La Vie Secrèt de Tubzey

You might want to grab a drink and get comfy.
This post took a little longer than expected. (Post thoughts after I finished writing this)

I know me. I know what “triggers” me to feel sad, mad, joyful and mean. I say “triggered” because us millennials love it. We are a generation of highly offended beings. Honestly, not just millennials, but humanity in general. We are selfish by nature, and we feel entitled to be whoever we want to be. We rebuke anyone else that tries to tell us otherwise. I’m not easily offended, but I use to be that way.

I wonder if anyone else has thought that being offended by the world’s opinion of you is actually the the product of what the world wants out of you. Let me break that down.

The world wants me to be someone else that I am not. They don’t want me to be happy the way I do. They don’t want me to succeed out of jealousy, personal issues or for whatever reason. If I spend all my life fighting the world, am I living as me? Not at all. If I’m using all my energy and time to get back at “haters”, then that means I’m spending less time with things that actually matter to me like building close relationships with my people and loving the moments and luxuries of life like Madagascar Vanilla Bean ice cream. (If fighting haters makes you happy, then kudos to you.)

I refuse to spend time arguing and defending who I am to people who don’t care about my wellbeing. I realized this after my (ex) best friend of 10+ years decided that my depression and my hardships at the time were “waste of her time” so as not to share them with her. She only wanted to be around me when life was good.

My family was poor and always fought because of it. I got beat almost everyday for little things like burning the food accidentally if I was asked to cook or if I sprayed too much perfume on. I hung out with people who wanted to sexually exploit me and my hobbies for their gain. I have dealt with death threats ever since I was in school. Racism was normal towards me. There was so much terror in my life from the very start that those terrors became normalized. I developed the belief that I deserved it, because I was me.

Many listen to my experiences and pity me. Honestly, I do too. I don’t wish for anyone to grow up like I did. It was difficult and full of tragedy. I don’t blame Diane for leaving me. It’s hard being around someone who is depressed all the time. However after losing my best friend, it gave me an epiphany. Diane wasn’t a good friend to me, but she made me realize I wasn’t truly living. I was constantly living in my past and it would repeat into the present. For too long, I was frozen in a world that only wanted 2 things for me: be hurt and stay broken.

One of my goals moving forward is to face my childhood trauma and thank my young heart for surviving and still believing in love and in the goodness of people. I remember my crazy stories and my terrible childhood memories like it was yesterday, but I have a crazier and stronger God who brought me through the storms. I am alive to tell the stories.

My stories provide hope, and this is why I share. I am who I am today, because of everything I’ve ever been through and beyond this world. I am God’s daughter called to love others. This is the power of knowing who you are and your story.