4-24-24 8:59 pm
I am so fortunate to keep a record of my life through words. I felt transported by the following prose while reading through previously written pieces. I remember exactly what was happening in my life then as I recorded it into my notes app. To see in hindsight what I was eluding to in this expression was so on point, prophetic even. I had no idea of the storm that was ahead of me.
I had just lost one of the most influential persons I’ve had in my lifetime to a battle with cancer. In the coming months after writing the following, I fought a looming eviction in an overpriced apartment in Harlem that I shared with my best friend…and lost. I had to move suddenly to avoid said eviction. I had to leave my best friend behind. I left everything behind because all that mattered was my survival.
That summer I went through one of the lowest points of my life. I floated through work, social gatherings, and travels. I felt like I was merely a husk of my former self—devoid of all the familiar parts. I faced suicidal thoughts and came out victorious thanks to therapy. (Shout out to Better Help!) My new home felt beyond foreign to me and I struggled with wanting to make it ‘feel like’ home because I wanted it to be temporary.
Despite all the challenges I found myself keeping the faith that it would all equalize. I had to go inwards to depths I’ve never reached before to find my essence again. I gripped hold of my values, held my inner child with nurturing light, and pulled that love back to the surface, then onto the shores. I weathered the storm. I found my tribe again. It’s an incredible feeling to be able to accept love from your friends and family after going through that kind of darkness.
If any of this resonates with you, if you’ve been through a time of great upheaval or if you are going through that now, please know that you are not alone. Your body and mind are wired to fight and come out on the other side. I send love out to everyone that has felt lost, destroyed, and like it’s not worth moving forward. It is! Keep wading through those waters and you will be found once again.
The following was written on 4-24-24 @ 8:59pm:
Change can be a terrifying thing. When you are on the precipice of a whole new life, and you feel the tides of change swelling. I get a metaphor of a plane crashing in the ocean and you’re the only survivor. Your entire life’s existence carried in the undertow; the people you’ve met, the place you live, the friends, the lovers, the familiar places, creature comforts…they all float about you in the expansive waters that surround you. You won’t be able to save any of them. The load you’ve brought with you on this trip belongs to the sea now, sinking down to depths that light won’t touch. What matters is that you made it; you’re alive. That thought begins to wonder if you will truly make it out of these waters though.
Now you only have two options. One is to succumb to the idea that you will not be saved. No one will find you all the way out here. Eventually you will either starve, be eaten, or drown. This thought gets you no where. Literally. And since you are already no where, you can do the opposite. You can keep the faith that you will be saved. That you will get out of this alive. You will have another warm meal, you will see smiling faces and laugh with them, you will fall in love again.
When you do finally make it out of the waves, your feet firmly planted on earth, then you can mourn what you have lost. You can look back and remember exactly what it is you had before you made this miraculous recovery. You have hung onto it all for so long and it is a part of you. But it is not all you are. The strength, the resiliency you have from making it back to life, would be nothing without those past experiences, people, and places. They made you, their mark is forever burned inside of you. Take those energies and memories and transform them into new miracles. Imbue your new life with love and light in their honor. Go longer, farther, and faster than you ever have before. For now you know what is at stake to be lost.