“I don’t want to tell you too much too soon.”

That was one of the first things he ever said to me.

Not long after, he added something else.

“If I tell you some things, you can’t leave.”

At the time, I interpreted both statements as vulnerability. I thought I was meeting a man who had been hurt and was trying to move carefully.

Now I hear those words differently.

They weren’t creating trust.

They were managing perception.

Whether consciously or not, they bought time to build a version of himself before I had enough information to make an informed decision.

Before I met him, I was genuinely happy on my own. I wasn’t looking for a relationship because I had already built a life I loved. I told him exactly what I wanted.

I was waiting for someone who could genuinely add value to my life.

I sent him a picture of myself. In the background was the warm ambience of my apartment.

He told me my apartment looked like heaven.

He told me I had a beautiful life.

At the time, I took those comments as admiration.

In hindsight, I think he recognized that I had built a peaceful, fulfilling life on my own. A life that didn’t need rescuing.

Our conversations deepened quickly.

Future wife comments.

Hours of talking.

Stories about loss and heartbreak.

I listened.

I acknowledged his grief.

I cared about what he had been through.

One of the things we genuinely connected over was music.

He introduced me to artists and songs I had never heard before. Every time he sent me something new, I got excited because I knew I was about to experience a different sound, another perspective.

I told him how excited I was about all the music I was going to discover through him.

That part was real.

My curiosity was real.

My empathy was real.

My care was real.

Then he told me something that reframed everything.

Early on, he saw me leaving the building, and I walked right past him without noticing him.

He said that was the moment he decided he had to get my attention.

What I once interpreted as persistence suddenly felt different.

My independence had become something to win instead of something to respect.

As time went on, another pattern emerged.

When things were good, music connected us.

When things became difficult, music replaced communication.

Whenever there was friction, he rarely expressed his feelings directly.

Instead, he sent songs for me to decode.

Lyrics became apologies.

Playlists became explanations.

Music became the place where I was expected to do the emotional labor of figuring out what he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say out loud.

The conversations themselves looked very different.

They were filled with rage.

Contempt.

Disrespect.

Projection.

Devaluation.

The monologue that lasted nearly two hours was the beginning of the end.

I had been insulted enough that I simply couldn’t receive another song.

He sent Marvin Gaye’s Is It Enough.

When I didn’t respond, he sent me a PDF about difficult people.

Then another song about giving it another chance.

Finally, he texted that he wished he had handled things differently before saying goodbye.

For a moment, I felt the pull to respond the way I always had.

Instead, I finally understood something.

The music wasn’t the repair.

It had become a substitute for the repair.

So I replied with the only honest thing I had left to say.

“The songs are great. They connected us. But they can’t repair us.”

That sentence changed me.

Because this story isn’t really about him.

It’s about discernment.

I wasn’t perfect.

I got frustrated.

I asked questions.

I stayed longer than I should have because I believed communication could solve what honesty never created.

But I was real.

I cared.

I showed up as the same person behind closed doors that I showed up as in the beginning.

That’s the difference.

Discernment isn’t about finding perfect people.

It’s about recognizing the difference between someone who is imperfect and accountable, and someone who manages perception instead of building trust.

I don’t regret being empathetic.

I don’t regret believing people can heal.

I don’t regret loving music, listening deeply, or holding space for another person’s pain.

I regret believing empathy alone could build trust.

It can’t.

Trust requires honesty.

Accountability.

Curiosity.

The willingness to repair through conversation instead of symbolism.

No song, no matter how beautiful, can replace changed behavior.

The beautiful life he said looked like heaven was never missing him.

I built it.

Now I know that protecting my peace isn’t closing myself off from love.

It’s making sure that the next person who enters my life doesn’t just admire what I’ve built.

They help protect it, too.

For a long time, I believed that too.

I believed if I worked hard enough, stayed prepared enough, communicated clearly enough, and protected the people around me, eventually the system would recognize me accordingly.

Instead, I found myself in environments where emotional comfort and familiarity were often rewarded more consistently than competence.

I have spent years working in Departments where I was often the only Black woman. Years watching white women champion and protect each other despite dysfunction, despite poor leadership, despite emotional immaturity, despite wasted resources, despite the inability to regulate themselves professionally. I watched women gossip viciously about one another, mistreat crews, avoid accountability, create chaos, and still remain socially protected and repeatedly rehired.

At first, I internalized it. I thought maybe I needed to be softer. Less direct. Less boundary filled. Less aware. Less honest about what I was seeing.

But the truth is, I never had the luxury of incompetence.

I could never show up disorganized, emotionally reactive, wasteful, or unprepared and expect to continue working. I understood very early that my margin for error was smaller. That professionalism for me was not optional. It was survival.

The truth is, I have never really experienced protection professionally or personally. Not the kind where someone steps in before harm reaches you. Not the kind where systems assume your humanity first. I learned early that survival meant anticipating risk, regulating myself, and protecting others because no one was coming to do it for me.

Maybe that is why this realization has felt so devastating.

While I have spent years advocating for people, encouraging them to honor themselves, telling them to contact the union, reminding them they deserve support, structure, boundaries, and protection, I have quietly watched myself become financially strained and professionally overlooked for embodying those same values publicly.

I tell people not to abandon themselves while existing inside systems that often require self abandonment for access, proximity, and survival.

That contradiction changes you.

What I began recognizing over time is that many professional environments are not primarily structured around excellence. They are structured around familiarity, emotional convenience, hierarchy, and perceived non threat.

That realization became even more complicated as some of the same women participating in systems that marginalized me also began passing my name along for opportunities. Some genuinely respect my capability. Some know I am excellent at what I do. Some trust my leadership.

But individual validation is not the same thing as collective integrity.

Being respected for your competence is not the same thing as being fully welcomed into a structure.

I also had to confront another uncomfortable truth. Some of the people most socially protected in these environments were not particularly strong leaders. They lacked foresight. They wasted resources. They created confusion and emotional instability around them. Yet they remained employable, centered, and protected in ways I knew I would never be afforded if I moved through the world similarly.

I realized I had spent years believing excellence, ethics, and foresight would naturally create safety and opportunity. Instead, I found myself in environments where emotional comfort and familiarity were often rewarded more consistently than competence.

For Black women especially, I think many of us understand the exhausting reality of having to be hyper capable simply to be considered while simultaneously being perceived as difficult, intimidating, or disruptive for possessing clarity, boundaries, discernment, and self trust.

I no longer romanticize these spaces the way I once did.

I no longer confuse proximity with solidarity.
I no longer confuse politeness with emotional intelligence.
I no longer believe professionalism alone protects you from systems rooted in hierarchy, fear, and familiarity.

But despite everything, I still believe people deserve dignity.
I still believe leadership should involve accountability, emotional intelligence, and foresight.
I still believe people deserve support.
I still believe we should not abandon ourselves to survive professionally.

Even if remaining intact comes with a cost.

I think many Black women know exactly what that cost feels like.

Not stuck. Not lost.

Just… in between.

I’ve been applying to roles that almost fit.
Close enough to see myself in them, but not quite aligned enough to feel fully seen.

At the same time, I’ve been building something of my own. Something intentional. Something rooted in truth and lived experience.

Somewhere in the middle of all of that, I’ve been observing.

Not just systems.

People.

There’s a divide that doesn’t get talked about honestly.

Not in a way that moves anything forward.

I’ve experienced it consistently.

The kind of divide where your presence requires validation. Where your competence is questioned quietly, indirectly, or only affirmed when it becomes convenient.

Where you are often the only one in the room, but somehow expected to adjust, translate, or soften in ways that others are not.

Over time, you start to notice patterns.

Patterns in who is trusted, who is protected, and who is expected to prove themselves over and over again.

I’ve spent a lot of time working alongside women.

I think that’s part of what makes this harder to process.

There’s an assumption that shared identity should create alignment. That there should be an unspoken understanding. A level of empathy.

That hasn’t always been my experience.

What I’ve seen instead is how proximity to power can shape behavior.

How people protect what feels familiar.
How accountability becomes selective.
How discomfort is avoided rather than explored.

How a lack of curiosity quietly reinforces division.

I’ve also realized something else.

There’s a difference between professionalism and performance.

I’ve watched behavior that would be labeled “difficult” or “emotional” in one person be excused or normalized in another.

I’ve experienced having a clear tone and being told it was an attitude.
I’ve watched the same level of intensity be framed as passion in someone else.

Those differences are not just about personality. They are shaped by perception, bias, and who is allowed to take up space without consequence.

I’ve started to realize that the qualities that make me effective, directness, clarity, and not needing constant validation, are often the same qualities that get labeled negatively. Not because they are wrong, but because they challenge expectations of how I’m supposed to show up.

There’s an unspoken expectation to soften, to reassure, to make others comfortable. And when I don’t do that, it reads as something else entirely.

I recently sat across from someone I used to feel close to, and I realized how much emotional distance had grown.

Because of limitation.

A lack of depth.
A lack of curiosity.
A lack of willingness to go beyond what feels comfortable.

It made something very clear to me.

Emotional limitation doesn’t just affect relationships.
It shapes environments.
It shapes industries.

When people are only able to see themselves, or people who reflect them, everything becomes smaller.

Safer.

Less honest.

Less expansive.

That limitation shows up everywhere.

In hiring.
In leadership.
In who is given space to grow and who is expected to stay contained.

I used to think that if I explained my perspective clearly enough, it would create understanding.

That if I approached people with honesty and openness, something would shift.

I don’t think that’s always true.

I think some people are not positioned to receive perspectives that challenge their comfort.

Not because they’re incapable.

But because they’re unwilling.

That realization has shifted something in me.

I’m no longer trying to convince people to see what they benefit from not seeing.

I’m no longer trying to translate my experience into something more digestible.

I’m paying attention.

I’m being intentional about where I place my energy.

I’m choosing environments that don’t require me to shrink in order to belong.

I don’t think this “in between” space is accidental.

I think it’s where clarity happens.

Where you see systems for what they are.
Where you see people for who they are.
Where you decide what you’re no longer willing to participate in.

M

aybe that’s the point.

Not to force your way into spaces that don’t expand you.

But to recognize them.

And move accordingly.

In November, I thought I had an opportunity.

It went away. Not cleanly. Not professionally.

In that space, reality set in.

The holidays were coming. My mother kept reminding me that I needed to make money. I had made a promise to my son, one that someone else was supposed to fulfill but didn’t.

So I told myself to do something. Figure it out.

I went back to something I knew.

Retail.

I had spent ten years there before transitioning into television and film. Leaving that industry was intentional. I did not fall out of it. I chose to move forward.

Yet, here I was.

Applying for a seasonal stock associate job at my local Walmart.

Not glamorous. But practical I guess…

Back of house. Minimal customer interaction. Physical work. That felt manageable.

The first few days were orientation. Normal. Uneventful.

Then I started paying attention.

There were personalities, like in film, but without the same energy. It felt flatter.

I noticed quickly that the other new hire and I were the only Black employees on our team. This was Long Island. It felt strange.

Most of the team was Hispanic or Haitian. There were language barriers. I spent time asking questions. Where they were from. How long they had been there.

Many had been there for five years or more.

They valued stability. Benefits. Consistency.

And I understood that.

But I also saw more.

I saw people who worked hard. People who could thrive in other environments. People who could build skills, earn more, and move forward.

Instead, they were on a loop.

Then I started paying attention to leadership.

They were present, but not leading.

No coaching.
No development.
No real communication.

Just survival.

That is when it became clear to me that this was not random.

It was a system.

A system that hires people who will work hard and accept the minimum.

I watched grown adults light up over candy and snacks handed out by managers.

It gave me pause.

Because all I could think was, you deserve more than this.

But I have learned something.

You cannot make people see what they are not ready to see.

For many of them, especially those navigating language barriers, this system worked.

It was enough.

Even if it was not everything.

After a few weeks, I knew I had made a mistake.

This was not neutral for me.

It was affecting my mental health. It was not benefiting me in any way.

And then there was the work itself.

After unloading trucks, we were sent to the sales floor.

That part felt like agony.

Under stimulating. Repetitive. Busy work.

Two things I know do not work for me.

I started to dread going in.

Then they began cutting my hours.

And that made it very clear.

Low pay and fewer hours do not make sense.

On December 13, I decided my last day would be December 20.

Made up my mind.

A few days later, we had a shift with two large trucks.

It was cold. It was busy. Holiday season.

We unloaded the first truck and took our fifteen minute break.

Then we started the second.

Halfway through, I realized there was no plan for lunch.

No structure. No communication. No leadership.

That bothered me more than anything.

I come from a union environment.

Where time is respected.
Where systems exist for a reason.
Where leadership has accountability.

Here, there was none of that.

We finished the second truck with about an hour left in the shift.

The leader on duty told us we had to stay on the clock until the shift ended.

In that moment, something became very clear.

I took off the vest.

I left.

I never went back.

That system is broken.

Not because people are not working hard.

But because it was never designed for them to move beyond it.

A line associated with Medgar Evers and one that stayed with me after watching I Am Not Your Negro.

It was simple. And that’s what made it heavy.

It felt like a request, but also a demand. A release. A recognition that something has been held too tightly for too long.

I don’t know exactly when I fell in love with Documentaries.

I do know that I’ve never really been a reader in the traditional sense. Which always felt strange, considering both of my parents are. I’ve picked up books I’ve been genuinely interested in and still couldn’t stay with them. My attention drifts.

But visuals? Stories in motion? Context layered in real time?

That’s where I hyper focus…

I can see everything. In color. In detail. In emotion.

I’m starting to understand that whatever version of ADHD I possess, it doesn’t limit me…it directs me. It pulls me toward understanding things not just as they are, but where they come from.

I’ve watched a ton of Documentaries and Doc series in the past few months but these resonated with me on a deeper level…

The Alabama Solution
I Am Not Your Negro
The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel
Arthur Ashe: Citizen of the World
Tell Me Who I Am
The Perfect Neighbor

On the surface, they’re all different.

But they’re not.

In The Alabama Solution, incarcerated men educated themselves and organized without permission, without formal structure, building knowledge in a place designed to suppress it.

In I Am Not Your Negro, you feel the exhaustion. Not just from racism, but from the willful ignorance required to sustain it.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers documentary surprised me. It’s about music, but also about origin. Loss. Addiction. Influence. Purpose. Friendship. How deeply Black music lives inside sounds that are often separated from it.

Arthur Ashe’s story hits differently. Being the only one of something. Carrying excellence and expectation at the same time. Navigating assimilation, then reclaiming self only to have life interrupted in a way that feels both random and deeply unfair.

Tell Me Who I Am is harder to sit with. Memory loss. Protection. And then the slow, devastating uncovering of sexual abuse that was too painful to hold consciously.

The Perfect Neighbor doesn’t hide anything. It shows racism as it is. Not theoretical. Not historical. Present. Casual. Embedded.

Different stories.

Same roots.

Abuse.
Racism.
Classism.
Ignorance.
Avoidance.
Power.
Survival.
Evolution.

I keep coming back to this question….

Is pain the root of all of it?

Not in a reductive way but in a foundational one.

Pain that is processed becomes growth.
Pain that is ignored becomes harm.
Pain that is denied becomes systems.

What draws me to documentaries isn’t just the storytelling.

It’s the origin.

I’m deeply interested in where things begin. In what shapes people, systems, cultures and decisions… how something becomes what it is.

If more people were curious about origins…really curious…I wonder what would shift.

Would we dismantle some of the systems we’ve normalized?

Would we feel more connected to each other?

Would we move with more care?

I’m in a rediscovery phase right now.

There’s a part of me that still hopes maybe even fantasizes that change can happen in real time. That things can evolve faster. That the world my child grows up in can be softer, more aware, more honest.

Maybe that’s the dreamer in me.

Maybe it’s also a way to quiet the guilt that sometimes comes with bringing life into a world that can be so heavy.

Even in the heaviness, I found something else.

All of these Documentaries every single one held moments of inspiration.

Not in spite of the darkness.

But because of the humanity within it.

I’m grateful for perspective.

For nuance.

For the ability to sit with stories that are not my own and still feel them.

To understand that people can be vastly different from me and still be deeply familiar.

“Turn me loose.”

Maybe that’s what all of this is.

A quiet call to release…
ignorance
avoidance
inherited thinking

And maybe also…

A call to release ourselves into deeper understanding.

I, juxtaposed…

between what is,
what was,
and what could be.

between what is,
what was,
and what could be.

In October, I took a solo trip to Miami.

Friday night, I sat at the bar at Las Lap for dinner. I remember feeling really good, present, just enjoying my own company. I realized I was sitting next to Brent Faiyaz, his afro is distinctive or was.

He was quiet. Just sitting there with a friend, sipping water for hours. No performance. No attention seeking. Just… there.

I didn’t say anything to him.

Now, after listening to Icon, I wish I had.
I would have thanked him.

I read the Pitchfork review of Icon, and I understood what they were saying.

But I didn’t feel it the same way.

Because what I hear in this album isn’t surface level growth.
I hear someone in transition.

Maybe that’s the disconnect.

Sonically, this album does something to me.

It sits in the same space as Blonde and Freudian albums that don’t just sound good, they live with you. They meet you where you are and shift something internally.

But what’s different for me this time is that I’m not going through heartbreak. I’m not in survival mode. I’m not trying to make sense of pain.

I’m stable.
I’m clear.
I’m evolving.

And somehow, this album still feels… vindicating.

There’s something really powerful about witnessing emotional growth in real time, especially when it’s not perfect or overly articulated.

To be 30 and flip a switch not into perfection, but into awareness that’s real.

That’s what I hear on Icon.

“Butterflies” has been my hyper fixation.

There’s a fullness in that record. A softness that still holds weight.

He’s talking about a woman with intention. With value. With presence.

He wants her to be met.
He wants her to be reciprocated.
He knows she’s different.
He knows she’s one of one.

More than anything, he sounds like someone who has been waiting for this feeling.

But there’s also anxiety in it.

That quiet question of-

Is this mutual?
Am I about to experience something real, or am I projecting something I’ve never felt before?

And that’s the part that feels honest to me.

Not perfectly worded.
Not overly explained.
But real.

I think sometimes we expect growth to sound polished.

We want people…especially men…to suddenly become emotionally fluent, clear, and fully self aware.

But that’s not how it works.

Growth is messy.
It’s inconsistent.
It’s sometimes unclear even to the person experiencing it.

What I hear on Icon isn’t someone who has fully arrived.

I hear someone who knows he’s not who he used to be…
but is still figuring out who he’s becoming.

And that space?

It’s uncomfortable.
It’s uncertain.
But it’s also honest.

And maybe that’s what growth actually sounds like.

When I told him I still felt connected to him, he paused for a second and said something that caught me off guard.

“I’m honored.”

It’s such an interesting response when you think about it. Not I feel that too. Not I’ve felt that as well. Just… I’m honored.

At the time I remember making a face and telling him that was a strange thing to say. But the more I thought about it the next morning, the more it stayed with me. Not in a bitter way. More like something you turn over in your hands for a while, trying to understand its shape.

The truth is, I did feel connected to him. I still do in some quiet way.

We hadn’t seen each other in almost a decade, but when he walked up to the table it felt familiar in a way that surprised me.

I didn’t even stand up when he walked over. I just reached my hands out toward him and he took them. His hands were soft but strong, and for a moment we just stayed there like that. I’m a small person, barely five two, and he’s tall and solid, but when our hands touched it felt grounding instead of overwhelming. There was something so human about it. Not romantic in the dramatic, butterfly way people talk about. Just warm. Familiar. Almost like home.

The smile. The conversation. The warmth he brings into a room. Some people have that kind of energy that makes you remember why you cared about them in the first place.

There’s something about him that has always been easy to love.

Not because he’s perfect. Far from it. He’s been immature with me. Emotionally unavailable. Sometimes careless in ways that left me confused or hurt. But none of that ever made me feel like he was a bad person. It just made me feel like he was someone who hadn’t fully found peace with himself yet.

And that’s a very different thing.

Over the years I’ve watched him search for that peace in a lot of places outside of himself. Religion for a while. Creative work. Different cities. Different projects. Always moving, always building something, always chasing the next thing that might finally make everything feel settled.

I understand that instinct.

When someone has spent most of their life trying to become the version of themselves that the world expects, it can be hard to realize that the thing you’re searching for was never outside of you in the first place.

Sometimes it’s already there, buried underneath the pressure and the noise.

That’s the part of him I wish he could see more clearly.

Not his photography or his DJ sets or the long list of things he does to keep himself moving. Those things are impressive, but they’re not what makes people care about him.

It’s the way he smiles when he talks to you. The way he listens. The warmth he brings into a conversation. The feeling people have when they leave his presence.

That’s the real magic.

I think sometimes when you grow up feeling like you have to prove yourself, you forget that the most powerful thing about you might be the way you make people feel.

You start believing that your worth lives in what you produce instead of who you are.

I wish I could reach across the table and gently shake him and say…it’s already in you.

But life doesn’t work that way.

People have to discover those things for themselves.

You can care about someone deeply. You can see the beauty in them, the potential in them, the softness in them that they might not even recognize yet. And still understand that their growth isn’t something you can carry for them.

That realization has been settling in my heart lately in a way that feels both peaceful and a little sad.

Honestly, the way I feel about him is probably a kind of love I haven’t experienced before.

Not the kind that insists on being returned in the same way. Not the kind that needs a relationship to validate it. Just the quiet recognition of someone’s humanity. Their light and their shadows at the same time.

A love that can say…I see you.

Even if our lives never align in the way romantic stories like to promise, I think a part of me will always be grateful that I met him.

Some people teach you things without ever meaning to. About patience. About boundaries. About the complicated ways the heart and the mind try to negotiate with each other.

Maybe that’s what he meant when he said he was honored.

Or maybe the honor was actually mine.

To care about someone enough to see them clearly, wish them peace, and still trust that whatever is meant for my life will meet me in its own time.

Sometimes matters of the heart are complicated like that.

But every once in a while, they’re also simple.

You meet someone.
You recognize something beautiful in them.
And even if the story doesn’t unfold the way you imagined, the warmth of that recognition stays with you.

Like a bowl of soup on a cold day.

Last week wrapped something for me.

Not just a reshoot. Not just a job. A chapter.

I walked away relieved. Clear. A little tender. Not angry and that’s important. Anger isn’t a flaw. It’s information. It’s what people suppress until it manifests as disease, resentment, stagnation. Anger is often what moves things forward.

But this week wasn’t anger.

It was clarity.

I realized I am not in recovery anymore.

I am in conscious alignment.

There was a time when survival was my baseline. When resilience was my brand. When I needed minimalism in my home because my nervous system was overloaded from work. When pushing through exhaustion felt noble. When money was the only metric.

That season served me.

It does not serve me now.

This phase is different.

This phase is slow growth on purpose.
Manifestation mixed with discipline.
Softness mixed with strategy.
Building things that set my heart on fire even if they build quietly.

Because here’s what I understand now

We are the curators of our legacy.

A curator decides what hangs on the wall.

A curator removes what no longer belongs.

A curator does not apologize for editing.

Right now, I am removing

Negative self

talk in any capacity.
Pushing myself when my body is asking for rest.
Doing anything that does not feel authentic.

Not because I’m fragile.

Because I’m intentional.

Money cannot be the only driving force as you evolve. Especially as your morals sharpen. Especially as you begin asking what is sustainable. What is aligned. What actually feels like peace.

We are allowed to outgrow things.

We are allowed to walk away.

We are allowed to change our minds.

We are allowed to build slower if it protects our nervous system, our children, our integrity.

I bought a young girl in my life a book called Brave, Not Perfect. She read it. When I asked if she wanted more books, she said, “If you want to.”

That broke my heart a little.

Why wouldn’t she assume she is worthy of more?

Why wouldn’t she expect expansion?

Because children gravitate toward what we expose them to.

So do adults.

If we normalize survival, they normalize survival.
If we normalize bravery, they normalize bravery.
If we normalize internal validation, they learn to look inward.

My son watches me shift.

He watches me build new businesses. Study. Rest. Start over. Write. Dream bigger.

He sees that strength and softness can coexist.

That is legacy.

Not applause.
Not proximity.
Not constant hustle.

Alignment.

You don’t have to be in recovery forever.

You don’t have to live in resilience forever.

You can step into conscious curation.

You can decide what stays.

You can decide what leaves.

You can decide what the next generation sees hanging in your gallery.

We are not just surviving systems.

We are curating our legacy.

There’s a weight that comes with being rare. I’ve known it all my life. People tell me I’m original, they tell me I’m unique. And yet, that uniqueness often makes them uncomfortable. Sometimes, it even makes them resent me.

Last night, I experienced it again. A friendship I thought was grounded in mutual respect and care became a mirror of every unbalanced connection I’ve ever had. The blame, the projection, the coldness it all hit me at once. And it reminded me, again, that my relationships have always been imbalanced. I’ve chosen people who could not meet me where I am, who could not honor my light, and I’ve had to sever ties. I’ve been a loner by choice, but the isolation becomes more acute as I get older. I also realize that I’ve always been okay being alone. I love myself. I love my company. I don’t need constant validation. I feel whole.

But I also want reciprocity. I want people who see me, who reflect that light back. I want relationships where we grow together, where the giving is mutual, and where care is not performative. I want my son to see that friendship can be beautiful, grounded, and reciprocal. I want to show him that it’s okay to walk away from relationships that drain you.

I’ve always seen the highest version of the people in my life. I’ve poured into them, uplifted them, celebrated them. I’ve admired their strengths, and I’ve believed in their potential. I’ve never felt competition with them. I’ve never wished to have their life or possessions, because my self love and confidence are deep, rooted, unwavering. I don’t need their approval. I don’t need them to mirror my achievements. But time and again, I notice the same pattern admiration mixed with resentment, celebration mixed with envy.

It’s not just friendships. It runs through family, past relationships, the people I trusted. Some have accused me of thinking I’m perfect, or of being better than them, and I am left confused literally…. because I’ve always been vulnerable, always acknowledged my struggles and flaws, and always risen from them. I’ve always been optimistic. I’ve always evolved. I’ve always loved fully even when others were undeserving of that love. And yet, the projection onto me persists……

I think about the dynamics of my life, the relationships that could have nourished me but instead left me feeling unseen. I think about the people who open my Substack posts, read them, but do not engage. I think about the joy and creativity I share, the projects I pour my soul into, and how few truly celebrate them. And I realize people often want proximity to what success looks like, but they are not prepared to meet it with love, acknowledgment, or reciprocity.

I’ve seen the impact of not being seen clearly. I’ve watched people I’ve nurtured and guided struggle to meet themselves, to grow, to hold themselves accountable. And I’ve realized that my gift, my rarity, is also my burden. The depth of my feeling, my capacity to love, to celebrate, to lift, to create, to rise… it is profound. And it is not for everyone.

I want to teach my son what it looks like to be whole, to love fully, to step into your light without shame, and to walk away from what does not serve you. I want him to see that healing, root work, and self awareness are not optional they are essential. I want him to understand that reciprocity is not a reward. It is a STANDARD.

This is why I keep moving forward with my work, my pilot, my Substack, my Etsy shop, my non profit in development, my life. I can’t wait for others to catch up. I can’t rely on validation from those who can’t see themselves, can’t hold themselves accountable, can’t rise to meet the energy I bring. I am worthy of everything I believe about myself, and I am done shrinking for anyone. I am done compromising my joy, my energy, my creativity, my light.

To anyone reading this if you feel unseen, uncelebrated, unacknowledged, know that it is not because your light is wrong. It is because some people are not capable of seeing it, and that is their limitation, not yours. Stand in your light, hold your boundaries, and love yourself with the SAVAGENESS it deserves.

Root work changes everything. Healing changes everything. Choosing yourself changes everything. If my words help one person see themselves, honor themselves, and rise, then all of this every heartbreak, every lonely moment, every imbalance is worth it.

Watching him, I saw a man who was kind, brilliant, lost, a revolutionary activist, spiritually bypassing and failed by those who should have protected him. His suffering, the suffering of his children, the preventable grief, it broke me.

It all begins with his start. His mother was sixteen. His father was in his sixties. That is statutory rape. That is abuse of power in the most fundamental, destructive way. No child should ever endure that. It runs deep. The trauma, the imbalance, the shaping of identity, the way the world looks at you before you even have a chance to fully exist… it all begins there.

I can’t help but imagine the pain his mother carried, the fear, the impossibility of being fully seen, protected, or supported in a society that minimized young Black girls and excused older men with power. That dynamic shaped his life before he even understood choice, agency, or self protection. It rippled into his childhood, into his sense of trust, into the relationships around him. It’s the kind of trauma that echoes across decades, across generations, touching his children, the people he loved, and even those of us watching from afar.

Later, when illness came, when cancer took over his body, there were people around him who could have acted differently, who could have seen what needed to be done, who could have intervened with intentionality and care. If someone, especially one of the women in his circle, with intuition, with foresight, with the courage to speak up, had acted, maybe his life could have been saved. In the 70s and 80s, women were supposed to be quiet, docile, unseen. But what if one of them had felt, had acted, had stepped forward?

Part of what hits me so hard is seeing the parallel to my own life. I am seen as strong, capable, resourceful. People expect me to carry everything. Even I, the one expected to hold it all, am vulnerable. If my life were compromised if I were facing something unavoidable, would anyone honor me fully, see what needs to be done, act with intentionality? That question cut deep. My capacity to feel, to empathize, to notice what others do not, is my superpower, but it also exposes me to the pain of witnessing preventable suffering.

Death is permanent. Consequences of inaction are irreversible. Watching Marley, I saw what it means when people fail to act, when potential is cut short, when grief could have been prevented. Someone could have saved him. Someone should have saved him. And yet, the world often fails those who need care most.

I shared this documentary with my son for Black History Month. I want him to see, to understand, to feel. Documentaries are for those who want truth, who want to recognize difference, who want to recognize similarity. They are for those who want to see culture, history, trauma, and the weight of human life. Watching Bob Marley, I saw the stakes, the brilliance, the tragedy, the humanity, and the heartbreak of what could have been.

My Sadness

I feel sad.

Not angry. Not bitter. Sad.

Because I look around and see so many grown men who believe financial stability equals adulthood. Men who believe acknowledging mental health is weakness. Men who are slightly better than their fathers and think that alone deserves applause. And what scares me most is this…. many of them are fathers.

My Son

I don’t just want him to succeed. I don’t just want him to be stable. I want him to be loved. I want him to know how to love, especially women, without entitlement, without emotional laziness, without mistaking silence for strength.

Sometimes I worry. If he had been raised by someone else, would he end up like his father, his uncle, his grandfather? Would he think “better than before” is enough?

I try so hard to correct my wrongs in parenting. Sometimes it feels overwhelming. Sometimes I wonder if I am cut out for this.

But here is what I know….he is loved. Deeply.

Modeling Emotional Responsibility

I want him to see me as human, not perfect, but emotionally responsible. I want him to see me apologize. I want him to see me regulate instead of explode. I want him to see me have boundaries. I want him to know that strength includes softness.

Boys do not just learn how to be men from their fathers. They learn from the emotional climate of their home.

I also want him to see what generosity and thoughtfulness look like in everyday life. I am naturally a cheerful giver. I send gifts, I show up for people, I try to treat others the way I have wanted to be treated. I have noticed something. Sometimes people simply mirror my gestures instead of being intentional. If I send flowers for someone’s birthday, they send flowers back, instead of truly thinking about what would mean the most to me.

I want my son to learn that emotional care is not transactional. Thoughtfulness is not about doing the same thing back. It is about paying attention, noticing what matters, and acting with intention, whether he is giving a gift, a word of support, or his time. This is part of what it means to love responsibly, to show respect, and to be present in the lives of women and others around him.

I teach him that true strength is responsibility, not dominance. That protecting someone does not mean controlling them. That women are not fragile, but safety is a shared duty in a world that has not always been kind to them. I am not raising a savior. I am raising a man who knows his presence should feel safe…. a bar

Carrying the Weight

I feel the weight sometimes, the weight of knowing what my son could inherit from the men around him, the patterns I have survived, the lessons I had to learn the hard way. I want him to be safe, to love deeply, to respect women, to carry himself with integrity.

And yet I know this weight is mine to bear, not his. My job is not to make him responsible for fixing the world or correcting generational mistakes. My job is to show him how to move through it, how to feel, how to repair, how to choose boundaries, how to love without fear. I carry the weight so he does not have to.

In carrying it, I hope he learns that strength is not measured by avoidance or endurance, but by awareness, compassion, and the courage to grow.

The Legacy

This is the legacy I can give him… not perfection, not immunity from life’s hardships, not a blueprint for surviving the worst of what men can offer. But a living example that emotional maturity is possible, that love is teachable, that accountability is normal, and that cycles can be broken, one conscious parent, one brave conversation, one healed heart at a time.

With Jay-Z, a 56 year old man carrying the culture of our communities on his back, that nuance is often lost.
His wealth makes some overlook the labor, the accountability, the choices he’s made, and the weight of what he carries.

I revisited 4:44 recently.
The album is eight or nine years old now, and listening to it at 39 feels different than it did when it first came out.
It makes more sense.
Not because the album changed, but because I did.

4:44 is reflective.
Confessional.
Grounded in responsibility.

It’s an album about looking at yourself without flinching.
About fatherhood, partnership, betrayal, money, legacy.
It asks the questions we all avoid: What did you inherit? What are you passing on?

I think about moments like seeing him at the Super Bowl with Rumi and Blue.
Present.
Loving.
Taking photos.
Showing up.
Knowing they are protected.

It’s a small thing, but it’s profound.
It reminds me that evolution, responsibility, and presence are choices we make every day, often behind the scenes, in ways most people will never see.

After listening, I went looking for interviews from that era and came across the 2017 New York Times interview he did around the album’s release with Dean Baquet.

It stopped me.
Not because it was flashy, but because it was raw.
Quiet.
Ahead of its time.

At one point, Baquet, a Black man, asked him what he learned in therapy.

Jay-Z said,
“The most important thing I learned is that everything is connected.”

That sentence landed in my body.

Because that has been the central truth of my own therapy journey.
Everything is connected.
Nothing about how we behave is random.

The way we love.
The way we avoid.
The way our nervous systems react.
The choices we make when we are scared, ashamed, or powerful.

None of it exists in isolation.

So many Black men were never protected.
They were born into survival, scarcity, and emotional suppression.
Raised in systems that demanded toughness and punished vulnerability.
Coming from brokenness layered on top of brokenness.

That doesn’t excuse harm.
But it explains context.
And context is where evolution begins.

So often, people reduce Jay-Z to the surface—
billionaire, cool New York dude, culture in human form.

And yes, all of that is true.
But none of it would exist without the inner work he’s done.

There’s a generational underdevelopment in emotional intelligence in our communities, a kind of inherited armor we are taught to wear.
He broke that curse.
He did the work.
He evolved.

And yet, some still miss it.
They call 4:44 an “apology album” because they can’t believe that someone who once rapped about drugs, hustling, and bravado could also rap about accountability, healing, and legacy.

They don’t see the evidence of change in his work, in his words, in his choices.
But the evidence is everywhere, layered in albums, interviews, and the way he shows up for his family and culture.

Money is often seen as a measure of status or greed.
But in Jay-Z’s case, money has been a tool.
A tool for healing, for security, for generational impact.

He and Beyoncé have mastered the ability to leverage wealth to protect, to provide, and to cultivate stability for generations to come.

Having a healed nervous system is a magnet for money,
and their inner work makes their outer wealth even more powerful.
Overlooking the power he possesses intellect, emotional mastery, cultural influence is wild

.

It’s also worth noting that admiration can be dangerous when it turns into pedestalization.
No one should be put on a pedestal.
No one is without flaws.

And yet, people still elevate Jay-Z as if he’s untouchable,
as if wealth or cultural influence erases the human complexity he openly shares.

He tells us he’s flawed.
He tells us he’s accountable.
And still, some can’t see that.
They only see the surface.
But he is human.
Fully, deeply human.

It’s a reminder that transformation is always harder to see than the surface of success.
And it’s also a reminder that real growth isn’t performative.
It’s labor.
It’s persistence.
And it’s often invisible until you pause to connect the dots.

I think that’s why I feel connected to Jay-Z.
Not because I know him, but because I recognize the arc.
The decision to do the inner work.
To connect the dots.
To say, I don’t want to pass this down.

Sometimes I wish he were my big brother.
Or my uncle.
I wish I had a man like that in my life.
Someone who could model what it looks like to grow without pretending you were never wrong.

Someone who understands that everything is connected.

That the child you were becomes the adult you are, unless you interrupt the cycle.

Watching that kind of evolution, especially in Black men, gives me hope.
Not naive hope.
Grounded hope.
The kind rooted in choice, labor, and repair.

And maybe that’s why 4:44 still matters.

Because it isn’t about being redeemed.
It’s about being responsible.

And at this stage of my life, that feels like the highest form of maturity I know.

My father wasn’t my protector either.

So somewhere, quietly and subconsciously, I learned a dangerous lesson. Maybe I wasn’t worthy of protection.

Protection, then and now, feels like a UFO sighting. Rare. Questionable. Almost mythical.

I learned to protect myself.
I learned that no one was coming to save me.
That my safety, emotional, physical, psychological, was entirely my responsibility.

That kind of knowing is exhausting.

I find myself wondering about women who have been protected.

How do they exist in the world?
Do they smile more?
Are they happier?
Do they move through life more freely?

Do they overthink, or do they trust?
Are they good communicators because they were heard early?
Do they love without bracing for impact?

Are they kind in a way that isn’t survival based?
Do they have empathy without it costing them their nervous system?

What complicates this is that I can see now that the people who were supposed to protect me did not have the endurance to protect themselves.

Not emotionally. Not psychologically. Not spiritually.

So how could they protect a child?

My parents were not young when I was born. This was not inexperience. This was incapacity. Underdeveloped adults with adult responsibilities and limited emotional bandwidth.

Still, I struggle with this. I do not understand how you bring a child into the world without the intention to protect them. Or how, once you realize you do not have the tools, you do not evolve.

What I do know is that the absence of protection forced me to build strength early. Not the kind that feels heroic, but the kind that feels necessary. The kind that forms when there is no safety net and no backup plan.

That strength is real.
And it came at a cost.

What I know now is that I did the emotional labor they could not do.

I repaired myself. Slowly. Intentionally. Without applause.

I evolved in the ways they did not. And then I became a parent myself and understood, in my bones, that protection is not abstract. It is a responsibility. A daily practice. A posture.

I am my child’s protector.

And in realizing that, I began to understand something else. That protection may be my gift. My purpose.

Not in a grand way. Not performative. But in the quiet, consistent way of standing between harm and those who are most vulnerable. Those who are marginalized. Those without a voice. Those who do not feel strong enough, or worthy enough, to be protected.

I think I have always been this way.

But now it is not survival.
It is not vigilance.

It is my baseline.
It is my foundation.

It is who I am in every facet of what I am becoming.

The year was 2019. I was headed to my former home of the 757 for an unprecedented experience, Pharrell’s first music festival, Something in the Water. I was excited, hanging with some close friends, wearing cute outfits, and thrilled to get away for the weekend since work had been so heavy.

I boarded a small jet, maybe a 25 seater. Small planes never bothered me. I had flown them a bunch during undergrad to and from Virginia. I got to my seat and to my surprise, Gayle King was sitting at the window. We smiled, I got cozy for our hour long descent, and thought nothing of it. She was headed to cover the event.

Then something unexpected happened. Gayle grabbed my arm and held on for dear life.

I felt sad for her. I thought maybe she sensed some maternal energy from me. My aura must have been calm enough for her to feel vulnerable. She did not say a word. Someone from her team was a row ahead, checking in on her.

We landed safely. She said something to me. I do not remember what, but it was not a thank you. The team member asked if I wanted a picture. I declined all four times.

I did not care about celebrity. To me, she was human. I was happy she felt calm, at ease, and I could serve her, not as a famous journalist, but simply as a human being. I remember telling the story later that my then four year old was a better flyer than she was. I thought about all the access and notoriety, and yet here she was, needing comfort like anyone else.

It made me reflect. No matter how high profile someone is, we all crave presence, calm, and human connection. That is more valuable than a photo or a story.

Part of healing for me has been learning how to receive. Not as a concept, but as a practice. In the small, reflexive moments where my instinct is still to say no it’s ok or you don’t have to do that. Those words used to feel polite, even strong. Now I recognize them as armor. A learned response shaped by the belief that needing help was a weakness, or at least that is how I was conditioned to understand it. I learned early that being capable meant being self sufficient. Strength looked like handling things quietly and alone. Asking for support felt like failing, or worse, like burdening someone else with what I should have been able to manage on my own. Over time, giving became my default. I learned how to anticipate needs, how to show up fully for others, how to hold everything together. My cup often looked full from the outside, but internally it was almost always empty. Or maybe it never stayed full long enough to matter. The moment it filled, I felt responsible for emptying it again. That belief did not appear out of nowhere. I can trace it back clearly when I think about my college experience. My tuition was paid, and my mom bought me a car. On paper, that looks like support. And in many ways, it was. But the car came with a condition. I would be responsible for the car note. I was a sophomore in college, already struggling, already overwhelmed, and suddenly a car meant I needed a job. So I worked on top of a full course load, even though it wasn’t good for me at all. At the time, I didn’t have the language for why everything felt so hard. I just thought I wasn’t doing enough or trying enough. I know now that ADHD played a significant role, but back then the only narrative available to me was push through. Figure it out. I did it, so you can too. There is something about that logic that still unsettles me. This idea that struggle is character-building by default. That difficulty is a necessary rite of passage. That if someone survived it, then repeating it must be justified. I don’t understand why I needed to work while in college just to prove I could. I don’t understand why support had to come wrapped in pressure. Eventually, my mom did end up paying the car note. I kept that car for eleven years. It was the same car I had manifested my junior year of high school, long before I understood manifestation as anything more than hope. What stays with me is not resentment, but the lesson itself. Even when help was present, it felt conditional. Even when I was given something, I learned to brace for the cost. That experience taught me how to function under strain, but it also reinforced the belief that ease had to be earned and that support could disappear at any moment. I learned how to survive independently, but not how to trust help without anxiety. That belief followed me into adulthood. Into my relationships. Into my work. And eventually, into my parenting. When I became a mother, I wanted to do everything for my son. I wanted to make his life easier, smoother, lighter. I wanted to protect him from struggle and discomfort. It came from love. But over time, I started to notice something uncomfortable. By doing everything for him, I might actually be recreating the same lesson I had learned. That support comes with pressure. That ease is temporary. That confidence is built through quiet strain. So I began shifting the language in our home. We are a team. I need your help. This is our household. Parenting him has meant unlearning my own patterns in real time. Patterns I had normalized without ever questioning them. Patterns rooted in doing it all alone and believing that asking for help meant failing. Somewhere in this unlearning, I realized something else just as important. I no longer want to be strong. I have done strong. Strength kept me alive. It kept things moving. It kept everything from falling apart. But strength without regulation is just endurance in disguise. What I want now is to be regulated. To be present in my body. To respond instead of react. To live from clarity instead of survival. I want to reach my highest self in every single fucking capacity, not by carrying more, but by holding myself with care. Unlearning what once kept you safe is not easy. There are moments when my son tells me I am being annoying because I’m a yapper. Instead of retreating, I stay. I say the honest thing. I let him see me as human. What I’ve noticed is that the more vulnerable I am, the deeper our connection becomes. Not weaker. Deeper. Regulation is quieter than strength, but it is far more powerful. It allows me to receive without guilt, to ask for help without shame, to parent without overfunctioning, to love without depletion. It is the difference between pushing through life and actually inhabiting it. Between surviving and becoming. Children do not need perfect parents. They need present ones. They need models of what it looks like to ask for help, to collaborate, to repair, and to receive. By letting my son contribute, by letting him see that I don’t have all the answers, I am not burdening him. I am teaching him that relationships are built together. Maybe this is how cycles quietly change. Maybe by allowing support in my own life, I am showing him that strength is not self erasure. That love is not depletion. That connection is not something you earn by over giving. Maybe I am preventing some things for him later simply by modeling a different way now. Healing, I am learning, is not just about letting go of pain. It is about letting in care, and allowing it to stay long enough to matter.

Empathy is often born in emotional turmoil.

When you grow up learning to read silence, tension, and mood before words, you develop a deep sensitivity to others. You feel people not intellectually but viscerally. You carry an innate desire to help, to understand, to see the good in all living things.

That depth of feeling can shape a great leader.

At its best, leadership is service. It is listening before directing. It is care before control.

But empathy is not a light emotion. It is a heavy one.

Imagine taking on exactly what someone else is feeling. Their fear. Their grief. Their shame. Their unhealed wounds. Feeling it as if it were your own and wanting instinctively to make it better.

That instinct is powerful and it is dangerous.

Because empathy does not grant the ability to heal. Healing is personal work. It requires introspection, accountability, and the willingness to dig to the root. No leader, no matter how compassionate, can do that labor for someone else.

Early in my leadership journey, I confused empathy with responsibility. I believed that if I could understand people deeply enough, hold enough context, absorb enough emotion, I could move them toward wholeness.

What I learned instead is this.
Empathy without boundaries creates dependence, not growth.

There are people so wounded that their baseline becomes extraction. They take empathy as fuel for the ego, relief from discomfort, or validation without accountability. In leadership, this does not just drain you. It destabilizes teams.

A leader who absorbs everything eventually collapses.
A leader who rescues prevents agency.
A leader who avoids boundaries teaches entitlement.

Great leadership requires discernment.

Servant leadership does not mean self erasure. It means creating conditions where people are supported and accountable. Where care exists alongside expectation. Where humanity is honored without excusing harm or stagnation.

I do not believe in resilience as it is commonly framed. Endurance in the face of harm is not a virtue. Pushing through without healing is not strength. Those patterns are trauma responses that keep systems and people from evolving.

What leaders actually need is capacity. Awareness. Responsibility. The ability to remain present without absorbing what is not theirs.

The most effective leaders understand this distinction. They listen deeply but they do not carry what does not belong to them. They offer empathy but they do not allow it to replace ownership. They model compassion while insisting on self work.

It allows you to see where someone is and still require movement. To acknowledge pain without centering it. To support growth without sacrificing yourself or the collective.

That is how empathy shapes great leaders.

Not by healing others, but by holding space for transformation while making it clear that the work belongs to the individual.

Empathy is not infinite.
It is intentional.

And when paired with boundaries, it does not burn leaders out. It makes them trusted, steady, and effective.

But what I realized is this
people don’t rise to effort.
They meet you at their capacity.

The bare minimum is crumbs.
For people conditioned by low standards, crumbs feel like a feast.

I was taught to be grateful for low vibrations. To be happy to be here. To soften my expectations so others wouldn’t feel confronted by my needs. The bare minimum was framed as humility, patience, maturity. In reality, it was a training ground for self abandonment.

And it’s not just external.
The bare minimum is also shaped by parental neglect by emotional unavailability, by parents who may have “beat the poverty curse” or earned comfort, but never healed, evolved, or broke their own cycles. Same patterns, more money, and yet the emotional foundation remained scarce. Their care was conditional, their love inconsistent, their attention limited. Watching that taught me early that survival mattered more than feeling safe, loved, or seen. That my needs were optional. That I had to ration myself to maintain stability.

Even when you have self esteem. Even when you know your worth.
Even when you can name what you need.
The pull of the bare minimum can still feel familiar, even comforting. Because it is what you know. Because the mind is trained to accept low vibrations and call them “enough.”

And often, you don’t know that healthy relationships exist in all facets that consistency, reciprocity, and care are not privileges but your birthright. That expecting them is not arrogance but alignment.

This is not accidental.
The bare minimum is rooted in misogyny, patriarchy, and generational neglect.

It teaches women that effort is our currency. That love, safety, and stability are things we earn through endurance. That being chosen at all should quiet our discernment. So we learn to accept crumbs and call it appreciation.

I learned this early, watching an extremely toxic relationship modeled as normal. Staying mattered more than being treated well. Endurance was praised. Harm was minimized. The message was clear ask for less, tolerate more, ignore yourself in the process.

That lesson followed me everywhere.

Into relationships where inconsistency was reframed as complexity.
Into workplaces where fake love came in the form of praise without protection.
Where I was rewarded for being adaptable, endlessly giving, and—most dangerously—tolerant.
Never agreeable, but more tolerant than I would be if I weren’t responsible for a child who depends on me, who still does.
I learned how to hold space, how to endure without erasing myself, and how to prioritize stability over ego.

I thought my effort would teach people how to love me.
Instead, it exposed something else.

People who live on crumbs don’t recognize a full meal. They don’t know how to hold consistency, reciprocate care, or sustain depth. To them, low investment feels generous. Minimal presence feels like abundance. Anything more feels like pressure.

I mistook my depth for an invitation.
They experienced it as excess.

Their inability to meet me was not a failure of my offering.
It was the limit of their capacity.

Pregnancy and motherhood made the pull of the bare minimum impossible to ignore.

I could no longer romanticize depletion. I could no longer justify low standards as resilience. I had to look at what I was normalizing, what I was modeling, and what I was about to pass down.

That’s when I saw it clearly.
The bare minimum isn’t just personal.
It’s generational.
It’s political.
It’s internal.

It trains the nervous system to settle. To associate peace with the absence of harm instead of the presence of care. To silence inner needs, to ration oneself, and to confuse survival with love.

But low vibrations are not humility.
They are containment.

Refusing low standards has been uncomfortable because it requires unlearning gratitude that was never meant to nourish me. It requires trusting that wanting more does not make me entitled. It makes me honest.

I no longer chase appreciation from people who think crumbs are a feast.
I no longer exhaust myself trying to be seen by those who lack the capacity to see.
I no longer translate my needs into something more palatable.

My allegiance is no longer to the bare minimum.
It’s to full meals.
To consistency, clarity, and care.
To honoring my own needs as fiercely as I demand they be met by others.
To relationships and work that meet me where I am instead of benefiting from how much I can endure.
To remembering, always, that it is my birthright to choose people and spaces that can meet me fully.

The bare minimum shaped my past because it was designed to.
But I’m not confused anymore.

Knowing better is how the curse breaks.

People resist it because they cannot see it. They see stillness and call it weakness. They see pause and call it laziness. But I have discovered that rest is active. It is pushing against a current that tells you you must always produce, always perform, always prove your worth. It is pulling back your energy, your attention, your presence, and reserving it for what truly matters.

Before therapy, I worked with a life coach. That was the first step for me, a small act of faith in myself. One day, she said something I didn’t expect. “You don’t believe you can have it all.” That sentence stopped me in my tracks. It changed me. It forced me to examine the ways I had been denying myself joy, rest, creativity, even the belief that I could live fully on my own terms.

I learned in therapy that self-care isn’t something you achieve on vacation. It isn’t a spa day or a long weekend. It is a ritual, a deliberate practice. Tea in the morning. Coffee that warms the hands and the mind. Yoga that reconnects breath to body. Writing that untangles thought from tension. Existing fully in quiet moments that are yours and yours alone. And sometimes, self-care is as simple as watching mindless TV shows or sharing voice notes with a friend who understands you, who shares your language of thought and feeling. That connection is nourishment. It is constant. It is a craving. Every repeated act, no matter how small, is a push against the invisible weight of the world.

And this rest does more than restore. It cultivates mental and emotional growth. It teaches patience with yourself. It strengthens your capacity for clarity, creativity, and empathy. Over time, it sharpens perspective and aligns your life with what truly matters, your values, your boundaries, your vision. Just like muscles need resistance to grow, your mind, heart, and spirit need the deliberate tension of pause to develop presence and integrity, shape, and depth.

Six to seven years later, I finally believe I can have it all, a thriving career, entrepreneurship, ever-evolving motherhood, leadership, wanderlust, critical thinking, ideas that matter, abundant love, meaningful reciprocal relationships, authenticity, honesty, clarity, wellness, emotional support, cleanliness, duality, good wine in moderation, micro dosing, exercise, strength training, cooking but fuck cleaning, so to a wonderful housekeeper in my near future.

Rest is grace. It is recovery. It is intentional. It is thought-provoking. It is unconditional.

Rest is not surrender. It is resistance.

Code switching is often framed as a skill.
But when it becomes a requirement, it’s a rarity tax—
a quiet erosion of self worth disguised as professionalism, gratitude, or “paying dues.”

I learned early how to be egoless.
How to read rooms faster than I read myself.
How to introspect in private and perform stability in public.
How to make my expression smaller so no one else felt uncomfortable.

Capitalism rewards this behavior.
It confuses productivity with purpose and calls that ambition.
That was my ick long before I had language for it.

Resentment is the absence of clarity.
When you don’t know where you end and expectation begins, resentment fills the gap.
For years, I called that burnout.
What it really was: intuition asking me to be honest.

ADHD masking made me excellent at survival.
Over functioning. Over preparing. Over anticipating.
Shrinking disruption…even when the disruption was truth.

Let me say this plainly now: my presence is not an inconvenience.

People can only meet you where they’ve met themselves.
And when that place is unexamined or guarded, it can be a lonely place to arrive…
especially if you’ve spent your life being rare.

Rarity becomes painful when you’re conditioned to fit in.
Conditioned not to feel.
Conditioned to abandon self in exchange for proximity, stability, or safety.

Sometimes the most dangerous thing isn’t chaos.
It’s the evil you know.
Abuse dressed up as opportunity.
Neglect dressed up as independence.
Being dressed up as stability and sold as purpose.

I don’t confuse survival with success anymore.
This isn’t bitterness.
This is clarity.
And clarity is what allowed me to choose myself—without resentment, without apology, without needing to be understood by everyone.

Only by me.

The pre requisite wasn’t talent it was tolerance …..

What I experienced in television wasn’t dysfunction. It was a broken system pretending chaos was neutral. Productions ran with no leadership, no standards, and an almost proud lack of professionalism. Covert racism passed as culture. Emotional abuse was framed as urgency. Chronic dysregulation was treated like passion. Compassion, empathy, and joy were expendable. Accolades and the next fucking job were sacred. My union represents over 1,200 workers, mostly women and LGBTQ+ people, yet training, protection, and accountability were optional. People stayed silent not because they agreed, but because speaking up often meant risking their livelihoods. Supervisors ruled like dictators, confusing control for leadership and fear for respect. This wasn’t personal failure. It was a system operating exactly as designed, and people paid with their nervous systems.

I realized my talent was valuable only as long as it could be exploited. As long as I performed, produced, and stayed agreeable, I was welcomed. The moment I made a mistake or disagreed, I became “difficult.” Not because I was, but because I stopped being convenient. I would not barter my dignity for access. I couldn’t be controlled by money or accolades. I thought I had to prove myself, so I did. I showed up capable, competent, and willing to give everything. And still, there was no reward. Being authentic, skilled, and elite at soft skills felt like a curse. My very competence made me inconvenient. Had I been mediocre, I would still be working. I wouldn’t be figuring out where my next dollar is coming from. My capability became a liability.

During union negotiations last year, I spoke with a supervisor I’ve known for a long time, someone who has probably worked more than any other Supervisor in the past few years and has worked on nearly every big movie shot in New York and New Jersey. She said, “You never burn bridges, you never know.” I told her I had a different perspective. As I evolve, there are people I will no longer work with. Not because I am difficult, but because integrity, accountability, and boundaries matter more than convenience or optics.

People pleasers and the performative fake are rewarded. My MO has always been different: to push the culture forward, to show younger generations that this industry can be a catalyst for growth, for new chapters, for opportunities beyond the set. That’s why I am a leader. Leadership isn’t performative. Leadership is actually communicating with people about their well being and long term goals. Leadership is advising people to stop playing small and helping them see what could happen if we band together, call out the system, and tell producers to kick fucking rocks. As a mom, I want to show my son that it is essential to show people where you stand, that starting over is always ok, and that trusting our intuition is both a gift and a superpower. You can work here and still maintain integrity, still cultivate joy, still use your experience to open doors for others without sacrificing yourself to a broken system.

-Zakiya G. Dennis, choosing integrity every time