101 days, 1 hour, 6 minutes, and 17 seconds. That’s the amount of time I’ve spent living in a daze since his final departure, since his hands were last in mine. “Ever since you went away, I ain't been doing nothing every day but thinking, thinking, and thinking.” I don’t forget a day. It’s only been what? 2-3 weeks since I truly began emerging from the chrysalis that I entered that night. While I was in my cocoon I broke down the pieces of myself and prepared for a radical transformation of self. I’m now allowing myself the freedom to explore different sides of myself, meet whoever I am in my singularity, celebrate how far I’ve come, and finally acknowledge how much I’ve endured in such little time. I’ve been trying to extend myself more grace, especially knowing that I’m in the middle of an ending and a beginning at the same time. I allowed myself to cry for many days and many nights and through time I got back to being my best self. A side effect of my heartbreak is a widening of my interests and an exploration of new creative outlets. I’ve been encouraging myself to enhance my skills & abilities. It’s happened both times that I’ve had my heart mishandled. Writing as a form of self expression has been liberating. It allows me to speak into the silence.  It  may have been hard to reach this point, but I can appreciate how much I grow when I do eventually pass that initial threshold. Every time I pick myself up and get back into creating it shows me that I’m more capable and talented in more ways than I realize. If only I could commit to myself in the way I tried to commit to my previous lovers. 

41 weeks, 3 days, 12 hours, 43 minutes. That’s the amount of time I’ve spent roaming this godforsaken state without mental or physical stability. It’s definitely been longer than that without true stability, however within those 9 months, I moved 8 times. Soon to be 9, inshallah. In my current housing arrangement, I live with 3 other people and I sleep in the living room. Don’t get me wrong, as a cat dad I’m extremely grateful that my daughter and I have somewhere relatively stable to stay, but there are downsides to the situation. As of writing, I have realized that I haven’t had actual privacy in almost a year. Damn. I’m not aware of the psychological effects that a lack of privacy can have on a person, especially for that long, but I do know I’ve been extremely uncomfortable and unhappy without the space to just exist and reflect with no interruption from others. Mentally, I haven’t been stable in…well ever. But in the past year, I think my mental state has been more fragile than it’s been in a while. I began therapy between moving and though it’s helped in many ways, I am looking for a new psychologist that’s a better match for me. One of the final things she told me before we stopped meeting weekly was that I need to find a way to become completely self-sufficient in order to truly detach from the toxicity in my life. I’m not trying to rush my independence more than it already has been, but I understand Toro y Moi in “New House.” I’m definitely ready to move into a new house and buy my first car. My lack stable housing has taught me a few things: that I need better preparation, my need to be grounded even amid chaos, and that I need to find my definition of home is. I hope by the time I move into my own place I will have learned these things and will have begun to  apply them in my daily life. In fact, I know I will or I won’t be allowed to move forward. I pray that Bon Iver is right, I pray that this will all be over soon.

20. That’s the number of years I’ve been granted thus far by my creator. Just last week my second decade began and it just all feels…unfathomable to say the least. Bey told us time moves fast. I just didn’t believe her. I don’t know, just yesterday it was 2012 and we all were thinking the world would end and I was scared it would end before I could reach any milestones. Even past that when I was about 14 or 15, I never thought I’d live to see 18. I don’t know why, I just always had this haunting feeling that something would happen before I was legally an adult or maybe I just wouldn’t want to go on, but I also said if I lived past 18 I knew I’d do great things. Today, I stand here at 20 years young, very aware that I haven’t even scratched the surface of everything that I want to and will accomplish. I haven’t seen or experienced even a quarter of the beauty that I will one day and that thought alone leaves me optimistic. May my teen years rest peacefully and here’s to my twenties.

🎶

published April 18, 2022