The music of the early 2000’s haunts me in ways that I never knew imaginable. Sentiments still linger to this day, and I’m triggered every time I hear Lauryn Hill sing, “It could all be so simple, but you’d rather make it hard.” There’s a stirring and quickening in my spirit when I hear Tweet sing “If I had you back, I wouldn’t complain at all.” I know what you’re thinking. Why am I doing this to myself? Honestly, I needed to relive some emotional experiences that got me here, so that I could get to the root of what and why I’m trying to change and heal.

During my last therapy session, I explored the root causes of some shit I’ve been grappling with for the past 7 years. If you’ve read previous posts, I’m a scab picker, but I’ve been a lot more deliberate about what I’m uncovering these days, and I stumbled upon some shit I refused to acknowledge in a very real way. I’ve harbored guilt for making decisions for myself and I alluded to that in my feelings associated with moving to the DMV, but bitch, that was just the surface. Guilt + abandonment issues = a recipe for a series of fucked up encounters. This is how the story begins. Buckle up, muthafucka. Shit’s about to get real.

In 2006, I married a church girl from the countriest counties in Mississippi. Ten years my senior, I knew for sure that I was battling some inner turmoil associated with my sexual orientation and what that meant as a prominent member of a Southern Christian church. In spite of all that I felt, I married her anyway. We lost a child and I watched her cheat because I couldn’t give her what she needed. I lost 60 pounds and filed for divorce less than a year later. Divorcing someone who cheated on you should have been easy, but it took a toll because I knew that even though I was gay, I wouldn’t be brave enough to come out and be free. It was easier to blame her, and I felt guilty. I felt like I lead her on . I was 23, and a virgin when I met her, so I had no clue what I was doing or how to be a husband. I had these feelings of sexual attraction to men since I was 9, but had never acted on them because church was supposed to change me, but church couldn’t help me erase the painful memories of molestation, the fear of hiding it and being exposed, or the damage it cause to my mind, but it did change me. Church changed me in a way I never expected.

I had my first boyfriend less than a year later. He was 7 years my senior, but was closeted, so it was ideal. I wasn’t ready to be out. For over a year things were perfect, then the guilt of hiding my sexuality became too much to bear and I came out to my parents on April 15, 2018. I didn’t come out sooner because I was afraid of rejection. The south isn’t necessarily the most progressive place, and being a church kid didn’t lend itself to freedoms. You live by the Bible, or die and go to hell. I didn’t come out for myself, though. I came out to my parents because people were attempting to use my sexuality to shame my family, once they got wind of it. My boyfriend and I didn’t break up when I came out to my folks, but on that day, I knew I had lost him. We continued to make it work, but he wasn’t ready to do the same for me and eventually we split. He knew he couldn’t give me what I was looking for, and knew it would be better for him to leave. Now there I was, struggling to maintain a relationship with my family because of my sexuality, and he had become my refuge; my source of peace. Suddenly he was gone and and I lost the first man I actually loved. I felt alone and abandoned, so I made the decision to leave the state of Mississippi for the first time.

I stayed single for about 2 years, then I met my first out boyfriend. The experience was everything I thought I needed, but didn’t need. We started out long-distance and eventually, after my diagnosis, I moved to the DMV for better opportunities and healthcare. Shit was tumultuous. We were terrible for each other and for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why I held on so long. Everytime I wanted to leave, I remember the feeling of being abandoned and the guilt associated with leaving someone. I couldn’t leave him. It was my job to make sure he was ok. I carried that sentiment into my next relationship. Undertones of “I can’t leave him because he needs me.” That’s where I held my value in relationships. The men I dated needed me and it would hurt them too much for me to leave. I’d be abandoning them like my first boyfriend did me. I didn’t want to inflict that pain on anyone. Then in 2015, my first boyfriend passed away, and, I added another layer of negative emotion. Not only did I feel the guilt of abandoning someone, I had lost the first real love of my life and I’d be devastated if that happened again. It suddenly became my personal responsibility to make sure that every man that had ever been connected to me was alive and well. It became my job to keep them that way. I’ve compounded these emotions, making it harder to really care for myself, or show anyone else how to care for me because I’m trying so hard to save people from emotions that I had experienced in the past.

Being covered in scars, makes you very sensitive to touch, and I was carrying more weight than the men in Tim O’Brien’s “The Things they Carried.” I’d crossed my priorities and traded war for peace. I’d become so damaged that I equated hardship with love and struggle with care, and here I am, at 35 finding, myself falling into the those same traps.

In all transparency, the last 48 hours have been disastrous on so many levels, and it made me question my own intentions. It’s so easy to revert to what you know when things become difficult, even though you know it won’t work. You know what you’ve done in the past won’t help progress your healing in anyway. Here I am sitting alone, drinking Hennessy, smoking a blunt, and in my feelings because I feel the lump return in my boob. I feel my incision scar rupture and watch blood ooze down my skin, while I cringe in pain. Here am I slipping back into depression, leaving others in the dark, thinking what is the point of progress, if life is going to keep throwing shit at me to make it hard, and here I am now, questioning my own existence, my reasoning, my purpose, even after having an amazing therapy session about my progress. Am I healing because I want to be better for me? Am I healing because I’m too afraid that no one will ever love this dented can of green beans again? Is this a superficial “healing” just to say I’m doing it, or am I really seeking to change?

Then, I remember. I’ve been through heartbreak before and my heart healed. I’ve suffered loss before and I gained even more. I’ve mourned and my heart has been comforted. I’ve been sick and my body eventually got better. It’s all a process and I’m a different person than I was 5 years; 2 years; 6 months ago. My healing is for me. My healing is for the little brown boys and girls who look up to me. The 494 students entrusted to me everyday. My healing is for everybody that reads this page and recognizes that the human experience is made up of challenges that we work hard to overcome. I’ll continue to lean in to my truth, no matter how difficult it becomes. That’s the only way I’ll heal. So, who am I doing this for? This is for me.

I don’t care how many L’s life throws my way this year, I’m not done fighting, ho. And neither are you. We got this shit. Bring it on, 2019. Square the fuck up.