Entry Twenty-One
The end of a year brings various emotions, reflections, and future hopes to the surface. Time is a precious thing. If you spent any of this year hoping that time would pass, I hope today you can be open to knowing you are exactly where you need to be. For the first time in my life, I am creating and sharing from my own truth. I am expressing myself without waiting for permission. I am taking steps that first felt like scaling a mountain. This year showed me that remembering my power is a practice. This chapter gave me the opportunity to find home from within. And while there are countless ways to do so, I find that tending to my emotional health and building intimacy with the things I reject, is how I find my center.
Today’s entry is what I wrote on the 90th day of this project. I am grateful that I am not needing a grand gesture from life to reward me for following my heart. Fixating on the outcome strips us away from our current process, and can lead to throwing in the towel, when it’s just the beginning. You belong with who you are now, while knowing that you are not trapped. You always get to move. But may I also suggest that you check in with what you are discarding before you leap? Is the removal from a place of selfloathing and scrutiny towards your flaws? Halfway through your journey, will you still be running away from what was, in order to reach a glorified tomorrow?
I want to continue belonging to myself from a place of nourishment and care. I hope you consider this, too. Thank you again for everyone who has taken the time to soak in my words. I can’t wait to share what’s to come.
Cheers to you. Cheers to us 🥂
May 17th, 2022:
Today marks the 90th day of my commitment to 90 Days of Belonging. I did it. I showed up every single day regardless of how I was feeling. Whether I was traveling, busy, or any other reason I could have used to break my word. I almost forgot that today was the 17th! This routine became a part of my life. I welcomed this writing ritual by letting it take a form of its own. My consistency, not rigidity, is what allowed this project to show me where and how I needed to listen to myself. It also gave me my next steps before my ego could convince me otherwise. Whether these words grace people’s eyes outside of my own, my dedication has not gone unnoticed. That’s just it, isn’t it? Life keeps flowing. The world keeps going. Whether I choose to show up or not, life does not wait. So why should I? Today would have been May 17th whether I invested in myself or continued to hide. I am so glad that I can wake up on this day and know that three months ago I chose to carry out an idea that only my heart knew would restore me.
If you are currently talking yourself out of your next step, while comparing yourself to people who are on their fiftieth lap, maybe it's time for a change. This doesn't mean to frantically begin chasing, but to begin moving. That future date you are projecting onto will come and go, as I’m sure it has before. What will you do with your today?
Reaching this 90 day milestone, I keep asking, what does it mean to belong to me? I’ve learned that it means trust can be forgotten, but I can learn to trust myself again. There can be one instance that rocks me to my core and I immediately doubt if I will ever feel secure again. But when I’m dedicated to knowing who I am, I realize that those moments are not the full story. I know that I will always have more to tell, more to feel, and new ways of picking myself back up.
When I started 90 Days of Belonging it was because I was almost certain that my Black experience wasn’t good enough, and that I had no right to share what it meant to belong in this body. I didn’t recognize how much more I needed to release when it came to the ways I have compared my experience, value, and radiance against whiteness. I began this exercise because there was a yearning for a sisterhood that I never had, and that I thought I would never experience. The reality is that the sisterhood I was seeking is one I didn’t know I could access within myself, through the versions of me I was ignoring.
And you know something? I was wrong. Isn’t that miraculous? Three months later, and I am certain that I was wrong. And that’s just it, we get to be wrong about ourselves. And other people get to be wrong about us, too. What if I never decided to work through this because I held those stories as truth? Those thoughts consumed me for years, and I am relieved that I chose to be in relationship with them, so I could come to find that they were nothing to be fearful of. They were just misguided, and I always have the power to redirect.
Today the voice that says “B*tch what do you know about being Black?” has moved on to new things because I finally gave her permission to do so. If we need to go back and reflect further, we can, but that story does not need to dominate us.
The combat is over, and my weapons are down.
As my ritual comes to a close, I understand that touching the finish line is not a sustainable ‘why.’ In fact, this destination is simply a new beginning. From here, I smell a familiar whiff of freedom, and it’s quite sublime.
If your on this journey with me, please share your reflections after the beep.
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Journal Prompts:
The question that started it all: what does it mean to belong to you?
Are you currently running away from something? What might happen if it finally catches up to you? What might happen if you turned around and asked what it wanted?
What are three things in your life now that feel like home?
In the meantime, stop hoarding your dreams. You’ll look back one day and applaud the moment you finally said, yes to you.