The past few months have been challenging for me to be honest. A real rollercoaster of emotions and events.
On the one hand, some days have been good. I’ve laughed and celebrated milestones, such as one of my best friend’s wedding and my 28th birthday. I’ve moved into my own apartment in Orlando and now am currently in the process of furnishing and decorating it, and I now have my own private office at work. I’ve lead worship on my own at church (by the grace of God) and been able to connect with new people and pour into them in ways to help them grow and develop. I’ve started traveling a little more, broadening my horizons, and begun to dig deeper into my passion for food and culinary culture, both locally and across the state.
On the other hand, some days have been rough. I’ve felt alone and isolated (by choice). I’ve pulled away, tucked secrets into my heart and avoided reality. I’ve sat at work in a fog, gone through the motions without any emotion, and rushed home to stare at the TV for hours on end. I’ve cried and sat alone in the silence of my new apartment, fighting the urge to scream. I’ve dodged social events and kept my thoughts to myself. I’ve felt like I’m carrying the weight of the world on my wings, too weighed down to fly, too weak to go to God in prayer or reach out to my brothers and sisters and ask for help.
I won’t say that I’m completely better, but I’m taking this journey step-by-step and, in the process, growing and learning more about myself.
Emotional Walls
I consider that I’m complex in the sense that I’m extremely emotional, but often have a hard time expressing my emotions and sharing them in healthy ways.
I was a rather sensitive kid growing up and I was always hit with the “Man up!” mantra as I grew older. Before I knew it, I was able to bury my emotions – at least my deeper emotions, especially tears. With my father’s death, I did it again; pushing my own emotions aside to deal with the struggle my family was enduring.
But there came a point where I couldn’t hold them in and they burst through me like a flood one Sunday at church between our first and second service. Looking back at that moment though, I wish I hadn’t tried to be so strong and brave. Instead of trying to rush through the moment to get back on stage and sing, I should have allowed myself to actually sit down and process and feel the emotions that I was dealing with, so I could learn how to grieve my father properly.
After my father’s death, I had a lot of people tell me that I had to “be strong” for my family because I was now the man of the house, the head of the family. Unfortunately, I took that to mean that I couldn’t reveal my emotions to anyone, even myself or those who truly do care. I was more concerned with making sure those around me were okay, without me ever admitting that I wasn’t.
Even if I wasn’t honestly telling people how I was feeling, I wasn’t expressing them at all. I literally would avoid any situation where I would feel emotions, which is strange, becasue most times, I can freely talk about my father. But I find myself talking about him and not about his death or my thoughts toward it. I even avoided listening to certain songs, watching certain shows or anything that triggered emotions period. I even stopped writing songs and poems and anything that could draw emotions other than one previous blog post about my dad.
But now, I’m at a place where I realize that I need to be honest and express my emotions with those around me. That I can’t carry all the emotional weight alone and that I can’t expect to get over it this quickly. Yes, it’s a good thing for me to make sure my mother and sister are okay and healing as they need to, but I also need to heal. And my own father, someone who was very confident and comfortable sharing his emotions and crying in front of me, would not want me to bury my own emotions deep inside forever.
It’s time for the walls to come down.
Keep Living, Keep Growing
Beyond the emotional healing, another component is me not being isolated and stopping my life.
There was a guilt factor in my heart during the summer that I was still doing things and going places as if nothing had changed, nothing had happened. A part of me felt like I needed to just stop. Stop everything and never go again. But that wasn’t my daddy at all; he was all about living life and going forward. He would WANT me to keep doing what I needed to do to survive, but also what I desired to do to thrive.
Slowly, I’ve gone back to as normal as routine as possible (often called “The New Normal”), but I’ve also begun to expand my own horizons a little more. I’ve started living a little more if I had the means to do so. Over the summer, I attended two live concerts in a week (Mary J. Blige and Kirk Franklin), I’ve sung for a tennis competition (finding out later that it was livestreamed on national TV on ESPN), I’ve traveled to Miami for a weekend birthday celebration (my first trip with my fellow black millenial friends and my first vacation in Miami).
Now, as the fall season comes, I’m starting to push a little more. There are dreams and goals in my head that I’ve kept locked up like a closely guarded secret in the vault of my heart that now needs to be released. Not all at once, but I need to at least begin thinking how to execute them. I want to (and really, I have to) challenge myself to go beyond my comfort zone and become more of the person I told my daddy I wanted to me. Go after those dreams and goals that almost scare me, because…why not?
Next Steps…
In October, I’ll be flying to Virginia for a church worhsip leader’s conference. I’m excited, not just because of what I will be learning as a young worhsipper, but also becuase it will be my first time in Virginia, AND my first time seeing leaves change colors.
Anyone who knows me, know that I love autumn (or fall, whichever you prefer). The opportunity to wrap up in a scarf, a sweater and jeans, sitting on a park bench as gold, orange and red leaves flutter past me in a crisp, golden breeze in a blazing golden sunset releases my imagination like nothing else. But in Florida, clearly I’ve never had that moment. Now I will. Now I will experience a dream I’ve only talked about.
And it’s only the beginning. Because now, I’m taking steps to move forward in many areas of my life.
Recently, God has been speaking two phrases specifically to my heart: “Conqueror” and “By Faith.” I’m beliving this is a new direction. Anything and everything that I’ve been beliving God for in on the other side of my “By Faith” actions. And I will flourish and bear fruit because I’m more than a “Conqueror.”
The Book of James 