Away, Away, Away
Listen to “Cranes in the Sky” by Solange first
Hello friends,
I know I listened to Solange’s A Seat At The Table years ago. I remember listening to “Mad” on repeat.
When I listened to “Cranes in the Sky” on July 29th, 2024, I felt seen in the way that a piece of art can make you feel seen. My first thought was ‘I hope this song won awards.’
The song earned Solange her first grammy award for best R&B performance in 2016.
Thank God because the song is a masterpiece.
When I write, I tend to find one song that I resonate with emotionally and listen to the song on repeat. It’s always a song that creates visceral feelings and transports me somewhere else.
I will have an idea of where I want to begin based on where the song took me.
When I begin writing, I might be aware of the first verse and then I hear nothing. I might be typing for an hour or three hours while the song plays but I don’t hear anything. The words I type are an extension of how I’m processing what is being expressed.
I am in flow state.
I hope you enjoy this one.
Thank you for reading my writing and experiencing life and love with me!
In elementary school, I would have told you that I hated running. Every year, I dreaded when we had to run the mile to fulfill the physical education requirement. Running was painful; my legs and chest hurt as my feet struck the pavement. I gasped for more air to fill my lungs and was met with cramps as an answering cry.
Even though no one told me that we were being judged, I felt especially judged for being the chubby girl who couldn’t and didn’t like to run. I was embarrassed because I had an older sister who ran cross country along with track and field at her high school. My adolescence and young adulthood running was in the periphery. Running was always nearby–my mom and eldest sister also began running.
In the ninth grade, we were asked to sprint a short distance. When I did my sprint, momentum and gravity pushed me down, where I scratched my knee against the track. In high school, my sister told me that if I started running, I would be able to lose weight. My body rejected the act of running. I adamantly shook my head and told her I was not interested in running. I associated running with lack, an inability to athletically perform, and the reason why I became itchy around grass.
In college, I joined a running club with my older sister’s job. In that moment of my life, I was obsessed with avoiding gaining weight and was willing to do anything to make sure that didn’t happen. I hoped this experience with running would be positive. I was older and had a better understanding of the health benefits of cardio. Maybe I would become acquainted with the runners’ high. Maybe I would cultivate time where I wasn’t overthinking.
I was the youngest group member amongst middle aged and elderly men and women. The instructor was noticeably fit, and she talked about her upcoming bodybuilding competition. We stretched and made our way to the track that was adjacent to a local community park. When I began running, pain shot across both my knees and I settled into a jog, then stopped completely. I was hopeful about running and didn’t anticipate experiencing painful shin splints.
Over the next few weeks, I struggled to run while making efforts to avoid the pain in my knees. I tried wrapping the area after seeing some advice online, but it didn’t help. The experience confirmed something that I had always known about myself: I was not a runner.
At the beginning of this year, I was chatting with someone about my experience with depression and they posed a peculiar question. What do you think triggers your depressive episodes? I’d never been asked that question directly before. Huh? What triggered my depression? I didn’t think of my diagnosis as a cause and effect, even though a few years ago I was exposed to the bio-psycho-social model taught in an introductory social work graduate level course.
Social workers are taught about mental health on a macro and micro level, making their understanding of mental health as a holistic approach. Most of the mental health professionals in my life talked about chronic depression in terms of chemical imbalances in the brain, but not as a response to outside factors.
I immediately remembered the conversation I had with my psychiatrist during my last depressive episode. I contacted him for an emergency session, outside of our regular follow-ups, and I described when I started feeling low and desolate again. I told him how this person who had harmed me in childhood came to visit, which triggered my depressive symptoms. I then thought about all of my previous mental health episodes. Every depressive episode I had in the past seven years occurred after being in the same environment as that person.
Connecting each of my mental health episodes to this single stimulus felt earth-shattering and also grounding. The first time I felt weighed down by sadness was also weeks away from my move across the country to pursue my dream of television writing. I sat across from my therapist, Caroline, and told her I couldn’t cry, even when I was sad–like at that moment. I should be crying about not being able to cry, but I couldn’t.
I was used to having access to all my emotions especially when watching, listening, or reading something that evoked feeling. I was experiencing a depressive episode but no one realized because they were focused on the side effects from my prescribed psychiatric medications. My parents, my therapist, and I all believed I would feel better with a lower dosage of medication and my upcoming move to California.
My move to California was running towards something. It was a courageous act of pursuing my dreams of television writing. Being accepted into one of the countries’ top film schools made me feel like I had something to tether myself to, my dreams would help my sail towards the wholeness and ground that I had lost.
Life threw me against the rapids and I sought equilibrium. California was supposed to change everything for me, and at first, it did. I was forming new relationships and exploring what I wanted to say in my writing. What stories were inside of me that were tumbling to rush out of me?
The first time I had life-ending thoughts was in my second semester of graduate school. I sent a message to my mom and when she called me, I told her I wasn’t doing well. I felt like I didn’t want to exist anymore. When I do have thoughts like this, I don’t imagine my death—I feel a desire to end the unnamable suffering inside of me. The emotions feel weighted, heavy, and mournful. The emotions are mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual.
My parents flew out from Florida to spend a few days with me. We drove to La Jolla in San Diego for a day trip and it was comforting to be in a different environment and not thinking about the discomfort that brought my parents here. Gazing at seals and sea lions from a cliff made it easier to breathe. The water and sounds coming from the shore brought a reprieve and clarity.
After the Spring semester, I was signed up for one summer elective course and my internship. The summer course was an introduction to the business side of the film industry. At first, I felt like I was being exposed to all the various ways I could strategize and approach my career in ways I hadn’t before.
I have a distinct memory of walking home after class and thinking about the final year ahead. I had one year to write two meaningful and career-defining pilot scripts for my portfolio in order to make an impression. I felt a slightly painful ache in my chest and when I followed the pull, I heard a whisper “I’m not ready.”
When I probed a little bit further, I saw a flash of myself sitting in a dark corner with my arms wrapped around my knees. I knew that my mental health was not in a place to conquer and embrace navigating a career in Hollywood. I know that it would be too much for me to handle on my own. I was too soft and also too broken to pick myself back up when it would become necessary to do so.
This awareness also coincided with a moment during my internship when I was on a television set for a half-hour comedy. I felt ignited by the experience of being thrust in the middle of production of filming for an upcoming season, but one day found myself questioning my dream. I stood in the middle of the studio gazing at the furniture and set design of a suburban home living room and had a thought. This isn’t going to inspire or change anyone.
In my classes, it was clear that themes I attempted to write about blended subjects around spirituality and mental health. I wanted to impact people with my storytelling and watching writers punch up jokes on set made me feel like I was in the wrong place.
I didn’t think about or share my underlying fear of losing myself in Los Angeles with anyone, instead everything inside of me geared towards another passion of mine. Writing for television and film was about reaching the masses, but I could still impact people on a smaller scale by becoming a therapist. I’d been told frequently that I would make a great therapist.
I was running towards something else. I was running towards a purpose-driven life where I could experience the magic of healing people seeking transformation. People have always felt comfortable revealing themselves to me. Making confessions they had not uttered with others in their life. My calm and patient energy offered safety. When those moments happened, I recognized them for what they were, I kept anything ever offered to me in this bubble to myself. I listened, avoided making any judgements, questioned why people felt this safe around me, then moved forward with my day.
Not only did I want to become a licensed therapist, this was also the time where I would begin the journey of facing myself. One evening while feeling secure about my decision to shift careers, I heard a strong voice inside of me say “I need to deal with my trauma.” As I prepared my application materials for school in the Fall, this desire was pushed away. When application decisions were mailed and I learned I was accepted into the programs I applied to, my life was going well. I had a bright present and future ahead of me, but I felt hopeless, anxious, and sad.
I sat in the parking lot of my new job and told my best friend LJ that I might be depressed. There were various emotions inside of me that didn’t match the way I should be feeling. I’d gotten everything I wanted and worked for, but I felt terrible all over again. I sought out a therapist for help while I also made impulsive decisions around exploring my sexuality. The first therapist I saw was convinced I was bipolar and my sex drive was too high for a woman my age.
Then I found an EMDR trauma-informed therapist, who I would work with for two years consistently. For two years, I talked about the hidden layers of my sexual trauma while battling messy emotions in my internal world. A lot of the emotions felt existential because I continued to feel lost. What I was feeling didn’t align with the progress I was making, and eventually, I learned to numb myself.
I numbed myself with hookups and alcohol. I numbed myself with goals and dreams. I numbed myself with scrolling and learning about content creation. I numbed myself with my job, productivity, and work ethic. I yearned for dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin.
In the Fall of 2021, I stopped taking my psychiatric medication altogether. Why take something that wasn’t helping me anyway? In the spring of 2022, I found myself crying in the emergency room when the psychiatrist on duty advised me to take the meds I was supposed to be taking. A few hours before, I experienced an overwhelming panic attack. When he walked away, one of the nurses on duty asked me what was wrong? I stopped taking those medications because they weren’t helping me. The medications I had taken before were not for treating depression.
I could never name my depression because of how I operated in life—high-functioning. I was depressed, but I was also busy. My first semester in the social work graduate program was going well—until the last month where I flunked the final assignments because I didn’t have the will to do anything anymore. I was depressed but also managed to get promoted at my full-time job.
I never said no to tasks and received successful feedback during my annual review, my managers had seen how much I’ve grown and I was a team player. I did my job with a welcoming and positive smile. A few weeks later, I was standing outside, trying to calm myself from an overwhelming physical and mental panic. My heart and breath were racing, seeking a brief moment of rest and relief.
The following year and a half, I was incapable of running. I couldn’t run away from or run towards anything. I was stagnant. I was stuck. I was bed-ridden and in the midst of multiple depressive episodes. I didn’t have a job and was living off my hard-earned savings. All my money was going towards psychiatric treatment and my frequent follow-up appointments with my psychiatrist. I felt like I was failing myself and everyone in my life. It was all my fault, a single mistake decision led me here and I didn’t know when I would make it back to myself.
Today, I find myself in a revelatory stage of life. My life is not static or slow-moving. In fact, I have been feeling overwhelmed by all the things. I began therapy in the middle of Fall last year and my therapist asked me to complete a therapy goals worksheet.
What are three broad goals you would like to work on during therapy?
1. Learn coping skills and lifestyle skills to manage chronic depression
2. Want to improve social and dating life
3. Want to improve self-confidence and self-esteem
For each of the goals listed above, describe specifically how your life will be different once you’ve completed therapy.
1. I will feel secure and balanced with my emotions; feel equipped and resilient enough to manage my emotions.
2. I want to feel excited about new relationships I’ve made with people and excited to spend time with them.
3. I want to feel confident and comfortable with who I am and how I express myself.
On November 30th, I decided that tomorrow I would begin anew. I woke up before 7am and went on an hour-long walk. When my therapist told me that listening to music was a positive coping skill, I lived life as if it were a film that required a soundtrack. That hour-long walk transformed into walking 6-days a week, listening to the Power of Now, and taking pictures of the Florida sunrise hued skies. I followed my walks with 30 to 40 minute at-home strength training exercises.
At work, I could be found randomly smiling for no apparent reason, other than feeling good in the present moment. When I heard a song I knew playing in the background, I hummed the chorus. I was wearing makeup and taking daily pictures of my outfits. I was talking to and planning dates with multiple people. I was practicing deep breathing techniques and journaling more. I was making plans with friends and making time for my monthly personal essays.
In early February, I began struggling with my routine and at first, it wasn’t clear why. Why was it harder to think about my story outlines? Why was it harder to get out of bed? Why did I feel so lethargic? Why was I suddenly missing my walks and strength training? At just the right moment, a friend asked me if I knew what triggered my depressive episodes? I realized that I was experiencing all the signs of an impending episode. I had been doing so well and consistently, what happened? And I knew.
The answer empowered me.
After catching up with my therapist when she came back from her maternity leave, we talked about how burnout can happen even when all the things happening are good. I was working a new full-time job, participating in a weekly anxiety-support group, trying to meet fitness goals with my fitness coach, tracking my nutrition, going to yin yoga and meditation, working with a writing coach who also counsels me with astrology, and living in a new space where I have to show up for myself and meet my needs, stay in touch with friends, while also making time to go on dates with my boyfriend. I knew it was not sustainable but I had a hard time saying no to anything because I wanted to do all the things.
When I sat down and envisioned my life for the next ten years, the plan was grounded in intentionality. While I was planning ahead, I wasn’t trying to rush to get to where I wanted to go. I wanted to pursue writing while also achieving balance in the other areas of my life. The present was valuable. I have achieved tangible and hard-earned results because of the commitments I made to show up, and now I needed to give some of that up? I’ve been resisting making a full change the past few weeks.
My life was completely cerebral for years. I had ideas about what I wanted to do and who I wanted to become. I would start, then stop. I would try again and life would yank me down. I have never been this busy or action-oriented in my life. Intrinsically, I can recognize how making these changes will be brief in the timeline of my life. To let go of something now, is to let go of a new version of myself that I have come to know and value.
After graduating from college, where my sister continued to run, she established her professional career for a company that organizes races in our hometown. Since moving a few hours away from where I grew up, running made an appearance during weekend visits. Last month, I asked her to sign me up for the 4th of July morning race being hosted so I could join our mom during our visit. Initially, I didn’t think about running at all because I was used to walking the same distance.
When the race began, I watched my mom begin to jog, but I didn’t follow. I walked and watched the scenery around me. It was hot and humid so I tried to focus on the trees that seemed to elongate and hug each other. I gazed at the sun peeking through the branches and the beautiful homes that we passed along the trail. I watched other people run past me. I looked around me and noticed the fellow walkers, and I eventually found familiar faces—the runners who had passed me earlier. They weren’t running or jogging far because eventually, they always made their way back to me.
I watched a woman with a red tutu wrapped around her waist. She looked down at her watch and tracked the time. I thought about how everyone here had a different relationship with running. Some people were regulars and had a running practice set in their lives. Some people had trained in preparation for this race. Some people were complete novices and were committing to races for the first time. Some people were participating with their families or friends. Some people were pacing themselves and using this race to work on their endurance. Some people were used to long walks and were there to celebrate the holiday.
Ultimately, I realized it didn’t really matter what their reason for being there was. I knew that no one here would judge me for doing something outside of my comfort zone. I refocused and watched the scenery around me and my eyes landed on the stop sign a few feet away. I’ll run to the next stop sign. I began to run. I knew my running form was probably lacking because I felt like I was dragging my body forward instead of running properly. It didn’t matter and I didn’t stop until I passed the red octagon.
After I got my breathing back under control, I looked for another marker and tried again. I probably ran for 45 seconds before stopping to catch my breath. When we stopped encountering spaces with shade from the morning heat, I stopped and walked the rest of the way to the finish line.
I didn’t share with my mom or sister that I did some running, I kept it to myself because running momentarily without experiencing pain felt like a secret victory. It was significant because it made me aware of how far I’ve actually come. I knew that if I wanted to have the practice of running in my life, I could work my way up towards having one. A lot of my moments of victories from the past year weren’t huge, but collectively they were precious and indicative of my commitment towards growth.
We know and have been told that life is not a sprint, but a marathon. Yet, society celebrates those who make it there early. Before, when I came across life’s sprinters, I wanted to rush and “make it” by any means necessary. I had talent and wanted the world to know. I wanted to create earthquakes instead of tiny ripples. The pivotal moment I am experiencing now, is considering where I would like to aim my focus towards and asking how I would like to pace myself to make it across selective finish lines.
I am considering my efforts while also maintaining healthy boundaries and committing to the ways I show up to maintain a balanced relationship with my mental health. At this moment, I prioritize my needs first, and then pour my light into the other areas of my life. Every week is going to look different and require a different kind of presence. My goal is to listen and honor my body when it speaks to me–bring intention around rest, nourishment, and activity.
I started writing my newsletter because I wanted to focus on writing consistently for a year. I had ideas for other projects and other goals, but didn't consider what it would feel like to have 26 readers. In July, one of my close friends called my writing “healing.” I find myself thinking about this feedback all the time. I left film school because of my mental health and apprehension around the work I would do. Would I really be making an impact?
I recently began working with a writing coach who provides astrology counseling. During our sessions, when I share the things I am grappling with, she makes observations and connections with my life and astrology. She shared how in my current reality it feels like I am not believed, but people are reading my work because they believe in the stories I am sharing about myself. I listened to her words and let them strike me.
I was reminded how what I share has meaning and value. There are people out there who are interested in healing and can connect with my journey without preconceived notions about me. The people who do know me intimately and continue to connect with my experiences are special and meaningful. I am grateful. I know within the depths of my soul that I am on a beautiful path; and I always have been. I am not running anymore.