Can a sister get a break?

IT'S out of season, or perhaps it's due season, but it's time Sistahs got a break. Now, not later. Before we all crack under the perfect veneer we've created. November is an awkward time for Black women to take a rest. It's the beginning of a very hectic season, and we don't exhale until the King Holiday. But we ought to take time out for ourselves right now, right in the middle of great expectations of others. Too many Black women are one bad day away from a breakdown.

Single Sisters are stressed--everyone expects them to be constantly on call because they aren't married or raising children. Married Sisters are stressed because they must juggle husbands, career, school, church and the picture-perfect holiday expectations of the tots. Mature Sisters are stressed because they add on caring for elderly parents to their already overflowing to-do list. Just like an empty well can give no water, too many Sistahs are carrying water to other folks while they are parched. And many are so stressed out that they are this close to an emergency-room visit.

What to do? Make a holiday to-do list and then don't do half of it! Call a timeout--it's football season, so it's permissible. Make this a take-a-Sistah-to-lunch season. It's Thanksgiving, so make it a Thank-You Sistahs lunch. It's overdue. Black women rarely get a "you go, girl" unless there's an instruction on the back of that, as in "you go, girl" ... to pick up the kids, to the store, to the bank, to the post office, to the dry cleaners, et al.

And while we are at it, Sistahs, let's show a little more love for one another. We have always been the ship and the harbor for each other, remember? Our self-love slip is showing. Let's be kinder to one another. Smile at one another, pat a back, and give a compliment, or a ride, shoot an uplifting e-mail or text message. Give one another the benefit of the doubt. Give a Sistah a break--maybe she didn't speak because she really didn't see you. Let it go.

I don't know any Black women who don't have one, or if they are quite lucky, several serious, got-your-back girlfriends who prop them up and propel them forward. Actress Jada Pinkett Smith told me that one of the few people she talks to outside of her husband Will is her good friend author and activist Sister Souljah.

"Everybody needs a Sister Souljah in their life," she says. "She's one of the most intelligent women I know and she's a great mediator." It's helpful to have a Sister-friend who can see the whole picture, not just one part.

So treat your Sister-friends well. Thank the Sisters in your group who stand by you. Even if the creek rose, hell froze over and Joe left, Black women have always been able to count on one another. When there was no welfare, we had a warm network of survival. One Black female author told the story of the woman who lived with her family who she thought was her aunt. Later she found out the woman was her mother's widowed best friend.

Start a ritual for you and your other overworked and overlooked Sister-friends. Give a Sister a night off. Keep her children one evening and the next time she can watch your children so that you can have a night off. Plan a seasonal ritual--pick a day after the holiday madness to unwind.

Get your girls to join you and make it a glam day, a spa day, a chocolate day, whatever works for you--and then keep the appointment religiously. It doesn't have to be complicated and catered; it can be as simple as meeting at the same hair salon and then stopping for lunch or dinner afterwards.

Find a way to celebrate your beautiful Black Sistahs. Remember fun? Invite it to stop by again and to visit. Surround yourself with a village that celebrates you, like Jill Scott says: "Live your life like it's golden."

COPYRIGHT 2004 Johnson Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group