Dear You,
On today’s update, I wanted to dive into what it’s like to live the life that you deserve, want and desire. As I am quickly approaching my 30s and closing out my twenties, I felt like it was vital for me to change not necessarily who I am but what I am standing for – for myself and what I am about. Since moving back home, I feel that I lost a sense of my independence that I once had.
(Now don’t get me wrong, I spent A LOT of time, and I do mean A LOT of time in survival mode. I didn’t know any better, but I was living over there. Now that I am healing more and more each day, I am shifting from surviving to living and grooving. In this I am finding myself again, rediscovering my voice, and even rediscovering the woman that God has called me to be.)
Back to the original story – I feel like when I moved back home that I lost a sense of independence. Now journey with me for a moment….imagine that at the age of 17 you leave your house and all that you’ve known and go off to college and then from there, find yourself in an amazing, FREE, master’s program that causes you to live in Richmond for 3 additional years, you decide that isn’t enough and you then move off to DC for 2 years and after all of your hard work you get fired – perhaps for your attitude or perhaps because of the haters – the world may NEVER know, and then you are FORCED to move back home because after trying your HARDEST to make ends meet on your own and even though the Lord sustained you and kept you for as long as possible, the more fiscally responsible choice was at 26, almost 27 to come home. Let that sink in. Mind you, in DC for the first time in your life you lived ALONE and got to navigate what it was like to “start over”, discover things about yourself that you liked and disliked but then had to leave that all abruptly. Friends made, connections, gone in an instant. And you find yourself moving home with honestly nothing and no one. The friends from college that you had are all in RVA. The church community that you once had that abandoned you somewhere between RVA and DC also gone. Friends from the 757 that you never really had in the first place also gone before it even became because growing up you weren’t necessarily allowed to hang out with just anybody…and that’s okay (thank you for the protection mom & dad). But just imagine for a second, that you are jobless, “friendless” and alone and now you moved back in with your parents and lost your freedom. How does one feel? How does one navigate? How does one pick up the pieces? I know personally, I threw myself into work. I got into a situation at my first job that almost cost me my job only to get laid off months later. So yet again, I found myself in transition. I landed a new job in Suffolk, VA where the hour commute ate up a good chunk of my day. I threw myself into that job, with not the greatest supervisor, but you live and you learn and you do the best you can. Because if God doesn’t come to change the situation, he most certainly can come and change you and change me IT HAS. Now I find myself in transition because I want better for me still. If it doesn’t serve me, it has to go. I remember recently that I applied for a job to be a bartender. Y’all why I go to that job and didn’t learn or do a lick of bartending. Please know that it took a lot of strength and courage for me to muster up the fact that I owed no loyalty to this establishment and that my people pleasing did not need to hold me back from quitting. I quit the following morning before coming into the shift because I wasn’t doing what I signed up for – therefore it didn’t’ serve me. Today and every day moving forward as I finish out year 28, if it doesn’t serve me, it has to go! If it doesn’t align with where I see myself going, it has to go! If God isn’t sending me there or to a thing and I know it for myself, it has to go! I believe wholeheartedly that there is a life out there for me that is going to wow me beyond my wildest beliefs and dreams. A life I prayed for, a life I dreamt about. I don’t know 100% what that life looks like, but I know it’s close. I can feel it.
As I am continuing to build the life that is more self-centered, Zoe-centered, I am finding myself having to put myself out there to try new things, learn new hobbies, learn new skillsets, be vulnerable, be authentic and push myself to show up. Just like back in 2021-2023 I taught myself how to skate and skate backwards and turn around more specifically, I plan to do the same thing. From crocheting, knitting, trying my hand at handwriting (not calligraphy because I tried it once and was NOT getting it), painting, maybe learning an instrument, Pilates classes, pure barre classes, run club, making new connections with new friends, but really connecting back with myself and reminding myself that I can 1) do hard things and 2) do things by myself again. I don’t need another person, I don’t need to wait for the moment. I can be the moment because I am the moment.
So for the summer, I made a commitment to myself to have fun and be outside. I feel that last summer, I didn’t get to do as much as I would have liked. Well this summer, I’ve got cookouts planned, devotional time in the mornings, gym time, my first trip to Water Country, Busch Gardens and King’s Dominion days, trips to Florida, New York and maybe Chicago, working at the YMCA, concerts to see Chris Brown and maybe say “fuck it” and see Beyonce too, baseball games and fireworks, restarting this blog, but ultimately, really, honestly and truly, I just want to live. And living I am doing. I am so thankful for this life and I want to live each moment like it’s the last one that I’m going to have.
I hope that you join me and push me to be the best me I can be.
Thanks for journeying,
Me.
I love you! You got this! Keep going!
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