Listen… come over here and chill with me for a minute. I’m also not talking about the “oh, it looks like it’s about to rain outside, don’t it?” you say in passing at the store. I mean the real kind. The kind where you exhale first is as if you have been holding your breath so long you forgot what air felt like.
 |
| pexels |
I had one of those quiet realizations the other day.
The kind of realization that does not come with fireworks. It feels like a lump
in your throat and then it comes as sudden heaviness behind your ribs. It hit
me plain as day. I have never truly lived. I have only survived.
I know firsthand how dramatic that sounds. But I also know
me. I don’t say things to hear myself talk. I am saying it because when I look back,
so many of my years were not measured by joy or milestones or even the
“remember when we…?” stories.
They were measured by what I made it
through.
I have never had a passport. Not because I did not dream
about it. I did. I pictured it like folks picture a wedding ring. It is proof; you
belong to a bigger world than the one you have been stuck in. But a passport
costs money of course. Plus, to me at this time it is real money, extra money
and was always spoken for before it ever hit my hands.
A real vacation? Baby, I mean the kind where you do
not bring your worries with you in a suitcase. The kind where you are not
checking your bank app is whispering your name with every swipe. The kind of
vacation where you rest. The kind that you do not have to earn first. I can
count on one hand the times I have gotten close to that. Even then, my mind
stayed home making lists.
For a long time, my life felt like standing in the
checkout line with a cart full of necessities for me and my kids like milk,
bread, dish washing liquid and silently doing math in my head. I would be
praying the total would not shame me publicly. You know that kind of math? The
kind where you already promised the kids a lil something extra, then you see
the screen climb. That’s when your chest gets hot. Hell, you start doing mental
gymnastics like, “If I put the clothes detergent back, we can keep the soap to
bathe with.”
That is what survival mode does. It makes every choice feel urgent. It makes every mistake feel expensive. It turns your whole world into a compressed padded room with no windows. You thinking about the next need, the next deadline, the next “Lord, please let this work out.”
You can be
standing in your kitchen and still feel like yo’ ass is running. Running from
late fees, from bad luck, from that one surprise expense that could knock your whole
debit account into the negatives.
So, raising kids in that. Whew. People love to
romanticize motherhood. Yes, my two kids have been my joy. But I am also not
going to lie to you as if I got it all wrapped up with a bow. There were days I
was strong because I did not have the luxury of being anything else. There were
nights I stretched dinner. I stretched patience. I stretched myself to make a
way out of no way. Then I went and cried in the bathroom quietly so nobody
would hear me fall apart.
The wild part is, I did not even fully realize how
limited my life had felt until I got my first car at 33. Thirty-three! Like, I
can say it and still feel that mix of pride and grief. Pride on one hand
because look at God! I did that. I worked. I saved; I pushed through. But then,
grief because I also realized just how much I have been navigating without
basic freedom. How many places did I not go because I could not. I didn’t even
consider how many opportunities I did not even have because getting there felt
impossible.
Plus, nobody truly talks about the grieving part, do
they? Nobody tells you that sometimes you must mourn the life you did not get
to have. Not because you were a bum or lacked motivation. Not because you were
not trying. But because you were busy surviving, busy holding everything
together with tired hands and a praying spirit. I guess grief is funny like that
too. Grief it would show up years later. I am talking right when you finally
sit down. Almost as if it’s been waiting on you to get quiet enough to feel it.
There is a sentence that’s been sitting heavy on me,
and it is this:
Some people spent their 20s exploring
life. I spent mine trying to survive it.
I used to feel ashamed to admit that. I felt for a
long time like did something wrong by not having the pictures, the stamps, the
stories. However, the truth is… surviving took everything I had. If you are
reading this with that same tight feeling in your chest, I need you to understand
me: survival is not a character flaw. It’s evidence.
Still. I don’t want to survive forever. I do not want
to wake up at 60 and realize my whole life was a series of emergencies I somehow
became good at handling. I do not want “strong” to be the only compliment
people can find for me. As if softness is some kind of luxury I did not earn.
Therefore, if you have been doing life like I have been
with your head down, heart tired, while trying to make it let this be your
permission slip. You deserve more than survival. Not someday when everything is
paid off and perfect. Now! Even if it starts small. A Saturday morning with
your phone on DND. A little drive with no destination. Applying for that
passport even if the trip isn’t booked yet, because the point is you finally
believing you are allowed to go.
Oh, and if all you can do today is take one deep
breath and choose yourself for five minutes… baby, that still counts as living.
Add your comment