a couple weeks ago, i endured a heart breaking loss, of my best friend. my favorite person. for about a week, i was confused, in shock and slightly in denial. for this week, it’s been mostly about accepting reality and trying to be more present.
so i’ve been doing a lot of intentional healing. more meditations and yoga (mostly kundalini), more space to think. and lately i’ve been having this fear of healing “too fast”.
like that i’ll heal and then she’ll back in and i’ll be over it. that i’ll no longer want to try.
and it’s been really getting to me.
ive been trying to live in this space of duality, where multiple truths exist. and while i acknowledge my feelings, i understand that it comes from a place of fear of change.
and me clinging to the past.
so how do i move past this?
by pushing myself to keep doing the healing. by keeping my faith strong in the fact that i KNOW all will be well.
today, i bought shea butter for the first time. i’ve been using shea butter, almost daily, for years now, yet i’ve never bought it for myself.
when i first was introduced, my sister’s boyfriend had bought me some. that lasted me for a very long time. then my sister bought me some. and most recently, my ex-girlfriend bought me some (which i still have a lot left, i just left it in atlanta).
so since i left my shea butter in atlanta, i’ve been without it for a few weeks. and today, i went to the store and got some.
that’s a huge deal for me for a couple of reasons-
i haven’t really left the house- today i truly wanted to leave the house and felt more comfrotbale outside of my home than i have in a long time.
it was a step towards independence- i’ve been relying on other people, whether on purpose or not (i’ve told myself it was because it was hard to find but truly i can’t say that’s 100% true), to do something that i could have done. and now that i have done it, on my own, i know that i can do it again.
as i prepare to enter this next phase in my life, where i am going through things on an individual journey, it’s moments like these where i am reminded that i can do this. there are many things that, due to habit, i’ve chosen to not do alone. but i’m learning that those are truly just excuses. so i am choosing to embrace this new journey, while acknowledging that this was not my choice.
also, the shea butter was really good. i got the eczema butter from pure shea . check them out!
i wrote this on july 13th, five days ago. fortunately, my storm has calmed. now i am left to deal with all of the destruction, rebuilding from the ground up.
i write this note to you, from the eye of my own storm.
i can’t even say that my heart feels heavy because it doesn’t. heavy doesn’t nearly capture it. it’s like this immense emptiness inside of me that is aching.
and due to this constant aching, i cannot stop crying. i get spurts of distraction when i’ve called my mother and my sister. and when my best friend came over last night. but besides that (and even through those conversations), i have big crocodile tears. the kind that will swell my eyes damn near shut when i wake up tomorrow (my bags will swell up lol).
the kind of ache that left me awake at 3:30 in the morning asking why me?
and all i hear is that i need to adopt an “attitude of gratitude” and be grateful for what i have learned. and grateful for what i have seen. and grateful for where i am. that to get through grief, i need to be grateful for the lessons.
but honestly, i kind of just want to throw myself a little pity party. because literally my WHOLE LIFE has been flipped upside down and i’m just supposed to adapt.
when i was little my mother had me read the book who moved my cheese, which is focused around change and being willing to change. in the story, there are two rats/mice (i don’t remember lol but they were rodents), and they used to each go to the same spot for cheese. one day the cheese was gone. one rodent kept going back to the spot and was cheeseless. the other found a new spot and had cheese.
so i was raised that not only do you have to examine your environment, but that you have to adapt too.
and that’s conflicting with my heart, which feels no desire to be flexible.
you have to understand that i was raised (and still am) a Christian. with a steadfast faith in God so there’s the part of me that is so frustrated that i’m going through this and another part that says God is teaching you a lesson. what are you learning here?
so if i had to answer, i’ve learned that love is the center of it all. it’s all that matters in this world. God is Love. Love creates everything. balance which leads to health. tranquility which leads to stability. love is an action. a committment. something you have to make to yourself BEFORE you can make it to anyone else.
i’ve learned that humans are meant to love. we are a species that loves. we need to feel love. we need to be attuned with Love. we need balance and tranquility. we need love.
i’ve learned that loving someone means letting them go. no matter how hard it is. with the faith that she will find happiness within herself and then come back to me.
love is union. love is yoga. love is that feeling of bliss after a hard yoga class, where i feel centered and challenged. it’s the feelings of joy after seeing my god family.
so i write this, as an ode to love and feeling the duality of lovelessness and full of love. remember, you can always feel too things at once. all i really can do now, is just breathe through it.
i’ve been thinking a lot about what i need, in the space that i’m in. what would truly support me, how i can support myself, and how i can be supportive of others.
while i always go back to compassion (for i understand that the more compassionate i am to others, the more i learn how to cultivate it for myself, which pertuates this cycle of compassion for myself and others), i also think of boundaries.
boundaries communicate your needs. but first, you have to spend time thinking about what boundaries you need. i started setting boundaries with my school this year. i never really had done homeowrk on saturdays in undergrad, it was easy once i got into graduate school to work on saturdays. it started off with it being me wanting to “get ahead” (which, in an accelerated program, is difficult to maintain), but then i realized, it left me “school” mode.
so eventually saturdays, became my day. i don’t do homework on saturdays. and let me tell you- it works for me.
since moving home, i’ve been thinking a lot more about boundaries with school. while living in atlanta, i would do homework for hours, mostly as a discration. i dove deep in my school work, to learn more but to pacify a lot of pain. honestly, it’s hard living over 600 miles away from home during a pandemic. that’s why i made a different decision.
so today, i decided i didn’t want to spend all day doing homework. i gave myself two hours to get a task done. while i did take some breaks (which extended the two hours), i was *working* for about that amount of time. that way, i was able to get the other stuff i wanted to get done, my “mayah” stuff (lol).
it is my hope that as i continue having the opportunities to redefine boundaries, i am able to dive deep into what i really want. i am able to discover myself deeper than i have before. i am able to heal in more ways than i can imagine, and continue growing closer to God.
i originally started this post on june 20th. i wrote the following, in a state of confusion and unsure of what i would really do:
idon’t really have a title for this post. because if i titled it, i would probably say, i think i might be moving, but it seems to early to say that.
in eight days, it’ll be six months since i moved to georgia. i was excited, nervous, and ready to start this next chapter of my life. i got into a great graduate school program. it definitely took some adjusting, getting used to being in georgia, but by march, i would say i was well on my way.
for the past three months, i’ve been sheltering in place, over 600 miles away from my family. it’s been a challenge to say the least. and as things are changing, it seems to be getting safer to go places, i finally made plans to go home. i think i’ve slowly, but steadily pushed past my fear of leaving the house.
i was asked yesterday why i don’t just stay at home, and it’s like well why don’t i?
if i’m being honest, it’s because that makes me feel like i would be giving up.
today, i have moved back home. sunday it was a week. we drove back 6 months, to the DAY, from when we drove down to georgia. i don’t know how long i’ll be here. i don’t know what the future holds. if i think too far it’s confusing and i’m unsure. i’m making decisions everyday to try to make myself feel good.
but what i do know is i’ve smiled more in the last week being at home than i have in months. i do know i missed the michigan sun in the summer time. i do know i’m in a safe space to work through my anxiety. and i do know, i’ve felt MUCH better. my screen time has decreased. i walked 2.4 miles yesterday.
it’s almost like i feel like a person again. like a real person.
i’ve been thinking alot about love and what it means to me. and how it feels to be surrounded by love. and how i want to be surrounded by love.
i don’t know what that will look like. i’m hoping it includes a puppy. so we shall see.
i’ve been learning that it’s okay for me to let people love me. and that while i was alone i learned to fill my bucket up all by myself (which i will say was MUCH harder when you’re stuck indoors). and i’m grateful. because i appreciate the yawn my mother makes when she wakes up, just a little bit more.
mayah's site 