God has blessed me with another year of life. after the last eight months, i’m more appreciative. my back pain tells me that my young boy days are over. i’ve allowed myself space to just be. most of my relationships are built on an old foundation. in high school, i loved to dance. yes, i was a dancing ass nigga. it was fun plus it helped me be social. Those days are so far gone. I dance for my own amusement still, but no longer to impress others. its hard for people to understand that i’m not the kid in high school anymore.

these days i refuse to force myself to do things that i don’t want to do. i’m accepting that i don’t move like everyone else. when i was a kid, being an outsider meant that i was doing something wrong. i worried so much about being liked, that i had to stop or i’d drive myself crazy. i learned at Howard that its impossible for everyone to like me. i let my hair grow. i stopped wearing labels. i stopped trying to be liked. i had my bros at howard so i was always good.

after howard, i was a small fish in a big pond again. those old feelings returned. being liked mattered again. i wanted to make everyone around me comfortable because this city is too big to navigate without friends. my friends held me down so crazy and i love them for that. at the top of the year i made my mind up. i’m leaving chicago. and i planned on it. i still have the plane ticket. but my journey was paused when covid-19 gripped the world by the throat. i had plenty of time to think.

i thought about who i am and where i wanted to be. did i want to write? did i want to still be a filmmaker? i had to sit still, shut off the phone, read, learn. i haven’t been this selfish in a while but i’ve learned some things:

i’m a writer.
i’m a filmmaker.
i’m a business owner.

bigger than the professional, i had to get my personal together. i stopped dating for the sake of dating. i’ve recounted my steps to see how my past relationships went wrong. i made mistakes that make me cringe to think about. that dude is unrecognizable. i also realized that not everything is my fault and i don’t have to be punished with unhappiness. i’ve denied myself so much because i felt like i didn’t deserve it. now, i’m off that shit because i want it all. i walked around with years of regret but starting today, i’m hanging regret up in the closet. I’ll keep it around as a reminder of where i’ve been because i never wanna go back.