My fight started Nov. 9th, 2009, it also marks the beginning of me losing my sight. On this particular day, I lost the anchor which tethered me to this world, my mother. My mother’s absences left a dark void within my world. Nov 9th, 2009 was the day I stopped living but I started surviving. The only thing that I knew from that day and moving forward is that I only had me and it was up to me to ensure my survival within the world. At that time, I did not really understand how much of a crucial role my mother played within my life. She served as a pillar of support; she provided me with comfort and a confidence boost when needed.
Before my mother’s death, I remembered me being this young, vibrant 20-years-old guy who was just starting to come into his own as a person. I was determined, driven, somewhat confident, resilient, fearless, and, most importantly, I trusted myself. Now I can’t say that I am the same person who I was four years ago. I am a hollow shell of the person who I use to be; I’m not as confident, vibrant, determined, or driven. I can also honestly admit that I don’t trust myself or my instincts. The person who I am now could not be more further away from the person who I was.
If you are wondering how a wide-eyed, determined 20-year-old guy turns into a carbon copy foot print of who he used to be, the answer is life. I really started to experience life after I graduated college. After college, I had no idea what I wanted for my life and my purpose. The only thing that I knew is that I wanted to leave Memphis and create a life for myself in a new location. My initial plan was to move to Los Angeles and start there in search for life. However, I decided to move to Atlanta due to the cost of living being lower. My transition to Atlanta marked the progression of my downward spiral into depression, self-doubt , and the questioning of my self-worth and my place within the world. Before I graduated college, I was already in a dark place mentally due to the loss of my mother, family issues, and the transition from care free college student to responsible adult.
I resided in Atlanta for six tough and lonely months. I went to Atlanta with the game plan to find a job and work a year before my scheduled trip overseas the following year. Let’s just say things did not go as planned. I could not find a job in Atlanta for the life of me. When I first got there, I was getting job interviews left and right but I was unsuccessful in landing the jobs. After a while, the job interviews started coming few, far, and in-between. Every time I did not get a job, I felt rejected, my self-confidence began to dwindle, I lost faith in my abilities and myself, and I thought this was gonna be my life forever. I found myself in a pattern of self-defeat and pity. Since I really did not know too many people in Atlanta, I went through this struggle alone. My loneliness caused me to revisit some problems that I swept under my mental rug. To sum it all up, Atlanta caused me to doubt myself and experience a bout of depression.
When Atlanta did not work out, I moved to Orlando for graduate school. It seemed as though the doors in Atlanta were not opening for me but a door opened in Orlando. When I moved to Orlando, I found a new struggle, finding a job to pay for my grad school tuition. Trying to solve this struggle sent me on a search to find a job again. For a moment there, I thought that I was gonna have the same struggle that I experienced in Atlanta but things turned around. I found a job that was better than I ever imagined; I had my own office, business cards, and I loved my co workers. Everything felt so right, I thought things could not have gotten better. Two months after starting my new job, I got offered another job that paid the same salary as my current job plus free housing and managerial experience. I took the job unwillingly knowing that it would lead me back to that dark place that I was all too familiar with. My experience within this job resulted in my confidence being in-existent, me feeling wrong as a person, lack of trust in myself and my instincts, and self-hatred.
Experiencing all these setbacks caused me to lose faith in myself and my abilities, doubt my place within the world, underestimate myself, question myself as a person, obtain a strong sense of fear, and not trust myself. With each setback that I experienced, my self-confidence and my self-worth dwindled while my self-doubt increased. I could not handle what the world was throwing at me so I allowed it to beat the shit out of me and make me feel like I was shit. After being beaten frequently by the world, I started to feel like I was shit and my life was shit. Once I developed that mentality, it was not long before the world stopped beating me and I began beating myself. The development of this mentality caused my self-esteem to be shattered and my self-worth to be battered. I counted myself out before I gave myself a chance.
Earlier last week, I had an epiphany that made me change my view about life. In my head, I have this internalize self-doubt without it being triggered by the coldness of the world. I thought to myself, why is that I am beating myself up and doubting myself especially when the world is going to throw things my way to do just that. I decided in my mind that ’it was time for me to stop fight myself and fight back against world because the world is not going stop throwing shit my way even if it sees me fighting myself. I had to look inside myself in order to see what’s good about myself and my strengths. I told myself that I had to stop looking to the external world for validation as a person and self-worth because I am only setting myself up for another cycle of depression when the world treats me harshly. As of now, I have come to terms with who I am as a person, my strengths, my short-comings, and what I am capable of. I feel as though as long as a person has a sense of these four things, but more in particularly who they are, then they can stand their ground when the world chooses to be cruel. Let me mention one thing about knowing who you are, no one, not even the world, can take that away from you unless you allow them. As of now, I am choosing to hold my head high and embrace those four things in which I came to terms with along with my past experiences. If it was not for my past experiences breaking me down then I would have never been able to see who I am at my core and what’s good about me. Remember, pressure makes diamonds or burst pipes but it’s up to us to determine whether we become a diamond or a busted pipe. In addition, embracing the past only makes your more equip to handle the future. I’m gonna end this blog by saying, “Once I was blind but now I see.”
