This is a fraction of my long and drawn out story. The memories that have molded and shaped who I am today. The hardships and the successes leading me further down a road of wholeness. I have never shared an in depth version of where I came from, and during these trying times I find it necessary to bring these aspects of my life to light. Maybe some of you can relate, maybe not. But I thank you for reading this anyway.

Born into a world of chaos between my mother in and out of jail and rehab, and my father in the same predicament, the women in my family did their best to make sure I had an okay life. When I was in the 1st grade, I moved in with my grandmother because my mom was in jail and my dad wasn’t stable to care for me and my little brother. I was half-black living in a primarily white neighborhood, and had to face the trials of racism within the school system. I grew up with insecurities about my curly hair and the color of my skin, but also a quiet rage began to boil inside of me. I had a bitter taste of injustice on my tongue by the age of 8.

Eventually, I moved in with my mother again when she was somewhat better. Her, my brother and I shared a small apartment tucked away in the ghetto. It was challenging because she struggled with drug addiction and sometimes she would have spurts of violence and anger. On her better days she would just sleep a lot. My father was in and out, but it was hard for the both of them because they would perpetuate each other’s toxicity. Her drug habit would reinforce his drinking habit and vice versa. Soon later my father was imprisoned for three years for a crime that he did not commit. I grew up understanding what sickness was. I promised myself I would never follow down that path. 

I was always an overachiever. I would wince at the sight of a B- on my report card and spend long hours at night chipping away at the long list of academic responsibilities I had committed to. School was my ticket out of the darkness. My family was always so supportive in this regard. They wanted to see me do better and did their best to make sure I had my needs met as a child. 

Between balancing school life and my dysfunctional home life, I fell into deep depression by 14. I call the place that I entered into my “Shadow Garden” where all of the vices would build their homes. I began to party a lot. Drinking and having sex. Living out my traumas and feeding my pain with trivialities of the outside world. Who was I? I was a damaged. By the age of 16 I had tried to commit suicide three times, which by the third time I woke up in a hospital with doctors telling me how lucky I was to be alive. 

I spent four weeks in an adolescent mental health facility, where I met a lot of kids with different stories, but one thing that I found was that beyond their sicknesses they all had powerful gifts. The doctors declared me as bi-polar and sent me home with a bunch of medications (all of which I refused to take). Something strange started moving within me after that whole near- death experience. A deep feeling of optimism arose in my chest. “I will get better,” I told myself. 

In these times, my family didn’t know how to support me. My mother fell into a state of self-pity and it felt as though the rest of the world had no idea of what I was even going through. That year, I lost all of my friends and I was left to really sit with myself. I was truly piecing together who I was after all of the years of trauma breaking me down. Eventually, I was offered a job to travel the north east and work music and art festivals.

When I was 17 I graduated high school with a lousy 3.90 GPA, and got accepted into every university that I applied for. I had made the decision not to attend my graduation and to head out west for my college orientation in Colorado. My dreams were to become a journalist and travel the world (which is kind of what I have been doing minus the degree) So, I packed up my truck and headed west. It was one of the most courageous things I had done. I realized that it would be the start of a very long journey.

I left behind my troubles out east and eventually went to my first Rainbow Gathering, which is a gathering of wild humans in the forest who come together to share stories, meals, music, dance, and love with the intention of healing the world. This was my first experience truly watching the sunrise. This was when I gave birth to myself. Needless to say, I left college for the road. It’s been a long journey of healing and transformation ever since, and since then I have found my soul family. 

Today, my family is still going through some deep healing and unresolved pain and sickness. For the first time in three years I had decided to revisit my past. My relationship with my family is really tricky. My mom is still in and out of her unhealthy cycles, my father is still struggling with his mood swings, and my little brother has to bare witness to it all, which is the most heart breaking part. 

Today, I feel heavy because I don’t know if the ones that I love will ever get better. So I am learning to love them anyway, to love them unconditionally with compassion and understanding. I am also learning what it means to move forward. Sometimes it seems like you’re moving back in time, but it’s all part of the journey of moving forward into a better way of life. I choose not to let the poor decisions of the ones around me hold me back. A part of cultivating strength and courage is seeing where the struggle lies, and choosing to be happy anyways. 

Today I feel grateful because my story has shaped me into who I am as a person. It has taught me resilience, and for that I have no desire to alter the past. The world is a big place. It’s full of hardship, suffering, violence and pain just as much as it’s full of beauty, joy, peace, and divinity. 

The red road is my saving grace. It is the path that I have chosen. It is the path that has chosen me. It has shown me that I am not alone, but rather I am a child of the Divine and I deserve to be happy. You do too, so if you are reading this and you feel that you are moving through your own darkness in some way just remember…

It Does Get Better.

Thank you for reading. I hope this has touched you in some way. 

Aho Mitakuye Oyasin

with a voice so loud, its echo can quake the whole world.