The End of the First Quarter

Before I start, I would like to apologize for the writer’s block and dissociative behavior I've been experiencing. This is my first time writing since the beginning of May, and here we are, three days from August. I want to break this down in chronological order as best as possible so you as the reader can understand my emotional roller coaster. The last thing I told you guys gives you imagery of me on the grill of a truck. In that moment, I thought 'this can’t be my end' thinking 'my ancestors wouldn't do me like that' and then next thing you know the truck is slowing down with its left tire devouring my right calf muscle. I tried to relax my body and mind, telling myself that the pain would get to a point of max and it would stop but every second that went by the pain got more excruciating.

I almost gave up and began to cry a little, then I realized my son was watching me (and one thing my son will never see is his mom be a bitch), so making my voice as regular as I could, I began to scream "back up" repeatedly and in that moment I realized how helpless I was and that's something I vowed to never feel as an adult (a story for another time). Then a man about two car lengths away from me got out of his car and told the driver to back up. Honestly, I never once thought that that was my end, I thought I was going to lose a leg but the image of me cutting the ribbon to my bakery kept flashing through my head, faux leg and all.

As the car finally backed up and slowly came up off of my leg it was so much relief. But my adrenaline was still at a high, and I knew I had to find and lay eyes on my baby. Struggling to get up twice, screaming his name, I felt so at lost, like I lost something and no one knew what I was, and all I knew was that I made an attempt to save his life, I knew I tried my hardest but wasn't sure of my success. Once I saw him it was ok, and I could rest. I remember telling my body to rest but my girlfriend made me remember who I was and that my job wasn't done. She screamed at me 'don't go to sleep' and 'don't close your eyes' until I was making a move she knew I would make.

When my body realized it wasn't going to rest at that moment, so much pain set in, but I had to fight that until 'mission get Kaleb safe' was complete. Now my awareness is completely back and not thinking about rest I realized how much commotion was going on around me and couldn't make out anything. My phone miraculously survived in my back pocket, once I peeped that I called 911 myself, then I called my mom to make sure Kaleb would be in the hands of someone safe and with the same blood (you know the state do you dirty even when you don’t do anything to fuck with it), and then I called my man. Once all calls were made and everyone was in motion to me, I took a second to look around and digested each group of people around me then I focused in on myself and I began to let tears fall down my face and with the same feeling I smiled. I knew I had this, it hurt but all I could think was 'bitch you know got this' and those are the thoughts I kept to keep me going.

From talking to the police, the ambulance ride, the trauma processing, to my stay in the hospital, and the processing out not once did I realize I almost lost my life. All I could think about was actual life: who was going to take my son to school, how am I going to run my business, how will I be able to clean, have sex, do anything. My anxiety took over before I even had a chance to emotionally deal with what happened. Even my first couple of hours home I was ok because my spouse was home, but since he took off for hospital visits, he had to go back to work. when he left and kissed me goodbye, I still felt fine, as soon as I got halfway down the hall approaching my altar, BOOM, it hit me, I almost died?!?! my son almost lost me, life for them was about to be completely different with one move and not once did I care enough about me to realize that’s what had happened and there I was finally balled up crying.

For the first two weeks after that it was like all I did was cry. During the cry spell, I did try figuring out why this happened and what could I possibly have learned from this. One thing I came across was my boys, them realizing to appreciate me and that I could go at any-time. For me I felt like I was supposed to learn patience and vulnerability because the level I had was fairly low. It took me two weeks’ time after that first two weeks of crying to digest that and try to move on from there, so imagine the mental struggle that was. Let me give you guys some imagery of it.

The first complication that fucked with my head was getting in and out of the bed comfortably which was impossible, let alone putting clothes on and these are the things you have to do to take your child/children to school and start the day. My wonderful grandmother took him back and forth to school and kept him for the whole first week which was amazing because remember I was an emotional wreck. So, the second week I thought it wasn’t going to be that bad and it was even worse. There were mornings it was so bad that I was crying so hysterically, I said fuck it and directed my child to get undressed and told him he wasn’t going to school today, again recalling my emotions at the time I was trying to figure out why this happened to me. Luckily two weeks after that my spouse realized how bad the struggle was for me and picked up the responsibility of taking my son to school every morning (which made me feel bad because he walked in from work at 5am each morning), giving me the time to be able to get ready to pick him up after school. That one gesture my spouse picked up was the thing I needed to be able to properly rest, wake and think clearly, and work on my physical health before dealing with my child, and it’s one of the biggest things he’s ever done for me to give appreciation for (if you’re ever reading thank you Walter).

Him giving me the opportunity to get myself on a schedule with my new limits was amazing and shitty all in the same, trying to run through life at a pace your not used to especially when patience is what you need to learn is not easy. One day bad stuff kept happening one thing after another and luckily I was alone cause the last thing made me feel everything I was trying to shake off from that day and I snapped. I was yelling and screaming, cursing out my ancestors, I was more than an emotional wreck at this point. But during it all I told myself patience, patience, patience you will learn patience. I knew I had to take the first step though, and that was getting out of depression, I pulled out my agenda and planned for positivity and patience.

Finally ending those two weeks of weakness and crying, I wanted to make the next two weeks hard mental work. The positivity I planned for consisted of me not dropping him off to school but at least picking him up so I could control my timing to have patience. I sent out a mass text to my loyal customer list and let them know that they could place orders but only for pickup because I didn’t want to stress myself out trying to find a delivery person due to the fact the injured leg of course is the one I drive with. I tried a different routine with Kaleb after school so that I wasn’t so impatient with him during his homework time. Remind you, these are all plans so everything didn’t go accordingly at first and for me to complete my positivity tasks for patience required a lot of struggle. Picking him up didn’t go over gracefully every time neither did cooking and cleaning. I had to do everything in increments due to pain and giving myself head space for patience. Let’s not mention the sex, I mean it was still good, but it had its limitations.

There I was coming up on June and felt like I haven’t been succeeding in any area in life. I still wasn’t bending nor coming close to it and the pain was so consistent and excruciating and a whole month went by. I still hadn’t grasped on to my mental stability, pain, or any attention to my business and a whole month went by. My son was about to graduate kindergarten and he nor I was prepped for that, like a whole month didn’t go by. After going through the list of failures I cried, then gave myself a pep talk about not feeding into depression and trying to give myself all the balls I needed to fight it. Which gave me my mindset for the month of June.

For June I vowed to fight my depression with the mindset that I was going to win. I focused on my personal growth, I vowed to read, expand my mind, focus on my child and his reading, focus on my business, and my relationship with my spouse. I started going to physical therapy and became ok with going outside again. I maintained a customer client relationship with all of my customers new and loyal, downloaded books for education and entertainment purposes, and began furthering my knowledge and reading to my child. I even tried and succeeded most nights to have date nights with my spouse and outings with my son, but throughout it all the difficulty prevailed. I still cried every other day, I still felt like my relationship was failing (even though he was trying so hard), and my self esteem was up and down. What’s fucked up is I felt like July was worst.

Coming into July, I had in my head that we were coming into the third month and I still wasn’t bending which tore at me emotionally. The harder I worked for it to move, the worst it hurt. I felt like my move to Colorado was going to have to be delayed due to the injury, which really had my spirits low on top of the still not bending. My spouse and I began to argue again which fed my depression. During one of the nights we were arguing I was in a place where I wanted to try to properly feel, decipher, and distinguish my emotions so I took a walk. Getting to the corner of my block I realized I couldn’t walk but too far so I decided that it would be a walk around the block, soon as I make a right to circle my block I was attacked by a dog, a fucking pit-bull at that ( talked about in next entry)! I just felt so broken, I didn’t begin to pick my pieces up to put them back together until halfway into the second week into July.

Once I realized a retrograde was in effect, I began handling things a little different and digging into the growth I stored over the past few months. Now I say stored because although I was reading, learning, and meditating, applying it to real life at those moments were hard. But I felt like I was losing everything at this time, so I reached and grabbed it. I finally began to feel the patience and vulnerability I’ve been longing for settling in. Although I stopped working on edibles and baking, I began writing. I was able to have certain conversations with my son without yelling and spouse without the debate of right or wrong every time. I even had the conversation with my spouse about what we both need to fix to be able to continue this together. I gained the vulnerability to be able to cry and express how I really felt during that conversation. I gained the vulnerability to be able to say when I needed a hug without being and showing anger. During that three weeks of witnessing the growth I got visits, visits from people I haven’t seen in a while or only see for a reason. My eyes were opened to more than new and old friendships but what I mean to certain people and what they mean to me. That’s something you think you know until it smacks you upside your head.

I saw what I was coming to and leaving behind, and that’s such a joyous painful feeling (during this time I should have seen more which will be discussed in an upcoming entry). Although July’s beginning was like sitting on hells throne, the ending was so beautiful. This experience grew me into a better black woman than I was before. I was even able to find my true hobbies, hobbies that come from the heart and not financially driven. Before I make an exit, I would like to thank my egun for helping me through this journey and leading me to a better me on the right path. This one was definitely impossible without the help of you guys and your guidance through this was a need.

Happy reading, until next time!