A week into the New Year, I’m still carrying baggage from 2017, 2016, 2015, etc., and the thought of putting it down makes me chafe. Why am I so comfortable with this burden that I’m already adjusting 2018 to make room for it? My hands aren’t that big and my muscles aren’t that strong. The baggage must be made with TARDIS technology and the ability to redistribute weight so that the only discomfort I feel is the anxiety tension in my left shoulder that stays with me constantly. Nevertheless, my posture is all out of whack from this load, contorted to accommodate the negative narratives and energies that have been with me for longer than I’d like to admit.
I’m tired, y’all. I’m turning 35 in May. My back ain’t what it used to be (hell, it hasn’t been great since college). I need to find a river and lay these burdens down. I need the strength to let go. The courage.
My 2018 word, everyone: Courage.
At the end of 2016, I’d gotten Shonda Rhimes’s Year of Yes on audiobook, and my sister had even bought the companion journal to aid in my “yes” journey. That journal remains blank and I haven’t even listened to two full hours of the book. Now that a full year has come and gone since I first attempted to listen, I realize I wasn’t ready for Year of Yes, not when “Eh, maybe not,” was louder than any yes I could scream. This doesn’t mean I didn’t say yes to things I would’ve normally said no to in a heartbeat. I’d said yes to being part of a planning committee for a major book festival in my city; I said yes to going on camera to talk about said book festival; I said yes to doing a commercial that would play on local radio stations all about the festival. I pushed myself out of my comfort zone to do those things. But, confession: I still haven’t watched the actual interview I did or heard the radio commercials beyond the initial in-studio playback. I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch myself or listen to myself, already super critical about my performances even though people have told me I did a great job. I am afraid to see all the ways I didn’t do a good job, and thus, in my mind, not be worthy of the praise I’d gotten. But, it’s already happened. Why am I so afraid of a thing that’s already happened?
*bookmarks that question for a later date*
2017, as a whole, was a cesspool of do not want. From the current president to my father’s health scare to my precarious financial situation to it being the 25th anniversary of my mother’s death, 2017 can kick all the rocks barefoot as it takes a long walk off a short pier. Granted, there were great things about 2017 too: I was able to reconnect with a former ballet teacher of mine; my sister turned 30 and I was able to treat her to a nice birthday celebration; despite my father’s health scare, I was able to spend time with him and treat him to a really nice Father’s Day; I made strides in my editing business; I wrote three books in a brand-new genre of which I’m proud; I reconnected with college friends and made new ones. I had some courage in 2017; but 2018, I’m going to be more purposeful about it.
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The primary thing I’m going to be courageous about in 2018 is me. Savannah J. Frierson. I’m going to gain the courage to love myself as I am in the moment, because, as hard as it is for me to admit it, I don’t. And as someone who writes love stories about black women loving and being loved, I’ve been unable to follow through with that in my own life. I am not kind to myself. All I see of myself is a mass of imperfection who is a fraud and why on earth would people want to be around me? I don’t understand how I can improve on someone else’s life, how I can make their day a little bit brighter. I see myself as a barnacle, an albatross of “why do I put up with her?” There are so many people who are doing what I do but better, more entertaining. Why come to me? Hell, I go to them for entertainment, for guidance myself. There is always someone better than me at something, so why come to me in the first place. And the fact I can have these thoughts while there are people in my life who are actively rooting for me is insulting and I shouldn’t do it.
See? Just in that paragraph alone, all that toxic negativity toward myself, beating myself up, wearing myself down. That is what I must stop doing in 2018. As an author, I know words matter. The narrative I tell myself about myself will manifest, and I’m blocking my own blessings because of that. Knowing is simply part one of the battle; doing is the second and hardest for me. Inertia is real. Dismantling a narrative I’ve been constructing about myself for years is terrifying even as I recognize its destruction is necessary to get to where I want to be. All this potential energy inside me and I can’t get my kinetic on because my fear has been more powerful than my courage. All my future accomplishments are an arrow. The target right before me. That baggage I’ve been lugging around? The bow. I must let it go so the arrow can fly. I must have faith I’ll hit the target, but have the courage to love myself even if I don’t.
This is about to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but also the most important thing. I’m going to say, right now, that I can do it, even if, right now, I feel like I can’t. Or won’t. Won’t is worse. Words matter, though. That’s the only way to change the narrative, after all.
I love myself. By the end of the year, I’ll have the courage to say it, write it, and read it without feeling embarrassed or fraudulent because, today, at this moment, it’s simply not true. Because in loving myself, I’ll then believe I deserve all the blessings I’ve been blocking, and I get to share all the things I’ve set out to share from the beginning. It’s a dangerous, toxic feedback loop from hell I’ve somehow gotten myself on.
Ironically, I don’t like roller-coasters.
#traumafromchildhood
