Still HERE

(A lost post from May)

They say that as long as you're still breathing, you still have a purpose. Well, what do you know? In the words of who the undefeated internet is calling "Cancelled Kardashian" aka Mr.West , "Woopity woop, poopity poopity scoop". I'm still here. Well, would you look at that? My words ooze with as much sarcasm as a Sandra Rhimes book or speech.

I've started writing many posts that have either become one of many drafts in my emails or took up space as a note in my trap phone, but somehow I couldn't bring myself to post them. Maybe they make me feel too vulnerable I suppose. You would think by now after the release of my book, this wall of protection concealing my emotions would've vanished by now.

Last Sunday, I started to follow up my last year's post "Motherless Mother's Daze" with " A childless Mother's day" after surprisingly finding out that one of my mom's close friends who I reconnected with last year son passed away. I didn't get around to posting that one either especially because I guess I'm still processing.

If I'm being completely honest, everytime I hear news about a person around my age passing away that I know had so much talent, there always seems to be a mixture of emotions besides sadness or grief. Maybe I'm secretly envious that they got to go before me. More than that, I feel much discomfort and guilt at the fact that I believe they probably would've wanted to live more than I do. Hell, they deserved to live more than I do with the way I sometimes curse my very existence in my dispair. Before you point your judging little fingers at me for how I feel, don't. I don't think I would be human if I didn't believe that heaven was be better than this.

Corey Waller was 24. That sentence alone sounds odd as I reread it in my mind several times as I type this. "Was" is past tense meaning he's no longer here. Flashbacks of old vhs tapes at my first birthday flash in my mind replaying moments that were just that moments in time. Sleepovers with my friends in 10th grade and his mother bringing him along with his friends to hang with us while our moms chatted in the kitchen for hours. We'd all play hide and seek in the dark chasing each other like children around the backyard. Later he'd text or call, trying to get hooked up with one of my many cute friends. A year or so later after my mom passed, his mom would pick me up on friday nights to go to his football games.

Times when him and his mom would visit in middle school. He'd come in my room bothering me as usual and I'd take the hot comb or curling iron that I was using on my maniquinn head to chase him around the house threatening to burn him. I never would. He was in many ways my Rodger. Too many memories, yet still that seems like that's all I'll ever have of most people in this life.

I still remember my last conversation with him last year. I asked him about what he wanted to do in life. I just wanted to help and share with him any resources I could. He was the one that everybody just knew would be in the NFL and he could've probably even been in the NBA if he wanted because he was just that gifted. I never understood why he stopped playing sports, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't encourage whoever I had to chance to speak with to do what they love and never give up on their dream.

Sometimes the purpose that others have mapped out for us tends to differ from that which we have for ourselves let alone the one God has for us. I know there are many people looking at me with the same she could've been, but I'm not. All I can be is who I am in this moment and eventually what I work hard to become. I don't know if I'll ever be able to be even my own expectations and I'm okay with that. We put so many expectations onto who someone is supposed to be rather than just enjoying who they are in the moments we encounter with them. I'm beginning to search for purpose in the small things because it often feels like when I look at the bigger picture too long I just get so disappointed in myself because I feel so far away from everything that I'm chasing.

As of late I'm almost afraid to text people on holidays because it seems like just when I excitedly call someone to say "Happy New Year" or text a cheerful "Happy Mother's day", I'm greeted by unexpected news of more deaths than I can fathom. I can't even keep track of how many people I've known that have passed in the last year and a half and I don't want to because the thought alone is exhausting. I knew this moment would come again more rapidly than the first years of chaos of my life in the year 1999 & 2000, but I was expecting it in my 40s maybe- not now. It's too close to home. There's too many. Family friends that are more like family than friends, cousins, uncles, and aunts. With so much loss it almost makes you numb to the grief since you feel it so often. You see these people throughout your life who have been there for all the major events and suddenly they're no longer here.

As quick as this life is I just want to encourage my fellow millennials and just people in general to focus on finding purpose in even the small things while on the journey to your BIG PICTURE. You'll find yourself running on fumes if you don't have enough small victories to enjoy in the meantime because trust me I know. Loss is inevitable and sometimes your loss is experienced in different ways than the next person, but find a way to make your high times outweigh your lows because in the end all we have are moments.