honey chile, I miss you!

She was my friend. My confidante. My ideal. And then she was gone. I remember the exact moment I heard of her death. At home for the first time since going away to college.It was Thanksgiving break my freshman year. Sitting on the couch in my den while the floor in the kitchen was still damp from my mom mopping the floor. During the BET nightly news with fellow Southwest Dekalb graduate Jackie Reid, she announced her passing. Honey Magazine had closed, along with Heart & Soul and Savoy because Vanguarde Media was shutting down.
I didn't cry or anything, but was just in deep disbelief and confusion. Maybe that confident naivete I am still trying to get rid of was in affect. That feeling of if I love something it must be hot. And everybody should recognize. A few feet away stacked in the top of my closet in my purple and green four walls that are my haven in Decatur, GA stood two piles of every issue of Honey magazine I had ever touched since I discovered the magazine about a year or two before.
The closing of Honey also caused another major rift in my comforts of the world. More important than the fact that I couldn't read the magazine anymore, I was out of job. No I wasn't blessed to say I was signed up to intern at the magazine like I knew one girl was. It was so much deeper. When I graduated from high school just a few months earlier, my career goal was very clear. I hadn't heard of ASME. And I thought Conde' Nast was a foreign word for maybe getting down in a car. All I knew and would tell anybody who asked, "When I grow up, I want to be the editor-in-chief of Honey Magazine."
So once there was no more magazine, that meant I had to alter this phrase. That meant I had to search for another magazine that suited me so well as she did.And till, this day I still haven't recovered from her death, even though she is being brought back to life, I am scared she will only be a shell of her former self. So when so many know exactly where they want their final rung to be in the magazine industry ladder, it's still a big question mark for me, which is cool for now.
I just would love to make someone feel, the way I felt the first time I met Honey. For some reason we didn't have school that day, so me and my best friend dressed cute and decided we would spend the day in the AUC. Though we knew, we never wanted to be Spelman-ites, we wandered the campus and met up with Mrs. Mitchell who had not so discretely shared the fact that all girls should want to be a Spelman girl, as she drives by in her jeep with the "Spelmn" license tag (Im not making this up!). Then after pumping into this girl from my church, we go to the bookstore. After looking over all these pretentious t-shirts, which I now own with my own school name across the front, we hit the magazine rack. And I see India Arie peaking at me. And Im like 'India, is that you girl? on the cover of a magazine?' I quickly pick it up and see Honey spread across the top. And I am in love. Along with Honey, India Arie is one of the 5 things that got me through high school. Her track 14 off her first album "the time is right, I'm gonna back my bags and tag that journey down the road" always took me away from troubles I was having and dried my tears. So it was personal when she was nominated for 5 grammys for her first CD and walked away with empty hands. It was personal as a dark skinned girl myself to have to wonder if complexion came into play as classic 'mulatto' Alicia Keys could barely carry all her Grammy's and all-natural, coco India got nada. I love Alicia too, but she just doesn't do it for me like India. So to see myself on the cover of that magazine through India was good for me. Real Good. My only thought was, 'Why has it taken me so long to find you?' I sent my subscription card in the next day and anticipated her coming every month. I knew the Honey cycle better than my own:) and as soon as I was feeling withdrawal or that it had been a while, she was always in the mail the next day. She never let me down. Until I was smelling that ammonia, sitting in my den, watching Jackie Reid. She had left me.
But hopefully she didn't. I had already started this post, when I saw Michaela Angela Davis. She was EIC when Honey passed. And she is still so very funky. Wish I would have went up to her and reminded her of how cool she was when C2C met her. And there's Angela, EIC at Essence who was Executive editor there. And there's Miss Joyce Davis, who probably had no idea I was hanging on her every word when she told us stories about her Honey days,while I was an intern at Upscale. And then there is her mentee, Mitzi Miller, who I am the biggest fan of and hope to met before the summer ends! Wish me luck! So although I have had to become less specific in my ultimate career goal, since Honey passed, I also am able to see from where all her babies ended up so many other jobs and magazines I never opened my mind to. Maybe Jane will have an opening in May . . .

signed,
I ain't you Honey, I ain't you Child, I'm just yo Queen to make you smile. so smile already. I am.