If I had to pick a statement for myself today, it would be something along the lines of...
"Teri.
Imperfectly perfecting the art of occasionally elegant awkwardness"

question mark on the elegant...

I hate second guessing what I say. 
I know what I mean and I think I get it all down and then I think about it and realize that "oh shit" moment. What if (evil words, those) the person who hears them, or reads them, reads more into them than just the words? I hate assumptions. But I also can't conceivably cover every base in those situations, each person knows a word in a way intimate only to themselves. In these written things, there's no easy clarification. Then the worry begins.
Please, oh please, just let things be taken as written. 

I know that a huge part of this worry comes from years of trying to communicate in a mixed race life, the fact being that certain regions of the globe communicate in a way completely inside out of this one that I know... The consequences for screwing up were the hardest they could be on my abused child's memory, the silence, the immediate condemnation, judgement. Worse than the physical reactions, absolutely. For God's sake just freaking hit me and get it over with, okay? This mental beating for me was just too much. 

 For the most part, the people in my life now understand that it's only what it says, and I'm grateful. Even more grateful for the times when they absolutely have to wonder if it means something else and they just flat out ask. Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you. Did I say THANK YOU???

If any assumption must be made, please make the positive and happy one. It's going to be the only one that is correct, at any rate, I can almost guarantee that. If it was negative, i'd just say it. And if ever in doubt, oh Lord, please clarify. Yay. Got that out of my system, thank you blog. 

so. Along the lines of awkwardness...

Youtube vid, revisited. 
Hot damn. 
I've got it back now. 
All I have to do is stop feeling shy and do it like I dance. 
How on this whole round earth could I have forgotten that??

Now. Mom.