woman at the garden.

I greeted 2025 with one of my childhood best friends at our flagship church in Baltimore, surrounded by like-spirited souls who also decided to gather in total submission to God, followed by Moet champagne toasts, black-eyed peas, monologues and conversations with extended friends of all that 2024 had been and what we are trusting God for in 2025. I woke up the following morning, the first day of 2025, with a vicious cold, no one or nothing to cut off, just a physical reminder to rest, no longer tethered to the endless cycle of highs and lows, successes and failures, the superficial push and pull of completion and new beginnings bound by the turning of a calendar year. I took off work the last two days of 2025’s first week to recover and allowed the past year to be a mirror, showing me where I was holding on too tightly, where I was out of alignment, where I was hiding, and where I needed to grow. So here, I bloom.

It was around this time last year that I learned I was pregnant and miscarried a month later. I’ve reflected on the hindsight of blessings in disguise since then. While motherhood may not come as easily to me as it may seem for others, I grasp tightly to and trust in God’s perfect will- no matter my age and no matter what comes my way, even when it seems that beautiful blessings are passing me by left and right- because they aren’t. I’ve found solace in my meantime as I wait patiently and celebrate those around me who are receiving what God has had in store just for them at every level this whole time. And I’m in no rush. I only want what God has for me, when God wants me to have it. I know exactly how God moves so I don’t place any limitations on how God always exceeds my every expectation in abundance- because God always works swiftly on my behalf. My life is changing in unthinkable ways, so life has been inviting me to sit with myself and God, my vision, my struggles, my flaws and missteps, my reality, my growth, my emotions and my purpose. Sober now, the way forward is clear. While I’m not here to offer any solutions, I extend to those (who willingly accept the invitation) that true freedom doesn’t come from leaving pain or people behind, rather from releasing the weight of hardness, embracing the refinement of grace, and trusting that every person, place, thing, or thought that we let go of makes space for what’s meant to flow into and out of our lives. Therefore softness, a soft life, is a choice.

I write this from a soft space, never hardened nor bitter, not too sweet because life is so real. Shedding outdated versions of myself. Shedding relationships, paradigms, ways of thinking, feeling, doing, believing, and being. Shedding old fears and doubts, shedding imposter syndrome once and for all. I’m supposed to be here and am exactly where I’m supposed to be. Shedding the illusion that my worth and value is tied to what I do or how much I give, nor does it depend on my tolerance and capacity for uncertainty, hardship or bullshit in any way, shape, or form. I let things die to allow for new growth and the breaking of generational cycles and toxicity, the resounding but quiet convictions and revelations, hard truths, deep lessons, peaceful loss, hope, and reckoning to ensue. Past financial challenges have come to an end, blockages and barriers have been removed, all walls and guards are down now. I’ve settled into the unexplained, severed ties of core friendships and estranged relationships that I leave behind me with grace, those I held deeply and dearly, and will always have love for. And while there will always be the side to every story whose chapters have ended that I won’t ever get to tell, all is well in my heart, mind and spirit. I understand on a spiritual level that everybody can’t go with you, that you can be a villain in someone’s eyes even if you haven’t done anything wrong, and that closure isn’t always something that’s necessary. Often, closure isn’t what others have the capacity or emotional bandwidth to give you, nor is it deserved, and you never have to take that personally. We can value someone enough to expect honesty, strength, and effort toward sustaining a connection from them just as we offer it while also befriending the reality that the actions of others reflect their limitations, preferences, and/or boundaries, never your worth. And that we can always choose to keep moving forward. It’s all about perspective, anyway.

And so, from my perspective, choices and profound victories- both seen and unseen have prevailed, redefining love for myself and my legacy, navigating love’s complexities and the delicate dance of and attempts at becoming one through the highs and lows that came with the start and end of my brief engagement in less than a year’s time. Healing wounds that have plagued those who have come before me for decades once and for all, so that my future children and their future children always operate from a God-centered place of more than enough. There is deep work in preparing for, committing to, and rising above challenges and in recognizing that old keys won’t unlock new doors and that growing apart or in different directions does not make anyone a bad person. And in actively and lovingly understanding what a God-ordained, covenanted marriage truly means. And to leave people better off than how you first met them. Lessons have been learned, mission accomplished, the cycle is complete. I now seek and await God’s go-ahead, God’s it was so. When you understand that God is never late, the wait is different. So, it is and so it will be.

“some people are settling down, some people are settling and some people refuse to settle for anything less than butterflies.”

— candace bushnell

Through life’s crash(out) courses in vulnerability and authenticity, I know now that NEITHER are about oversharing, virality, nor exposure- they’re about depth. Vulnerability is an act of surrender- trusting that your truth, no matter how raw or unpolished, is enough. Because the truth will always set you free. Authenticity is a reminder that your importance is not contingent upon how many followers, views or likes you receive nor how much of your life you disclose or curate, or how palatable your struggles or how exclusive your lifestyle seems or how much influence you have, or how cutthroat or cute you are, the car you drive, the things you have that you gatekeep and glorify when others have not. Instead, it’s found in your decision to be present, to share what’s meaningful, and to protect what’s still tender in your spirit. It’s showing up as your whole, true self, even with the world’s persuasion to document, fragment, compartmentalize, highlight, story, stream, carousel, reel, or filter who you are and post our every move to show we have motion- when we can just be still. None of us are perfect and we are free to take our masks off.

I will always choose impact over influence and to offer what’s real to those who have earned and respect the privilege to hold it, those who have earned the privilege to SEE ME in the countless, captivating ways that I see myself through God’s lens, not the ego of my own.

I’m mindful of the words I speak into and over my life, so I never say that I struggle or suffer with anything. I simply let each experience teach me more about myself each day. I greet this day with impenetrable peace and unshakable faith in knowing that every happening is an amalgamation of all the lessons, reverence for the journey, and trust in God’s timing- a divine allure, initiation and process that continuously prepares and positions me for what’s to come. I let GO and let GOD cook, and do this new, extra special thing in me and in my life, trusting the stillness and movement when God says so, the moments of life, knowing that every experience- no matter how hard or beautiful- has been a sacred part of my unfolding. I am uniquely blessed and favored by God in ways that may be difficult to comprehend.

No need to be sad nor sorry for me at all because there’s no more crying here. Celebrate with me instead because I am on the other, upside- whole and healed, overflowing with and surrounded by the love, joy, support, and peace of the most amazing and authentic humans in my life- I have the BEST circle imaginable. Looking forward only to a future and fulfillment of a purpose so bright, abundant, so intentional- one that only God could orchestrate. God has been the guiding light and focus of all my attention, holding my hand, guarding my heart, covering and protecting me always and forever more. God is still super sweet and so faithful even when I don’t get what I want because every end and every need is met. It’s become so easy to remain heart and mind wide open to all that awaits as I walk softly and intentionally through 2025, only taking up space and welcoming souls into my life who walk the same- those of us who are taking it all in, taking a seat at the table with so much to give, growing with me on purpose, in purpose. In with the new- indeed, I deserve it all.

With SO MUCH LOVE,

😊 —Brit

before i self-destruct.

Now keep in mind I’m a writer, and I’m sensitive about my shit.

An overthinker since the day I was born into this world, I made a home and lived inside my head.  I rolled over to good mornings of ruminating, obsessive thoughts that terrorized me throughout the day, and haunted me into the night. Post-trauma lurking, sleepless nights on repeat, stuck in a loop of self-destructive cycles for weeks and months at a time. Sitting with the thought that sometimes you don’t want to bask in other people’s sunshine and would much rather sit in your own shit and feel all of those negative and ugly things we rarely tell the truth about or that scriptures, quotes, philosophers, and loved ones tell us to rise above. Because things are really hard right now and life can suck sometimes. I relived every negative circumstance, emotion, and feeling of life, days run by functional depression and anxiety, stress and overwhelm, and underwhelm. Zero motivation, broke, angry, sad, mad, confused, insecure, bitter, numb, delirious, desperate, hopeless. Days charged with uncertainty, discomfort, and grief. Days I didn’t even feel like being here anymore and days I accepted here is all I have. Unhappiness and I were well acquainted, thick as thieves.

november 19, 2019— one of the worst days of my life ;-)

So to the back of my mind I journeyed, never allowing myself to let anything go, a tight grip but feeling everything.  Some would call it clingy or codependent or love addicted, I named it fear, mixed with barriers and abandonment, unhealthy attachment and unhealed spaces. All of which had nothing to do with anyone else but me. My heart was starving for shit no one could ever give me anyway. So I’d run that play, act out, and take it too far. Making something out of nothing became the norm until I grasped that sometimes making something out of nothing isn’t your job and that sometimes you gotta make something out of something else- one must exist within the other. Your darkness and your light. Your shadow work.

“Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Recognizing true love, support, and friendship and that any person, place, or thing that allows me to self-destruct or who benefits from my self-destruction isn’t and was never a person of mine nor kept me in mind in the first place and most certainly didn’t love me in the way that God does, and to never confuse the two again.  Sifting through the counterfeit. Good company or not. Fleeting glimpses of gratitude in the fact that there are people you’ll encounter who can’t identify, comprehend, or open themselves to nor are they deserving of the energy you exude, the power that you possess, the love of self that they see within you that you’ve journeyed so far and so deep to discover, a light that glows from within that shines so brightly and boldly and bravely. You see it. But everyone isn’t going to like that and I’m learning that’s okay.

I stopped expecting and waiting around for some things that may never show up or appear how I hoped or expected because everything doesn’t have to go your way in order for it to turn out the way you want it. And just because you release something doesn’t mean it won’t return and sometimes we have to let go and allow for something to return in a form that’s better suited for us whether it’s packaged the way we want it to or not. It’ll serve you in a way that meets your needs.

Remembering the moments victimhood kept me bound to mistakes I was too proud to admit. But were choices I made. Playing cards I was dealt and choosing my own hand, taking risks because if you want anything worth keeping in this life, you have to do the work.  Accepting that it’s okay to not help everyone who has their hand out and that I had to stop trying to save the world or do it all, because the world is not a place to be saved. There’s salvation in saving yourself.  Setting healthy boundaries with others from the start because our capacity to give does change and what I was once willing to pour into others, I’d rather keep to myself these days or pour into those I hold close. Releasing those I no longer hold close.  And there’s no way to say to someone that our time is truly up, those that you love and still or always will, wanting always what’s best for them and choosing not to be a part of that. How do you tell someone who cares that you don’t? Or that holding on to ships that have long sailed are too exhausting, too forceful, too dormant, too chaotic? How do you explain the change you and everyone else sees when it’s time to show yourself? I am not the same Brittany that many knew and some never really knew me at all. And it wasn’t until I truly got to know myself that I was able to tell the difference.

In the meantime, I’m out here getting what I deserve. Respecting myself in the process, remembering who I am. Remembering whose I am and taking care of that. I feel closer to God more now than I ever have been and I love that for me. I love myself entirely and that is the greatest gift that I could ever give to anyone. I get out to create a life where limitations don’t exist, so that my children and children’s children can be whoever they want and are meant to be. Burnin all this shit down and saying goodbye to any desires of the American dream, I choose to live my own. Rising from the ashes like the phoenix tatted on my right hand. I grew up a church girl too, served, sang, and ushered in years of people pleasing and giving my freedom away to those who didn’t even know or care what I had to lose. Or gave up. Forgiving myself for ever living a life that was never pleasing to the woman of God I am. God did.

july 10, 2022— one of the good days :)

I’m anointed so that means I can’t be just anywhere with just anybody doing just anything, which is why I stay out the way and you never catch me in the mix. Everybody can’t have access to me and I don’t have to feel obligated to do anything outside of what I am here to do. It means my time and space is sacred. And that I can change my number and deactivate my social media when I see fit. And that I can choose not to respond to what I don’t value and to love and support others from a distance. It means I have a choice in what I entertain and digest. It means I don’t have to deal with you and that you don’t have to deal with me. I’m a queen so I know that we can all exist in the same space and that I have the power to pay you no mind. To ever think that we are the same as anyone is a waste of thought because I know my assignment and purpose and that I’m set apart and born for this.

I’m divine so that means I use discernment and trust my intuition to know when it’s time to move and move on. And what I’m worth. Mind, body, and spirit working together to make decisions that shape my entire life and the lives of 7 generations to come from me, while tying loose ends, healing, and breaking the curses that plagued the lives of 7 generations before me. Understand me when I say that I am on a different time with a divine assignment here and I got shit to do. I cannot afford any distractions. It also means that there are times of which stillness is required so that I am in position for what’s to come. Taking full advantage of the daily chances that I am given simply by waking up, chances to prove to God that I am indeed ready for all the abundance that’s on its way. An honor it is that God trusts me enough with tasks and challenges that only I can handle. Whether good or bad I make the best of it because I know that this is all temporary anyway and that I am never alone.

Elevate so high that your past can’t reach you, your now can teach you, and your future can’t wait to greet you. You defied all odds before, how is now any different? There are paths you must walk, alone, often times in darkness, but the sun always rises in the morning. Until then get lost, be the light.

"If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it." -Toni Morrison

brit :)

take what you need.

There are days gone by, dreams I've had of not knowing whether to scream, laugh, cry, smile, or go off but I'm far too delicate for guns, too old for fights. And I know my worth. So instead, I choose myself. Yet my heart aches and heart breaks, over and over again until it stays open, for reasons that are above me now. A weight of the world on my shoulders, things in order, but equally out of place. No doubt, I've lost my grounding. Not expecting nor prepared for this change in season, coming to painful terms with humbling truths about life, I manage to chip away, weather myself, fuckin my own shit up. I am no stranger to self-sabotage, taking on and doing too damn much, overthinking myself into oblivion, making sudden deaths out of new beginnings. I didn't know what to do, though I’ve been here several times before in different ways. A shame on me.

I submerge my body in coconut milk and salt baths with bubbles and lavender oil, the hottest of water shocks my skin, with prayers and meditation and crystals to soothe my soul and cope with episodes of depression. Palo santo to ease anxiety and clear my space of low vibrational energy, with hopes that it’d cleanse my heart and reassemble all of my broken pieces simultaneously, though experience and time alone reminds me that it is never all that simple. Rick and Morty or Bob's Burgers binged myself back to life, humor helps even when shit isn’t so funny anymore. I inhale deeply. I stretch myself, overextending, overpouring from an empty pitcher, as I thirst and cling for dear life to a career I've finally and absolutely HAD TO SAY "fuck this" to (my last day is on Wednesday) in order to save my sanity and save my life, the rising and falling of friendships and relationships kept long past their expiration date for change. Friendships and relationships with those I've invested in, used to or just began to know as they shift, ascend, or end completely, including the relationship I've maintained with myself.

From the outside, looking in, I embody the home of a seemingly happy woman, a whole woman, an all-positive woman. But from the inside, I'm posted up with a gray storm cloud of negativity constantly looming over me and some beautiful ass bandaids to mask my scars and seething wounds, open again and again after attempts to step outside myself, the only home I've known. I've embraced tragedy, suffering, and sacrifice. Vivid memories of my love speaking to inner me one random day, ‘it’s like you’re addicted to pain’. And he was right. That IS a thing. 1:11, 2, 3, 4:44, 5 in the morning, crawled up in a ball on the cold cement floors of my lil dope apartment for HOURS, in tears again. I am deeply grieving so much all at once, while still having to show up for the wellbeing of others, daily. Life seems out of my control and I'm TIRED of goin through shit. But the universe has to get your attention, somehow.

“God breaks the heart again and again and again until it stays open.” ― Hazrat Inayat Khan

And that's a fact. So I begin with a broken heart for more reasons than I can or care to count, again. This time, not starting from scratch, but from experience. Got my ass up, used the bathroom with the lights off that night, guilty and ashamed to see my eyes swollen shut from tears. I fell out of love with myself in that moment. I didn't recognize who I was at all anymore and every part of me that I worked so hard to become was challenged. And depleted. A total knockout.

Triggered by my highly sensitive, ever-emotive self and the demons that remain pronounced and never a secret unless we choose to keep it to ourselves, or not see objectively, who stands before us, or lay beside us, or come inside us without apology or accountability-- we are the women best for them and they the best for us. Idealizing and idolizing the illusion of “you and me”, a light, smoky haze lingers in the air, the dust starts to settle. Fully sober this time, I see everything clearly for what it is and who you are. And who I am. and WHOSE I am.

Swallowed me whole where I stood, as I accepted that I HAVE TO ALLOW endings to take place. Because I had already died inside a long time ago. And a beast awakened within. A battle ensues, this cycle ends, and I ascend. No longer believing that dead-end jobs, a career with no happiness nor joy in it (for me), fragments of men, and one-sided, trauma-bonding friendships or associates is all that God has or all that’s left for me to settle for. Or that the cards I've been dealt or decisions I've made, gifts to me of my recent and distant past, make me any less of the child of God that I AM and have always been, never less worthy.

Allow things to replenish because sometimes, it takes space to fill the gaps. Gaps that look more scary from the outside than when you're actually in them. And really just a paradise, lost-- I face my shadow work, some real triflin and tough shit, but a healing space nonetheless. I adjust to my new form, talkin shit as usual because I can. But gracefully and gratefully as my heart remains open through it all, in a way it never has before, a way that I never thought possible. Reframing my entire past and taking the new shape of my present, I look forward to the future, lightly. Got ghost and disappeared for awhile, deactivated my social media for months at a time, so that I can navigate this new life I’ve given myself the permission to live, unapologetically, world knows I deserve this shit.

Loving yourself is a continuous journey, a constant walk, and often times a lonely one, though you're never really alone (@ God). I'm grateful for true friends and family and a love, all of whom I don't have to nor can I hide from. Those who have seen the best, worst, most beautiful, and ugliest parts of me and have given me the space to grow in every way, but never kept too far a distance for me to know that they are right beside me throughout.

"when you love yourself, it makes a big difference." --Nana

And I’ve really been getting my shit together. Rekindling old sparks with my momma, we really bodied that breaking generational curses thing. I didn't sign up for that, but who better than me? Healing the generations before me and the generations to come of my womb, from the sins of my parents, their parents and their parents, the trauma of my truths, the residue of the unresolved or unaddressed. I know that I have made my mother proud, my grandmother proud. I have made my ancestors smile and they are at peace now. They can trust me. Doing the very tough work of healing from heartbreak and rebuilding trust (beyond packing my shit up and relocating) from the inner child to the taming of my outer child, so that I can allow myself to love and be loved. Because I deserve that. Setting boundaries and letting go of some real ugly shit. I used to loathe some of (you bitches) the women who came before me or after me that didn't seem to mind sharing men we all loved in some way equally, men who hurt us all the same. A deep resentment I harbored, toward women who did not see what I saw, who did not fully know or act like they knew their worth and for seemingly making it more challenging for those of us who did see and did know, for not caring enough about how men treated them or holding them accountable. For not asking the right amount of questions or for simply letting go and moving tf on, though we all long for love so badly even when we know better for ourselves. I know exactly what it feels like to watch someone you love and thought loved you the same, love someone else, questioning who I am, my position. Growing tired of being a warehouse for men in "preparation for another" and the glow up and snap back and movement that is birthed from it all. And the beautiful love that is actually for you and awaits you thereafter. Accepting that I'm no more bitter nor better than you.

Just different.

Living my way to the unknown answers instead of trying to force every outcome. Surrendering, because you gotta let shit BE. Manifesting and having faith in the life that God already has planned for me, that the universe already has lined up. I just need to be in position. Choosing the kind of relationship that I have with my family, friends, and the world, ones that feel good and make me feel good about myself, never devalued, disrespected, disregarded, or taken for granted. No longer afraid to leave the home I’ve known for so long, I've built a new one, grounded in God, truth and self-worth, confidence and security, eternal openness and stability, serenity and love. Duality and peace. I trust myself again, I forgive myself for the first time, I love myself, fully.

To those who know LOSS, and know it all too familiarly well. Loss of a dream, of a job, of a goal or aspiration, of life, of a child, of a loved one, of a relationship, of ourselves. Those who care about how people treat them and aren't scared to be alone. Those who won’t settle for less in any area of our lives anymore, no matter how bad that letting go and movin on shit frightens us or hurts. Because IT WILL HURT SOMETIMES. Those who choose peace over chaos and confusion, those who still keep living and believing in reciprocity in life and love so necessary, so whole, so complete, so full, so bright, so beautiful, so familiar that it can only remind you of the love you’ve found within yourself after all these years. That Higher Power, God love. The love that we gift the opportunity for light to enter and strengthen every broken space. I see it as a new me. Keep growing.

Even with life’s uncertainties, because I will never know for sure of what shit tomorrow is packing, I have hope and flow in the now. And do it all in and out of love. Been holding one long ass breath for 33 years, I can and finally, exhale.

‘Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.’ vaclav havel

And it’ll all make sense some day.

love all ways,

brit- the most beautiful, the most broken, the most open bitch.

holy water.

This one's for me.

A true, October fall in Colorado, the trees prepared to shed its leaves, now turned to gradients of yellows and greens, amber oranges to browns, standing and sitting, high on top of Lookout Mountain with one of my soulmates.  Life escorted me through one HELL of a year.  Overlooking the Denver skyline from 7,379 feet up there, I closed my eyes, inhaled the idea of peace and exhaled the reality of pain.  Allowed the cool wind breeze to whisper lucid endings to me.  Thought seriously about letting myself go in that instant.  Lei had no idea that had we not left when we did, struggle as it was for me to ride passenger side down that mountain, she would have made it down without me.  A bad trip indeed.  

Concluded that October fall at the Hampton Inn and Suites, first time seeing each other in almost a year, since everything went down and just weeks before I almost allowed a man to disappear with all my shit for the second or third or fourth or fifth, lost count time, shit that he didn't even know he had. I lay beside and stared deep into the eyes of the great pretender he was. And had always been. Embraced the warmth of a presence we had no business feeling, eyes closed now as my once favorite hands caressed my face, light kisses met my forehead and softened my cheeks and lips as he apologized... and I believed him. I was pretending, too. We were both hurting, lost in our own respective ways. Both in pieces, but seemingly well assembled, together, in our final moment. Black roses, after all insert Saba, "Broken Girls", here*. Sex doesn't change a damn thing, nor a sorry or an "I love you", especially when they never really meant it in the first place. Reflecting on our final texts, the painful severance of a soul tie, and my message to her, I welcome those memories as a point of reference for who he was to me, a final rest in peace. On some real shit, it was the perfect ending. I didn’t see it then, but what a BEAUTIFUL woman became of me that night.

Life on autopilot, shit was neither good nor bad, I was kinda just here, a beautiful ruin.  Chakras ALL fucked up.  So, Tiffany told me to find a heavy rock, write on it everything I had been holding onto, and carry it with me as a physical reminder of my baggage everywhere I went, everything I did.  I'd know when I was ready to release it all.  I allowed my nail polish to chip during that time, too.  Anyway, sat back against the wall talking with Nelly on her bed one afternoon, rock in my left sweat pant pocket as she shared with me that you can’t mix a true and a false and make it real, no matter what stories are told, what visuals are portrayed.  Yet and still, we’ll try our hardest to see something that was all an illusion from the very start.  Make someone feel deserving of us when they never really did deserve you in the first place.  But you already knew that.

Take a deep breath in here now, as we’ll carefully select others to devour with our hurt along the way, because "anything tastes good when you're starving."  And fuck em too, raw and reckless if you let em.  Drink to forget, smoke until we’re numb.  Succumb to our compulsions and impulses, there's no one to stop us but ourselves.  Make promises we never intend to keep.  Create a totally different life for ourselves that we don’t even recognize.  Exhale here, now, at how unnerving it is, the extremes we'll go to and contortions we’ll make in and of our lives just to escape our realities.  Just because you let it go and it returns, doesn't mean it's destined, especially when your rear view reference isn't a clear view.  And how serious of a condition it is for us to fear and avoid pain and being alone completely, no matter the price.  And how critical it is to our existence to face that pain and solitude head on.  Ain't no shortcuts.  Be careful.  Be brave.

Moving forward, I gave MYSELF permission to be free now, free from my past, free from my present, free from what lies ahead, as I was reminded that you can’t heal in the same places you hurt. Never pretending to be this perfect or nice person (because I’m neither), the victim role had always seemed to suit me well, since my first heartbreak at the age of 14 after meeting my father for the first time. A year later at 15, lost my virginity to a false representative of a man I thought could be the love I so desperately felt I needed. Spiraled into and out of control again and again the next 15 years, literally half of my life been a whirlwind full of men I reaped and some I chose, trying to secure that shit. That of which I have come to find at 30 was in me this whole time. I needed myself before I ever needed anyone or anything else. You gotta love yourself, first, B.

“You also don’t have to villainize an individual who has wronged you, nor is it necessary to victimize yourself to learn life’s lessons, heal from heaven’s hurts.”

It took me 15 years to put those words together and fully comprehend that. And just because we ain’t taking yo black ass back, subscribing to, nor ride or dying for yo bullshit Black men, we are not your enemies. There is nothing broken here for you to fix. We can handle your truth. We are not the cocoons or the chrysalis by which a man changes, nor valleys for your need for validation or cradles for your insecurities, not avenues for your abandonment, not a space in time to occupy your loneliest hour, not the crutch on which you stand, not a figment of your imagination or fixture on your path toward awakening. But a human being, the backbone of the universe, your greatest ally, yes. I no longer allow you to be my Achilles' heel or my greatest oppressor. Grew quickly accustomed to walking miles in the shoes and shadows of the “strong black woman” schema, modeled by my single, independent as hell, beautiful, black mother, skin as smooth and deep as the purple sheets on which I'd cry myself to sleep, once upon a time. She's always said that no one ever did shit for her and she never needed anyone, raised 5 kids by herself. I watched her break as my awareness of inter- and trans-generational trauma increased, so I was OBLIGATED to shed that dead skin, be vulnerable and transparent, break those cycles.

Ended the year nursing my wounds, emotionally depleted. Just because I’m strong, doesn’t mean life doesn’t hurt. And deeply because I'm sensitive. But our wounds are where the light enters. I decided to reconcile with INNERstanding and rest in the reality that heaven and hell aren’t destinations to me, they are conditions, gifts of life. Sometimes heaven and hell are the people we welcome into our lives. The longer that I focus on living life a certain way as the only route to arrive somewhere else, the more I limit my ability to do something in the now, while I'm here. I’m learning the value of time and truth and renunciation, allowing it to enter my mind, dismantle and transform my thoughts and change my life. I know now that EVERYTHING IS TEMPORARY and yes, life is suffering. And we'd better get used to that, because life ain’t gon stop gifting you nothings.

With that, I detached completely from the ideas that suffering should be in silence and that our Higher Power just lets shit go down. Swift to suggest that God wouldn't have allowed something to happen if it was not "meant to be", we ignore the fact that we have free will. Sometimes God doesn’t have anything to do with the reality that we created. Yet and still, God, You're always there to usher me through every decision, every step of the way. I imagine Your tears falling down a face I've never seen, with cuts on those omnipotent hands, as my once broken pieces are put back together, every time. I promise to stop hurting You, now. Took inventory of the true meaning of speaking out and living in truth by not allowing others to project what they see as their truth onto what is mine. Throat chakra clear, I use my voice, now. You read these words, now. When nothing seems to phase me and I stop giving a fuck, I find that I cry my ancestor's tears, they'd been through worse. It's okay to cry, you know. The tears of my late great-grandmother, recalling my final moments and conversations with her, that day I braided her soft hair, nearly white as snow. I can still see the 98 year old depth of her wisdom in those glossy, purple eyes. Her spirit reminds me of my worth,

“...when will you stop settling for less, love?”

Never looking at what other people have and what everyone else around me is doing, I focus on inner-me, I mind my business these days. Flashback to May 2014, breaking down on the subway platform as I waited on the downtown 1 train from Harlem, my daily journey back to my apartment in Astoria, replaying the words Dr. Tartter emailed to me that morning, “...I think you will save yourself the anxiety and embarrassment if you accept the failure now and just stop trying to work.” I didn’t ask for her opinion, though. I use those words as motivation. I went from carrying around a rock covered in painful words and thoughts to healing stones and crystals, Lapis Lazuli and Chrysocolla accompany me now, along with the Clear Quartz I wear on the last remaining loc of my now-loose-again natural hair. Free at last. Skurted Walked across that New Orleans Theater stage, Master’s degree in hand with the highest honor (4.0, how I did that shit? God's work, not mine). Himalayan salt lamps and sage smudging to clear and cleanse the internal and external spaces I occupy as I learned my purpose here on and of this earth, discovered my assignment as a black woman, and the true meaning of womanhood. I'm not poised for domestication. A wanderer by nature, I can never stay still, I won't ever stop here. Get the strap.

We’ve all taken a beating, we’re all a bit bruised.  We’re all burned by fires we didn’t start sometimes.  We all find ourselves breaking bread with others and eating at tables that we didn’t set ourselves.  And though I have limited control over the debilitating circumstances and vicissitudes of life, the time has come where the gumption to take control of my own life is required.  Accountability.  No matter where I came from, no matter where I thought I should be by now, no matter who did me wrong or told me some bullshit, no matter who wasn’t who they were supposed to or said they would be, no matter who was ready and who wasn’t, no matter if I was ready or not, no matter who didn’t do what they were supposed to do, no matter who didn't show up, no matter who sold me the dream I bought into, no matter whether I did what I shoulda, coulda, woulda done or not.  No matter who I thought I was and who I ended up being.

I process everything from the inside, out, now.  Asking constantly, what can I learn about myself, about being human, from what I am experiencing in this very moment?  Heart cracked wide open, having lost myself time and time again, I surrender to the gifted present, find myself, and then find others who are lost.  Full circle shit.  That part is for you.  All because I was once lost, too. 

THIS, is 30.