I've been in a funk.
I've been slowly drowning myself in a sea of part-time jobs. I've been too crippled by anxiety to publish anything I've written. I've been kowtowing to people who don't deserve it. I've been lazy and stagnant and average and comfortable and monotonous. And now, my sweetums, I feel like shit. This feeling is a familiar one to me. It is, statistically, a familiar feeling to you too.
After some good ole-fashioned millennial navel-gazing, I've realized that this depression which has funked me up (I see you, Bruno Mars!) comes down to one thing: Fear. I work at crap part-time jobs because I'm afraid of taking the risk of committing to something that I might fail at or (even more daunting) be really fly at. I stopped writing and publishing blogs because I was afraid of the nasty comments and the judgments of people who don't even know me. I try and please others because I'm afraid of having to fight for what I want and believe in.
This isn't who I am. How did I get so skittish that I flinch at the sound of my own voice? How did I lose sight of goals that were so clear to me just a few months ago? How did I let fear and anxiety run my shit? Well, that's a dark rhetorical rabbit hole that I'm really bored of falling in to. There's always one person I can turn to to boss me up.
Nicki Minaj.
If you've seen the video of Her Minajesty slaughtering the patriarchy with a shard of the glass ceiling she just smashed through, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, please go to this link. We'll all wait here for you to catch up.
So, now you get it.
Nicki Minaj's "Bossed Up" video is my most watched on YouTube. Whenever I'm feeling blue I turn to that pink wig and ask her to pin me down by her Monster Giuseppe heels, look me square in the eye, tell me to stop being such a baby bitch and then finish her eyeliner. Sure, I appreciate the subject matter but I'm more inspired by how confident she is in her convictions. She doesn't just think she's the best, she knows it and demands that other people know it too. She treats herself, her work, and her life with so much respect that the world can't help but respond in a similar way. Maybe, I need some of that.
This isn't the first time that Dear Old Nicki has slathered us all in some thick and minty truth paste. Nicki's music is my go-to for pump-up jams, for aggressively angry verses, and for non-stop party bangers. I've even been known to cite some of her lyrics when I need to give myself a little boost of confidence.
The following is a sampling of some of my personal favourites.
Think big, get cash, make 'em blink fast.
These hoes couldn't test me even if their name was pop quiz.
I'm a boss ass bitch.
Bitches ain't got punchlines or flow, I have both and an empire also!
Miley, What's good? (This one really only works if you're having a really public feud with Miley Cyrus, but it's nice to have in your back pocket for when that comes up)
Now, here's the H. Jack Shyamalan style twist: Nicki isn't working this time. I've been cranking The Pink Print album for weeks on end, I've posted GIFs of her on every surface of my internet presence, I've read every Jezebel and Buzzfeed list of "25 Times that Nicki Minaj Slayed" and NONE OF IT IS MAKING ME FEEL LIKE A BOSS.
I've come to a terrible realization, you guys. The pseudo-empowerment of telling myself that I am a bossed up bitch that deserves the world is really really easy. Actually being a bossed up bitch is terrifying. The reason that Nicki deserves to say all these incredible one-liners is because at some point in her twenties she shut the fuck up, kept her head down, and showed up for herself. The real lesson she's giving me is that I am not even close to being a boss ass bitch. The culture of bigging yourself up, creating a Roman's Revenge-esque alter-ego , and demanding that the world lick your ginormous lady balls only works if you yourself know where your lady balls are located. Unfortunately for me, in my five whole years as an adult woman, I've lost my lady balls. Damn, that happened fast.
The older I get the scarier the world becomes. I've lost my 18-year-old throwing caution to the wind ballsy-ness. Maybe, that's okay. As crippling as my fear has become I also appreciate the maturity it has given me. Fear has literally saved my life several times, so it can't all all bad. I've come up with a plan of attack: treat my fear like I treat Nicki. Why can't my fear be a kewl chick in a pink wig that can help me when I need her to and fuck off when I want her to? Rather than desperately searching for a one-liner quick fix to my current mental thumbs down emoji I'm going to do the work. It's gonna feel like shit but hopefully one day I'll wake up and my skinny jeans won't fit because my Minaj style lady balls will be in the way. Who's with me?