POLISHED POPE | STYLES

pas·sion

strong and barely controllable emotion.

Have you ever been asked the question, “What are you passionate about?”? Take a few moments and really think about your response to this question. I will honestly admit when I thought about my answer to this questions several things came to mind. When answering such a question, you have to go deep, you have to go beyond the surface. Sincerely ask yourself what do I care about the most? What would I sacrifice my life for? What do I absolutely love the most? What drives me? What will I invest the majority of my time for? When you answer this question, you absolutely can not base your response on what you think others may think is your best answer. Everyone's passion and drive in life is different. There is no right or wrong response to this question.

I am sure after reading all of that, you are probably thinking “Well Porsche, get to it..what are you passionate about already!?”. I am deeply passionate about Family. Simple response, right? Well, there is so much to this statement. Now bare with, I tell myself before I begin writing all of post that I am going to keep it lite, but then I end of writing an entire book of my thoughts.

Remember that I mentioned earlier, sometimes you have to go beyond the surface? When I initially thought about my response to this question, I thought of things like health, wealth, connections with people, learning new things, and the list goes on right? In my own personal opinion, and this may not be your insight on this topic, but all of these other things would not be necessarily as evident to me without the drive for my family. Sometimes I am so passionate, that I can unintentionally neglect other topics in my life, such as pampering myself, catching up with extended family and friends, or taking time out to just breathe.

Taking a deep breath on this one.. Born into the world, to a nineteen year old mother and a twenty-one year old father. Being put up for adoption at the age of two, you would imagine that this could come with some foundational obscurities. My situation is extremely unique because I was fortunate to have a somewhat integrated family. My adopted family allowed my biological family to take part in my life and this is rarely the case for adoptions. In most cases an adoptee may have concerns during childhood, such as issues of attachments, loss and self-image can become complex. This is because as mentioned previously, in most cases adopted children grieve the loss of their biological family, their heritage and their culture to some extent. One could potentially feel like they have no identity.

I do not take for granted either of my families. It has helped me progress and instead I developed a positive sense of my identity, a sense of psychosocial well-being, develop a self-concept and self-esteem. However, generational curses hold true and I brought my daughter into the world at the age of twenty-one and unmarried. At that very moment as I watched the lines on the pregnancy test turn pink, I was determined to make every effort to break the curse. It was a challenge and we are still working on creating a new standard of the definition of what not only the African American Family looks like but Family in general.

We named our daughter Elyssa, it means ‘My God is a Vow’. Hubs and I together took an oath to do everything in our power to get this thing right for the betterment of not only ourselves but generations thereafter. Three years later we were blessed with yet another pregnancy and the birth of my son. At that moment I knew that we were on a real mission. Blessed with both a girl and a boy, God was really putting us on a mission.

I am extremely grateful at the age of twenty-nine to have what a lot of people do not have, and that is family. A huge family, grandparents, two mothers, two fathers, sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews on all sides, in-laws, a husband and some amazing children...including our pets. With all of these people in my life, I have developed traits such as independence, leadership, flexibility, vision, motivation, desire, love and passion. Family means so much to me, so dig deep and find out what you are passionate about.

Now, let's get to the look! It speaks for itself. The featured item is this look is my amazing tangerine colored pencil skirt. Most time I choose to keep my looks classic and timeless, so I paired this bold skirt with a white scoop neck shirt detailed with gold buttons that align the shoulders. To give this look some edge I paired this look with heavy gold and black accessories to display my confidence, sophistication and stability.

Outfit Details:

Shirt: Zeanna Outfitters; Goodwill

Skirt: Target MERONA; Goodwill

Shoes: Jessica Simpson

Watch: Michael Kors

Bracelet: Boutique

Photo Credit: hypebeast_d