2019 is coming to a close and I’ve been encouraging you guys to grow and heal all year. Well guess what?  We made it bitch. In light of the year that I’ve had, I decided this year to not do resolutions, but to adopt new norms or standard operations procedures. We’ve been lifting the work of equity, using the protocols from Courageous Conversations about Race, a book by Glenn E. Singleton.  Race is a difficult topic to talk about because it causes you to examine your own biases, and illuminate where you are contributing to or disrupting the gaps that exist between students of color and their white counterparts. I’m doing so, there are norms that we set so that work can be done in the most impactful ways. I’ve decided to let those norms also guide the path of my continued healing and growth in the coming year. Let’s go through them. 😋

Stay Engaged

It’s so easy to disconnect from life and the people around you when things get hard. We take moments to step away and ignore the things that life has been hurling at you is the escapist’s dream. Too often, I disconnect in times when I need people most, especially this time of year when my depression hits its peak. It helps to relieve me of the burden of being sociable or the feelings of worthlessness and despair. I can isolate when I feel unloved or unwanted. As we go deeper into this winter season, depression hits harder, but I promised myself that I’d continue to engage with life and people. I would put myself in a position to stay involved and charged my friends to keep me from isolating. Now, to be clear, they are not the ones who are responsible for me, but they call me out on the bullshit when they see it. With my history, staying engaged could mean the difference between life and death. So, there will be trips, concerts, distillery tours, wine tastings, and sleepovers with friends, to keep me engaged. 

Speak your Truth 

Your story is your story to tell. You can’t allow anyone to take your voice from you. Remember that you will always be the villain in someone else’s story, and you cannot control the narrative that others choose to tell about you. Tell your story and engage yourself with your own truth, so the things you hear about yourself will just be things, and have no impact on how you choose to move forward in life. Speaking my truth has provided me the freedom to live as exactly as I please because there’s a freedom in sharing your story. You connect with others and they connect with you on levels that you never expected. Every time I get a message about how telling my story helped someone, I think about what it took for me to be vulnerable and how others have grown to experience this. Essentially, your story isn’t always meant for you to hold. Sometimes speaking our truths can enlighten others but it’s yours to tell, regardless of how pretty or ugly it is. Never let anyone else speak your truth for you. They won’t tell it right. They’ll never speak it the way you can. 

Lean into Discomfort 

There’s a discomfort in following your dreams, but also in making everyday decisions. What should I be doing with my career? What do I want for dinner? Should I tell this boy I love him? Situations and decisions that are emotionally driven are super uncomfortable. It’s hard for us to trust our instincts if we’ve made decisions in the past that didn’t turn out favorable. It’s hard to trust ourselves again, but those situations, as uncomfortable as they were, allowed us to grow in ways unimaginable. Those two months in Philly taught me a lot. I used to be one of those people who would always say, “oh I can survive any job for a year.” Survive? A Job? What kinda shit is that? I was terrified after I got there and my job wasn’t what I expected. I’m no stranger to hard work. A challenge is like foreplay for me. Tell me how hard it is and watch me show you how easy I can make it look (All while falling apart internally but that’s none of your business) Leaving Philly was one of the hardest decisions of my life, but when I decided to leave, the universe had something amazing for me, and I have never been happier. The only regret is that those kids in Philly may have needed me just like the kids at my current job did, but I’ll never know. I firmly believe that I’m here and prospering because i took the time to experience that discomfort in Philly and my last DC job, and I was able to grow in whatever way was necessary to be in the position I’m in now.  I also had people who pushed me to lean into that discomfort. That growth piece is something serious.  

Accept Non Closure

I’m sure I’ve spoken about this already (see this post). There have been so many situations that I felt I was owed something to make me feel better about it. I felt like my former job owed me a bonus for all the extra work I took on. I didn’t get it. I felt I was owed my relocation expenses when I moved to Philly for that terrible job situation, but again, I didn’t get it. I could have wallowed in my pain and disappointment, and I kinda did. I was upset and I could have decided to shut down in the face of this unfair treatment, but had I stopped every time bad things happened, I never would have gotten to my happy ending. . My friends and family will tell you that I’ve never been so happy on a job before. It’s an amazing feeling to go to a place every day that values your input and does what they can to make sure you succeed. Relationships are no different. I had to let go of all the feelings I had about the men who did me dirty, and the ones I treated just as badly because of the trauma. On the path of getting what I need to be my whole self, I had to accept a lot of things as they were and choose my reaction. In a lot of cases, walking away was always the best option.

Now, let’s be clear. 2019 has been an angry, disruptive, hateful ass hoe bitch. The kind that at hot Cheetos in the morning, wore a baby phat bubble coat, a fan ponytail, and just wanted to fight everyday as soon as she got school. She got hands, too. She been rocking my shit all year, but guess what? We made it. I started the year with a cancer scare and surgery, then sciatica, and complications with my HIV and meds, moving to a new city for 2 months for a job, being hospitalized because of the job, then moving back to DC for a new job. Bouts of seasonal depression have plagued me and I have been fighting tooth and nail to beat it. Nobody said that it would be easy. Healing is hard. Growth is painful. Every step has been harder than the one before but we set the course and did everything in our power to not repeat the cycles from years past and we should celebrate that. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to see what 2020 has in store. I got my Vaseline and my razor blade under my tongue, just in case this heaux tries it but I’m ready for new and crazy adventures. 

May you leave 2019 still healing, and go into 2020 better than you were before. Let’s grow, bitches.