Hello Everyone,
Happy New Year, it is 2026! It is astonishing how quickly time has passed since our last connection, which was in June 2024.
I made up my mind to get back to basics and found myself stepping away from many things to reconnect and rebuild my relationship with God. A lot has happened this past year and a half.
In June 2024, I was unsure of whether I wanted to keep this blog, so I stopped to test if I would miss it or would want to keep going. I found myself feeling less pressured to come up with topics. There are many people who say, “If you want people to interact with you, then you need to be consistent.” I tried to put out a blog every week on the same day, but found myself consistently missing the deadline that I set. It created more pressure when I started running out of things to write about. I appreciate the prompts, but I did not want a blog based on those prompts; I wanted real topics. So, I stepped away. It felt good to relieve the invisible pressure that I set on myself.
Now it is January 2026, and I have decided that I will come back and blog. I will blog because it is a good way to release feelings and it is therapeutic. Even if no one reads these blogs, I am able to track how I have grown and matured throughout this journey of life. I am able to look back at the times in which God has brought me through different periods and call them testimonies. I will not set deadlines for when I will publish these blogs, but it will be more than once a month.
For the remainder of 2024, I focused on work. I fully threw myself into it and managed to become a Subject Matter Expert in a year. It is amazing how God blesses me with knowledge and intelligence that I often take for granted because work has always come easily to me. How to create alignment and processes has always been second nature to me. I see problems, and I solve them, but when it comes to my personal problems, it feels impossible to solve. I suppose it is the axiom, how am I able to assist others when I cannot assist myself? Despite being unable to solve my problems quickly, I keep pressing and focusing until I start to make some progress.
In 2025, I decided that I would start doing my own yardwork, and the regret that I have with that decision is immense. I let family talk me into doing it myself, “it will be easy,” they said, and now I have overgrown bushes, burnt grass, and can barely find anyone to come and help me get it manageable again. My yard and house overwhelmed me in 2025, and it will continue to do so in 2026, until I am able to find professionals to assist me.
There is so much work that needs to be done that I honestly have been contemplating selling this house and all of its problems. What changed with this house? The immense feeling I carry of being defeated. I am not handy and have accepted that fact.
My grass is too much for me to handle; I have bushes that need cutting, and I do not have the tools to cut them yet. I have no furniture still, my floors are uneven, and water leaks throughout the walls. My pipes are outdated – made from cast iron, which means they will have to be replaced before the work is completed. I have two bathrooms, but only one shower is functioning, even though it periodically leaks.
2025 was the year in which I realized I was in over my head. I have also gotten into debt by trying to help others, living beyond my means, and not making the best decisions. So, I decided 2026 is about me. Finally,100% about me, and I am not sorry and do not feel bad about it. I have to get out of debt; I have to get this house fixed before the only thing I have left of it is the walls. I am breaking the chain of feeling responsible for everyone else and their problems. It is time for them to become problem fixers, time for them to do something if they want something.
Also, in 2025, I realized that while I love my hair, it is too much to manage; thus, I am going back to relaxers. I am tired of it; there is not much to do with it other than keep it braided, and I want more than an afro or braids. Even if I went to a natural hair stylist, the options are the same: twist, braids, or afro. It is funny how it took me almost two years to realize that. Natural hair is beautiful, but my hair journey was trying. I have been through the very short, barely any hair growth stage in which my hair was not happy, and I cried every night. Then, to the stage where my hair was stuck in a never-ending afro, seemingly to not grow but to say, hey, I am another item in your life you hate. Then off to the stage of slow growth, but healthy. My journey ends with my hair thick, healthy, and with little to no growth – 4C coily afro, and when it is combed out, a 4C fluff cloud. It is there on my head as a constant reminder of how I have no control over my life. I have not been able to tame it since the start of this journey, much like the realization I had of losing control of my life in the middle of 2025.
In 2025, I also decided that I would end Bible Study with my mother. I was the only one left in the group with her and felt that I was done with it. I was tired of discussing the same things; it kept going back to the same topics: family.
Speaking of family, I am tired of them, too. They are ridiculous. Some days I feel trapped, stuck. I just want to drive away from everything and everyone and start over. The animals are even annoying. The cat will not use her litter boxes; she has three, and the dog acts trained in the house and outside, forgets all training. I am over it. When they are gone, I do not want any more. I do not want any animals or additional people in my life.
What does my 2026 look like?
It looks like freedom. I am working on paying off my debts, releasing myself from expectations that I set on myself. It looks like the people around me finding their footing because I am no longer walking or standing for them. It looks like me smiling and fighting for my faith because this battle has not been easy over the last year. I have been fighting more demons in these past couple of months than I care to discuss. I have been fighting to pray, I have been fighting to hold on to God’s hand, fighting to see the light in the darkness, fighting to get out of bed, fighting to clean my house, fighting to speak kindness when my thoughts have been filled with anger, and fighting to LIVE because I couldn’t care less about what happens in life.
2026 looks like a fight in which I will have to win if I want to live. It looks like me coming out victorious, it looks like smiles, it looks like me enjoying every single day, and it looks like me living my best life. It looks like chains falling that may have re-wrapped me up in ways that I did not realize.
It is time to get back to living unapologetically with no regrets while keeping my foundation and life built on Christ.
Continue to pray for the world and the people in it because it is needed.
Disencumbering my Chains 