MY GOLDEN BIRTHDAY

Oooo Queens, what a week it has been. As you know last Wednesday was my twenty-sixth birthday. I turned 26 on the 26th of September. This year, I decided to make my birthday a big deal as I haven't really been in the position to celebrate the last few years. So, to celebrate my Golden birthday, I decided to spend the whole week, from Saturday the 22nd until Sunday the 29th turning up for my birthday. #TurnUpFor26! Here's a recap of everything I did:

Saturday September 22nd

I started out the week of fun with Princess Aaliyah. We were supposed to go to Disneyland, however, we had just spent the day at Disneyland the Saturday before and I was still recovering. We had walked over 30,000 steps and I was just too pooped to peep. So, I asked her if she'd be willing to have some low key fun at Camelot Golfland and she was done. We proceeded to play arcade games for hours, get slaughtered in a game of lazer tag, and completely bomb a game of miniature golf. I think we both got well over 80 strokes. But it didn't matter, we had so much fun. We topped the day off with pizza and nachos! What else could a girl ask for?

Sunday September 23rd

The next day, Aaliyah and I used our Universal Studios passes to explore the entertainment capital of the world. The great thing about Universal Studios is that it has just the right amount of attractions where you can do everything in one day. In fact, the park closed early for the premiere of the 30th season of the Simpsons. We did all the rides and still had time left over to do our favorite, the Harry Potter ride, again. Again, this was a lot of walking and driving for me. We ended up clocking in another 30,000 steps for the weekend. But we had a blast and it was the perfect start to the week of celebrations.

Monday September 24th

Monday was spent relaxing at Glen Ivy Day Spa in Corona, California with my mom. My mother's birthday was August 25th. I was still in the middle of my thirty days of prayer for her and so we didn't get the chance to do too much on her birthday. So, I brought her along with me for two days of relaxation and pampering. We spent the day relaxing in all of the different water features Glen Ivy has to offer. We exfoliated in the club mud, and got our blood pumping by jumping in and out of interchanging pools where one was ice cold and the other was super hot. Apparently, this is good for blood circulation and helps your body release toxins. It was a great day in the company of mom.

Tuesday September 25th

Mom and I went together to try out some spa treatments. The first stop was Float Easy, where we floated in a pod filled with water and Epsom salt for about an hour. It was the greatest experience ever.

Floating is like meditation 2.0. You walk in and they sit you in a quiet room where you drink tea and color in their sketch book. Then they take you back to your private room where you can shower before your float. Once you're done showering you step right out of the shower and into your floating pod. You can choose to listen to music or keep your experience silent. There's also different lighting in each pod which you can play with. Once you're ready, you can close the pod hatch and all you have to do is lay back and you will automatically float. After awhile, you don't know where the water begins or where you end. Your body is given this amazing opportunity to completely relax and it's just...amazing.

After floating, mom and I headed over to Skin Laundry where we got laser facials. This was a quick fifteen minute procedure where all the dirt and oil in our pores was zapped away, leaving our skin deep cleaned and silky smooth.

We spent sometime at the beach after our facials. Then had lunch at my favorite place, Blaze Pizza. This lunch was great because it gave mom and I a chance to really sit down and talk about our relationship. Some revelations were had and deceleration made. It was a deep heartfelt talk that was very much needed and greatly appreciated on both sides.

We then only had a couple of hours to head to my favorite eyebrow threading place to get my brows done and home to get changed as we had to be in downtown LA by 5:30pm. I had secured us two seat filler spots for Quincy Jones' 85th Birthday Musical Celebration to air on BET. Now, Quincy's birthday was actually in March, however, his loved ones are still celebrating him and all of his accomplishments...and he has many. The night started off with a bang when mom and I were upgraded from seatfillers to ticket holders. This meant instead of getting up and sitting down filling other people's seats, we could just sit down and enjoy the show for the entire night.

Not only were we able to witness some of the greatest vocalist of our time perform including: Jennifer Hudson, Fantasia, Yolanda Adams, Ledisi, Gladys Knight and more, but we also had the amazing opportunity to learn, from the people who's careers he's impacted, just how talented, brilliant, and multi-faceted Quincy Jones really is. He has done so much throughout his career. He's worked on TV shows, movies, some of the best albums of all time. He is a great philanthropist and an over all good person. Seeing all of my favorite people gush over him and shower him with love was such an inspiration.

*If you're in the Orange County/ LA area and would like to try your hand at floating, laser facials or being a seat filler visit the following websites:

Floateasy.com - Your first float is free for a limited time

skinlaundry.com - Your first laser facial is free for a limited time

seatfillersandmore.com - registration is free and easy

Wednesday September 26th

My actual birthday was spent at Disneyland with my mother and brother, LeLand. This was my mom's first time at Disneyland. Usually, she's not into rides, but we managed to convince her to get on every single ride with us except for Space Mountain and Splash Mountain. But she held her own for everything else. It was great because we were able to get on practically every ride in Disneyland. For all of my SoCal people with Disneyland Annual Passes, the trick is to go on week day. All day, the wait times for rides was 30 minutes or less. It was the best!

Due to Mickey's Halloween Party, Disneyland closed early at 6. So, my family and I went back home where I made my famous vegetarian tacos. We proceeded to spend the rest of the night eating good food, playing Apples to Apples and enjoying each other's company. It was such a great night. There was a lot of laughing and nothing but love in the air. For those of you who have been following Phorbe from the beginning, you know that this is something I have been praying for. It was the best Birthday present I could have ever received.

Thursday September 27th

The last five days left me exhausted. Thursday was a day of rest for me. I had one project to work on. I had purchased a Beyonce Coachella inspired sweatshirt off of Ebay. Although it looked great and was an exact replica of what Beyonce wore for weekend 2 of Coachella, the design was only screen printed on. I needed to add some sparkle to the shirt. So, I went out and purchased some glitter and glue and spent the day bedazzling my shirt and catching up on my favorite TV shows.

I am so blessed that all of my shows have Fall premiere dates right around my birthday. It's a gift I know I'll receive every year. On Thursday, I watched the two hour premiere of one of my new favorites 911, caught the season 3 premiere of This Is Us and then headed over to Netflix to watch the new movie Nappily Ever After. The ladder is so good, I am considering another big chop.

Friday September 28th

This day started off with breakfast with Mom #2, Lisa and Mom #5, Adri-Anne. These women are some of the best firends a girl could ask for. They have helped me celebrate my birthday in the worst of times and the best of times without fail every year for the past seven years. I am so grateful to have these two amazing women in my life. I don't know what I would do without them. We had a great breakfast and great conversation.

After that, I rested some more and then spent the evening with LeLand in LA again. We caught Wild N' Out live at the Staples Center. This was awesome as neither of us had ever been to a comedy show before, but we had both recently fallen in love with Wild N' Out. I am so in love with @IamZoie from Instagram. He recently joined the Wild N' Out cast and so I was excited to see him in person. Little did I know that Nick Cannon had some tricks up his sleeve. To open the show he brought out T-Pain to perform all of his hits! That was amazing, the middle schooler in me got way too hyped. The show ended with OT Genesis performing his hits and the Game taking me all the way back to my OG childhood days. It was yet another great night.

Saturday September 29th

The final stage of my birthday celebrations was a road trip with my sisters Queens Dajanae and Makalah. We hopped in the car at 5am and drove up to San Francisco a 6.5 hour drive. We explored all of the major sights to see in San Fran: the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge, Fisherman's Warf, Pier 39 and downtown San Fran. Then we rushed back down to San Jose where we were blessed to witness Beyonce grace the stage with Jay Z for the On The Run II Tour.

Beyonce is a performer on a whole other level. She's reached this point in her career where she doesn't have to try to be great, she just is. Where before you could see the straight determination on her face to give a good show and do the best she can, now that's replaced with pure effortless grace and fun...she's having fun performing. I loved every single moment of the show. It was so weird because, up until the actual show, I had never seen a clip of Jay Z's performances. So, I didn't know what to expect for his part in the show. But he held his own and delivered a high energy, thought provoking performance that left my sisters and I completely drained of energy once we left the stadium.

Sunday September 30th

Sunday, my sisters and I took the opportunity to sleep in. We checked out of our hotel at the very last minute and made our way to have brunch at Denny's. We were in no rush to get home. We just, took our time. It was great spending time with them. Aaliyah is so close to me, she's only fifteen minutes away. It's a lot easier to just go and swoop her up and hang out. But Makalah and Dajanae live about an hour to an hour and a half away from me. It's always a lot difficult to coordinate time to hang out with them. So I was so grateful to have all this time to be with them, learn more about them and watch them interact with each other.

The Lesson Learned

A quick message for all of you who watched my Instagram Story on my personal page. This world wind of a birthday week was three years in the making. I didn't just say, oh I want to do this and was able to do it. I endured a lot of pain, sweat, and tears in order to have the opportunity to ring in the beginning of a new year of life.

I was fired for my hair in 2016, fighting an eviction last year, and this year I had to fight the insurance company of one of the people who rear-ended me last year, in order to get the settlement check that made this week possible. My life is not this glamorous all the time. But something I learned last week is this is exactly the life I want to have.

I want to be able to work and love what I do. I want to be able to drop everything and go see a show one day. I want to be able to afford spa treatments for myself on a weekly basis. I want to be in the room with all of the greatest musicians and entertainers of our time and have the amazing opportunity to learn and grow from and with them. I want to be able to go see live shows and enjoy life with my friends and family who I love and adore. That is the life I want, and this year, my 26th year, will be dedicated to making that dream a reality.

My intention for this year is to do everything I've been planning and wanting to do for the last seven years but have been to afraid to do. I can make my dreams a reality, this last week was a reminder of that. So it's time to put my head down, focus on me, and create the life I've always wanted.

Thank you so much to everyone who took time out of their busy lives to help me celebrate my birthday. Thank you for all of the messages, DMs, texts, facebook posts, cards and presents. I appreciate every single one of you. This is just the beginning. Being in the presence of the legends that are Quincy Jones and Beyonce has left me hungry. I'm starving like Marvin and I'm going to spend my 26th eating and eating good.

It's a beautiful day to conquer the world. So go forth, conquer and slay!

-Queen Maree

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED OCTOBER 2, 2018