The Hodgepodge of 5/23/2021
Many moons ago when I was in a divorce fog, my brother decided that we needed to take a day trip from Atlanta to Charlotte to look at furniture. I took my place in the backseat because divorce fog. My family was determined to get me out of it. It’s been over a decade ago and I have a name for it now but I’m positive back then I just went through my days step by step and barely remember being present. We’re in Charlotte, it’s all our first time there and I’m just being a passenger counting down the minutes when I’ll be reunited with my bed. My brother, the explorer is driving down streets we don’t know because he can. We turn down a street just as the bride and groom are exiting the Church, they’ve just exchanged vows in. I’ve pretty much been a silent passenger the entire ride until now. I hear my sister-in-law say, “Aww” and I look up, see the smiling couple, and say, “Good luck” and go right back to my magazine. The car erupts in laughter followed by “Damn, tell us how you really feel.” I’m happy to provide comic relief and I mean that shit with everything in me because no one is more surprised that I am no longer married than me and also, divorce fog. Today, as I pull up to the hotel my love and I are stay-cationing at for the weekend, a bride and groom exit the car in front of us and we both say, “Aww” when we see them. He tells the groom Congratulations. I walk by the bride as I enter the hotel and I tell her she looks amazing because she does. As I ride up the elevator to my floor, I smile and remember the memory above from moons ago and place it against this memory I’ve just witnessed and I smile because life is beautiful and also hello healing, growth, manifestation and reminders that fogs dissipate.
I read a meme that said, “My home will be a home with no loud anger, no explosive rage, no slamming doors or breaking glass, no name-calling, shaming, or blackmail. My home will be gentle, it will be warm, it will be safe. No fear, no hurt, no blame, and no worries” and it made me smile because this is the home I created for my children and I with so much intention. They are young men now and our conversations blow me away. I’m proudest of our communication. As I typed the meme out here, I had the thought that all these things are life 101 basics and should be natural and not celebrated as special BUT I stopped myself because I’ve lived long enough to know that not everyone has this and feeling happy about whatever I choose is my right and my choice. I chose radical joy today and it feels good.
I sat by the pool today reading “You Are Your Best Thing” an Anthology edited by Tarana Burke and Brene Brown and while reading Austin Channing Brown’s This Joy I have essay I had an Aha moment. Austin was talking about how immediately after feeling joy, it’s stolen by a thought of dread of what if. She talks about how she must force herself to snap out of it and to stop REHEARSING TRAGEDY and those 2 words put together are what resonated with me the most. I had finally found words to express how I feel about the news. I never watch the news, ever. I decided it was bad for my spirit years ago when I saw how much it drained me. Watching the morning news never put a pep in my step, if anything it made me anxious, nervous, and tired. Good news was rarely reported and if it was, it was reported so quickly, so you missed it if you weren’t self-tuned into that frequency. The news is literally a repetition of the same story over and over and over and over and over again; murder, rape, theft, fire, poverty, dread and gloom. Add to that the blatant murder of black people being played lately on a loop like something as easily consumed as the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade! The news in a nutshell is REHEARSING TRAGEDY daily and I’ve never been happier to exit something curated to control the masses mood on the daily. No thank you, I’ll choose my own mood.
26 days ago, my nephew was found dead. He was 22.
22 days ago, I turned 45.
15 days ago, we buried my nephew.
5 days ago, I paused to feel all these things.
Had I not paused, I know life would have paused me.
His mother, my sister died almost 4 years ago. The grief I felt when she died ran through every cell in my body, tears appeared when they wanted to, and I never thought I’d get out of the grief fog. That first year was brutal. We’re literally just getting to talking about her without the hollowness in our chests. It’s been 26 days and I am numb. Tears fall and I don’t feel them, I see them. The source of my tears is dumb shit and that makes me sad. I know I am grieving, it’s just not like before. I thought grief was the same no matter how it shows up, jokes on me. My mind is racing from thought to thought and focusing on one thought is harder than usual, I am emotional about things I should barely care about, I have no emotion on things I should care about, and my tolerance for foolishness is lower than normal. This is how grief is showing up this go round. I don’t understand it but I am thankful that I am self-aware.
And that my friends was my Sunday.
“With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it’s still a beautiful world.”
