ROOTED RENEGADE

This week.  This one week of every year.  Why could it not be any other week?  I could think of a thousand reasons why it could be any other week.  Any other day.  But no.  Two days before my birthday.  The week of my birthday.  Like I am ever going to be able to forget.  Every year it will roll around and the first day of the week will hit like a train wreck at the 5 Points Train Station in Downtown Atlanta.  BOOM!  Right in my face!  

They say memories don’t hurt.  But I beg to differ.  They may not physically hurt, but mentally they leave scars.  Sometimes wounds.  It all depends on your perspective and often your objective.  I for one tend to think I have all these really cool scars like a friend of mine jokes about.  “If it’s not a cool scar it’s not worth showing”, he says.  Funny really.  Some scars we think are cool, but others remain so hidden that cool wouldn’t be the word we would use to describe them.  Mine are hidden.  Deep within the recesses of my mind.  I don’t talk about all of them.  Why would I?  Most times people end up using them for their own financial gain and then they don’t even tell it right.  So, I keep them locked away in the confines of their pretty little boxes with bows on them, like people like to keep me.  

Maybe they don’t see it that way.  Maybe they can’t.  Or maybe I just see too much.  Either way, it is what it is.  Five years since I got in that 1999 teal blue Ford Explorer sittin’ on 22-inch rims chromed out.  Five years since I said that one yes, that one choice, that changed my life forever.  Five years since the door shut and my choice was no longer mine anymore.  Five years and if I close my eyes long enough, I can see their faces.  Most of them.  It is hard to smell them anymore.  Nothing wrong with that.  Seeing them is different.  I have stayed emotionally disconnected until now.  

Now.  Five years later.  I decided to heal from that day.  To make new memories.  To change and rewrite my story because God guides the pen.  Not because of my own doing.  

5.  Years.  This.  Year.  I.  Am.  Celebrating.  Me.

Memories can be healed.  Memories can be put where they belong.  Memories can’t hurt when you choose to show the scar and allow God to make it beautiful.

Thank you God for my birthday!!!

p.s. – This is my life and it isn’t for sale!  

@b3autifullyr3deemed / Grace12LLC