I am binge watching Lost Girl right now, not really in the right order, just whatever episodes happen to be on my DVR right now.
Because I have been watching so many episodes back to back, I am starting to realize that during the entire series run, Bo has never had any “downtime”. She’s always fighting one battle after another, always making alliances with people that she may not love or like. Always fighting to survive.
From the moment she enters the Fay world, something or someone is trying to kill her or take over the world. Much like Buffy before her, Bo Dennis never gets a break, she never gets a moments peace.
Not until after she destroys her evil father’s attempt to rise from hell does Bo get to just…be Bo.
A lot of us feel like that a lot of the time, like life is never just fucking easy. We get into these modes of feeling like we are always playing catch up, like the Universe is systematically trying to destroy us, because as soon as we face and pass one challenge there is always another right there behind to take you down.
Life is a series of never ending tests that will push your resolve and make you wonder what it’s all for.
And then that moment will click and you’ll realize. It will be a tiny minuscule seemingly unimportant moment in the scheme of things, that changes everything you hold to be true.
It happened to me when I got arrested. I mean sure that was a big important moment, but not a week before I was talking about how Black Lives hadn’t done anything to help people like me, and as it turns out I was mostly right. Other than to inspire me to believe in a better world for my children, Black Lives Matter did not step up and help me when I had been arrested.
I chalk it up to karma for trash talking them a week earlier.
Being arrested changed the way I look at marijuana use, because I had a genuine choice between getting high and getting drunk to take the edge off of the frustration and pain that I was emotionally and mentally carrying around.
It was through marijuana that I found my love of painting for the sake of painting, and dancing, even though I don’t do that often anymore. It was through smoking pot that I rediscovered my love of writing, and founded Loud Mouth Brown Girl . Com.
If I hadn’t found smoking pot after being arrested, I wouldn’t have LMBG right now, which means I wouldn’t be a published author, and I wouldn’t be following my dreams into infamy and holy shit getting arrested was kind of worth it.
At the very least it makes a fascinating origin story.
Through getting arrested I started really dealing with all the memories of being abused that I had been choosing to ignore for most of my life.
That doesn’t make what that cop did okay. It’s not okay that he left bruises on my body and kicked me in the knee, it’s not okay that he called me a loud mouth brown bitch, it’s not okay that he was abusive in my time of fear and anxiety.
It’s not okay that those Air Attendants weren’t versed in panic attacks and didn’t know how to handle one. It’s not okay that they weren’t trained properly to deal with people who weren’t used to flying.
But because of those things, I am going to be a famous writer one day, because of those people I discovered my purpose on this earth, or at least part of it.
Challenges are designed to make us feel uncomfortable, they are designed to ensure that we do not get complacent.
When I was working at the Church I used to say I hate my life, over and over again almost every day. My favorite song during those years was “My December” by Linkin Park because it helped me to cry and release my misery through my tears. Another was “Bye Bye Angel” and “Nemo” by Nightwish.
Music helped me release what I wasn’t capable of saying, because I didn’t have the language. Being arrested taught me to seek out others who had had similar experiences so that I could learn how to vocalize my experience. So I could talk about it.
Yes, what happened to me sucks, and yes it shouldn’t have had to happen, but it was the catalyst for very good and wonderful things, and I can’t quantify the good without accepting the bad.
When we take time to be intentionally grateful, we also have to take time to understand why we are choosing to be grateful. I am not grateful that I got arrested, but I am grateful that I survived it and learned to create something good out of the ashes of my old life.
I don’t like that I have to be grateful, I am still resentful about that, largely because I don’t feel like fairness is something that exists in my life, but I choose to be grateful because it feels better than being miserable about all the negativity, and it absolutely is a choice.
We can choose to sit in the misery and let it overcome us, we can choose to allow it to erase all the good things about ourselves and we can choose to let it swallow us whole.
It’s not enough anymore to say that you aren’t strong enough to survive anything that comes your way. You have survived 100% of every bad day you’ve ever had, let that be enough.
Let it be enough so that on the days when you feel like the warrior you are, you can thrive and rise and help others, and let it be enough that you don’t have to get it right every single day.
Some days you just need to curl up and conserve your energy, maybe that means watching a film or crying your eyes out until it feels like you have no tears left. Sometimes that means hibernating and other times it means connecting with other people.
Whatever it is that helps you to recharge your batteries, let it be enough. It has to be enough, because there is no other choice.
You absolutely can do this, because you were born to be greater than those around you. You were born to lift others up and to succeed at your life’s mission, I know that in my heart as deeply as I know who I am, because you are here reading this right now.
This is your message from the universe.
Keep Going.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 