Until last year, I’d never been to a wedding other than that of a family member. In fact, I’d only been to two other weddings before my friend married her current life partner, and honestly, I don’t remember the first.
I’d never stopped to witness two people actually recite their vows to each other. When my aunt and uncle got married I was too busy playing with my cousins to pay attention.
But when she got married last year, I was in full attention. Largely because I love this person so fucking much. She and her BFF have included me in their friendship and changed how I see the world.
“She’s Not Competition, She’s Proof It Can Be Done.” – Anonymous, Said by a Black Woman on Twitter
Without making me feel like an outsider, these two (white) women have accepted me, my trauma, my issues, my failures, and they have given me no reason to hide any part of myself from them.
With these two women and many others in my current community, I am surrounded by people who understand trauma, who love me in spite of what I might have gone through, and who have accepted my truth, as their own.
There are some days when all I want to do is be surrounded by my friends, and I can’t because like me they have busy lives. But then there are other days when I can’t stand the thought of being around anyone, and the beautiful thing is they let me.
For the first time in my life, I am not carrying jealousy. I don’t look at other people and think “I want what they have,” I think to myself “One day I’ll have x, y, or z, without having to worry.”
I know that things have been rocky since I was a kid, and I know that my kid self went through Hell to get me here, but it’s still difficult for me to believe that it was “me” that went through all that shit.
It feels like another lifetime, long since shed from the person I thought I would be.
I thought I’d be studying in Rome at this age, but I didn’t think I’d be writing about mental health. My path – I was absolutely certain – was meant to be a spiritual one.
I had no idea that the universe had another plan for me until everything unfolded. And now here I am, eight years into building this brand, no further ahead. I can’t control that, but I am frustrated by it.
My friends as they are without having to change anything about themselves, have healed parts of me that I thought I would never heal. And they did it simply by accepting me – crazy and all.
I am free of some things, but other things have arisen. I know now I am going to be okay, and whether these friendships last a lifetime or a short time, they have been a part of my healing. And for that, I am forever grateful.
Sending all my love out there to the girlfriends of friends,
Devon J Hall, The Original Loud Mouth Brown Girl
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 
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