Don't Wanna Fight

My life, your life Don't cross them lines What you like, what I like Why can't we both be right? Attacking, defending Until there's nothing left worth winning Your pride and my pride Don't waste my time

I don't wanna fight no more I don't wanna fight no more I don't wanna fight no more I don't wanna fight no more I don't wanna fight no more Don't wanna fight no more, ah

One year ago, I stood in the crowd and experienced the Alabama Shakes for the first time.

Early that summer, when @move.with.love asked me if she should buy me tickets to the show happening in my hometown, I hadn't heard of the Alabama Shakes, and I didn't feel particularly strongly about it.

All I knew was that when a member of the wolfpack says, "hey you wanna see this with me?" the answer is always "yes."

The day of the show came. It was a summer friday, and the only thing I had on the books work-wise before my friends arrived in town was a meeting with my manager. She had specifically asked for the date, time and to make it a Skype call. I was excited. I had worked very hard: I had taken on multiple functions at the company and had built a beautiful lifestyle experience as well as additional revenue for the company. This would be a great entree into my weekend: a raise and a promotion.

A few minutes before the call I received the documentation that we would be going over. It was multi-paged and I was eager to get cracking! Face to face now with my manager, she began to read verbatim, the words written on the pages. This wouldn't be a conversation, this would be a dictation. After about 2 sentences of back-handed positive feedback, she begin to read two single spaced pages of negative feedback, personal attacks, and nonconstructive commentary on my work, my professionalism and taste level.

It took everything in me not to laugh.

Here I was, thinking I'd be having a positive, and if not, at least constructive conversation and instead I was sitting through insult after insult meant to demean, degrade and belittle me into "my place," Outspoken, strong willed and aggressive in my get-shit-done-attitude, it hadn't been the first time I had heard that my approach didn't always rub people the right way. I didn't see my approach to be any different from male professionals I worked with and admired, so, if she had some strong words about my approach, that would have been understandable given today's gender-biased climate.

I wasn't the kind of person who let anyone coast through things and I also knew that I was loved by my cross functional partners for my killer work ethic and my unwavering honesty. If she had delivered the review in a way meant to be constructive: to grow my talent and trajectory, that would have been okay with me. But the truth was that she didn't like me as a person. She didn't like that I saw through the bullshit a corporate structure affords and my inability to stumble and fall over a hierarchy I didn't buy into.

To say that I was dumbfounded was an understatement.

I could tell it had taken her a lot of courage to read what she had proudly written in the privacy of her own home. She was clearly nervous, voice cracking and she made very little eye contact as she read. Just as she finished her 20 minute monologue, my husband walked into the house to grab his fishing gear and head out for the afternoon. He was the only witness I have to my response, as there were so many competing thoughts racing through my mind as she spoke. She closed with a denial of my promotion and the merit increase meant to indicate that I had barely shown up for my job that year. As my husband tells it, I looked at the screen and said "well, it sounds like you really focused on the negative. I'm not quite sure where we go from here." No sooner had I wrapped up a goodbye than the the doorbell rang; my friends had arrived to head to the show that evening.

Still dumbstruck, I did some venting and waited for the rush of anger to flow in, the "she doesn't know me, and she'll see" anger. But it never came. There was a low hum, a soft steady vibration, as I retold what had just occurred to @move.with.love

The sky was ominous as we walked over to the music venue, and we anticipated thunderstorms we hoped would hold off until after the show. Under heavy grey clouds the Alabama Shakes walked on stage. There was a vibration now in the crowd. A hum, I now felt connected to, as their music lit the air around us with perfectly harmonized sounds.

I looked up, center stage, to see her. Brittany Howard, the lead singer and guitarist of the Alabama Shakes, is a force to be reckoned with. She wasn't holding back, she wasn't apologizing for her existence. And as she gave herself through song to the crowd. Her words sank into me like the teeth of wild animal.

" I dont wanna fight no more."

In that moment I knew my life was changed. My perspective shifted as I witnessed this incredibly talented woman proudly draw sound out of herself, her fellow musicians and all of us who stood to participate in her performance. Here was a person who woke up every day and lived a reality so drastically different from mine. She fought for it, she worked for it, and she built what she had become.

And here I was, open, ready and willing to shift. It was time to decouple my identity from the work I had chosen, to move my feet off of the path that I was on, so that I too could fight for the person I was meant to become.

A mother, an artist, a musician, an entrepreneur, a badass bitch.

I will not be shaken.