Think About Everything You Want For Your Life And Say No To Everything That Is Not That

I don’t know who said this, but my Life Coach Jessika has said it to me a couple of times and the more that I think about it the more that I love the idea of saying “no” to things that I don’t want.

The other day on Twitter, I was sitting here watching all these streams of information go by and I was thinking about the kind of future that I want to cultivate for myself.

When I was younger I wanted to buy my mom a house, because she hasn’t owned a house since her children were….children. I wanted to own my own business, be a model and a fashion designer, and travel the world meeting fascinating people and hearing interesting stories.

There are a lot of things on that list that I haven’t accomplished, but for the first time in my life I am okay with that fact.

For the first time in my life I am content to be here and that’s purely and only because I know how difficult it was for me to get here. I’ve learned that I am the kind of person that makes others feel something. Some people feel angry, sad or mad at me, others feel happy or love towards me but others still, are jealous, which is the most confusing part, because I don’t see myself as someone who infuses others with jealousy.

Until I start to realize that you only want what you don’t currently have because you don’t know what’s like. Once you see what that thing you wanted is really like, sometimes you don’t really want it anymore and for the first time in my life, being happy in the moment, is super important to me.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the fact that I suck at making decisions, I can say no to what I don’t want, but I struggle with saying yes to what I do want.

That’s largely because I’ve been conditioned to believe that I don’t deserve to get what I want or that what I want is too dangerous to have. I have been saying for years to internet friends that I want to go to Cleveland, and Boston, to celebrate the days of internet anarchy, but the idea of crossing the border scares the crap out of me.

Now that I am in this place where I have decided that I am allowed to make my own decisions, the only thing that I want to do for a little while is rest. I just want to enjoy the act of being still instead of having t move all the damned time.

I know that I want to be successful, but that doesn’t mean that I necessarily want to be “famous.” I want to use this platform that I am building, to inspire other Loud Mouth Brown Girl(s).

I want to have an entire army of young and elder women who raise their voices and share their joys and their pain without shame, fear, anxiety, depression, or sadness. I want them to raise young women who are unafraid to stand up for themselves and tell the truth.

Day by day I am sowing the seeds of what I want my future reality to be, and I am completely unafraid of the future. I keep hearing this thought in my head telling me that I am going to die, but so what? I’ve already done that a couple of times, at least spiritually.

I know what it’s like to feel trauma and abuse destroy your life, and I know what it’s like to take one step after another to rebuild a life even though everyone around you thinks you are a liar, or that you’re crazy.

I’m not the only one who knows what this feels like I’m just the only one in my circle willing to stand up and say that I don’t want to live like that anymore. I don’t want to know the people from my past – this isn’t because I am mean or cruel, it’s because I have nothing to talk to them about.

I used to believe that there would be a time that al the people of my past would come back around and I’d have lots to learn from them and lots to say, but honestly….I just want to move on.

I am excited to see what Loud Mouth Brown Girl becomes, and I am inspired to believe that it can help others tell their stories in their way. I have tried a couple of time to add guest bloggers, but I am still very new at this, one day I hope to have at least fifty to a hundred writers, all Brown girls, from around the world.

I want Asian Brown girls, and Jewish Brown Girls, Muslim Brown Girls, all kinds of Brown Girls who are somewhere in the “middle” and who know what it feels like to be something “other” than what the world wants them to be, and I believe I can do that.

But not if I am stuck in this place where I am complaining about how hard life is, or if I am stuck in the “why me?” I know why me.

Me because there are evil people out there and if not me, then definitely someone else. I wouldn’t wish what happened to us on my worst enemy, and I have a lot of people who deserve to suffer from my past.

Moving forward means saying never again to men who will try to tell me who I am supposed to be in their eyes. It means allowing love into my heart when “I” am ready and not one moment before, and if it means saying no to Chris Evans himself over and over and over again then that’s what I’ll do because what I wanted in the past isn’t what I want today.

Being in a place where you are comfortable with yourself, where you are unafraid of what others think of you is not easy, but the more that I get comfortable with bucking tradition and “normalcy” the more normal I feel, so how weird is that?

I’m not just trying to find myself, I am genuinely trying to repair the mental damage of more than thirty years of trauma. I’ve literally been scared to death by what I went through, but I am even more afraid of the fact that I survived all of that, because there is absolutely no telling what I will do to survive whatever else the universe might throw at me next.

It’s scary when you realize that you’re a lot stronger than you thought you were, when you don’t know how much damage you can, or are willing to cause, just to survive the darkness, it frightens you and convinces you that you should be less of yourself, lest you become the thing that tried to destroy you.

I don’t want to become the thing that destroyed me, but I also don’t want to be destroyed again, and trying to find balance in that is really difficult for me. I spend soo much time building this blog and ignoring the real world because I hate the idea that if I push forward and through my fears, then I’ll put a spotlight on myself that I am not ready to have. Ironic right?

Not really. I have control over what gets posted on this blog, over what I say and how I say it, I won’t have control if I get to the place where I need people to assist me, because everyone has their own way of doing things, and so I avoid being a controlling jackass by not including other people in the work that I am doing. Which….means that I am a controlling jackass with a lot of walls.

It’s very confusing being an adult, but I am doing the best I can, so bare with me as I say “no,” and struggle with saying “yes.” I will say “yes” when I am ready to when the timing is right, and I won’t be pushed or smushed into doing what I don’t think is right, ever again.

Sending all my love,

Devon J Hall