_first: the truth in the shards.
_the memory.
“I was sleeping in my room, I was sober. I just did a little weed before going to bed and I woke up in my dark room with my body being thrown repeatedly against the window. I don’t know what happened or why…”
That is what I’ve been saying for the last year. It is what I can remember, and that is my truth. But the memory didn't end when the glass stopped breaking.
The memory is also coming back from the hospital and being forced to clean my own blood off the floor while my roommate stood over me in anger. It is the months that followed, living in a house that felt like a cage, where verbal abuse became a daily noise I couldn't tune out. I was deprived of common areas, deprived of peace, and eventually, deprived of the version of myself I thought I knew.
I was sliced like a thin cut of steak, but the deepest wounds weren't the ones that needed stitches.
The trauma didn't stay in that room. It followed me into my car while I drove for Lyft, it sat with me in motels in Oakland when I had nowhere else to go, and it spoke loudly through the financial stress of wage claims and the fear of losing my home. Before, I was a master of the "everything is fine" mask. I could pretend. I could cover the flaws.
But after the window, the mask shattered along with the glass.
All the things I was supposed to work on, the substance abuse, the old ghosts, the instability. They all became bigger and louder. It became impossible to pretend, and even more impossible to run away. I wasn't just losing my safety; I was losing my connection to the light, to God, and to the roots that were supposed to hold me up.
I was being seen by everyone, yet I felt completely invisible to myself.
_the new journey.
This will take time. But I am putting my guard down and accepting the outcome, whatever it is. I have nothing to lose; I have already won it all.
My goal now is to be helpful and useful to others, even with my broken parts. I want to learn how to do that through this space and the work I create here.
To my community: I want to apologize and pay my respects for the time I was away or disconnected. I’m finding my way back. thank you for being there for me even to this day. Love y’all.
I want you to join me in this journey. I have no idea what it will be, other than raw and sincere. Or at least, that is what I will try to be.