July 4, 2018 is my 34th birthday. My thirty fourth spin around the sun. I’ve had the fortunate of having some pretty cool birthdays over the years. I imagine my first birthday went like this. I wake up in my great-grandmother’s bed. The bright Mississippi sun cracking through her plastic blinds stirs me awake. Before I can cry my cousin Tater lifts me, sings some Michael Jackson 80’s hit and takes me to see the family. Everyone spends the day oohing and aching over the little light skinned baby who just had to be born on the Fourth of July. Now I’m not sure if that’s exactly how the day went down, but that thought makes me happy so we’ll stick with it.
In my early teens, we often traveled back to Mississippi for the Fourth of July, and my great-grandmother who we call Mother, held the largest neighborhood cookout. Her home was in a country subdivision outside of city limits called Brignall, and you’d swear everyone got an invite to her Fourth of July shindig. No invitations were needed. Everyone who pulled up got a plate. As an adult I still don’t know how any of my family members afforded that party, but it happened just about every year until Mother passed a few years ago.
When we moved to Virginia, I remember for the first few years as a family we fought the massive crowds at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront, until like most natives we stopped.Then birthdays became kind of bland, dinner at some Italian restaurant where we all overate then fell asleep. If I wanted an actual sleep over it had to be done on the weekend before or after my actual birthday because Fourth of July is a family holiday.
When I was studying abroad in Costa Rica during twentieth birthday. It was my first time away from home, and in another country. Somehow I managed to tell my host family about mi cumpelanos in Spanish and they made a cake, a traditional Costa Rican breakfast of gallo pinto, and my house mom made me two dresses which I still have. That was an amazing birthday.
When I was 21, my step father took me to a place I always dreamt of being apart of, Los Angeles. It was unprecedented for us. A trip thousands of miles across country with a man who I really kew very little about. Navy life kept us from really forming a deep bond in my formative years so this trip was huge. I had unlimited access to the man who adopted me when I was 2 years old with little or no reservations. And it was a nice birthday. We drove through Compton, California but we too scared to take an actual picture of the Compton sign even though it was our family’s last name. We visited the Walk of Fame, the wax museum, Watts Towers. And in a huge mall my stepfather bought me a necklace with a star on it. I promised myself I’d wear that star everyday until I could come back to California a real star, as fate would have it I lost the star necklace, I have no relationship at all with my immediate family and I’m not famous. Ah well.
On birthday in my twenties I had my first hangover after bar hopping in Downton Norfolk. Another year I decided all I wanted was a fire pit, all the pictures of my ex-boyfriends, and an Adele album. I set fire to all those old loves. It was quite cathartic
In my twenties I began my television news career and a lot of birthdays were spent at the news station. I love being a reporter with every fiber of my being so my job was the greatest gift.
My 30th birthday takes the cake as the worst birthday ever. 2 months prior I had a suicide attempt, and a 5 day hospital day. Even with medication, and endless sleep I still had no urge to live, no desire that the darkness inside of me would lift. 5 days after my 30th birthday I made the biggest and most crushing decision of my life. I walked away from my blossoming television career. Looking back I truly feel I could have salvaged my career with some intense treatment, a long hiatus, and the Family Medical Leave. But, I didn’t know the things I know now. I teeter back and forth between making peace with that decision and being in intense regret. Even thinking about that day July 9, 2014 makes me cry. I just remember getting up from my desk and going to my new director’s office and saying, “I can’t do this anymore.” All I knew in that moment was the fear of anxiety attacks, the actual anxiety attacks, the insomnia, the suicidal thoughts was consuming. I just wanted out.
Then birthdays took a nose dive into miserable. The next year I hardly remember what happened on birthday. Depression has stolen so many memories. Birthday 32 I was technically homeless. I
was sleeping on a couch of a friend’s house after my parents had put me out. My friend took me to dinner, and I got a happy birthdays on social media. But I also had no job, seemingly no future, no family, and no direction. 33 I was living with a man I had no love for, in a relationship that never should have started, and finally feeling the weight of what the last 3 years I had done to my life.
This birthday is by far the best one to date. Why? Because today for the first time in forever I feel like I am breaking FREE. I am no longer chained by the weight of depression and suicidal thoughts. I am learning daily how to live with mental illness, and use that knowledge to help others.
I am working tirelessly to break free from shame and self condemnation from the many mistakes I’ve made in my spiritual walk. I rededicated my life to Christ earlier this year and like it says in 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new.”
I am breaking free from perfection, and learning to love myself flaws, mistakes, and setbacks. I breaking free from the habit of living for a man to desire and love me. I am breaking free from the intense drive I once had to live a life pleasing to my parents. I am breaking free of trying to make everyone happy and live in misery.
34 is amazing because after 2 years a depression that almost killed me, a year homeless, a year struggling to find myself—- I just am. I live in an apartment where I pay my own rent, I work at a job that allows me to really help people in tough times like addiction, homelessness, and mental illness. I have the blessing of being there for people the word has sometimes cast aside, a feeling I know all too well.
I am finally building the type of relationships I always dreamt of friends like my Miss Sunshine Shirley, Kehyonna, Stephanie, my Community Church family, and my new amazing connections in Lynchburg like Charese, Shannon, and Tonya. I am a Certified Peer Recovery Specialist, a blossoming writer, a speaker, and finally I can see that God is equipping me with the tools to live my wildest dreams. Yes this birthday takes the cake.
So call me Miss Independent, a woman breaking free from a really tough past, who finally feels free enough to write her own future on her terms, her way, and with God’s grace.
When you watch the fireworks tonight, think of me. I’ll be watching and rejoicing on finally breaking free. This is the year of Lolo. A year of new beginnings.
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