What Wellness Looks Like After survival Mode
Each time I scrolled through social media, I saw countless videos preaching this thing called "wellness”. Suffering from burnout? Wellness. Stressed to the max? Wellness. Heartbroken? Wellness. Gaining weight? Wellness.
Always a recovery plan, never the preventative care.
Dating Myself Again
I canceled on myself after planning my first solo date.
Saw the event marked on my calendar and added little doodle hearts to make it special. Then, as the day neared, panic trickled in. What if people looked at me funny? What if it felt awkward sitting at a table alone? Would people be able to tell I was nervous? The irony is that I never had those thoughts when someone else sat across the table from me. But now that the reservation was for one, I was shaking in my boots.
Learning to Be Alone Again
I’d been in survival mode so long that it took a while for all the real emotions of moving out to hit me. It wasn’t until one rainy night during winter break–the first time I didn’t have my son that the tears came. Truthfully, they’d been with me since the morning, but at this point in life, I’d become a pro at finding things to distract myself. But at 11:45 at night, there is no number of scrolls to avoid the inevitable. And so, while lying on my mattress still on the floor because I hadn’t found a bed frame that called to me, I cried. First, heated pricks near my tear ducts that turned to quick droplets across my cheeks, that turned to full, heaving sobs into my pillow.
A Return To Self
A few weeks ago, while setting up my table at Black Romance Book Festival, my friend, who just so happened to be assisting me, asked me a question you’ve probably heard times before.
“Do you even know you’re that girl?”