Uncertainty
A new year.
Special Note: I want to acknowledge that my work has not been focused on the current external world and won’t be for the next couple of months. However, today’s post is about uncertainty and there is a lot of uncertainty in the world. ICE is raiding our cities, taking our children, and killing us in broad daylight. Our army is invading countries for monetary gain and exploitation. And while this post is about being okay with uncertainty, I am never okay with the blatant disregard of humanity and the flagrant attempts at censorship to support fascism. I appreciate that you read my work, but also make sure to stay aware of what is happening outside of our homes and look out for the people around you. Also, Happy Black History Month! - Marquita
Yesterday was a good day. Today, I woke up crying. It’s early January and I’m watching the sky light up. I just accepted a feeling I have, one that fills me with immense emotion.
When I thought about my words for this year, the guiding lights I want to carry me through 2026, I looked back at last year’s words. Consistency, Detachment, and Fun. I wondered if I succeeded at each word and decided I did. So when I thought about my words for this year, I asked myself who did I want to be? What still felt hard for me? A lot, I might say.
On Christmas Day, my friend Ariel met my cousin Alexis. They talked for a while and as Ariel asked Alexis questions about her life, I realized my avoidance was not built in a vacuum. Despite having different parents, my cousin and I shared this uncanny ability to not want to sit with our feelings. I heard myself in the things she said. I saw myself in her wish to push through. Ariel connected the dots in real time, called it out, and later I journaled about it. I’d been in therapy long enough to know that family systems create coping mechanisms that serve you as a child and often disserve you as an adult. Our parents had different temperaments and our roles in our family were different. I was imbued with responsibility that went far beyond my years by many adults, and I often felt like the adults didn’t see the maturity and growth I saw in Alexis. We grew up close, then drifted for a bit, and as I began to heal, I no longer wanted to be the one who bore it all. I needed help, but I was never taught how to ask for it.
An hour or so before Ariel came over, I danced in my kitchen as Alexis smiled at me. There were only a few times I allowed myself to be really silly and unencumbered with the darkness that made a home in me. These days, I felt that way with her, but that wasn’t always the case. The detachment stuff was working. I asked her,
“Aren’t you happy I’m back?”
“Finally, took you long enough.”
“Just a quick six year side quest.”
She laughed and I went back to cooking. Just a quick six year side quest. What an understatement. But in a lot of ways the love and safety I feel with my cousin and the feeling I accepted a few hours ago are inextricably linked.
Safety has always felt elusive to me. Mostly I mean feeling safe emotionally and mentally. What did it mean to feel safe in my head? How do I feel a feeling without it consuming me? How do I reconcile this intuitive, self trusting voice that has guided me with the deeply cruel inner critic that never lets me feel good enough? I don’t know.
I have also felt unsafe physically, I have had my space violated. It feels dramatic to say. It is the truth. That hurts you in more ways than you can ever imagine. I don’t talk about it a lot, but I feel it. To feel unsafe mentally and physically, I wish that on no one, but I know a lot of us understand. I have accepted that I’m not broken, that hurt begets hurt, and that it doesn’t have to define me. But because of my issues with safety, it resulted in a deep discomfort with uncertainty. I needed to know what happened next and if I didn’t, well then, I decided the ending myself.
Here enters the first word of this year: Uncertainty.
Right now I feel something that I from two weeks ago would have said I needed to fix. To handle, to know the ending of. But I realized that disappointing myself just so I know what’s next, actually hurts me. Much like my goal to continue working out, I’m building the muscle that can tolerate uncertainty. That means moving back home with no plan, but trusting myself and knowing I have the discernment to be open to what’s for me. That means realizing that sometimes you feel things for other people that say way more about you and your own growth. It means practicing an amount of presence that almost feels like I’m begging for connection. But, I do need help and I do need people.
It makes me think about something Ron said to me a week before I returned home,
“You don’t have to be a martyr, Mar.”
While it wasn’t an accurate comment for the precise moment, he’s right. I can be unsure. I can be messy. I can make mistakes. I can be silly and loud and funny and bossy. I can continue to trust myself, but also trust others. I can be uncertain and people will still stay. Not only stay, but want to stay and want to help me.
I’m still working on believing that saying “I don’t know” isn’t failing, but perhaps an opportunity to be open to the unimaginable.
And now, I’m sobbing. It’s going to be a good year.