One of the wildest and wisest things I have heard, especially recently, wasn't from someone I personally knew. It's not even from an actual peer or associate, or even one of those other acquaintances like church folks, coworkers, classmates, or friends of friends. I finally ended my rebellion against TikTok, downloaded the app, and within the span of twenty-four hours, I came across this: "Your presence is not a present - it is a loan with interest." In that same span of twenty-four hours, I came across a cornucopia of strange, relatable, wild, weird, and uncomfortable reels. TikTok is definitely a strange place and I am still trying to wrap my head around it. Especially in regards to my career as a communications leader - I am trying to become better familiar with it, comfortable even. But despite all the things that I have heard and seen thus far, that quote about my presence was the first one that truly struck me. In essence, our presence amongst other people is not a present. We are not just freely giving ourselves to the outside world. We might be wrapped up in a pretty bow or brand, shined to perfection with just a lick of spit and makeup and whatever else people are using on their skin. But we are not a gift. We are very much a loan - a luxury, to an extent, that does not come from free. We bring profound and unique things to the table. We are not random commodities, but things to be cherished, existences that are meaningful and impactful. We elevate the lives of any of our connections. With that being said, we should approach these connections knowledgeable of our attributes, and understanding that we are deserving of respect. It's a lesson I'm still learning.

My mom never got to pursue a career she wanted. There is bitterness in this relationship, love so deep and pure and true that the very weight of it is crushing, overwhelming, stagnating. It's difficult to see the ways in which she suffered and missed out on when her expectations have been heaped onto my shoulder, when her dreams became so mind-boggingly mine that I did not whether the life I planned was what I wanted or if it was the one she secretly wanted, and had never been allowed to pursue. At sixteen, she was pregnant and eighteen years later, here I came - a new responsibility just as she is ready to unleash her one and only burden unto the world. Even with the lingering resentment, the nights we'd get home late because she worked overtime but refused to allow me to spend the night with Grams because she'd bought a three-bedroom house and I deserved to sleep in my own bed, the arguments and debates that became too heated, the buried hurts and silent tears - she worked. She worked and she worked, and she tried not to complain. It was hard. My father played the longest game of "where's waldo?," my mother's mother passed in our home amidst mom trying to care for her, and her own health came back to bite her several times. There was nothing easy about my mom's life. She was not pursuing a passion; I'm not even sure she's ever truly been able to develop a passion that didn't include being able to provide for her family. Her number one personality trait is being financially independent and reliable. It was the one thing that drove me towards communications and the arts, towards writing and entertainment. It might be more sustainable, to an extent - pursuing a career in law like she wanted because she's been assured by the attorneys she works for that the field could always use someone like me, or even considering medical school. However, the fact remains the same: my mother never pursued a career she was passionate about. She worked and she worked and she worked, sometimes with tears in her eyes and disappointment churning in her belly, but she did what she had to do when there was no one there to help her out. She has regrets. She feels like she hasn't really lived, that she hasn't done anything. She feels like she failed. However, she did not. It was not easy and there were times of uncertainty, but I was provided for and loved. Moreover, she didn't just provide for me financially or materialistically. She imbued within me a steadfastness that cannot be daunted by how hard it is to make it as an executive in the entertainment industry and as a writer. She instilled in me a desire for success that cannot be moved by the rarity of success as a writer. Her being alone with so many responsibilities, so many burdens she should not have had to face on her own, has pushed me to do what she could not. My mother did not pursue a career she was passionate about. Sometimes, she feels like she failed. What she accomplished, however, was building up a woman made for curating transformative narratives and making a lasting impact, both on campus as I serve my organizations and in my career when I elevate my clients. She made a woman who will make her proud and one day, those regrets will be a bad dream she'll never have again.

My cousin suffered a still-birth. For background, my grandmother primarily raised me while my mother worked full-time and retrieved me in the evenings, if she could. My father had left some time ago. A lot of the times, my grandmother would watch my cousins and I, and so my cousin, Mariah, was the one I grew closest with. I was the youngest of seventeen grandchildren, had apparently become the "favorite" despite not being aware of that until years later, and so a lot of my cousins still had negative feelings towards me. Mariah was the one who chose to not let that get in the way of developing a relationship with me. I still feel grateful. Back to the story - my cousin, Mariah, suffered a still-birth and hopelessness seeped further into my bones, sinking so deep that I felt it in my marrow. I was a recent college dropout, returned home with antidepressants churning in my belly. Instinctually, I sympathized with her and wished I had something profound to say. However, the writer in me had shriveled up and died, and if I couldn't muster her up to save my academic career, what could I possibly do with her for this person whom I loved? It didn't help that for once, my grandmother was not around to help. Grams had fallen ill, this seemingly immovable figurehead to whom I had looked to for strength and comfort. She was lost on a journey of failing health that would take her to her final breath. She could not help. But neither could I, right? I was not Grams. I did not have experience with the loss of an infant, of having children, or even having a particularly traumatic hospital experience. I was not Grams and I knew that I could not give Mariah what she needed - the love and comfort from the one person we depended upon the most. Grams was tender as she was brutal, loving as she was frightening, and we both needed her with a ferocity that still aches in my heart long after she was lost to me. I was the inexperienced, lost, depressed, partly suicidal and honestly confused youngest of seventeen grandchildren. I was her youngest cousin. I boarded a bus, then a train, another bus and then walked to her apartment, anyway. I am not Grams. I do not have stories wrought with grief in the same way that Grams or Mariah does. I do not know what it means to hold a baby in your arms, this little creature you've been carrying, and know that they will never open their eyes or utter even one cry. But she needed Grams - needed someone who loved her - and I'd spent a lifetime being told that people could see my grandmother's resilience in the arch of my spine, could see her steadfastness in my eyes. I could not say the words I needed to convince my school to let me stay nor craft the perfect, transformative narrative to make a lasting impact - but I could emulate Grams' presence. I could emulate the presence people said I was known for. My cousin suffered a still-birth. My Grams could not be there, as she had been all our lives. I was not Grams and I had nothing amazing or profound to say. But I had a presence. I had love. I had hope and comfort and dedication. I had all the support that she needed, that I needed on my darkest days. All I had to do was be there.

I wanted to kill myself in 2016. It would have been easy, too. After nearly a year of living off campus in an apartment I had been eager to obtain only due to the promise of not sharing a dorm bathroom, I knew that I could probably get away with it. The doors to all bedrooms were locked and could only be unlocked by the master key (owned exclusively by building staff or the tenant in question). I knew when my roommates were not home to be concerned about my absence. There were two-hundred eight-hundred milligram Ibuprofen pills inside an innocuous bottle, garnered from my primary physician for the sake of heavy menstrual cramps. I only needed ten - just ten thick pills, difficult to swallow unless administered two or three at a time, and a strong gulp of water. I could have gone to sleep; I had already ingested nearly half a bottle of red wine, my mind woozy from partial intoxication and burdened by the sour notes of my failures. I could have slept with all that wine and drugs in my belly, and no one would have known for days. It wasn't like they cared, in my opinion. My former therapist surmises that my mental health had been on a decline since before my admission into Spelman College and the stress of being in an environment I did not initially choose only exacerbated the issue. I had accepted the lingering sadness as a norm for so long that I did not understand that it was an issue. I had chalked up my slowly declining interest in remotely anything, including being with my friends, as simple boredom. Perhaps I was growing out of them, I'm sure I convinced myself. And if it happened that I could not even summon the energy to eat more than one meal in a day? Well, I was fat, ugly and unwanted, a little weight loss would do me well, wouldn't it? However, in the moment that I gathered five of the white, oblong-shaped pills in my hand, the shock of what I was considering doing - what I was about to do - slapped me in the face. The fear set in: what if it hurts? Who will find my body? What if it works? What if it doesn't and they have to pump my stomach, thus answering the question of pain? Who's going to tell my niece? Who's going to care? The last question is the reason why I could not take the pills and why I asked my mother to allow me to come home and figure it all out, despite the financial burdens we'd have to endure when the time came for loan repayments and such to occur. It wasn't just that my youngest niece would be absolutely devastated by my loss. It wasn't what my grandmother or my mother would think, it wasn't about my friends. It would not be until later, when I decided to firmly resolve myself to obtaining my bachelor's degree and pursue it with every fiber of my being, that I would answer the question: who's going to care? The little fat black girl who sees every big film with commercial success and doesn't see herself as even the side character will care. The little black fat nerdy girl with glasses who doesn't receive a Valentine's, so she sticks her noses in supernatural dramas only to find that girls who look like her aren't the ones her favorite creatures and characters are clamoring to shower with love - she will care. The little black girls who have to continuously cosplay as characters of other ethnicities because there is no fandom where they are the heroines, where they are the ones deserving of admiration and adoration - they will care. The little black girl I once was, whose stories I wanted to see published and whose name I wanted to see listed as a director, screenwriter, producer, casting directing, etc - she would care. I would care. I wanted to die in 2016 and I was prepared to do so. But I did not - not because I still want to satisfy my mother's wishes. It isn't because I want to catch up to my friends or brag. My suicidal ideation and declining mental health reminded me that I am not alone. They reminded me that there are stories to be told. I'm the one who is supposed to tell them.

I wanted to kill myself in 2016. It would have been easy, too. After nearly a year of living off campus in an apartment I had been eager to obtain only due to the promise of not sharing a dorm bathroom, I knew that I could probably get away with it. The doors to all bedrooms were locked and could only be unlocked by the master key (owned exclusively by building staff or the tenant in question). I knew when my roommates were not home to be concerned about my absence. There were two-hundred eight-hundred milligram Ibuprofen pills inside an innocuous bottle, garnered from my primary physician for the sake of heavy menstrual cramps. I only needed ten - just ten thick pills, difficult to swallow unless administered two or three at a time, and a strong gulp of water. I could have gone to sleep; I had already ingested nearly half a bottle of red wine, my mind woozy from partial intoxication and burdened by the sour notes of my failures. I could have slept with all that wine and drugs in my belly, and no one would have known for days. It wasn't like they cared, in my opinion. My former therapist surmises that my mental health had been on a decline since before my admission into Spelman College and the stress of being in an environment I did not initially choose only exacerbated the issue. I had accepted the lingering sadness as a norm for so long that I did not understand that it was an issue. I had chalked up my slowly declining interest in remotely anything, including being with my friends, as simple boredom. Perhaps I was growing out of them, I'm sure I convinced myself. And if it happened that I could not even summon the energy to eat more than one meal in a day? Well, I was fat, ugly and unwanted, a little weight loss would do me well, wouldn't it? However, in the moment that I gathered five of the white, oblong-shaped pills in my hand, the shock of what I was considering doing - what I was about to do - slapped me in the face. The fear set in: what if it hurts? Who will find my body? What if it works? What if it doesn't and they have to pump my stomach, thus answering the question of pain? Who's going to tell my niece? Who's going to care? The last question is the reason why I could not take the pills and why I asked my mother to allow me to come home and figure it all out, despite the financial burdens we'd have to endure when the time came for loan repayments and such to occur. It wasn't just that my youngest niece would be absolutely devastated by my loss. It wasn't what my grandmother or my mother would think, it wasn't about my friends. It would not be until later, when I decided to firmly resolve myself to obtaining my bachelor's degree and pursue it with every fiber of my being, that I would answer the question: who's going to care? The little fat black girl who sees every big film with commercial success and doesn't see herself as even the side character will care. The little black fat nerdy girl with glasses who doesn't receive a Valentine's, so she sticks her noses in supernatural dramas only to find that girls who look like her aren't the ones her favorite creatures and characters are clamoring to shower with love - she will care. The little black girls who have to continuously cosplay as characters of other ethnicities because there is no fandom where they are the heroines, where they are the ones deserving of admiration and adoration - they will care. The little black girl I once was, whose stories I wanted to see published and whose name I wanted to see listed as a director, screenwriter, producer, casting directing, etc - she would care. I would care. I wanted to die in 2016 and I was prepared to do so. But I did not - not because I still want to satisfy my mother's wishes. It isn't because I want to catch up to my friends or brag. My suicidal ideation and declining mental health reminded me that I am not alone. They reminded me that there are stories to be told. I'm the one who is supposed to tell them.

As a writer, I am currently building my skills in communications and literature, and thus I know the power of transformative narrative and the necessity of deep introspection as that narrative is being created, shaped, and distributed through various mediums. In that way, my art - writing - is profound to me in that I recognize the ways in which the fiction novels and series I consumed as a youth impacted my self-discovery, the path I saw for myself, and my status in the world outside of my community. I remember flying through novels with heroines being irresistible and desirable to supernatural creatures, becoming the saviors of their communities and the world at large, and I did not understand the importance of not seeing myself in any of those characters. I simply assumed that this genre wasn't for me and I perpetuated a system that has kept fat little black girls like myself out of the spotlight. I did not interrogate the unfairness or inequity. It was simply the norm and I enjoyed the shows and films for what they were. As I have grown older, however, I understand that these unspoken biases cast limited palls of discrimination over the magnanimity that is fiction, particularly young adult fiction, and my art drives me to want to represent the little girl I once had been. To represent and give representation to the little girls who are just like I was - black, nerdy, and wanting so badly to see themselves in the Elena Gilberts and Bella Swans they read in books and saw on screen. To that end, I plan to write, direct, and potentially cast for my own supernatural based film or television productions. It is an ambitious venture, I know, but I have always envisioned bringing my art to platforms such as The CW, MTV, or even HBO, and I have series in mind already. I want to create these opportunities for representation, not just for the sake of representation for the black and brown girls out there who love these genres as much as I do, but for the world and future generations to see having these aforementioned women and girls of color normalized as the heroines of their stories. I want to tell good stories that allow these individuals to be seen as worthy of love, appreciation, admiration, and being the general badasses we see depicted on our favorite television shows, as well as in our favorite movies - all of which gain commercial success.

As a young black woman living in American today it is inevitable that dismantling the systems of oppression experienced by the black community (as well as other members of the BIPOC community) is one of my deep interests, not only because of my passion about liberation work but also out of pure survival. My first casualty in this war against racism had been my self-esteem. It happened at a summer camp deep in the woods of Virginia. I was ten. Before this moment, I was indiscriminately teased for the deep hue of my complexion by family members, but the playful nature beget rolled eyes and quick rebuttals imbued with shared fondness instead of derision and silent tears. It does not negate the dangers present in perpetuating a misogynoiristic rhetoric, but as a child, it was too much of the norm for me to be alarmed. While aware of the discriminatory attitudes outside of my community, I had been sheltered from these opinions, as far as I had known. My interactions in the world at large had been relatively tame, benign. However, that summer away from my family had emboldened me to not only be the little black girl who dared to crush on a white boy I thought was cute, I thought to be the little black girl who was also fat and dared to crush on the white boy I thought was cute. Needless to say, not only was my audacity a source of entertainment for the white girls I had entertained as my best friends for the summer, there was an inherent insult in even the idea of my affections, according to the boy in question. After all, "that's never gonna happen" and "I don't like girls like her" seemed the appropriate responses when confronted with my interest. I cannot say in truth that I look back on this instance with fondness, despite the initial warm reception and care I had received that summer. What I can say is that the experience has taught me a valuable lesson in reconstructing one's worldview as well as one's self view, which I hope to explore as I continue my studies, as well as my creative writing. As a writer, I am currently building my skills in communications and literature, and thus I know the power of transformative narrative and the necessity of deep support as that narrative is being created, shaped, and distributed through various mediums. It is my deep desire to contribute to the eradication of racial injustice and inequity, transforming the narrative surrounding racial discourse, and helping our society improve for the better. Thus, as I seek be the undaunted woman that fat little black girl dreamed of becoming, I want to also tell the stories of those other fat little black girls who aren't seen as desirable and capable. They deserve to be loved and see themselves being loved, just as much as the ten year old in a predominantly white camp had.