With Facebook, we started sharing our statuses. What we thought for the day. What we had for lunch. Even our complicated relationship status. Was this the beginning of us thinking our individual thoughts and needs were more important than the collective? Globalization connected us to people across the world, but further disconnected us from family members and friend groups. Instead of picking up the phone to call and share good news, we started pressing record.

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Myself included. I created a community from YouTube, to Instagram and later TikTok. My goal was representation and connection. I felt outcasted from much of my family, I wanted to create a village. A place for people to feel seen and heard. Where we might have been separated by states and even countries, social media brought many of us with shared interests together.

I talk to many people who discuss the need for their own village. For companionship. People who feel deeply lonely and misunderstood. I wonder how they define a village and what does a village look like for them? For me, I have always thought of myself as a villager. Not because I am selfless. But because I have always felt that I needed to earn love. Work to be loved. Be easier. More agreeable. For years, I have wrestled with the idea of being difficult to love. I wrestled with this idea within a marriage and I wrestle with this idea now being single.

I’m not someone who can sit with uncomfortable feelings for too long. I don’t believe in absolutes. I am comfortable with the middle ground and I’m comfortable with gray areas but when it comes to relationships and feelings, I really do feel like if it’s not an emphatic yes, it is a no. I have always found supporting, loving, showing up—easy. If I love them, I show up for them and that’s always the decision for me. Even when it’s uncomfortable and even if I would rather do something else. So when I’m treated with carelessness, with disregard—even subconsciously, I cannot compute. And I think that’s where I find myself difficult. Because the love part should be simple. The showing up part should be simple. The work is hard, but the actual decision to do the work? Easy.

But even with all of that, I did not think of the whole idea of a village until I was postpartum. This is typically when I hear the need for a village the most—after a baby. I would like to insert here that if your village is a bank, we should be making deposits far before we need to cash out. I do not believe that relationships should be transactional but definitely reciprocal. After giving birth, I felt like my spirit was screaming. It felt like a quite scream that no one could hear. That is what we call a cry for help folks LMAO. It would be another year before I had the words to describe what was happening.

I was listening to Myleik’s podcast episode Learning To Ask For & Accept Help. She discusses her own moment of realizing she needed help. Her words were my life. I had proven and conditioned everyone around me to believe me when I said: I AM GOOD! Oh don’t worry about that! I got it! I had demonstrated the capacity and capability to run my own show. I critiqued any help I did receive, because I could do it better. So no one even looked up when I struggled because I had consistently demonstrated that I could handle it. I often say, I built a tower with a moat and no one could reach me. I had to look in the mirror and take accountability. I was FINE being the person everyone depended on but it felt TOO vulnerable to need someone. I was fine being a villager, but needing the village? NEEDING HELP? DO I LOOK LIKE SOMEONE WHO NEEDS HELP?!

Yes.

I remember calling my mom crying because my than wife was out of town and I was overwhelmed with the girls. I felt defeated. Now my mother? She had been waiting on this moment. A moment to feel NEEDED. Because everybody and everything, wants to feel loved and needed. (I want to quote The Color Purple, but I have a whole post dedicated to that book/movie). I felt like I had hit rock bottom calling my mom, when really, I was finally activating my village. Years before my divorce, I started asking for help. Telling people how much I need them in my life. I think that one shift made my divorce easier. My village immediately assembled around me. It felt uncomfortable. It made me feel like a child. But it made me feel deeply cared for.

So if you’re in your thirties, in the messy middle, your old life feels uncomfortable and your new life far away: how do you create a village? I would ask you about the last time you felt safe. Outside of a relationship, when was the last time you felt comfortable enough to tell your truth? No matter the ugly. Is that someone you can trust today? I would ask, how do you build trust? How do people know how to trust you? And start there. Start small with one person. We discuss love languages in romantic relationships, but how often do we think about how our family members or friends want to be loved? What responsibility is on them to share and how much is on us to inquire?

Social media has us believing that villages look like teams of people doing hair and make up. Those are actual transactional, bought and paid for relationships. Social media also has us believing that villages do not exist anymore. I don’t believe that either. I told you at the top, I don’t believe in absolute truths. I believe answers as always wedged in some uncomfortable middle. A messy middle.

As always, I pray this newsletter finds you well. I pray your villages are activated. If you were like me, eldest daughter, first of her name and ego has kept you from asking for help, I would encourage you to take a small step this week. Tell someone, directly (always with tact), what you need. Ask for that help. Better yet, think about the last time someone met you where you were. Saw you honest and gave you a word or hand or help that you needed. Thank them for that. Something about sending that gratitude into the universe has ways of making it back to you.

Talk soon,

J

And lately, I felt that familiar calling. Similar to 2020. I was pregnant with my youngest, Holland. The world was shut down and I was working a job I HATED. I was making the most money in my life at that point but treated so horribly at work. I couldn’t complain though. It was a fully remote job. My bills were paid but something else called me. I left that job in 2021 and started working for myself.

After the divorce, I wanted stability. I didn’t know how I would feel coming back to social media after the news dropped. I felt defeated and humbled but it was this community here that made me feel like I could continue to share. I ended up getting a 9-5 to breath. To not think about algorithms and relatability. It was a job that I shockingly ended up despising. Not the people, not my manager but the humdrum of a operations gig in and of itself.

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Now I want to back track a bit and tell you that if you would have told me in my early 20s that I would be working for myself, I would have laughed. I would have told you that I prefer getting my paycheck on time every two weeks, but something about entrepreneurship can really call you. The lows of no one reaching out or following up to opening your inbox to a five figure partnership sounds crazy but became reality. So after working my corporate gig for a year, I felt that same calling. That same whisper. I felt myself submitting. Sinking to the current environment, to the corporate humdrum. In the past, I took that to mean it was time for a new role.

In my past corporate life, I typically had a new job or promotion every year to a year and a half. So I did what I alway do in a job, I get good and than prepare for a promotion— yet this time they told me no. I was told there were too many changes going on for me to apply. It reminded me of working at Bank of America in my early 20s and being told no in the same way for the same reason.

Anytime someone has told me no, I have created my own yes. Something about that no did not feel personal, it did not feel like mine. This was not a role I really and truly wanted. This was not a life I wanted. But that “no” did push me. As Tracy Chapman said “leave tonight or live and die this way”— now I am a dramatic Leo BUT IT FELT THAT SERIOUS! So I put in my two weeks. For many reasons but mostly because I started believing in myself again.

I have hidden behind humility for all the wrong reasons. I have always wanted people to feel safe around me, so I took that to mean to make myself small. Hide in ways that would make others comfortable. I never bragged about my goals or accomplishments. I thought playing small was manageable but manageable for whom? And why would I want to be small while making others feel big? I want a room where everyone has enough space and I shouldn’t have to make myself be small in order to fit.

So I am promising current and future self a dream life. Another dream life. Sometimes I am exactly sure what that looks like and other times I am still confused. I have prayed for my steps to be ordered and given control over. I am finally submitting to THAT and nothing else. So I am curious, in your life, what is the cost of everything staying the same?

Talking soon,

J

^{01/ What’s On My Mind}

This week’ s reflections—

^{Home to me was 2460 Lantern Lane. Moments before you realize you’re falling in love. Holding my children after labor. The first time you feel SEEN. But life gets busy and those big moments of feeling in sync—feeling in purpose, get further and further in between. Life becomes measured in mortgage payments and the best times to show up in the car pool line. Are you drinking enough water? Reading to the children enough? Somewhere along the way, home feels like dirty dishes. Grocery visits. Clocking in and clocking out.}

^{I stopped feeling at home with my body. Feelings felt like a momentary inconveniences. A fly buzzing around that will eventually go away. But this feeling didn’t. It grew. I thought I was controlling a monster that I was in fact feeding. Feelings started gripping me at my throat. I started scheduling my emotions. Anything too big and too messy, got scheduled for 8pm. Right after my bath. Right before bed. It felt like a solution until my therapist said “so you’re waiting each night to give the last of yourself”. The feeling hit like a brick. In my stomach.}

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^{That’s when I started noticing where in my body do I feel grief. Where do I feel joy? Where is my intuition? A whole body yes feels like my body in tingling. A star. Doubt I feel in my throat. Bare. Anxiety, my chest. Burning. A warning? My stomach. Queasy. The thing about starting over is that you start questioning yourself. Where did I make a wrong turn? Can I trust myself? I had to feel these emotions so I was no longer feeding a monster. I was no longer creating a tower with a moat where no one could reach me. I want to be reached. I want to be understood. I want to be seen. I wanted to go back home.}

^{Home become reading. Long baths. Writing. Meditation. Pilates. Feeling each muscle in my body. Tracy Chapman on repeat. Crying my eyes out in grief AND in hope. Writing letters to myself. Future and present. I wrote letters to my soulmate. Leaving a trail with a matching legend to find me. The journey home was long but my life depended on it. My children depended on it. I was living this dual life where I wanted to make everyone feel at home with me, but stopped creating a home for myself. Coming back home meant being honest about my feelings, about my needs. Home has always been me, just now I believe it.}

^{Talk soon,}

^J

Now when my grandmother passed, we didn’t just lose her. We lost that Thanksgiving feeling. Talking to my mother recently, we were talking about people who get sad over the holidays. We wondered if there is a way to get that old feeling back. I have spent the holidays with other families, I have created my own holiday traditions and yet I still wish I could go back and hear the arguing at that Spades table. I crave my grandmother’s dressing. The first year I made her dressing, I made it from memory. It amazed me how some recipes can be so ingrained into us, almost weaved into our very DNA.

I am a positive person. Very glass half full. I have my gloom and doom moments, but for the most part, I believe everything will work out. I also believe that our childhood sets us up for life. You know someone’s childhood and you can clearly see their love language, attachment style and triggers. It’s like a map that connects past, present and future. Some of these feelings, whether bad or good, are so interconnected. We clutch to them like a blanket without even realizing. The holidays feel empty sometimes because its a reminder of what’s gone and never coming back. Those memories are both comforting and haunting.

Children do help. You move through moments and you smile for them. I want my children to be grateful every day but a special day of gratitude is still beautiful. If the holidays are tough for you with or without kids, what do you do? I have created new traditions, but a divorce means starting all over again. What traditions do you keep? What do you save? For me, it’s about honoring the moments that I used to run from. I did not think I had the privilege to be sad. Too blessed to be stressed LMAO. No really. Anytime I would get sad, I would think of the many blessings in my life but that doesn’t really heal the wound.

Things that are healing?

My village. Always my mother who pours into me. I know no matter where I land, she is always next to me. This year has also been about healing old wounds. I am proud of the steps I have taken and the vulnerability I have shown to do so. I need my people and that’s okay.

Doing what I want to do on the holidays is healing. I actually like hosting. Now I will complain about the money and time spent cooking. Sounds like my grandma. But I love making a home warm. I love that at my old house, our friends would come over and go straight to the pantry. Look in the fridge and grab some food. I love that no matter where I am, I make a home out of that space.

If the holidays are tough for you, I am holding space for you. I pray that you are doing exactly what it is you want to do. Whether that is spending the day in bed ordering food and watching tv, DO THAT. Holidays are complicated. None of our lives are easy and grief complicates so much. Perception also complicates things. We see highlight reels into other’s lives on social media and start comparing their life to our own. Make your life feel good in real life. That’s the goal. Whatever you see online is just that—online. Nothing more and nothing less.

Have an amazing day today no matter what space you’re in. I hope you honor those feelings and honor yourself.

Talk soon,

J

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Another birthday had come around where I did not feel solid. I am a feet on the ground kind of person. I dream, yes, but I still like practicality. I did not feel very useful coming here and dreading on and on about my issues. I like to feel useful. I get into dark places where all I have is prayers. I cannot speak the words. I feel a tightness in my throat and a coldness in my chest. That feeling I have to fight. I understand the weight of my words and some feelings only belong in my journal. Whispers in my closet and tears that get wiped away.

It’s a unique feeling to feel that everything had to happen this way. That every decision brings to you to a place with no regrets—I rarely regret a thing (well besides not purchasing a town home in 2012 off of Windy Hill right next to what we now know as The Battery). Anyway, I am in my new apartment and this feels peaceful. My last living arrangement was not tense or forced but outgrown. The feeling you get where all decisions have been made but life hasn’t quite worked out the kinks yet. Well the kinks have begun ironing out and I am now living alone part time for the first time since my early twenties. And now the undoing begins.

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Undoing what was supposed to be a lifetime together takes work. Mental work. I describe it as moving boxes in my brain. Maybe my heart but we don’t really organize in there. So what was once check mark as wife is now organized as co-parent and business partner. I categorize my feelings when I want them to change. Sounds very methodological, but I have to organize to make sense of my world. When someone is talking to me with too many data points, I have to organize it first. I will often repeat back their words to them after categorizing. You’re upset about X, now you’re thinking about Y and here comes Z. This is how I make sense of feelings.

I wish I could come here and say I finally figured it out. These months away brought clarity and here is how you restart your life. I have some ideas but mostly, feelings. Solo moming is hard and I think often, I did not have children to do this part alone. Of course I have a village, but night routines, school pick up and drop offs oh and not to mention a NEW JOB have made things—in some ways easier and in other ways harder.

Being back in corporate was another decision I had to process. I enjoyed my flexibility. I loved being at every event at the girls’ schools. I enjoyed organizing my calendar for their every appointment. I was an entrepreneur but I very much enjoyed being the curator of my home. But the grind of entrepreneurship while figuring out my life? That part was tough. When your life is content but now you struggle with what parts to share and what parts to keep to yourself? Balancing out what is relatable and what is monetizing every moment.

I also think about my girls. What content will they be okay with having online years from now? A lot of their private moments may be relatable, may be cute, but at what cost? A lot of these questions I have grappled with the last couple of years and have made several pivots to land in a space where I feel comfortable. Morning routines feel safe. Food reviews feel good. Their feelings about divorce? A no go.

So corporate felt like a nice way to continue to have a second income while I figure out this pivot. The only thing is once you step away, in this economy, in this job market—you have to start over. I worked really hard in my twenties and was really proud of my previous corporate career. I thought I could jump back in but how do you explain a four year gap? This felt like another battle to fight when I was already fighting so many on multiple fronts. It was hard to come here and complain, because I am still very grateful for all that I have.

So now things are more settled. I have made peace with the many changes. Life starts again so many times and we really just have to roll with it. I could let ego lead and be annoyed at all these new beginnings but I am choosing to lean in and learn these lessons. I know so many people starting over for different reasons and this isn’t some type of failing on my part. I didn’t fail and have to repeat a grade. I had a life change. So life had to…change and that’s okay.

I am praying you are in a space of peace. If peace feels out of reach, what feels manageable today? What is one thing you can change right now? Sometimes the tunnel feels so dark and light feels so far away that we have to create our own light. What’s some light you can create? For me, anytime I hear the girls laughing, I remember that I did something right. No matter the circumstances, I always have a warm home. I have people that feel at home with me and that always feels peaceful. That is always my light.

Talk soon,

J

My college roommate was telling me this story about our last days in our dorm room, freshman year at GSU. That’s Georgia State University, the real GSU, mind you. I was getting ready to move in with my grandmother in College Park, but planned to spend the summer in Kennesaw to be close to my boyfriend and friends. Moving in with my grandma would be nothing new as her home was my first home. This summer was different though. I was being pulled in many different directions. My parents had recently separated. My mom had a new home and my dad said I could stay with him for the summer. I imagine my daughters, even at their age, feel this. You know a new life is coming but have no idea what to expect.

I have always been a silver lining kind of person. I will find that one thing to get excited about. As I reflect on my blue room, I realize I still protect myself just like that to this day. Back then Julia, I always called my grandmother by her first name, told me I could paint my room blue. My favorite color at the time was teal blue. If anyone cares, right now it’s terracotta. Anyway, I don’t know why but being able to paint my room in her home made me feel very special. Like I had control over SOMETHING. Maybe it also made me feel heard. Seen. So often I back down from how I feel for the comfort of others, but at that moment in time, I was getting my blue room.

I must have shared this with my college roommate in that dorm over 15 years ago. Sharing with her that as long as I had my blue room, I was going to be okay. Everything was going to be okay. There were so many things going on that I didn’t get to decide on, but that blue room? That was all me. I often find myself in that room in my dreams. It must be some kind of safe space somewhere deep in my subconscious. I would sleep with the window open and can still hear those crickets chirping at night and planes flying into the airport.

Crazy to reflect on this story now as I make similar transitions due to similar reasons. Now my silver lining is still, a room lol, but actually a home. I get so excited thinking about decorating a new space. I do love home decor but it could also be something that represents mine. Something that can’t be taken away. Something I have control over. I will obsess over bed frames and rugs for hours. I think it also lets me process. Worrying about the fine details of exactly what shade of oatmeal I want to go with, allows me to process the details of my life. Shifts my mind forward. To new beginnings.

You also never know when your words or experiences will stick with people. The fact that my college roommate remembered this and shared with others to help them, stuck with me. The way my words from teenage me could find their way back and provide comfort to *ahem* thirty-six year old me, that is beautiful. That is full circle. I don’t take for granted the people who have found their way back to me in the last couple of years. It’s almost like life prepped me.

So you must have a blue room. Something that represents peace to you? Peace of mind? An article of clothing? A memory? Somewhere to go when everything feels a little crazy. I have been writing about the aftermath of a divorce, but so many of you can relate for so many different reasons. So many of us are grieving for many different reasons. Grieving different parts of us. Parts that have come and gone. Parts that never came at all.

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So I did end up celebrating my birthday. Celebrating all the parts that make up me today. I grew up always worried about my character. I don’t know, lol, worried that I would end up some afterschool program. Singing and screaming I’m so excited while pills escape my fingers only to later star in Showgirls. lol.

But what this whole experience has taught me is that wherever I go, I take my character with me. I face the toughest of days head on. I am going to decide on the right thing to do, every time. This annoys my mother, who calls me Honest Abe, to no end. And and and I think this is why the older you get, the less fucks you have. You know how you’re going to show up each time because life has knocked you around a couple of times. You know your turn is going to come back around sometime.

So here’s to our turn coming back around. Sometime soon.

Talk soon,

J

Report of the Week

• Reading: Hook Shot by Kennedy Ryan - I had to take a break from reading but now back at it and halfway through with this book!

• Eating: Honestly and I really hate to admit it, I have fallen in love with Chipotle?! I ordered their steak bowl and their adobo ranch came with it? Oh naw. Current hyper fixation meal!

• Playing: I am whispering this buttttt Lizzo’s new album has been getting some plays around here. Especially Crashout, Yitty on Yo Tittys, Just 4 Fun and Gotcho Bitch. This better be a judgement free space LMAO!

• Obsessing: Still not over this look.

• Recommending: Putting your phone done. And don’t hold me to this, but putting the remote down. It’s been real peaceful with little social media AND tv.

• Treating: Well it was just my birthday and I treated myself to a make up haul. I will follow up with y’all because I can’t wait to get these products.

Where You Can Find Me

TikTok | Instagram | Threads | YouTube

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You know what, my mother actually did jump me on my 13th birthday but this year, this birthday, my 36th one, I have thought about canceling a dozen times. My birthday is this Thursday (08/07) and normally, in true Leo fashion, I can’t wait for the day. Usually I would not care who could celebrate or who couldn't, I would already have my day planned. This year is different for so many reasons and it’s left me understanding the folks who say “it’s just another day”. I hope this goes without saying that I practice gratitude daily. I am thankful for this body that carries me day to day. I am always thankful for a sane mind. My children are healthy and I have a roof over my head.

Now that that is out of the way— I am not where I want to be right now. It’s the first time I have no control over anything and I just have to give this over to God and the universe. I can’t Olivia Pope my way through this and that is humbling AF. It feels all so very…human. I love that many of you have shared that you can relate to these feelings no matter what transition(s) you’re currently facing. I do hate that we’re collectively going through something, but we’re in it together.

So what’s a girl to do when life is life’ing?

Well I set goals. I have a big one coming up in a week in a half. I zero in on that. I distract myself. I planned a simple birthday celebration and the amount of people who wanted to celebrate me made me emotional and those emotions made me want to cancel it all over again LOL! The feelings y’all are OVERWHELMING but good. I practice gratitude. I am grateful for the people in my life who have shown up for me but it makes me feel so vulnerable. Like people know I am breakable. If you’re been here a little while or have caught up, I did tell y’all months ago I wanted to be handled with care, but putting that in actually in practice? Whew.

What former independent women rarely speak of is that transition to actually trusting the people who said they want to take care of you. Removing the narrative that no one can do it better than you. Removing the narrative that no one cares about you. Hearing, I mean actually hearing when people say they want to be there, believing them AND AND AND actually taking them up on it. I am being healed on multiple fronts and it’s humbling, scary and kind of beautiful all at the same time. I was the friend that people leaned on and NOW I AM DOING THE LEANING! If you have a sense of humor like I do, Janet just popped in your head.

Anyway, cheers to another year. 35 could have broken me. It did not. I pray for a peaceful week for all of us and if more hell breaks loose, my type A self will just make lists on top of lists until everything makes sense.

Talk soon,

J

Report of the Week

• Reading: Hook Shot by Kennedy Ryan - It is part three in her Hoops series.

• Eating: This amazing sandwich from Pala Bakery

• Playing: Listening to the songs Stay Ready and Bed of Roses ON REPEAT

• Obsessing: My Quince leather bag ! Who knew I would fall back in love with big (really medium) bags again?! I had a partnership with them and have been enjoying my items. I am now looking at their furniture. You might have seen their couches on TikTok? When you look into what fast fashion has done to our environment, it makes you want to slow down a bit and purchase more sustainable items.

• Recommending: Put a calendar invite in your calendar for December 29th. Write yourself a letter. A letter from present you to future you. What do you hope to have accomplished in these next few months? I wrote a note to myself in the beginning of the year just to track my progression with my emotions. This doesn’t have to be about goals but about growth. I picked the 29th because by the 30th or 31st, sometimes you’re too sad to really do any real reflecting OR you just want to party. No judgement either way.

• Treating: Treating myself to iced coffee and iced matcha. Sometimes getting out of the house for a little cold treat really does change the mood.

  ---

Where You Can Find Me

TikTok | Instagram | Threads | YouTube

I have gotten this comment a lot over the last couple of months. Especially when I calmly tell people that I am divorced. You get a range of reactions from looks of pity to the others that are grateful it isn’t happening to them. It makes you think about all of the times someone has shared some less than stellar news with you, and how you reacted.

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Since sharing with you last week about my divorce, so many have written me about their own marriages. Some of you are waiting to make decisions and others are across the finish line. Some of you asked “how did you do it?”. I wish I had a cute answer, but I told you things are still messy. It was not a messy divorce, but transitions are messy. It took a lot of faith, prayer and a little magic honestly. People say faith without ever telling you step by step, how did having faith in God pull you out of a dark time?

Well I went full on Mary Jane Paul. I wrote letters to myself. I put affirmations on sticky notes and pasted them on mirrors. I was very HONEST with myself. I am also a Virgo Venus. You may not be into astrology but a lot of it makes sense. Love to me is data. If you have been reading some of my past newsletters, emotions make me nervous. You can’t contain them nor measure them. I don’t trust being too happy or too sad. I trust consistency. I trust data. I trust what I can measure. Okay, what does this have to do with anything? I wrote in my journal every day.

Writing down my honest, raw, and sometimes mean thoughts helped me make sense of my life. It helped me track where I was the most vulnerable and the most insecure. It helped me track my anger. From there, I was able to see a through line. I was able to see me. I would suggest writing to yourself every day, for thirty days. See what you notice. Write down the time and date and ask yourself: How do I feel today? What did I enjoy? What could have been better?

Yes I pray, but I also talk to God in my journal. I was able to see consistencies. What do I pray about most? What scares me the most? I conducted a root cause analysis on myself and THAT made sense. And once the data makes sense to ME, I can move accordingly. Data, I can visualize, whereas emotions? Emotions take trust. Trust takes time.

Now lastly, I grieved. I grieve the same way I manifest. During one of my early high school heart breaks, my mother told me “Jamil, I wish you could believe me, but a year from now, you won’t even care about this. A year from now, you won’t even be impacted. One day you’re going to wake up and just feel differently. One day, you will wake up and no longer be sad.” Those words have carried me through the ending of every relationship since. One day the sun rises and you don’t wake up with that heaviness in your chest. One day you wake up and you can breathe again. That gives very much Toni Braxton if you’re with me LOL.

Anyway, when I grieve, same as when I manifest, I put my mind THERE. How will a day in my life feel when I am no longer grieving? How will I wake up? What does my day look like? I started imaging my life after divorce and and and—I liked it. There was a freedom to that fantasy that between me and you, felt familiar. If I was honest, there had been a tug that was never acknowledged. Some tugs just feel like normal things everyone sacrifices when they get married. Countries you may never travel to, events your partner is not interested in, and maybe even foods you no longer cook. It’s up to you to determine what tugs are worth the sacrifices and which tugs that left unchecked, will turn into resentment.

I also had to grieve what I thought my future was going to be. I thought I had everything figured out. I was hitting some strides in my career! I had some amazing career wins and just knew 2024 was going to be my breakthrough year. I pictured the next house, the next career moves and those things can still absolutely happen, but the timeline may be different. I had to accept that. Grief also meant sitting still. I stopped going to events for a bit. I pulled back from my career. If I used ambition to avoid feelings before, I had to do the thing that scared me the most—being still.

I had to be still enough to hear my quiet thoughts. The ones that circle your brain when you wake up at 3am. Sometimes they hit you loud over the head and other times it’s a little whisper that you swat away. A little annoyance that you think nothing about. I needed to be still enough to listen. I needed to know the difference in my self doubt and my intuition. Which one is that talking right now because those voices can sound very similar.

I am sorry to hear that so many of you relate. This is a tough time and please give yourself grace. I am talking to you, but I am talking to me as well. I have read so many comments of: everyone is breaking up. Which is not true. If 50% of marriages end in divorce and if 50% seems like a LOT to you, then let’s also celebrate the 50% of folks that stay together. There are people everyday who don’t share their life online, loving on one another and that is still beautiful.

Marriage is hard and life is hard. I choose to believe my life is realigning and that is okay. My relationship did everything it was suppose to do and now it is time for new beginnings. I choose to be happy about that. I have to remember on my darkest of days, I dreamt of days like today. A day where my feelings feel manageable and the future doesn’t feel SO scary. If you’re currently in a dark place, one day things do get better. There is no timeline and unfortunately you do have to walk through that fire to get to the other side.

I also have to acknowledge my privilege. I was able to grieve in peace. I was working for myself and at home. My former wife and I agree on almost everything. Current arguments are about the faux trees she never wanted me to purchase and now she wants them for her new place lol. I have a lot of help with the girls. I have an amazing group of friends. My mom will literally sit on the phone with me and listen to me complain about anything. Therapy was expensive but worth it. If things are harder for you, if healing feels harder for you, that is okay too.

Thank you to anyone who left me a kind comment or note. Thank you for subscribing to my newsletter. These newsletters won’t always be about marriage or divorce. I am healing and learning in real time and just sharing. I am also interested in what you would like to see or for me to chat about. I am open to creating a space that is reciprocal.

I pray this email or newsletter finds you in a peaceful place. If peace feels far away for you, please know I have been there also. I pray you have a small win today. Maybe your favorite movie is available to stream, your favorite song just starts randomly playing or you get eat your favorite meal today. Sometimes that’s all we have to hold on to.

Talk soon,

J

Over the last couple of months I have received dozens of DMs asking me about the state of my marriage. The same way you would ask someone the weather or how their day is going. A passing comment to them inquiring about one of the toughest things I have had to do which was, end a marriage.

The thing is, the answer wasn’t easy. Once you platform your relationship, people feel like they know you. I have spent ten years on the internet talking about my marriage and motherhood while creating a space for other two mom families. When I was going through the worst of it, no one inquired. No one noticed. As long as you’re smiling in front of a camera, no one is the wiser.

Except when those photos start disappearing. When you no longer do content together. When there are no more perfectly curated family photos—you become gossip. “Oh I knew there was something going on” or “man you can’t trust anything you see online”. All of those responses sound like an itch that needs to be scratched. Like tea you can't wait to spill to your group chat. And respectfully, keep it there. But to me, this is my life. I was isolated. My entire world blew up and I had to smile for my kids, smile for my friends and smile for a camera.

As life would have it, it also felt like all of my best friends were getting married. Hell, even my Dad has a wedding coming up. Why even vent to the people who celebrated me for years? It’s their turn now. Marriage is new and exciting and they are becoming one with their lifelong partner. I didn’t have time to be woe is me, I was a bridesmaid. I was a matron of honor—correction, maid of honor.

I couldn’t even be mad. Why be mad when honestly I had a good decade. I didn’t have bad years in a bad marriage. I had a marriage that worked until one day it didn’t. Sometimes that thread becomes untangled and before you can sew it back up, the blanket is gone. But I felt isolated. Not only does a divorce feel embarrassing, like a failure, I knew one day I would have to have this conversation with you.

That someone would feel like I owed them an explanation to the ending of MY marriage. That in the middle of untangling this life and building another, my community would feel like they needed answers. That’s a different type of isolation. It’s a different type of pressure. I can’t even lie, I thought of just falling off the face of the earth. Never creating content again and being one of those creators, like oh you remember so and so…

But that’s not me. When I was crying in my closet, I felt alone. People divorce every day B, but not in front of a platform. I wished I had a blueprint. Someone I could look too and say hey, they had a platform with their partner, separated and this was how they did it. But we know how it goes with couples channels. People separate, shots get thrown, people disappear and THEN come back brand new.

I am not there yet. I am still in the middle of a mess. I am consciously uncoupling. I am not mad at my former wife. We co-parent easily. But there is still fall out. Joint accounts, joint debt, shit, who keeps the Netflix account? We rarely argued and still don’t. There are many blessings but I am still currently stuck in a transition. It feels like my life has become too tight yet still not big enough for the next size up. Like I am watching water boil. Like I am waiting on the perfect consistency for my cookies but I keep opening up the oven.

So here I am, becoming the representation I wanted, no NEEDED to see. How do you start a life all the way over? You thought you had it all, but now you need to rebuild. It feels embarrassing. You feel too old for this shit, but guess what, so many people are going through the same thing. That’s the space I want to share from. I am learning me all over again. What does that mean in life, in business and in motherhood.

So if you already guessed it, congratulations. Keep it in your group chat. I have never just shared highlight reels. I have given birth on camera, had operations on camera. I have discussed postpartum anxiety and now, I am discussing this. There will still be a “Jamilla and Que” for family content. We will do this in a respectful but authentic + loving way so if anyone ever goes through this or is currently going through this, at least they have me. At least they have my journey.

So I never owed anyone an explanation, but I do feel like it is my purpose to share. I pray everyone reading this is in peaceful spaces and let’s just now journey together, authentically.

Talk soon,

now legally again, Jamilla Svansson

I could hear Julia (jew-ya), my grandmother, talking about me from my bedroom at 5 in the morning. I have always referred to her as her name and never grandma. One thing about living with Julia is that she would start her conversations early in the morning and it would never be a shock to be the topic of that morning’s discussion. She decided from my birth that I would be Jackie to her. A nickname from my middle name Jacqueline. We’re getting really close for me to tell you my middle name. No, you may not call me that. You know some things about me, but haven’t shared much about you, you know. This a two way street that’s only one-waying currently.

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Anyway, I am Jamilla to most, Jamil to my parents and Jam to my closest and longest friends. Jackie is just for Julia. I lived in my grandmother’s house until I was four and then back every summer until I graduated high school. After freshman year at GSU, I moved back in with her and drove to school each day. It was during that time period that I could hear Julia’s morning update about my life. Julia would have been 79 on May 25th.

Julia was not just my grandmother. It’s hard to explain but many times it felt like me, my mother and her sister, my aunt Gigi, were sisters. Like we could all get in trouble at any given moment. If I heard Julia yell “MONIQUEGIGIJACKIE”, I would come running because I knew that combination of names together usually was her way of calling me. We would all look at each other with knowing glances and ready ourselves for her usual speech of “I’ve been up since five this morning! While y’all were sleeping, I was cooking and cleaning…”. My grandmother wasn’t just the matriarch of the family, she was my tether.

There is something I believe that happens to you when you lose the person who brought you into this world. I believe you become untethered. My mother brought me into this world. She is the very person, outside of my own children, that I protect the most. There was also something about me and my grandmother’s relationship that made me very much her child. Like my mother had me for the both of them. Like maybe they could pour into me everything they wanted for themselves. Like I was supposed to build upon every foundation they laid out for the better. I felt that weight. I feel that weight.

I recently finished Kennedy Ryan’s book Can’t Get Enough where the main character’s mother has dementia. No spoilers. One thing I found very interesting while reading the book was thinking about why people with dementia go back to certain memories. If these memories were their happiest or even safest moments. It made me think about my dreams. I dream of my grandmother often. I am usually in her home. On Lantern Lane. Sometimes I am in my old blue room. Most often, I am in my mother’s old room. I am sleeping in her bed and I wake up to the sound of her in the kitchen.

I am four and I wake up to the smell of grits. I can hear my grandfather outside getting the grill ready for the afternoon. My great aunt, who also lived with us, is outside getting tomatoes from her garden. My grandmother’s sister is outside descaling a fish. My mother, cleaning the kitchen. This is what family feels like to me. My safest memory. It comes third only to bringing my children earth side. The first time I held Harper. The first time I held Holland. But in my dreams, I am always on Lantern Lane.

There are a handful of memories I could live in. I think what I feel most in that memory is the sense of safety and stability. I knew exactly how this day would go. I would get dressed. My aunts would come over. We would eat and go back and forth from the backyard to the dining room table. My grandfather would make his special vinegar mixture and grill chicken wings or ribs. My mother would make her request of exactly how she wanted her wings. Extra tight. There would be drinks. Beer. Daiquiris. There would be a lot of laughter. What’s the best and worst part is that those are the most special memories and are the ones you can’t get back. We could appreciate living in the moment more if we realized just how many moments we don’t ever get back.

It wasn’t always like that. This could just be one Saturday morning I have romanticized. One moment in time that I have wrapped a whole feeling around but it’s mine. I can remember laying in bed and hearing everything going on in the kitchen from the vents. It felt so familiar. So normal. I could hear my name letting me know that the food was ready.

Julia would often take people in. A cousin, a friend’s son, a long time friend. The moment it was time for me to come in the summer, they had to move out. I remember one summer raiding the fridge and grabbing what I thought was cubed steak only to discover to my dismay, it was liver. ugh. I told Julia thinking we would all get a laugh at my mistake. I come from a family of comedians btw. She did laugh but the very next day, she made cubed steak. While eating that night, my aunt mentioned how loved I must be because she had been requesting cubed steak for months. And I think back now, I did feel very loved.

It wasn’t the steak. Not the nagging. Definitely not the telling my business on the phone AT FIVE IN THE MORNING. Even though I never LOVED waking up and hearing my grandmother talking about me, I always felt thought of and loved in that house. I always felt top of mind. My grandmother was always thinking of me. I think I have spent so much of my life trying to earn love. Trying to convince people to love me. Trying to repay the love I have felt in return. I have been scared of love. Of losing love. Of knowing how easily someone can just never wake up again.

We’ve lost a lot of people since. My mother and I. Really, my mother. Who says I am strong but really she is the strongest person I know. Dedicated and without complaint. We have had to learn how to move through this world untethered yet tied to one another. I have learned to anchor myself to be my children’s strength one day when they need it. I have created new families and new traditions and will do so again. I have learned to tap into that magic so hopefully one day my home, my arms and my love will be someone’s safest memory.

Talk soon,

J

Some songs I can just feel through my entire body. They remind me of a memory, a mood, a moment.

It’s 2013 and I remember this summer like it was yesterday. The kind of summer that feels like a novel, the ones that turn into TV series years later. That summer, every move felt so energized — kind of like the summer right before college, when you want everything to stay the same, but deep down, you know you won’t have moments like this again. You feel new but everything still feels comforting all at the same time.

I was in my early twenties, trying to outrun heartbreak. I was young enough to explore different lives and see what really fit me. Was I this corporate woman who lived life coloring inside the lines or could I exist in another space? In another timeline? As another person. I have always flirted between logic and creativity…well logic and anything really. Honestly, still a current battle I fight.

Anyway, I had kind of came out to my family the year prior for my girlfriend and now her and I were no longer together. I lost family members over that decision and just felt like a big f you to the world. I was finding myself all over again. At this age, I now know that events will rock you and force you into self discovery at any time.

That summer felt like a revenge tour but not in the way you are thinking. My kind of revenge is to feel good. Halle Barry me! Kidding — kind of! But this summer I had new friends. This was my artisty summer. We spent hours writing poetry and reading Audre Lorde to each other. We would find open mics, Black lesbian parties and events all over the city. My friend was dating a musician and you know how that goes. Well, anything goes.

I joke that I couldn’t possibly have had a job that summer but I was definitely working at Bank of America. Time just felt magical. Atlanta still felt magical. I would drive home admiring our skyline with Fire We Make by Alicia Keys & Maxwell as my soundtrack. Maybe I was running away at the time and didn’t know it. Running away from cities with too many memories. Kennesaw, Marietta, College Park. At the time, I felt like I was LIVING.

I had my very first apartment. It felt grown coming home to myself. Paying all of my own bills. Playing in the city and driving home to Kennesaw. Working Monday through Friday in banking but still partying on the weekend. I didn’t realize that the choices I was making that summer would change everything. I was leading with my heart and not thinking about the consequences. A new feeling was seeping into my very being. It felt like every molecule on my body was on fire and everyone could tell just by looking at me.

Have I told you that I am a summer baby? Something about the summer always energizes me. With summer always comes decisions in my life. I noticed this in my late twenties when it seemed like I would always come across the same fork in the road each summer. To take the safe route or the road less traveled. Like clockwork, a situation would arise and a choice would need to be made. That summer in 2013 was no different. No different than this very summer we are approaching as well.

That summer was about going back to what I knew or starting something new. I was enjoying this new freedom I found. I was dating. Enjoying just not knowing what could come next. The decision I made that summer would ultimately lead me to being engage the following summer. Married by 2016 and a baby by 2018.

It’s crazy how a summer can just change everything. A decision can change the whole course of your life. Summer is magical and a little scary like that. You would think that no longer being in school that the summer would no longer hold that much weight in my life, but it does. Kind of makes me curious what this summer has in store.

Do you have a season like this? A season that every year seems to bring new beginnings?

Talk soon,

J

Wood Harris: “It hurts because you found a part of yourself worth protecting. You found a boundary. That’s good. Hold on to it. But don’t hide.”

I have been thinking about Mara Brock Akil’s newest show Forever since I started watching on Thursday. I talked about Forever and the first four episodes here. If you haven’t finished the show, I don’t have crazy spoilers but you can also save and come back later. The show follows two teenagers, Keisha and Justin, as they fall in love with each other during their junior year of high school. The thing about Mara is that she knows how to encapsulate our feelings into a tv show. Some of us are still sad about her show Love Is being canceled. Where Girlfriends, Being Mary Jane and The Game touched on Black women dating and being in love in more light hearted and funny ways, Love Is and now the show Forever, feel like a poem written just for us.

I often think about why do coming of age stories hit us so hard in adulthood. Wood Harris giving his son advice on love made me realize how nostalgic our first love is. Most of us remember the first person who ignited those feelings in us. The first time we felt seen and understood by someone and unfortunately, the first time that person let us down. Most go through life knowing our parents or relatives love us. It’s something we take for granted and we just assume. The feeling of someone choosing to love you or feeling compelled to you for the first time, feels unreal.

Combine that feeling with being a teenager and having no real concept of time. Everything feels urgent. Every new feeling feels raw. You can’t listen to any advice because parents can’t possibly understand. I remember my mother telling me during my first heartbreak and subsequent ones after:

“In a year, you won’t even be thinking about this. You would have forgotten all about this feeling. One day you will wake up and just feel better.”

I didn’t believe her then but her words have often rang true. Before I let the dramatics take over, I always ask myself “will I care about this in a year?”. Now I sometimes get in trouble for seeming a bit aloof, but really it’s because getting caught up in emotions feels all encompassing and out of control. Early in the show, Keisha tells Justin that maybe they should not date because she has too much going on. She even tells him to find another “Keisha”. The show often depicts them texting, with one spilling all of their feelings only to delete and respond with a “cool” or “I’m fine”. Now I often found myself yelling at the screen at Keisha, but those moments of fear, of writing out all of your feelings only to delete the words, I completely understand.

I also thought about my girls while watching this show. What lessons will I pass on to them about love. Wood’s advice about not hiding after heartbreak is very LOUD. The same way my mom gave me advice in my teens, I know my girls won’t listen but will remember. I can’t shield them from those first love heartbreaks, but I can teach them about their self worth that will hopefully carry them throughout their life. I can teach them to listen to their instincts to know when to leave or when to stay.

I think coming of age stories just remind us of how innocent everything used to be. Before you knew that people could have ulterior motives. When you believed everything a person said the first time. You don’t even think about anything possible ending because this is the first beginning. How could something that makes you feel this good possible end? Have you heard about the first love theory? The one that says we are all just trying to replicate that first love?

These shows have us smiling at the tv because it feels good to remember that kind of naivety. Our age group curled up with a home phone and our feet in the air. While Justin and Keisha have so many miscommunications that get resolved through social media or a FaceTime, I remember writing letters and MAILING THEM to a boyfriend. Literally checking the mail daily for his letters back to me. I hate to admit it but I have always been a lover girl lol. That kind of intention and patience almost seems lacking in this instant gratification society. Why get to know someone when you can take a quick scroll through their social media and feel like you know them? Why stay and fix something if you can get on an app and find someone else? Something new?

I saw some commentary online about the back and forth between Keisha and Justin but to me, it seemed to capture how big those emotions felt at that age. It also spoke to the access we have to one another in this digital age. Keisha and Justin were both dealing with issues around identity and trust. They came from different socio-economic backgrounds which ultimately did impact the choices they make and the choices they feel are even accessible to them. How many of us got to actually be teenagers just falling in love or did most of us carry some sort of weight that colored every interaction we had?

Needless to show Forever has unnerved me and yanked this little heart around. It reminded me of that first love and the innocence of youth. The show made me think about how I will mother my two girls. Honestly, I am more of a Wood Harris. Let’s practice this LIGHTS ON AND OFF! Lastly, I think about a father talking to his son in the park. Talking to him about boundaries and remaining hopeful. So maybe we cling to these coming of age stories out of hope. To remind us of the very things we wanted during a time when it didn’t even occur to us that we couldn’t have it. Before life made us question everything and everyone.

Have you seen Forever? What did you think? Did it remind you of your teenage years? Any advice your parents gave you during all those firsts? Anything you still carry with you today?

Talk soon,

J

Sensitive

Being sensitive had a negative connotation for me. It wasn't until I was an adult talking with my best friend and she shared “…they hurt my feelings because I am sensitive.” She called herself sensitive as if it was nothing. As if it wasn’t an adjective that people hate admitting about themselves. Not just people—shit, ME.

That felt brave to me. It felt honest. It felt like a reclamation.

I have always had thick skin. I grew up with a Black family from the south. Criticism may sound like a suggestion but you hear the implications LOUD and CLEAR. I was never called sensitive because I could not handle being made fun of, I was called sensitive because I called people OUT. I was also direct. You say something I don’t like, I am going to tell you. I might even have some follow up questions because why do you feel so comfortable talking to me in that way?

See the thing is, people hate accountability. They believe they should be able to say whatever they want to say and not hear anything back. You call them out enough and suddenly you’re “sensitive”. You’re sensitive for being bothered by what they will later frame as a “good natured” or “funny” or “just joking” commentary. I had a friend who once shared that because her friends know that she is a good person, she should be able to say whatever mean things she wants. This was followed by a text message revealing everything she disliked about each person in our friend group. You think we didn't have anything to say back? You think we weren’t bothered?

Life hits you enough and sometimes you get stuck in a loop of hitting back. Of being on the defense so you don’t get caught up. Soon this loop becomes the norm. The channel you’re stuck on. Your reality. Your default. Sensitivity didn’t feel like it served me. Not like wit. Not like charm. Not even like anger. It felt like a weakness that someone could mine and exploit. You get knocked around enough and suddenly, you no longer want to be soft. I remember that moment. Grief took softness from me. Grief held my throat. Burned my eyes and harden me. At least that’s what I told myself.

Unfortunately, life has a way of revealing other people’s hands. No matter how good they hide them. Life put me in a couple of situations where I saw the worst in people. And sometimes, once you taste the sour, no sugar brings it back. So I learned to watch people. Watch their motivations. Watch how their handle themselves. Because if blood can hurt you, no telling what water will do.

Because I guard my access, I was told I was mean. Unfeeling. Not. Soft.

I am never going to be soft where I am not safe. I am only soft where I am safe.

Safety is everything to me. Instead of asking for someone’s softness, ask if you are SAFE. Have you created a safe space for me? In friendship. In business. In relationships. Safety is created from trust, loyalty, respect and TIME. I told y’all before that I get a little deep.

My therapist once asked if having my guard up was authentic to my wants and needs.

RIGHT. I know. anyway.

How can we get to safety if I never even share where the wounds are? How can we get to safety if I am unauthentic in my needs? My sensitivity and softness is all wrapped up in every thing I have ever experienced good and bad.

So am I soft now? Yes. I am soft where I am safe.

I was used to being the smart one. The one people came to for advice. I showed my love through service. Through providing. Who was I… who am I…without that maturity? I felt like I had no more overflow to give to others. Maturity suddenly felt like—a shortage. Like your favorite pair of pants, that size six that you stretched out…to an eight—fine a TEN. It fits, sure it fits, but it’s no longer your size.

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It seemed like I was being mocked by my own gifts. And jeans mind you. Like my maturity had let me down. How does a 35 year old dress? How do they act? What is my career suppose to look like now? Do people even wear skinny jeans anymore? The very things I never cared about became loud thoughts ricocheting in my brain. More importantly, that download warned me that continuing down the path I was on would lead to immaturity.

I like to be good at everything I do. Call it ego. I call it my sun sign, Leo. Funny to be ruled by the sun, obsessed with the ocean and scared of emotions. Welcome to every therapy session I have had. My emotions, or lack of giving in to them, was keeping me in my own prison. It was stunting me. One thing I was more afraid of than my emotions, cue dramatic music, was being immature.

I meet people all of the time who express their feelings with such ease. I am happy. This made me sad. I am disappointed. There are even people who enjoy…crying. These people find me. In grocery stores, at my daughters’ school and in friendships. They tell me their secrets. Empathy, I am good at. Support, I can do. Share my darkness? That weight just feels too heavy to share.

Ultimately, I think I just don’t like letting people know they have control over me. If you make me happy or sad, or any range of emotion in-between, you have control over some aspect of my life and I would rather fall out than admit it. Very mature.

Now I teach my girls to express their feelings. Talk to each other. Stop telling on one another. Holland, when Harper takes your doll how does that make you feel? Harper how would you feel if Holland took your doll? I must go through a dozen of these conversations each day. Mama made you mad? I am sorry, I did not mean to yell. Mama is overwhelmed and needs a minute. Kids and their emotions are easy to me. They hold me accountable. It’s the adults that scare me.

So what is a former adultified child and eldest daughter supposed to do when her emotional maturity no longer fits? Last week I talked about being engulfed by my ocean of emotions. I have found standing in the sun also feels uncomfortable. I am a woo woo girl, so I suspect my moon/rising Libra combo feels most comfortable with stability. Not too high of happiest nor too low of sadness. I thrive in the in-between.

I thrive when solving other people’s problems. I feel most at ease finding all the little cracks and filling each of them until they are whole. So last year I had to Olivia Pope my own life. How uncomfortable is it when you become your own client. I had my own cracks I had to tend too. My own outdated narratives. Jamilla you’re too much. You’re…not…lovable. Every person that I have shared this inner dialogue with is always shocked. I felt unloveable because of the depth of the emotions that— get this— I don’t even SHARE. Just the threat of one day crashing out to the horror of witnesses, God forbid I outwardly share negative emotions, had me feeling unlovable.

I started calling my friends and sharing my feelings. Sharing this inner dialogue. It felt uncomfortable. It felt embarrassing. It felt human. I felt like I was being STRETCHED. I was breaking out of a mold, coming off of a pedestal, and bridging the gaps that I had created. I didn’t have it all together. I *shocker* didn’t have all of the answers. I might not be able to be of service like I could before, but at least I was me. At least I was here.

Turning 35 last year meant adjusting my maturity but also finding that 22 year old who was fearless. Who didn’t care what people thought. No one is the sum of their worst moment (unless you’re out here intentionally hurting people) so why was I holding myself prisoner to my lowest moments? To the few times I lost my cool? I had been cooling a fire that wasn’t even set. I praised myself for always keeping a poker face. The thing about coming undone, is that you’re so focus on putting the pieces back together again, you don’t have the energy for a facade. I am holding myself together and making sure dinner is on the table, I don’t have time to pretend like you didn’t hurt my feelings.

I am so used to quickly checking someone and moving on with my business, that I never thought of the implications. That people would just assume nothing hurts me. That we could just quickly move on from a slight and not discuss what made you comfortable to even say that shit to me? Now I have time. I have questions. Now I am more intentional in how I am treated and handled. I used to hate the thought of being glass but baby we’re here now. Handle me with fucking care.

So just in case you’re taking notes, the size six pants still no longer fit. I purchased a ten. I allow my emotions to kiss the shore. I am standing in the sun. None of this is easy. I don’t do any of it particularly well. It’s okay for me to be a mess. So where do we place the importance of maturity? I don’t know, but when I see a confident older woman (if my mom is reading, older means 80+ ha!), my first thought isn’t how mature she is. Has she lived? Has she loved? Does she regret anything? And me? Well I don’t want to regret a damn thing.

Jamilla

It’s windy in Atlanta today. The leftovers from a tornado watch last night. A windy yet warm day like today takes me back to the beach. My favorite place. If I am honest, I feel most vulnerable in front of a body of water. I feel like you can give all of your emotions to the ocean without judgment. You can wash away sins in peace. I spent New Year’s Day this year doing just that. Spilling secrets in the sand. Thinking on at what point in my life that emotions felt so…dangerous.

Growing up I felt misunderstood. Stay out of grown folks conversation with the adults while my friends told me I always got too deep with them. I think I just learned to keep my thoughts internally. That most people prefer to stay on the surface. I learned to build a fortress within myself…I am guessing not to get judged or disappointed. I assumed portions of myself would just be left untapped. Turning 35 would challenge all of that.

Ultimately feelings just feel…well out of my control. You can only hide from them for so long. They can come in big and all consuming. Crushing your shoreline at any moment. The first time I can remember trying to control my feelings was in my early twenties. My grandmother would enter the hospital right after my college graduation. Nothing would ever be the same. I remember feeling like I had to be strong for everyone around me. I would allow myself to go to my car for ten minutes to cry. Wipe my tears. Walk out. Act like nothing ever happened. I would cry alone. Grieve alone.

I often feel discarded. By family. By friends. People think you create content online and everything must be fine. They consume stories and videos and feel like they have sufficiently checked in on you. You must be fine, you’re posting. They forget they walk into their own jobs daily masking whatever inconvenience they experienced the night before. I decided along the way that I would show them by no longer showing my feelings. No, you didn’t get to me. You won’t see me sweat and you won’t dare see me cry. Not an easy feat when every thought you have can be seen in your eyes.

Really I learned that I just short changed myself. I appeared impenetrable and was treated as such. I remember a friend telling me, this is upsetting news and I can’t really read how you are feeling. I liked the ability to be unreadable. Access to any emotion was a privilege. I never minded others sharing their emotions with me, but mine? Locked away.

Corporate would also usher in a phase of controlling my emotions. I was dropped right into executive beefs where I would always be the youngest, the smallest and sometimes the only Black woman in the room. I couldn’t appear bothered by a slight. I had to have an answer for every question. I would never allow anyone to catch me off guard. I had to show no feelings. Measured and in control.

I wrote before about motherhood bringing me back to my emotions. I did not want to be an emotionally unavailable mother. My own mother told me that parents can only give what they themselves possess. I had to bridge the once “too deep” child to the aloof appearing adult. It is okay to tell people when they have hurt me. It is okay to be hopeful even if the threat of disappointment looms close by. It’s okay to stand in the ocean and cry for so long that you’re convinced your tears have replenished the sea.

My therapist once asked me why I wiped my tears away. Confused, I joked, shrugged and said “because they are there.” I felt almost ashamed and a little too SEEN by her suggestion that I was uncomfortable with my tears. With my emotions. Tears felt like a betrayal. That was a year ago. Our most recent sessions I let my tears fall. I let them decorate my shirt. Unashamed of feeling. Of being a person. Of being disappointed. Of ultimately being…human.

I used to be jealous of the ocean. The ability to replenish herself. Swallow anyone who dared to think they could control her. Now I find her more honest. No pretense. She never minds taking in the tears from the sky. She also doesn’t apologize for her vastness. I realized that my fear was being too much for someone. My emotions too big. too deep. too flowing. too vast. I feared being seen, really seen and then discarded.

That fear doesn’t go away, but I found out when it happened— the world didn’t end. Ultimately, I did replenish myself. I let my feelings swallow me up and still made it to the shoreline.

Although I did not carry Harper in my womb, she is my baby through and through. Becoming a mother at 28 when I was at the height of my corporate career was no easy task. If I described creating content as laying down the track, I felt like the train, no Marta, in corporate America. I thought I was a hot shot working at SunTrust with my downtown Atlanta job. I was promoted multiple times within my role in quality control. It wasn’t until I ran up against a couple of bad managers that my train lost steam. I still have PTSD from those days but that’s a story for another day.

I had a pregnant wife, a new townhome and a new business. I thought security for my life looked like more money and a new house. I worked late hours, took my laptop on vacation and answered my phone all hours of the night. I mean these were audit fires that had to be put out right? Except that life has a way of slowing you down. Harper was too small in the womb. Bed rest was issued until one doctor’s visit led to being admitted into the hospital. I got that call in the middle of a meeting. I had to go. Harper would be delivered via emergency c section shortly thereafter.

She was preterm at 35 weeks and sent to the NICU. It was at the NICU being ran down with back to back questions that needed answers where I realized my heart would split into two. Do you consent to vitamin k? Has the milk come down yet. Are you mom?! Mom. Mama. Mommy. I was mama and mommy was still laying open on a table. She had preeclampsia. Her own mother was worried making her way to Atlanta from Richmond. I needed to check in on her, but now I have a helpless baby. A baby that for the next couple of hours would depend solely on me.

I had to make decisions in the best interest of everyone and pray there would be no fall out. I came out of that hospital a different person than the woman who rushed there to be by the mother of her child days before. Motherhood would change me in ways that I wouldn’t quite understand for years. Harper made me a mother but also really made me an accountable woman. Triggered by each of her colic cries, I knew I had to come to terms with my own emotions that lay hidden and tucked away for years.

She opened up a heart that life had made stone out of. I was operating as a machine. Work. Home. Security. I realized that all of my overflow would become her baseline. Whatever I had left to give would become her inner voice. I had to ensure I always had enough to give my children, so I had to learn to fill myself up. I thought I learned this lesson until two years later, I was pregnant with Holland.

I never dreamed of pregnancy. I never dreamed of making lunches before school. Never thought of combing hair in the bathroom each morning. I dreamt of running around in a big city. I thought I was going to be Khadijah. Carrie. Joan. I dreamed of townhomes with wood floors throughout. Children to me felt as necessary as college. Something I assumed was apart of the timeline. Something that needs to be done but I never asked myself “do you even want kids?!”

I was told by Harper’s mother that she had signed up for two kids. Harper was a handful, I was good with just her. One night though, I started dreaming of my grandmother, which I often do. Her bedroom, her dresser decorated with perfume (White Diamonds, but you knew that) and her hands. I often think about my grandmother’s hands. How we laid in bed one afternoon watching stories and holding hands. She told me that I was always a daughter to her. Always her baby. I often felt her spirit around when Harper was a baby and I knew this dream meant I was to have another baby.

If Harper healed me as a woman, Holland healed my inner child. One look into those deep eyes and I knew I had given birth to my twin. To my inner child. That I had to speak to myself more carefully because she was an actualized person now. The inner child who just wanted to be loved. Just wanted to be recognized. Jamilla, I see you. I hear you. You do good work. You are a good person. I had to heal my inner child to raise Holland.

Postpartum would prove to be tough on me. I had to let a lot of things go. I could not handle it all. I had convinced everyone around me that I was so strong and did not need any help. The scariest part, they believed me. I felt myself screaming inside and no one to save me. Confined by my own prison. I created a labyrinth that only I knew how to get out of. I think many mothers feel this way. This change that comes over our body. The grief in knowing we will never be same and the shame in not even having the language to explain it. It feels like being a football field away from everyone you know. Like a fog over your brain that just won’t lift.

My journey through motherhood is such a personal one. Black mothers haven’t had many generations of mothering so freely. Of having the option of picking up books and deciding parenting styles. We were too busy just trying to survive. I may not have dreamed of becoming a mother but it is my primary function now. My most important job and my biggest joy.

I think so much of what I am pouring into my children. Which one of my sayings will they one day join in unison to make fun of me for? Which memory will they tell their partner annoyed them most? Which of my ticks will be explored in therapy? Which story will I repeat each birthday no matter how many times everyone in the room has heard it? I wish more people thought of the soul and the spirit of children. Thought more of their words becoming their children’s conscience. Their guidance. I still hear my father’s voice talking about trust. My mother talking about accountability. My grandmother, loyalty. Me? How will they remember me?

You get critiqued enough and it makes you just want to share the bare minimum. Here is the make up I like. Here are the clothes I am wearing. Here is what my kids ate for breakfast. At one point I thought I was sharing parts of my family for the greater good. Sharing what a two mom family could look like. Sharing some of the difficulties we faced so that others could not hate up close. I wanted a community of Black lesbians who didn’t see themselves reflected in any other space. Who felt isolated in their TTC journey and needed to vent. Whose family stopped talking to them just because of who they loved and needed to find community SOMEWHERE.

Now I day dream about a completely private life. One where no one knows what my kids look like. No one would ever dream of just walking up to them and talking about their last video. I often wonder, has enough story been told? In my favorite book Year of Yes Shonda Rimes writes about laying down the track for Grey’s Anatomy episodes. Is there enough track laid down? Does it make sense for the story. Sometimes I wonder, do I still have enough track for the train?

“. . . [E]very single writer I met likened writing for television to one thing--laying track for an incoming speeding train. The story is the track and you gotta keep laying it down because of the train. That train is production. You keep writing, you keep laying track down, no matter what, because the train of production is coming toward you--no matter what.” - Shonda Rhimes

This is year four of being a full time content creator. I am proud of what I have been able to accomplish with both of my brands. I have straddled two worlds, being a Black lifestyle creator and a Black LGBTQIA+ creator. In Black lesbian spaces, I feel SEEN and respected for my work. In the straight spaces, I have felt othered. I feel poked + prodded. On high alert for any microaggressions. I have used humor to deflect and try to move in these spaces, but they have left me feeling empty. Now I recognize that I no longer what to convince anyone to do or feel anything. You are inherently not one of my people if I have to humanize myself and my community for support and empathy.

I also found Threads where so many other people were having the conversations I was having! I found people who shared my concerns and also my humor! Some of my friends have commented that my Threads has felt like the closest thing to— me! If Instagram is my resume, TikTok is my alter ego, then Threads is my journal entries. I would like for Substack to continue this in a real way. A space where I can share my thoughts and build a new and more authentic community.

I want to change my name across platforms (Jamilla Svansson) and start sharing the things that keep me up at night. Sharing my thoughts about being in my mid-thirties. Starting over and finding yourself again as a woman and as a mother. And always, deeper TV & film reviews with a side of pop culture commentary. I have fallen in love with writing again and it feels good. Although I long ago gave up the need for a full face of make up to record, sometimes propping up a camera, finding the light and finally editing the content just takes the urgency out of the message I want to share. Is this a good angle? Do I look fat? Can I say this in a more concise way? Do I have a hook? These worries annoy me to no end and have stifled my creativity.

If you’re reading this, I assume you enjoy reading. You don’t mind a little backstory. Short form content has really burned some of us creators out. Many have said they have run out track for the train. While I still have so many things I want to share with you, I no longer want to be consumed in 60 seconds pockets with a trending audio in the background at a time. I want to create a space where we can share equally. What are you currently enjoying? What makes you smile? What are you reading and/or watching?

and going forward, no trends, no fluff—just sayin’.

Jamilla