There I was sitting on a bed in the room of my brother and sister in law’s basement. Completely naked. Not naked in the sense of lacking clothes, but naked in the sense of lacking any desire to continue life. I was prepared to spend the rest of my life in bed watching Netflix. A bit dramatic, I know. I felt worthless and low. I had no job. I had just lost my relationship of six years. I had no place that felt like home. Sure, I had plenty of family and friends. Mom’s house is always an option, but Baltimore was my home and had been for years. My ex was my home and both were gone. See the issue with making someone your home is that they have the right to leave when they please. If that happens, you’ll end up homeless. I was homeless. This was when I realized that I didn’t love myself. I didn’t even like myself. I had been mistreating myself for years. So, I started this journey to find a home within me, and not just home but peace and love and value and confidence. All of the things that I had spent so much time minimizing, I decided that in that moment I would bring those things to the forefront.
This blog is important to me for sooo many reasons. For as long as I could remember I’ve been experiencing life on autopilot. I have been putting myself on hold while I tend to other things and people. I forgot about me for so long that I became foreign to myself. I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted from Life. I saw people around me being happy and I got so used to pretending to be happy that I tricked myself into believing that it was all real. I thought that by keeping busy and ignoring my emotions things would sort of become normal again, but they didn’t. Everything that I tried to ignore got bigger and bigger until one day it all exploded and I was forced to deal with the things that made me the most uncomfortable. EVERY SINGLE THING. I had ripped myself down to nothing and started building Zakiah all over again. I was finally in this space where I could address the real issues and begin my healing process. This has not been fun. In fact, it is the worst thing I’ve ever experienced. Sometimes people make the healing process seem peaceful and easy. It is not. It is disruptive. It is loud. It is so unpredictable that I became used to feeling too many different emotions at once. There’s nothing pretty about healing. It’s very ugly. BUT once I began this journey, I could start to see why everything that happened to me was necessary. This fight is so that in the end I will be a butterfly.
I once heard that love is for the brave, and I completely agree. Loving someone else takes a lot of courage. It’s that leap of faith that keeps you suspended in the air for far too long. You never know where you’ll land. You don’t know if that person will catch you or if you’ll come crashing down onto the pavement. But loving yourself takes true bravery. It takes more courage than you’ve ever put into any relationship. It is an endless love affair. The relationship you have with yourself is the most important relationship you can ever have. I am on a journey to find out what my soul loves and I plan to give her all of those things. Every now and then I’ll find myself caught up in a moment that makes me feel whole. I want more of those moments. For so long I’ve been afraid to play the game of life anyway other than safe. I’ve been so scared to let go of things and people. I held on a little too tightly. Every time those things and people left my life, I lost a little piece of me. I was empty.
After having many conversations, I realized that I am not alone in feeling the weight of the load that I’ve carried for so long. There are so many of us that walk around holding onto these troubles all by ourselves without taking a moment to ask for help. Life can get so heavy especially when you’re trying to go at it alone. Once I started opening up about the things that I’ve been feeling the support that flowed in was more than amazing.
This blog is so that you (whoever you are) will know that I too understand what you’re feeling. You’re never alone. This blog is to let you know that I am always rooting for you. This blog is so that I can tell you that I care and I want to see you do great things. By sharing my story, I hope to inspire others to do the same, because someone always needs to hear you. Loving yourself is so important and it’s never ever too late to start. This blog is for the person who feels that life has given them the shitty end of the stick. For the girl who feels like she is never enough. For the guy who feels that life has silenced and minimized his emotions. For whoever just needs some inspiration and motivation to keep going. This blog is for the person who feels like they’re fighting alone. YOU ARE NOT. Keep pushing. I am here to tell you that it does get better. Keep your faith even if it’s just a little.