I have been thinking about what I want this year to be about. These are the three words that I’ve chosen. I want to connect with others, collaborate with them, and motivate others to see that the darkness that we’re struggling with, isn’t as heavy as it feels.
There have been so many days in the last year that I’ve felt completely lost, stuck in darkness, and unsure of where to go or what to do. Part of that has been due to covid, and part of it has to do with the fact that I used to have a facility to work from.
I used to have a team to help me achieve my goals, and for the first time in my life, I’m finally acknowledging that I am building something separate, and different than what I spent my entire life thinking that I would build.
What you and I see before me, isn’t what I thought was coming for me.
It’s different, and so I have had to readjust, and I am never quite sure if the adjustments that I’ve made, are the right ones for the future because I can’t see what the future holds.
I know what I want to see in my future, and more and more I am starting to realize that although doors are opening slowly, they are actually starting to open. These new doors are leading me on a path of more self-discovery, more self-understanding, and much more clarity once I take the time to think about what I see.
This year I ordered one of these butterfly crowns for myself, for Pride. The love letters that I hand out are for adults, but it’s still fun to take pictures with the kids and I very much want to be able to dress up and look every inch the Brown girl faerie that I have repeatedly been told, doesn’t deserve to exist.
Over the last few months, I’ve been lamenting about how tired I’ve been, in part due to being sick, and in part, because I have been stuck indoors, but a big part of it is not knowing who I am, and who I want to be.
So who does Devon J Hall want to be? I don’t fully know the answer to that question, mostly because I spent too much of my life not bothering to think I was allowed to ask myself that question, and now that I have room to figure it out, the only answer I have, is that Devon J Hall is someone who is trying to figure it out.
I know that I want more laughter in my life, I know I want more joy, and I absolutely know that I want less pretense. My former life was filled with pretense, with pretending. Fake smiles and pretend “I love you’s,” instead of the real thing, and that’s what I both want and need more of reality, instead of falseness.
I’ve been watching The Royals, and in this show, there are so many lies, and so much manipulation, and other than the amount of wealth, it’s not much different from what I grew up with. Constantly being watched, constantly being told how to behave, what to wear and when to wear it. All this freedom is scaring the shit out of me.
I have an abundance of “do whatever you want Devon and be happy,” and I am not used to it, I hope that by connecting and collaborating with others, I’ll find a path that leads me to where I want to go, by connecting with others I’ll feel less lonely and maybe less tired too.
That’s my plan.
How do you handle stress when you’re trying to figure out who you are and where you’re going? What helps? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to discuss this.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
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