These are my confessions: the life and times of 35
reading time: 7 minutesSeptember is a ceremonial month for me. Not only is it the rise of the unstoppable Virgo nation (i.e., my abundance of Virgo friends and kid), but it continues to be the rise of my being.
I’m slowly peeling, shaping, and reframing what the past 35 years of life have meant to me. I’m rethinking what I use to think was success and its proximity in everyday moments. Success, I frame as retooling fault lines as assets and finding delight and purpose in life. The kind of success that goes beyond the ethos of money, titles, and clout.
Because each day, as long as my heart continues to beat, and my eyes choose to flutter wide open, I know I’ve been given a sign, a chance to start over — I have the chance and I get to begin again. I have a chance to paint something more beautiful for my life. For my son’s life; for the world around me.
While growing up, I’d often hear my dad say: “what a beautiful thing.” He’d say not from a “must be nice” sarcasm that transcends a back handed compliment. He’d say it with warm meaning and delight. He’d say it as a measure of pride like acknowledging good grades, celebrating me placing 9th in city cross country (I was fast), or someone doing a fine deed for community. Sometimes it was a response to speaking truth to power and often it was simply acknowledging a fine moment of humanity. To him, it didn’t have to be an extraordinary thing, but a thing that was worth doing.
Adorned to my cubical wall in downtown Minneapolis pre-Covid was a reminder:
“Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach….One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul.”
35 was a mending kind of year with abundant lessons. These are my confessions:
I don’t always like coparenting, but I’m accepting I need to.
I don’t always want to, and I choose rest and ease anyways.
I have mad respect for introverts running campaigns.
I needed community more than ever and they showed up tenfold.
Being vulnerable is harder than it looks…still I share anyways.
1. I don’t always like coparenting, but I’m accepting I need to.
To be clear, this is not a smear campaign. This is just what it is. This was a hard decision to make, and I don’t suggest it to the faint of heart. There’s no trophy’s in staying in relationships that’ve outgrown their time. Before this stage I didn’t realize how much shame was exacted on single mothers. I didn’t realize I’d have to dig for resources that fit my coparenting dynamic but learning they’re out there.
Families change. Trust, they do and its okay! It’s limiting to see families solely defined from what society expects us to look like that rank patriarchy as the gold star. Sometimes, whether abusive, toxic or high-conflict, instability, or whatever, the dynamic is not worth keeping the family together in a single household. Suffice it to say these choices should never be made in haste.
What I’m accepting is that Kaiden gets to have parents that love him and can be their full selves now. I’m accepting things are different, hard days come, and Kaiden remains at the center of my choices. I’m accepting like the book Invisible String that whether near or miles apart, my baby and I are forever connected. I’m accepting the time I get to write and seize my dreams more fully. I’m accepting this dynamic created an emotional tax that therapy and other supports have helped keep me grounded. I’m accepting, I’m a good mother and no one can tell me different.
2. I don’t always want to and more than ever choose rest and ease
A couple months into 35, I read Tricia Hersey’s book Rest is Resistance. Since then, I’ve rethought my ideas about working hard and what it means to be stationary. Growing up, lollygagging, or not having something to do was considered borderline asinine. I can thank my entrepreneurial father for the motto: Always be doing something; he was the archetype of productivity (and still is). Yet, I learned the expanded definition of rest offers something undeniable powerful to practice.
Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights features a chapter on loitering and unpacks the criminality of lollygagging, being still, which in America is a sign of being unproductive and non-consumptive. He goes further to say the darker your skin is, “the more likely you are to be ‘loitering.’” What if we shifted the framing to “taking one’s time” as Ross suggests? I’m learning to appreciate the creativity experienced in making time for stillness. I’m learning how the belly laughter that pauses my productivity actually restores and offers me a fuller sense of life.
So, when my son tells me he’s going to be ten-hundred serious or takes my achy tummy and onset flatulence as a sign I have a baby in my belly, I laugh deeply. “See, I told your business; you can thank me now” as he unapologetically shares this tall tale with my parents, the grands. Thank you Kaiden. I had joke books on loan from the library as a kid and he’s totally off the cuff. I am him. He is me.
3. Mad respect for introverts running campaigns
If you’ve been following for a while, you know I’m project managing a mental health awareness campaign for work. It’s wide-reaching and busy work. Between community events, media interviews, and other appearances, I’m constantly surrounded by people. It’s a level of emotional labor I never fully realized before.
The communities are truly life-giving and share and share and share. I forecasted the other day that after a couple dozen events in the past 4 months, I’ve probably connected with 7,000+ people. So many people, organizations, and places with wisdom and abundance for healing and mental health supports. The stories run deep, and at my best is connecting fully with everyone who walks up and shares their truth. I love it and get exhausted by it fast, hence my #2 confession. The recharge after events and happenings is so critical — I pretty much become a cocoon. My advice: Check on the introverts campaigning (or generally) and don’t take their potential unavailability personally.
4. I needed community and they showed up
One thing about a Black woman, we-will-figure-it-out. The dashes between we-will-figure-it-out are intentional representing a single handclap in between words. We may not ask for help. You may not even see us sweat, but we’ll get something done…Trust! That kind of Black woman, that version of who I use to be is now more than ever sitting pretty on a shelf somewhere. I tap into community more with a “can you watch my kid?” “can you help me with this” “what would you do if…?”
I ask for help; I humbly ask for help more often and I’m better off because of it. I never wanted to be a know it all or do it all. It’s refreshing to have a toolbox of things I know like strategy, communications, project management – cool, you got me. I also lean on others’ toolboxes to help me solve problems where my edges aren’t as sharp. There’s nothing like finding people who are willing to help you navigate life. I appreciate them always. Thank you community. You know who you are!
5. Being vulnerable is harder than it looks…still I share anyways.
I’ve written so much since 2022. Twas that wintery February day when I launched the Bolder Joce blog. The effect: 21 blog posts, cumulatively 54-minutes reading time, and countless words said. I’ve had a lot to say publicly. Some of my writing still stays in my private files and journals. Words just for me and sometimes shared with my trusted advisors.
The truth is, expressing how I feel isn’t hard. It’s putting it out into the cosmos that always gets me a little more anxious. I think about how my writing will be perceived. I wonder if you can feel the moment, the heartache, the pain, the joy. I think about who might be reading this and because my work is public…it could quite literally be anyone. It could be my kid one day too. Yet, artists are often misunderstood so it’s living in the certainty of knowing me and accepting where people land with my words. The more I share, the more stories, expressions of life that I illuminate are cause for divine gratitude. People thank me for my words…. For the power and courage I bring to my writing.
No doubt, I still sometimes drop an underarm bubble of sweat before hitting “publish” because after all, I’m human. There’s a delicate balance between wanting to be discovered and undiscoverable. Not because I don’t want to be found, but that I know my words are powerful beyond measure and that some people don’t know how to relate to that kind of human being. So, I continue to write. Maybe something resonates and maybe not. All I know is that this is the way I “show my soul” and may it be raw, uncut, and benevolently beautiful.
Thank you 35 for all the lessons. See you soon 36.
Photo credit:
Headshot image 4 with floral dress: Sarah Whiting
Headshot image 5 with orange leopard dress: MKx8Design
Headshot image 8 with burnt orange dress: Kristian Karnes