get our hands on, and hold on as if we will cease to exist when we let go. We feel that letting go is giving up, quitting, and that as we all know is cowardly.
But as we grow older we are forced to change our way of thinking. We are forced to realize that letting go means accepting things that cannot be. It means maturing and moving on, no matter how hard you have to fight yourself to do so.
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Gossip Girl: The for-real rags-to-riches story of Necole Bitchie
By: Adrienne Samuels Gibbs
[Ebony Magazine, March 2011]
Necole Bitchie, the famously fearless gossip blogger, is afraid of the ocean. In some circles, this fear is called thalassophobia. It’s an intense dislike of open waters and a similar dislike for the fish-monsters that likely live in said spaces.
Bitchie recently took the bitch by the horns and dunked herself in the Atlantic. What better way to cure the phobia than by jumping in feet first. “I wanted to face my fear,” says Bitchie, nee Necole Kane, creator/owner of a used-to-be-but-is-now-not-quite-so-mean-spirited blog that garners some 3. 2million visitors, per Google Analytics. “I can swim. But the ocean? It just scares me. I went [to the Dominican Republic,] and I swam with dolphins; it was an amazing experience.”
Said, trip taken over the Christmas holiday, wasn’t technically a vacation. Bitchie, though one of the Internet’s most bankable voices, only has one assistant, Kimmy, who temporarily took over the hourly blog posts, sending the items to Bitchie for approval prior to posting. It all makes for a 17-hour day with the daily arising at 6a.m.; perusal of CNN, MSNBC, FOX, and other news sites by 7a.m.; checking in with sources about celebs and newsmakers by 9a.m.; and posting of new, juicy gossip every hour or half hour until about 4p.m. And then, while Stateside, there are those parties and happy hours. She’s got to hit those up too.
“I feel like I’m working all of the time. To be honest,” says Bitchie who last year was the Black Weblog Award judges’ pick for the top gossip blog. “I’ve been working on my blog full time for about two years.”
Then she gets sentimental. Sniffles. Starts to cry. NecoleBitchie.com is her baby. Her family. It’s all she has
A Word From Gabrielle Union
I absolutely loved Gabrielle Union’s speech at Essence’s Black Women In Hollywood luncheon!
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We live in a town that rewards pretending. I had been pretending to be fierce and fearless for a very long time. I was a victim masquerading as a survivor. I stayed when I should have run. I was quiet when I should have spoken up. I turned a blind eye to injustice instead of having the courage to stand up for what’s right. I used to shrink in the presence of other dope beautiful women. I used to revel in gossip and rumors, and I lived for the negativity inflicted upon my sister actresses or anyone who I felt whose shine diminished my own.
It’s easy to pretend ‘to be fierce and fearless because living your truth takes real courage. Real fearless and fierce women admit mistakes and they work to correct them. We stand up and we use our voices for things other than self promotion. We don’t stand by and let racism and sexism and homophobia run rapid on our watch. Real fearless and fierce women complement other women and we recognize and embrace that their shine in no way diminishes our light and that it actually makes our light shine brighter.
So many of us in this room are sisters. We don’t always get to see each other and its good to see you here today. Women who we’ve laughed with, cried with, and struggled with, thank you for not turning your back on me, thank you for not tap dancing on my misery, even when I wasn’t always returning the favor.
