What shapes you?

Where does it come from? I don't always know, But there are a few notables that have shaped me more than I realized. I revisited one today.

Today is a sad day—one of my most inspirational mentors has passed. Today we said goodbye to Maya Angelou. I know, a lot of people think it's cliché, but in all honesty, about the only enjoyable thing I got out of American Lit in college was my love for Maya Angelou. I didn't even sell my textbooks from that class because that was where my connection started. When I write or speak, I do it from the heart. I'm not quiet. I speak my mind. I don't consider myself a feminist, but I've always supported self-empowerment, feminine or masculine. If you know me, you know I'm confident about who I am, what I want, and my ambition to get there. I've even said in interviews before "you won't find many people more ambitious than me." The first time I read "Phenomenal Woman," I was hooked. The more I read from Angelou, the more I started to understand who I was, and that I didn't need to be apologetic for it. So many of her quotes, stories, and poems spoke to me, as a woman who has never been scared to take life by the lapels, so she says.

It's not just about me. I wish more people would read her in the way I did, and not just women. Confidence is sexy, (not to be confused with cockiness, which is not) male or female. I wish people would become more confident, stand up straighter, and find their voice. I wish more people would take charge of their own life choices and realize that no one else is holding them down. It's an exhilarating feeling when you do. I've always been the one to lead the pack, the one to ask a guy out, the one to go after what I wanted. (I even asked the Husband out. Twice. He stood me up the first time.) I don't have time to wait around for those things to happen to me. I love when I get asked that question "what do you regret?" Nothing. Sure, I have regrettable things in my past, but I don't regret doing them. I made those choices, and those choices brought me here. Can't get mad at that, right? So what shaped you? Where's your confidence?

...
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
The palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me. 

RIP, Maya. You've left a legacy.