Youthful Life: X

 Joshua 1:9 " Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid;  do not be discouraged,  for the  Lord  your God will be with you wherever you go." I cannot believe I have now existed for a year of my life without my mom. It still doesn't feel real, and yet it is the reality of my life. That day and so many of the days that followed are seared into my brain unlike any other life experience. I woke up to a "call me when you wake up" text from my dad. I already knew. I called him and the sorrow, heartbreak, and devastation in his voice destroyed me. His final words before we ended the call "BJ go to school, Bianca go to work." I spent the rest the rest of day doing not much else but answering when people asked my why I was at school "because my told me to go." We sat on my bed crying, and crying, and crying, and holding hands, and crying until I had to throw up. Time came, and I had class so I put on clothes, put my headpho...

10/5/19 Dear Mommy, You are loved. We love you. I love you. You have lived a life well loved. That sentiment of a life well-loved is two-fold. You have been someone who has adored others with a love that can only be described as extraordinary, and been one to have been surrounded by love for all of your days. You were the embodiment of love. You were love exemplified. You were pure love in human form. What a grand gift it was to love and to be loved by you. Your love has been indescribable yet powerful beyond compare. Your love has been transcendent while being grounded. Your love has been everlasting even when we thought it would end. Your love, your love, your love, has changed the world, your world, our world, my world.             Mother to all, this life well-loved is represented by the number of people here and around the world thinking about you in this moment. Your impact is immeasurable. What you meant to people cannot ...

 "There are times when explanations, no matter how reasonable, just don't seem to help." Fred Rogers Living with loss is a devastating way to live . I wake up every single morning and say my mom's name aloud. Adjoa. Just for me. I roll over and look at her picture and smile. I still feel the last time she held my hand, and every time she did. If I cry to the point that I panic I hold my own hand and imagine it's her holding my hand. It's constantly reliving that truth that she had to go, that she had to leave. How could she ever leave me? The way I feel, and by that I mean specifically how I do my process of feeling, has changed in profound ways. I am a radically different person and how that's not apparent to the world is a mystery to me. It's just beneath the surface. It's always there. I am marked by loss. My spirit is dimmer. It just hurts so much. There's so much pain. There's so much emptiness. There's so much quiet. It's alwa...

"Love is like infinity: You can't have more or less infinity, and you can't compare two things to see if they're 'equally infinite.' Infinity just is, and that's the way I think love is, too."   Fred Rogers Kenopsia - n.  - the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that’s usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet—a school hallway in the evening, an unlit office on a weekend, vacant fairgrounds—an emotional afterimage that makes it seem not just empty but hyper-empty, with a total population in the negative, who are so conspicuously absent they glow like neon signs. (Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows). This is a weird time . I feel like there's competing feelings raging inside me. I think it's worthwhile for me to share what I've been contemplating. I'm back in remote classes for the remainder of my semester of school. It's been an adventure to say the least, but in some ways I am grateful to have acce...

"Empathy is simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting, and communicating that incredibly healing message of you’re not alone.” Brene Brown I saw a tweet the other day that stopped me in my tracks and made my jaw drop. How could someone so succinctly summarize this seemingly convoluted concept I had rattling around in my head. She said, "Americans are really good at acute compassion, but pretty bad at chronic empathy. We without questions, haul strangers out a raging flood, give blood, give shelter. But we are lousy at legislating safe, sustainable communities, at eldercare, at accessible streets and buildings. It is the long-term work that makes the disasters less damaging. But we don't want to give to the needy, we want to save the endangered. We don't like being care workers, we want to be heroes. The world does not need more heroes.  We need more care." Sigrid Joy Ellis We struggle with sustained care. We want to ...

"The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough." Ralph Waldo Emerson I am tired. I am absolutely exhausted. I am completely depleted. I don't think I have ever felt this tired in the entirety of my life. There's something distinctly about the tiredness I'm experiencing as of late. It's not just that my body feels unrested regardless of how much I sleep, it's the general lethargy that pervades through the days. Life is tiring. Having to be a person all of the time is depleting. Needing to do, needing to be, and needing to know is a whole lot. There's so little room and time for existing without the world or the people in it needing or wanting something from me. I have found myself turning off my phone and disconnecting more and more. I just disappear and pretend to not exist for a little while. It's almost peaceful but I know what awaits me when I return from my few moments of solitude is ...

"Space travel is life-enhancing, and anything that's life-enhancing is worth doing. It makes you want to live forever." Ray Bradbury Space - the final frontier. Positing life as a representation of space and all its wonders has come to be a useful metaphor for understanding the world. We are all the center of our own universes, or at least we're supposed to be. Sometimes we aren't. What happens when others in our experiences are centered in our lives or we don't perceive ourselves to be in the middle of our existences? My therapist called it a sort of a blackhole effect where the position that we should be finding ourselves in is instead occupied by a force that seems nearly impossible to overcome. Usually it has to do with children and not being fully positioned in the center of their lives growing up that forces them to take care of themselves sooner than usual, essentially becoming a full-grown star early. It's gravitational pull drawing absolute...

" When you've seen beyond yourself, then you may find, peace of mind is waiting there." George Harrison There's something to be said about being seen . By that, I mean when others take the time to honor your humanity. It's people stopping to give you their undivided attention, gifting you their time, and devoting their energy to you, and you alone. It's this moment of intense human connection. It's purposeful. It's entrancing. It's meaningful. Oh to see, and to be seen. In a world where we see very little beyond the confines of our viewpoint to truly see another person, even if only for a moment, is something significant. People are used to not being seen. Who takes the time to notice them, to recognize their existence, and to celebrate their humanity just because? It can be a rarity. We expect people to treat us largely with indifference, let alone prioritize us in a fleeting moment. When people do relish in our presence, grace us with the...

"You cannot find peace by avoiding life." Virgina Woolf The start of a new year comes with inevitable reflection and forecasting. This period of looking back and looking forward often turns out to be less than sustainable or substantive. What would happen if we carried the mindset of being pensive about our lives, and aspirational about our futures throughout the duration of the year instead of just its end and onset? Resolutions do not have to be flimsy. If we choose to focus on tangible things, consistent behaviors, and our thought processes then we can make long-lasting changes. It's all about shift in perspective. Our vantage points have to change, and along with them how we choose to act and speak. If we can make changes there, then everything and everyone around us will do the same. We have the power to change. We have the power to change our situations and our outcomes, to a large extent. What we do with that power is up to us. We have the option to relinqu...