It’s Not a Race

So why am I enduring? Is there even a finish line?

I keep coming back to “Why am I here?” when everything in my body is screaming that this isn’t what you want.

Screaming you aren’t happy.

Screaming your physical and mental space is telling you over and over again that this isn’t where you are meant to be.

But Black women are commended for enduring.

We are held as champions for pushing through, not to an actual finish line, but for continuing to run on a Sisyphean road that never ends and always takes the long way around.

There is no ribbon to break through to finally say, “we finished.”

We never completed. We just endured.

The world celebrated that we stayed, showed up, cared for, paid for, rode until we died and threw us parties for years as our bodies crumbled under the weight of endurance.

I had to ask myself “Why?”

It was because I didn’t want to be that woman. The one who cut everyone off without giving them a chance. The one who kept jumping ship and would have to explain on LinkedIn why the perception wasn’t the reality. Because I wanted to support my people and community.

If I just held on a little longer it would turn around. They may see my worth. They may stop lying about me. They may finally include me.

But it was really just people pleasing.

A way to avoid the difficult conversations and avoid disappointment.

Because how do you say no when it’s so easy to say yes, despite you not wanting to to say yes? How do you walk away when your gifts can benefit them, but you gain no reciprocity?

Endure – suffer, tolerate, continue in the same state,
“to remain in existence” without growth.

What happens when I choose not to endure?
When I choose to no longer remain in existence, but to thrive in a lived experience?

Things do not fall apart.

The world spins, even more dazzling than before.

Boundaries set and enforced by me (because it’s not someone else’s job to enforce your boundaries).

Yes, they may be disappointed. Yes, they may need to figure it out without me.

But what I have found is not rooted in a need for me to suffer.

It’s rooted in peace.