I was never a quitter, when I was a kid. I was born ambitious and always a pleaser (that’s what happens when you grow up poor with alcoholic parents). I didn’t want any trouble and did what I needed to do instead of what I wanted to do, but truth was I never really knew exactly what that was. I’d tell people I wanted to be a doctor, but my daydreams were about dancing on stage with Michael Jackson. I didn’t really want to be well-known; you know that “popularity breeds contempt” line at the beginning of Culture Club’s “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me” is not bullshit. I just wanted to be well-paid. And free. When I was in college, majoring in psychology pre-med(minoring in fine arts), I had a psych professor who did an amazing class on why it’s important to help children set goals for themselves. I went to her, as many did, after class was over to ask a question. I asked her, basically, if I should quit pre-med or stay the course. I half-expected some BS about ‘never quit,’ but what I got was the freedom I sought. She told me a story about herself. She said that when she was my age, she was an amateur tennis player. At the cusp of going pro, it just didn’t happen for her. The success she sought never materialized. The days of wanting to play on the pro circuit dwindled. One day she told herself to quit. She said she had to stop banging her head against the wall and take that energy she had for tennis and do something else with it. So, she went into psychology.

Being a Black woman who had the option, which many don’t, of pursuing a career in medicine and then turning it down, seemed to disappoint others. I spent a lot of time as an adult trying to find a path that would take me to that stage. Unfortunately MJ is no longer with us, but my desire to produce is still with me. I decided that y life was mine and I needed to do what I needed to do for me, not for anyone else. I still want to help people, but it’s going to have to be through the arts, because that’s what I choose for myself and my sanity. This is who I am. Being a doctor would be like being a beauty queen dressed in potato sack: wrong fit. And that is good for me and everyone who would be a patient of mine. So, I don’t think of quitting as a bad thing, anymore. I think Kenny Rogers was right: “You’ve got to know when to hold ’em. Know when to fold ’em. Know when to walk away. Know when to run.”