Im Alone , Not Lonely ..

 

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته أختي  مرحبا

I'm not lonely. I'm alone. There's a difference.

One of the first times I truly sat with myself, there was a loud roar of silence—almost too loud to bear. I'm trying to remember how many days ago that was. I'm glad it's something behind me now, something I can write about. Maybe I overcame it. Or maybe I'm actively overcoming that roar, that mountain of fear and shame whispering why do I gotta do this right now?

I had to reparent myself. I still have to reparent myself. I started talking to myself like a mama—a good mama. The kind who believes in her baby. The kind with lived experience and wisdom who knows her daughter will not only be okay, but that she'll be met with more. A mama who knows how to hold space for my oh-so-big feelings. All my what-ifs, my "Mama, I'm scared," my "I just wanna stay here, I don't wanna go." I had to become that for me in that forest of silence.

When Solitude Felt Like Punishment

Initially, the word solitude brought fear. I'd always associated it with solitary confinement—the way prisoners get disciplined for bad behavior. I carried an unfavored kind of exposure to prison—not as a prisoner, but as a daughter of one.

My stomach churns just thinking about it. Butterflies swarm inside me.

Maybe that's why I avoided you, Solitude. Someone said what you run from will eventually catch you. So here we are. I guess you got me.

Solitude became my landing spot after a wild ride operated by others and versions of myself who didn't speak up. Or when I did speak, the words came out unintelligibly—not on purpose, but because that's all I'd acquired. The home I came from gave me this to take into the outside world. What a start. Nonetheless, I arrived.

Sitting With the Girl They Talked About

I was terrified to be left alone with me. With you. Have you heard what they said? She said you were a liar. She said you weren't kind. She said you were bad. Now why would I want to sit with you in solitude? That don't sound like nothing nobody would want.

What I came to realize: that was noise. That was their pain passed down, meant to hold me down the way they held themselves back. I don't think they meant real harm. I think our African ancestors—maybe five or six generations before us—had to develop and maintain that level of thinking just to survive.

I cry for them. For me. Because I was just born Black. I mean Brown. My skin is Brown. My grandfather always told me Black was beautiful, that we had some of the most beautiful hair—texture similar to a sheep's coat. We could do anything with it. We could do anything if we put our minds to it. We could go to the moon if we wanted. "You gotta get ya mind right, girl!" he'd say.

My family was just working with what they had and giving me all they could. Unfortunately their best wasn't enough.. I guess.

The Work That Happens in Solitude

Unfortunately, there would be much work that had to take place with me in solitude. Some of it my upbringing would help with. Some of it would just be pain—a heart-turning, stomach-burning, head-hurting, teary pain. I wished my mom would have listened to my dad. I wish my dad listened to my mom. I wish they had space for each other's big emotions like the mama in my head did for me.

Maybe I wouldn't have had to start this work at 28.

Ya Allah.

But here I am. Alone, not lonely. Learning that solitude isn't punishment—it's where I meet the softest, truest version of myself. The one who deserves rest. The one who deserves gentleness. The one who's been waiting for me all along.