When I started LMBG I had no idea that four years in I would want to make content creation an entire career. I honestly didn’t know in my twenties that I would be a published author by the time I was thirty-seven, or that I would create a podcast that would allow me to connect to so many amazing people.
The only thing that I knew in my twenties was that the life I was living, was not the life that I wanted. Recently I’ve been thinking about the kind of life that I want, and I’ve come to realize that I want this.
This moment, where I am sitting in my messy apartment writing about my hopes, dreams, and wishes, I want this, more than anything that I’ve ever wanted in my entire life. Largely because although I don’t know what my future holds, I am completely uninterested in what my future holds.
When I was growing up they told us that the way to having a happy life was to finish high school, go to college, and then maybe university, and get a job, and on and on and on.
But I didn’t get the opportunity to go to college, or university, because I was too busy dealing with being in shock, and being traumatized, so I just did whatever I could do, to keep my mind occupied so I didn’t have to think about the fact that my entire life was a complete and total mess that I wasn’t prepared to deal with.
Now that I am taking steps to change my life, to change my path, I am starting to realize that if it hadn’t been an arrest, it would have been something else that intervened in my life to tell me to slow down and to actually deal.
It wasn’t a person, it was a series of events that forced me to sit on my balcony for three months and get stoned, so that I could finally start realizing how much of this weight that I carry, I shouldn’t be.
When we get bogged down with trauma we don’t often think of how much of it is ours vs how much of it belongs to other people.
When I look back at that girl who spent her entire life asking the world if she was crazy, I see someone who was genuinely convinced that she was insane, because she’d been so lost and lied to for so many years, she couldn’t figure out fiction from fact.
I’m not that person anymore. I know what happened to me, and I know that what I did about it was completely unconventional, but I also know that I didn’t have a choice. I was literally drowning on dry land.
There are opportunities that I have turned down or ignored because I know that I am not ready for them yet, and I know that those sacrifices are going to seem stupid or dumb to some people, but to me they make perfect sense, and right now I need perfect sense.
Throughout this year (2021) I have remarked about how tired I am, how bone and spiritually exhausted I am from all of the chaos that is swirling around us, but I also recognize that there are people out there in the world in situations of life or death that I will never be able to comprehend.
There are people who are losing their homes, they are losing their jobs at alarming rates, random everyday folks who had everything one day turn around and realize they have nothing the next.
In the scheme of things I don’t have a lot to complain about. That doesn’t mean that just because my problems aren’t as severe as others might perceive them to be, they aren’t issues that hold me back from doing some of the things that I claim I want to do.
Today I went outside twice, largely to escape the noise of the constant banging and hammering from the construction workers. When I came back inside I took a two hour nap because I just needed peace and quiet.
It’s incredibly stressful living in a home that doesn’t have peace and quiet unless you’re asleep. When I am trying to write during the day I have the construction workers, and when I am trying to relax in the evenings I have my mom. There are very few hours of the day that I just get some quiet these days.
Which means that I have to be more intentional about taking my quiet time when I am able. For some of us that means going out for a walk, spending time in nature, and for other people that means taking a shower, because everyone knows that shower time is private…unless you have toddlers….or teenagers.
We can’t always change the fact that the universe has decided to kick us in the ass and take a break, but if we can find the strength to make the time off matter, then we change the game, and ironically (also annoyingly) I think that’s what we’re supposed to do.
I honestly didn’t know four years ago where I was going or what I was doing when I started LMBG, but every single time I look at the website’s front page, I realize that even though it didn’t make sense in the beginning, it makes perfect sense now.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 