Sunday Stories (16)

I have been in the lab. Been writing a lot. I had a bit of a breakdown on Friday. Was teary and all in my nappy headed feelings. I'm working on my story. Writing my story. About the blocks and mountains I climbed to get here. About this journey.

Right now I'm past the part of the story that I have told a million times. This is where the work is. The parts where I tell the parts I don't tell. Not on stages or pages. Not to my good homegirls. Barely to my therapist. The parts that don't look so good. That don't leave me shiny. And some parts that do because a sista ain't all bad. Not that I'm judging any of my parts these days. It took all of them to get me where I am. This is the part where I am putting words to feelings I never really gave myself time or space to feel.

I can't say the writing is that strong. Yet. It will be. Let me get this draft out. Ok, let me get a lot of drafts out. This telling ain't easy. The point right now is the process. The point is the pushing through. The not giving up. For me, there is power in seeing my story in black and white. There are parts that were embarrassing. Parts where I wasn't so nice. Parts where life wasn't so nice to me. But I look through paragraph after paragraph and go yeah, I told it and I didn't die. Because don't we think that though? Ain't that why we hold it in? Because we just gon curl up and die if anybody knows our whatevers. Here is a secret, we don't die. Here is another secret. There is nothing that we have done, nothing that has been done to us that hasn't been done before. That's not to say that our thing is a nothing thing. It's not nothing. It's very much something. I'm just saying that we aren't the only ones to have walked the paths we walked.

Praise God for my therapy session tomorrow. I need it. Need to talk through some of these memories. I am glad that I have been getting this out. I think our stories are important. More importantly I think our stories are important told by us. It's not easy, but I think it's necessary. I do a little everyday. Sometimes a few pages. Sometimes a couple of paragraphs. There have been days I couldn't get beyond a few sentences. But I'm crawling through and trying to get to the finish line. Pray saints. Please pray.