If adulthood has taught us anything, it’s that we cannot predict who will be there for a lifetime. The very person we trust will be there forever, becomes nothing but a memory Facebook won’t let us forget.
Deep down, I always knew I would live in America. As a three year-old, I was strikingly drawn to the brownstone row-homes and strange accents in Sesame Street. In my childhood play, I would create a world in which many of the characters had Southern drawls. The earliest vacation I remember was a family road trip across the States in 1992. It was an incredible time of laughter and discovery. I had traveled elsewhere before, but it was the first time I would truly take in the environment around me. Everything seemed so big in comparison to London. Big roads, big trucks, big houses, big portions. We would cite moments from that trip for the rest of our lives. From then the seed was sown. There was a big America, with big opportunity and I felt I belonged there.
Recently I was told that someone close to me had given birth to her firstborn. In many African cultures, there is a delay between the birth of a child and the announcement of its name. Often during the period, grandparents, siblings, aunties and uncles (even long lost family members) weigh in on the name of a child. It is then shared to extended family, and friends by way of a naming ceremony, celebrating the arrival of the newborn.
My parents were very intentional with naming me, and I have found that names are either prescriptive or descriptive. I have certainly had enough experiences that require faith, and my name reminds me to look beyond my circumstances and hope in things I cannot see. One of my middle names is “Ayodele”. In Yoruba, this means “joy has come home”, and in my late twenties and early thirties, “joy” has been something that I have found myself craving more than anything.
We all have a unique personal relationship with the word “weight.” For some, it may cast a memory of the stubborn fat around one’s midsection that never disappeared after 27. For others, it may relate to the training, resistance, and conditioning of your physical body - that desire to handle more, lift more and push more. The word “weight” may also represent the heavy load that is felt emotionally, spiritually, or mentally, and walks with us in our daily lives. Regardless of how we frame weight, there is always something we are trying to do with it, knowing full well that it is not sustainable to leave it exactly the way it is.
However, were you raised knowing that?
Our family matters. The way in which we are raised strongly impacts the way we understand our worth. This dynamic provides the baseline for how we perceive ourselves in adulthood, how we allow ourselves to be loved, how we think others should treat us, and what we believe we can accomplish.
Worthiness is evenly distributed, but unequally received. It is not determined by works, background or circumstance. It is not earned or pursued. It cannot be added to or taken away. From the moment you are born, to the moment you die – you are worthy. Worthiness is a permanent state of being. Irrespective of how you entered the world, it is your birthright to acknowledge it.
One thing that we all need to do is “learn to encourage yourself”
It requires a skill that creates something out of nothing. It commands an imagination that feels the end when you can barely see the beginning. This kind of art has no set style and no perfect method. It just asks that you show up, and paint yourself a different picture. Dream furiously, speak life into your situation and sculpt yourself a different reality.
We live in a time obsessed with destination. Regardless of where we find ourselves, it seems like we never arrive. We are always moving. If you are single or dating, society encourages you to marry. Shortly after you’re married, you’ll be asked about your plans to have children. Once your children are born, you’re advised to start saving for college. After they’ve eventually started college, you can seriously address retirement.
The jobs, the houses, the businesses, the relationships – when do you actually arrive? Where is your final destination?
It is easy to dismiss the importance of community when considering “running your own race”. Yet it is impractical to believe that you can reach your full potential by simply running solo. Having a “pack” – a good community and support system, not only improves what you succeed in, but it impacts how you succeed. The rewards are so much richer when you share them with people you’ve journeyed with.
When the handgun is fired, it is the long awaited signal to begin the moment you have been preparing for – the race. The long hours, the training and the sacrifice are finally put to the test. You have been graced with a short period to prove whether your toil has been worth it and to prayerfully perform to the best of your ability.
If only our life courses were so simple, that we had a clear beginning and an end. Too often we find ourselves running, unsure of when we started, where the finishing line is, or how we even got there.
But we realize we’re heading somewhere. We’re always heading somewhere.
We were all born running. Induced into a race from our very first breath. Moving towards a mark that was set before us. Success measured by averages. Are you above or are you below? Are you behind or are you ahead? How do you compare to your counterparts? How have you progressed?
We are commonly coached to ignore our comparisons. “Run your own race” and “stay in your lane” are phrases that seemingly soothe us on the surface. Regardless of how good this advice sounds, it is a difficult perspective to maintain. I have found that the challenge is not merely staying in your lane, but more so working out what your lane is. We can’t help but notice the progressions of others, and it is easy to be discouraged by people zipping in front of you. Yet often our frustrations lie in understanding where our own journeys are taking us.
At some point – the rain must stop, the wind must cease, and the immediate havoc of your experience must fade away. No matter how destructive they may be, storms are temporary. Quite often, they leave as abruptly as they arrive. You are forced to reckon with your wreckage, and make meaning out of what is left, in order to face what is to come.
The scale of damage can vastly differ. As mentioned before, no two storms are the same. What can destroy one person may barely move another. Whatever you have survived through, has also been the cause of someone’s death. Take a moment to celebrate that. Take a moment to celebrate that somehow, you are still breathing even though you have been battered. Even if it feels like there is nothing to be joyful about, take a moment. The fact that you have made it this far means that there is still more for you to accomplish. The storm is passing – and your time on this earth is not over yet.
Storms have the ability to form at any point, in any season and in any place. They gain fame for their destruction. They have an unusual talent for displacement, disorientation and dismantling everything we know. No two storms are the same. Their intensities vary, and the complexities of its wreckage widely differ. Nonetheless, every living, breathing being must face a storm, all with the hope that they survive it somehow.
Nature has an extraordinary habit of teaching the most powerful kind of life lessons. The life cycle of a natural storm is no exception, and provides insight for the metaphorical storms that we may face. Continuing with the “Storms” series, this piece looks at the first of three stages of the storm life cycle. Focusing on the process of cloud formation, it looks at how we may experience “cumulus” in our own lives.
