My Family

I have family all over the world, some I haven’t even met yet, others whose names I don’t even know.

We are split between space and time, each trying to get from one day to the next, each finding our place in the world. Each learning about each other, each of us trying to discover the thing that makes our passion tick and sets us free from the humdrum that life can be sometimes.

I think that’s why the story of Siddha and the Krisya Ohana matter so much to me, with the story so disconnected and not yet told it feels like I am searching for a part of me, a family that I didn’t know could exist.

When I first came forward with my claims I knew there was a good chance no one would believe me. I never thought they’d have me declared psychotic so they wouldn’t have to believe me.

I see that now as the easier option, I see myself dying at the hands of my abusers because the people that could have done something, chose not to.

I don’t want to die, I want to live because I’ve never gotten the chance to do that. I went from one man to another man telling me what to do, asking permission to go on trips, asking permission to be myself and now that I have finally found my voice, I don’t want to die.

I don’t want you to die either, I want you to keep fighting, I want you to stay strong, I want you to believe that you can be anything, do anything, I want you to have faith in God, but I understand why you don’t. I know it hurts to believe that someone or something could exist to love you when you’ve felt so unloved for so fucking long.

I know how it feels because I have been there, there were a lot of meditation sessions where I cried to God while simultaneously apologizing for whatever it was that I had done that earned me being abused so badly and for such a prolonged time.

There is no escape from the fact that you have been abused, you can’t change that reality, you have to accept that it happened so that you can move on. It doesn’t make it okay, it doesn’t make it right, it doesn’t make it forgivable, but believing that it happened, knowing that it happened one is step one in learning to grow from it.

Step two is deciding what you’re going to do about the fact that it happened, and the options are endless. You can talk about it as I have, you can fight back, you can find your voice you can share your story in whatever way makes sense to you or you can keep it to yourself.

I don’t know anyone who kept their stories to themselves and survived to talk about it later. Those who I know who have passed on were strong for everyone else, so much so that they had little left for themselves, they were scraping the bottom of the barrel and found themselves with nothing left to hold onto.

We absolutely want to help others, and that’s an important part of healing, but a certain point you have to stop worrying about others and worry about yourself before you drown. A Lifeguard is taught to save themselves first, because if they die there is no one else to save the victims stuck in the ocean.

That is an important life lesson, that we have to save ourselves first, and you absolutely can. There are ways to live as if the world were what it should be to show it what it can be that don’t rip you apart and steal your soul.

Reach out to others – and this may take a few years. It took me several years before I was ready to put myself out there for the world to see, it took me even longer to connect to others like myself, but once I realized that’s what I needed everything started to manifest into itself.

I used to think that what I needed was to talk about sexual abuse all the time in order to heal, that I needed to continuously purge what I was thinking and how I was feeling, and to a certain extent I did, but once I was done purging, I realized I didn’t want to talk about sexual abuse exclusively anymore.

Now I spend a great deal of my time focusing on my blog and networking with other Black business owners and creators. I am sharing my work with the world because that’s the fucking job, you know? And the job is what is doing the most work in healing the stuff that ails me.

The “work” that I am doing by building this brand, is the most comfortable I’ve felt in my entire life. I am not worried about what other people might think or say, and for the most part I am being the most authentic version of myself, but the difference between then and now is that for the first time I am holding back some for myself.

I have learned how to use the word “no” and even if it has to be “no, I am sorry I cannot”, after the initial no, I am feeling stronger because I learned to say that word again.

It’s not your job to bloom the flowers or make the fruit. It’s your job to plant the seeds. Nurture the soil. Pull up the weeds. Make the space. God does the producing. Just tend your garden.

— erica williams simon (@missewill) June 27, 2020

I used to have a really complicated relationship with God, and it wasn’t until I realized that it wasn’t God that I had an issue with, that I finally came to terms with the fact that never again will I ever allow a man to talk to me about God as if he knows better than I do.

“Each of us has to find our spirituality in our own way, it can not be taught, in order to be fully embraced spirituality has to be a deeply personal and private journey.”

Do you know who said that? I fucking said that Devon J Hall, because I spent years fighting with self-proclaimed men of God who claimed to know better than I did about everything the Bible has to say. Bitch lemme tell you, I’ve read that thing cover to cover, and have been going back to my favourite passages since I was a child.

For me, I believe in all the Gods and Goddesses of every religious practice, largely because I can’t reasonably fathom a reason why they might not exist, if they could exist, in a world where Stan Lee taught us that absolutely anything is possible if you just believe.

I tend to think in terms of science, but I recognize that which Lewis CK Clarke remarked on, majick is only science we don’t yet understand.

No truer words were ever spoken, just because you don’t understand something or can’t comprehend something doesn’t mean that it cannot exist.

Just because you feel like it’s never going to get better, doesn’t mean that it won’t. But you have to fucking try.

Whether it’s to reach out and talk to someone, or to create something that the world has never seen before, you are trying, with every breath you take in which you do not end your life, you are fucking trying and I am so proud of you.

Maybe it’s cause I’m high, but I always feel more connected to the Universe when I am stoned, the colours are a little brighter, the scents are a little more intense, everything seems so much more clear when I am stoned, and I for damned sure am more productive.

Either way, I feel this need to tell you that it is absolutely going to get better, it might take days, or weeks, or months or years, but it’s going to get better because it couldn’t possibly get worse.

I debased myself in order to survive that last night, and I am really fucking proud of myself for surviving, but more than that, for having the courage to talk about it, even if people think I’m fucking psychotic. At least I’m a fucking live.

I exist, and this website is proof of that. My tattoos are proof of that. My family, my friends and my Krisyaohana are proof that I fucking existed in this world, and no one can take that away from me.

Because I exist, in this form, as a human, I am taught by the United Nations Council that I am a human being with rights, namely the right to fucking breath without being slapped, punched or put into a fucking choke hold in order to make a White person feel better about their own pithy existence.

I am a strong powerful beautiful and wise woman, and I am proud to exist as a strong powerful beautiful and wise woman who has learned her lessons and knows fully that God still has plenty of amazing lessons and blessings in store for me.

I am afraid almost nightly that life is as good as it’s ever going to get. That person and I won’t get our chance, that it was all for nothing, and yes I mean that.

I worry because if it was all for nothing if none of this shit mattered then it seems to me like a big old waste of time.

I am not comforted by the accolades or even the idea of saying that I am an Author, I am not comforted by the fact that I have found my voice, and if that sounds awful then I am glad because it should.

Breonna Taylor’s murderer’s are still fucking out there.

They are walking free while a hundred days in they march across the globe for peace in the United States of America and there can’t be peace until Breonna Taylor and the others get the justice they deserve.

Yes you fucking matter. Yes you are a Soldier, yes you are a fucking warrior, now use your platforms to fight for Breonna Taylor. Use everything you have, but remember this is a long fight, so save some for yourselves. You’ll need it.

Sending all my love,

Devon J Hall