Maybe I should Testify

I have known many of you most of my life if not all of it & I love every single one of you for every interaction we’ve had even if I had to label it good or bad all of us are a blessing to each other even if we’re not meant to stay very long or we are just a lesson God wanted us to hear. Today though I’d like to point out the flaws that we blind ourselves to.

I’d like to kindly show all of you what judgement easily made can viciously do. Judgement can come to you in the form of a little snowflake, so small that we can placebo effect ourselves into treating it as a “white lie” we can convince ourselves it’s okay that I am judging this stranger , this janitor , this mother , this server, this child.

But let’s dig the knife a little deeper let’s talk about judging your family. Every dinner, every step, every holiday. Can you admit that you do that? Do you compare 401K’s and talk about all the stuff you bought ? We all do. That’s always been topics of conversations no matter what family I reside with. We talk about materialistic worldly things because at least we’re trained daily to know how to talk about that. Do you look at your family members and think you know best for them because your a CEO of something? Do you believe that God made your path and my path the exact same?

How boring.

Why would he do that?

The times have to continuously change so why should we all feel we should all stay the same?

Be the same?

I don’t believe God will ask me why I wasn’t exactly like my uncles advise me to be. I don’t believe God will ask me why I didn’t own a Texas Roadhouse or Bubba’s 33 when I was clearly on the path of It if I wanted it to be. I had the 401K. The benefits. The salary job. The company that paid for my food, clothes, travel, training ,housing , you name it they offered it!

I was responsible for what felt like everyone and everything and at the end of the day it wasn’t my dream I was waking up for everyday. Even worse I knew it everyday. I was waking up for my husband so he wouldn’t realize how epically lost I was. I woke up for my mother because she kept reminding me what a great opportunity I had before me given my resume and college drop out back ground. I was making more money than I knew a college drop out could. I counted so much money that wasn’t mine it stunned me someone gave me control of their funds when they have no idea who I am except for a background check and an interview that I could pass like a personality test online.

In the eyes of all the worldly American Dream advice I had been given my whole life I had made it to where they all told me to go. I had made it to where the ones who said they loved me were blind by the 401K and my job security. I tried to fake it I did really good at it actually I was let go as a server in one state and brought as a manager in another. My manager interview was 3 hours. I knew the company like the back of my hand.

But I didn’t know myself.

I knew enough to feed and water myself and when life got too much I would go back to yoga like end of the line sinners go back to prayer. I was not consistent with myself and no one had ever taught me that it was the most important thing. To honor yourself and take care of yourself. I just thought if I ate French fries I would be okay.

I was promoted through 3 different levels in my first year in Kansas City , I bought my dream car brand new off the lot just to have something more to wake up for. I knew I wasn’t waking up for myself. It was the first time I was truly alone in the world with no familiar friends to lean on and family was a phone call away but honestly what could I say? I’m happy but I’m not? I’m good at this lie but this isn’t me. I started feeling like a defect. I was doing the career but I felt so empty inside it was crashing and burning any chance it could.

Picture a dam with random holes springing out and you have to play twister with your fingers and toes plugging holes on the wall so it doesn’t explode.

My attitude was horrible, i was mean, resentful, sometimes hateful. I literally could not adjust myself from a bad mood or a bad day. I would feel so zen at home in my tree pose then as soon as I walked in the door I felt like I just got put into a cage.

I took up chain smoking cigarettes again outside just to see the sunlight on my face. It gave my boss a reason to pick on me more but I used the nicotine as a way to run out of the door. I could’ve sat there but at that time I was doing breath work to calm myself with nicotine didn’t know I really didn’t want the cig it was just a coping mechanism. I would wake up run the show shower and dream for a couple hours of who I really wanted to be then the alarm would go off and as my eyes opened reality set in. I had to go back to the circus , my show.

I cycled through levels of promotions, states and multiple stores through the company. I met the owner who is still my idol and all the top tier people in the company. I had Anti-idols that disguised themselves as idols. I was blind. By the end of December 2018 I was spent. I had been driving this train the wrong direction for almost 6 years and God finally had enough.

I had turned into someone I didn’t recognize, I had gained weight in places I didn’t know I could have fat , my hair was falling out and my skin literally looked like my soul was being sucked dry.

I would come home and see my families all the people that mean the world to me and I would basically try to convince them that I’m okay. I used to say “ I’m going home so I’m going to get my nails and hair done so my mom will think I’m okay” I said it jokingly and sarcastically in the happiest voice and I would always get a good laugh from my servers on it and deep down poor little Cheyenne was just crying because it was the absolute truth. I was dying inside. My flame was burning out slowly. Only one family member told me the truth at that time. My She-She , she would rub my back and twist her fingers through my hair standing by the kitchen window and I could see her look right through me. She was worried but the words took time to move past her lips. She would remind me cautiously and yearly it is okay to leave. You are not a failure if this isn’t the life you want. God doesn’t want you to be so sad and so sick, honey your hair is so dull and thin. Your face is so swollen yet sunken in.

You’d think I was on drugs with how sick , overworked and under appreciated I was. I was truly someone I didn’t know how to love.

I was judging , I was jaded and I was in a pit of negativity I had truly put myself in. I can’t be the person anymore that looks back and goes because of what you did to me “I am this way” “I act this way “ because that’s just not true. That’s a deflecting technique I used for so long to justify the pain I hid inside.

If you are that person to it is okay!

But it isn’t okay if you realize it and do nothing about it. What happened to us is not our fault but our healing is. What our parents taught us is not all there is to learn or believe. Parents can be wrong even when you want them to be right. We are the evolution of our parents not our parents.

Our mothers and fathers are super hero’s while we are growing up. We get to play and get messy and they tell us eat play pray sleep! And so many other things but as we grow older and come into our own did anybody else get to a point where they looked at their parents and just went

“oh you don’t know what your doing either, and we can’t be the same.”

I did.

But it didn’t hit me till I moved away. It didn’t hit me till I had finally disappeared from everyone’s day to day life. I became that relative that you dropped everything for when I came in town. For some I thought I was a humble surprise. I later found out that even in distance my self centered ways were still effecting my family in a negative way.

The worst part for me is I might’ve known it but the voice was small. No one ever admitted the resentment they had towards me.

They hid behind the quote

“we are family”

if we are family then tell me the truth. What is family if you hide every part of yourself from me?

What is family when you get together every year and share your facades?

When do I get to introduce me?

What I really love to do?

What I really like to talk about?

When can we be a real family that has no PC restrictions or bible verses to silence what hurt is stuck inside of me?

I want the family that tells me the truth about themselves.

I deserve to know the truth.

I don’t want what you believe the truth is.

Give me the first unedited sentence out of your mind and let me decide how it will effect me.

If you come to me with your perspective I will listen with no judgment in my eyes even if it has to do with who you think I used to be.

Tell me how you thought the devil was in me. Tell me how you all came to ME like I was so Godless my whole life.

Give me the family that talks about death, that brings up different religions so we can test each others framework. I’m not asking you to change your beliefs I’m asking you to be yourself and if you don’t know who YOU is then I challenge YOU to Find yourself.

When our time is up and we finally get to stand before God he isn’t going to ask you why you didn’t create world peace , he isn’t going to ask why you didn’t cure AIDS I believe he’s going to ask why you couldn’t be yourself.

So What holds you back from being you? Is it everyone’s judgement? Is it your family? The way society will view your truth? If so I leave with this quote I stole from social media.

“ better worry about your own sins cause God ain’t gonna ask you bout mine “

June 15th 1:20 PM