The Wanderer's Corner

Tag: life

  • It’s Not a Race

    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.

  • Follow the signs?

    In one of my favorite books, The Alchemist, one of the lessons is to “follow the signs.”

    But what happens when the signs are clear, but you don’t want to follow them?

    When the signs are blinking very clearly, bright red, to sunshine yellow, with enough lumens to make them impossible to ignore?

    When the recovery of being a people pleaser makes it difficult because you know in order to follow the signs, you are going to have to disappoint some people (gasp) and do the difficult work of actually engaging with emotions rather than just pretending that you are doing it for them.

    When you will have do it for you.

    Because the thing about signs is when you ignore them, danger happens. It takes you that much longer to get to your desitnation. You can damage your car/heart/soul.

    You ignore the signs at your own peril.

    Because the body, heart and soul remember. Understanding why Grandma had her “pressure up” and seeing why that cousin’s smile only ever reached her eyes when she was far away from the house.

    What happens when you can’t ignore the signs telling you to go left anymore because it means leaving behind. While the platitudes scream about “drop what’s not serving you” it is much harder to do when there are real people on the other side of the road less traveled.

    When you swallow the signpost and hope that it doesn’t come back up again. So you make keep smiling. But that signpost doesn’t digest well. It makes you uncomfortable. Everyone always ask you, what’s wrong and you say nothing. And now the alarms are going off and you smash them and even occassionally cut yourself on the shards, but the pain is minimal.

    What happens when you ignore the signs because of fear?

    What happens when you ignore the signs because they lead you to a life you never thought would happen for you? You have always had this vision of perfection and you realized life is messy and the idea of perfection is just a trap so you never have to try?

    And yet…

    You know you need to follow the signs. You ran of room to swallow, so you started burying in your backyard and are damned when they start to grow. Tall, overshadowing. Reminders that you can’t actually move off the path the universe. You trip over the overgrown roots because it is so overwhelming to continue to pretend that you aren’t walking underneath the shadows.

    All because you did not want to hurt people’s feelings the way they hurt yours. The way that they trampled over yours.

    The way that you wanted to feel like you were worthy just the one time of the same consideration.

    So you go shopping. At first you pick up up a small set of scissors. You start to weed the garden of the signs. You get clarity. You set a boundary. Instead of yes, you say “maybe we will see.” The signs glow in approval. You trade your scissors for garden shears. Nothing too crazy. People ask why do you have garden shears and tell you, you don’t need them. But your body remembers.

    You look at the small scar from where the shard cut you. Small but a memory.

    And you change the direction you walk in. Ever so slightly to the left. It’s a bit harder, but you realize that maybe it’s not so bad.

    And you trade your garden shears for a machete and all hell breaks loose. “Why???” people cry who used to have access to you. People who used you but never cared for you. But now you are prepared and the machete has cleared a path showing you the glow of what life looks like on the other side.

    And you upgrade again do a chainsaw. Now the work becomes effortless. Putting yourself first. Following your intuition. You no longer feel your pressure when you see that person’s name on your phone. You stopped making excuses.

    And you learned, follow the signs or perish at your peril.