Do you mind if I talk about me today?

Everything has changed since the last time we spoke, I’m literally living in what feels like a different chapter of Vashon Wade. I remember the last time we spoke back in June. Almost embarrassed to say that it’s been that long since I’ve given you a piece of me. See when I started this 4 or 5 years ago I was hurting in private, suffering silent and holding on to feelings of torture. Writing it all out was the only way I felt like I could breathe I just thought it would free me forever. A green 70 sheet 1 subject notebook was all I needed back then. I wrote until my hand hurt and just when my heart felt like it didn’t. Anyway as I sit here all this time later I still want you to know that I thought out of you every day. I checked on you from time to time with feelings of abandonment strapped to my heart. I know that we need each other more than I tend to show but I need you to know that it’s been different for me. I care for you more than you know but I can’t help you if I don’t trust me. It takes a lot of belief, courage and strength to face you genuinely.

I have a new career that is allowing me to push forward in my passion but sometimes question my priorities. Do I really want to write and be heard as I did once feel like I had a lot to say? Doing what I do I sometimes say, “Yeah this is what I should be doing.” I only feel like that when I’m not thinking about my bills that are due or networking relationships I don’t have time to manage. But still I rise— I think to myself or does that only apply to strong black women who feel persecuted by the misogynistic white America we call home? Nonetheless I try to spread as much positive energy as balanced and succinct as I can. You need to know that I am still utilizing my life as a class for others to learn and for me to grow. For so long I felt guilty about how miss-educated I was regarding the LGBTQ spectrum of my life and also how others were dealing. Between deciding whether or not black lives mattered enough to join a movement or if I should be liberating myself to get political enough to change my neighborhood is what I think about. I wake up every day with an opportunity to change the lives of so many others in such a profound way but something is missing. My paycheck or employee of the month certificate isn’t giving me that warm and tingling feeling that I so desperately need. I’ve missed you, I’ve needed you but the distraction of wanting to be perfect has bogged me down. I have to belong as that is the only way I will be recognized for what I contribute to the world. Writing these words on this screen is only something that we will see, how will I win a Pulitzer Prize? When do I get my 40 hashtags and mule or group of fans to troll pages and defend my status? There’s a constant battle that I fight of trying to decide if what I do should look like everyone else and be okayed or if I should just be me. Whether it’s the opinions or the options I can’t tell the difference between what I should do versus what I have to do. Listen, I been struggling and it’s something that’s just not cool to talk about. How can you really be happy when I don’t know where or how I’ll fit in? How do I measure my value when I’m simply un-accessible to others? I’ve give you so much to think about I know and this is why I was afraid to come back to you.

It took some time, spiritual soul searching and a whole lot of night time conversation to get me to understand why sacrifice is so important. I still crave consistency, truth and passion but only from myself. The perfect life I chase just won’t come, I’m supposed to be shopping on 5^th ave, celebrating best sellers and multi-million dollar bank deposits. That’s not my life though, even when I see others mirroring that sort of existence I know that ain’t shit real. They worked hard, sacrificed or maybe it was given to them but guess what it’s theirs. For them and only them and if I live counting blessings that belong to others or wishing I wasn’t the me that I am then I’d be wasting both of our time. You notice how fast you are moving when things are going your way, the good way. Life seems so happy and joyful for you because the cards you’ve been dealt are in your favor. There’s money to spend, things to do and places to go and you feel lit. How about that other part of life, that part when ‘shit hits the fan’ and it’s just so hard for you. Those moments are the ones I had to stop and value, when it was just me and myself left to go through all there was to battle. From finances to romances and all that is lying there in between was left for me to assess the happiness began to appear. Redemption became my present and I made my own waves of joy. That blessing that I waited for I just told myself I received it and kept pushing forward. Instead of wishing I could do this I just started with appreciating what I can do. That’s write, I can talk to you, all of you about how this thing called life seems to be growing more and more complex by the moment. Waiting for our own personal atonement can sometimes mislead us to thinking all we must do is wait. What has ever come to us while we wait, sure you wait for the bus every day but when it comes you have to pay to get on? That pizza delivery makes it easier for you to eat but you have to pay for it all, that’s how we have to look at life. These last 6 months have been just that, instead of waiting I’ve had to move.