Who is this Caribbean Girl?

 This is the question someone must have asked already: "Who is this Caribbean Girl?" Hopefully by the time you are finished reading this (that's presuming it doesn't bore you before you get to the end) you'll be able to have an answer to that question.🙈

Born on the island of Grenada sometime in the 90's, this Caribbean girl almost never made it to this world as the circumstances surrounding her birth could have easily taken her away.  Her mother, after thirteen (13) years of trying to conceive , almost gave up hope but she soon found the courage to try again. She is a free spirited (sometimes strange) human being with a whole lot of love in my heart. Names are powerful indeed and my names all define who I am in a nutshell!

My name is Amy Joy Wilda Jones. Author. Freelance writer. Poet. Spoken word lover. Creative thinker.

Amy means "beloved" and that's exactly who I am. Joy as we all know is a feeling of happiness and pleasure and I have been told that I bring that to the hearts of some. Wilda (pronounced Will-dah, not Wild-ah or Wild-a) means untamed. So basically, I am a beloved, happy, untamed human; oh what a combination! And this typically defines me.

I grew up in a small community with my small family - two parents, one sister, one brother. My parents were not millionaires but they ensured that whatever little they had was sufficient for us to be happy. I guess this attitude made me value so much, the small things in life.  I attended the St. Andrew's Methodist School (elementary or primary school), the St. Joseph's Convent (High or secondary school), the T.A. Marryshow Community College (college😅) and the Caribbean Nazarene College (university). 

Education had been an important aspect of my family life as both of my parents grew up in a time when they could not afford to go to school. However, with that desire for us to become educated, my parents did not attempt to live their lives through us nor did they make unnecessary demands.  They simply encouraged my siblings and me to work hard towards the dreams we wanted to achieve.

It was that encouragement that they gave to me that allowed me to push past my fears and reach high for success no one thought I was able to achieve, but my parents always did.  As you read this, I want you to know, whoever you are and whatever you are hoping to achieve, it is possible. It may look like a speck of dust in the distance, but keep reaching, keep hoping, keep pushing; your dreams will soon become a reality.

"Cum Deo Possum" is the motto of my secondary school and is one which I hold fast to: "With God, all Things are Possible" and I definitely believe it!

The Blogger Project

I pulled a chair up to my study desk about a year ago; I couldn't imagine that six month had gone by since I said I wanted to leave Facebook. But for me, the funny videos and the promotion for my book then two-year old book, not to mention the connection with friends near and far, seemed too hard to let go of.

And believe me, this conversation was one I had with myself years ago but this time, it seemed like it was crazy that I would put all of that behind and move on to what? Twitter? Games? Burying myself in reading textbooks for school? I must have been losing my mind, but whether I was losing my mind or not, this had to be done - I had to let go of the crazy abyss that social media had me.

As I sat back on my chair with my eyes staring at the ceiling and listening to the sound of my dorm-mates having the time of their lives upstairs, it hit me like an epiphany! I suddenly realized that from the moment I created that new account of Facebook in 2011 (after deleting one just a few months before), I had gone back into the mental prison from which I escaped. I promised myself that there was no way in hell that I would allow myself again to lie on my bed for hours scrolling through feeds that I had seen hours before. I couldn't allow myself to let a virtual community dictate how I dressed, the pictures I posted, the friends I had, the thoughts that I shared.

Of course, it's easy to say that those choices were rightfully mine, but behind the "freedom of expression" image that it painted, Facebook subtly shouts to us and screamed at me "you can't share this quote! This picture's not good enough! Is that all the friends you have?" with the equal ending phrase "who's going to like that?" I slowly realized that somewhere the girl who was brave enough to stand to share her feelings was now just another girl...just another Caribbean girl on social media. I was losing my identity.

A few days ago, I sat on the dining table after dinner with my boyfriend and I told him that for the umpteen time, this was it. This was the end of the back and forth uneasiness and the constant shared opinion that I "disliked" Facebook while, at the same time, scrolling through news feeds again and again, revisiting things I saw hours prior.

He looked at me and smiled. I guess he assumed that I was just throwing another fit and I would go right back to signing into Facebook again in the morning. I was serious, but I couldn't blame his hesitance to response. Geez, I had been crying wolf forever! But as
we sat there in the silence, I exclaimed, "I'm going to blog!" He shook his head and looked at me. Without having to use his words, I knew he said in his mind "You've been saying so forever."

So this is what happened, and here I am now.

Hopefully, this Caribbean girl gets to look back at this and find a way to tell the stories she's pent up or spark the flames of the poetry somehow dying within her.

Welcome to my blogspot😊