This is me!

Hello steemit friends. I'm Ana-Z from Jamaica now in Japan. It’s the shortened version of my longer name. But people back home in Jamaica use to destroy the pronunciation and so as I got older, to save them the embarrassment and me the bitchy snap back, I just told every one to call me Ana. Guys you know your name is unique, when I was called a pet name till I started elementary school. And color me surprise when I was told, ‘ Oh Sandy is a pet name, your real name is ....” Maybe if someone is interested, I’ll let you know the tongue twister of a name I was given.

And do you want to know the irony, my name is beautifully pronounce by everyone who says it here in Japan, where I live and work. But did I know that when I firs got here? No, and so from the jump, I was like, call me Ana! And they did! But when they do say my full name it’s lovely. And more irony? My shortened name Ana, in Japan means a hole! Although Ana in Hebrew means hope.
Yes, I checked! Because I wanted to know what someone was smoking when they invented my name. And it seems, invented it, they did. Because when I search the baby name dictionary, and yes people, some years ago I was compelled to find out if my real name was totally made up, or if they actually researched and put thought into name me. Well, I can’t speak for them but I only found Ana. And I latched onto into because and least the first part of my name had substance.

I grew up in Jamaica with my daddy and stepmom, along with my half brothers and sisters. But in my country, we don’t emphasize the half or whatever. Once we share a parent, at least for me, we were just brothers and sisters. I love music and movies and books. I am a romance junkie. Sometimes embarrassingly so, but whatever. You love what you love, right. I also write poetry and songs and children stories. My dream and goals is to turn these hobbies and private passions into something tangible.

I wanted to own my own bookstore and music store and combine my love for books and music. But as I’ve gotten older the dream has changed a bit. I want to create the songs and write the books that are in stores and on the radio. Lofty dream? Maybe, but dreams are made into reality always. That’s why we have Beyonce, Amazon, Spotify. These were all someone’s dream at one time and they worked hard and turned it into reality. I’m trying to start that process of turning it from dream to reality.

Will I succeed? I don’t know, but I don’t want to look back on my life and say to myself, ‘ If I had only tried’. I may fail or succeed. That is not yet know, but I don’t want fear to paralyze me so that I never even tried. And so I’m starting slow and building up my confidence in myself and the talents I have to offer the world.

And that is what joining steemit is all about for me. I have tried putting my poetry out into the world but, nothing really happened. And honestly that discouraged me from posting more content. Because no one likes rejection, right? But I just have to keep trying and continue to move forward. Everyone will not like my poems, etc. But my hope is that I will find a few that will and support me and I them.

I love to travel and see the world but I also like just relaxing at home and chilling, while being grateful for my blessing and my life. I lost my daddy last September. It was crazy, because he died in Canada, September 4,2018 but when my sister called me it was , Wednesday September 5,2018 at 3:24 a.m. I always told my mom, when they called me, which isn’t regular, as we text more than call. But when they do call, my heart starts to pound because people only call so early when its bad, right? But so far, I had dodged the early morning call ‘catastrophe’.

But my time was up and it was on that Wednesday. And my world imploded. I guess for those who have lost someone close or a parent, who will understand. Up to that point, the only other significant person I had lost was his mother, mamma, who died peacefully in her sleep at 93. We knew that day was coming and I mourned her but I was able to go to work the the next day, Monday. But when I got the call about daddy, I was out for two weeks. I went to Canada to lay him to rest along with my sisters and mommy who was devastated. I thought she was going to have a mental breakdown. That’s how hard it rocked her. And listen, their relationship wasn’t all roses and champagne. In their younger years, my mother beaned him with a perfume bottle. But they have been together for over forty years, and everything that comes with being together so long, it just rocked my mother to her knees. Luckily her faith and family has helped. But sometimes it’s still surreal to me, that my daddy is no longer on this earth. He is no longer breathing, or arguing or being a stubborn man. He is just no more. And that’s what cripples me. I can only speak of how it affects me and when I allow the thoughts of him being gone in, I can’t breath.

And so I want to follow these dreams I’ve had for so long, because you never know when your book of life will end. And I want to be fearless, even though I am not. So I’m faking fearlessness, until I become fearless. And it starts here, on a site, my friend JJ told me about. He is also on it, and I hope to support him and I hope my steemit peeps will too.

As for me heading? Listen I don’t know what happened. I downloaded it from my pics and it was upright in my folder. But when it loaded on steemit , its sideways. And I’m like, ‘ Nice way to introduce yourself boo!’ But in the words of Shaggy, ‘it wasn’t me’. I tried to download it again and the same result and I see nothing that will allow me to turn it upright. So just do me a favor, ok. Just tilt your head to the side to see me properly. I look cute in that pic! If you till your head, I hope you’ll agree! LOL!