“Thank God for granting me this moment of clarity, this moment of honesty”

-Sean Carter

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I believe life is made of moments.

Good and bad

Predictable and unexpected

Heartbreaking and uplifting

Moments

We all have them, yet for some reason we don’t all come out of these moments the same.

Why?

Let’s bring this macro conversation to a more micro example. (whole vs individual)

When my siblings and I first heard the news of my Parents Divorce it was a moment.

A moment we all shared and had to take in.

A moment of heartbreaking reality that was going to indirectly impact the rest of our lives.

For me, I came out of that moment in full on confusion and rage. I took that moment personal. I took that moment (as I take most) as a war on Otivia moment.

Because in my naive and sheltered mind, my life was this Imperfectly Perfect drawn picture. A gorgeous white house with a fence surrounding the whole property. Trees and flowers which bloomed all year around, that never fell on the perfectly manicured lawn. No way could this be happening. Not to my parents. Not to my superheroes.

To me and to most people that knew them, my parents were what Black Twitter and Instagram labels as “goals”. Two kids who grew up next door to each other in Guyana. Hearing each other get beatings, laughing at each others high waters and bad hair days. All of their family and friends intertwined in this big ball of familiarity and genuine childhood love. Growing up together, beating the odds, having children and being married all while securing the bag.

Where did all of that go left?

A moment.

Now the thing is, in regards to my parents there are sooooo many moments that they lived through, even before getting married at the ages of 19 and 20, that at this point I’m sure they wouldn’t be able to pin point where it went left, or maybe they could. But the thing is, once a moment has left it’s gone forever. Here’s the trick though, that moment may be gone but the feelings are left there to fester and grow. And if not checked or addressed it becomes this 13 headed monster that not only haunts the people directly involved but everyone that is associated for generations to come.

The indirect impact of my parents “grey divorce” on me, stemmed from that imperfectly perfect picture that I had in my head all these years.

It was as if, I finally got my prescription glasses fixed and was able to now see the picture for what it really was and it wasn’t as pretty as I wanted.

The hardest part was thinking I had to rewire my brain and rewrite all of the moments that I cherished the most. Moments that I believed shaped me into the person I am today.

I fell into the “goals” bandwagon and felt I had to get a guy like my dad. I had to be just like my mom. If not I was failing at life because they were obviously “winning”.

And then boom I had a moment.

A moment where I realized, how consumed I was, reliving my parents moments in relation to me and forgetting to live my own moments separately from them.

I forgot that despite how I grew up and what I saw, as a grown educated adult, I am only responsible for my moments
and I can’t penalize or hate someone for theirs.

I feel like in the next few months I will be having a few moments and at this point, I don’t know how they will go but I know that I am the only person responsible for my happiness. For too long, I was stuck, obsessed with that perfectly imperfect picture, waiting for someone to say sorry or come and save me. I can no longer use that picture as my crutch anymore. I’ve seen and heard the real and there is no going back.

In the past 2 years, so many of my friendships and relationships have ended because of moments. Some childish, some heartbreaking, some ( I don’t even know why), but I do know they are over. About 97% of those were indirect relations to my parents divorce, in some shape or form, and now I  sit here typing and wondering how this will all play out for me.  What will happen once my parents divorce is finalized and they go on to live their best lives. Will those relationships that I lost be able to be mended? Can they? Should they?

My dad always says,

“We are spiritual beings trying to master a human experience”

It makes me feel better to know that I am suppose to question everything and that I am suppose to fail because in order to master something you have to learn and relearn until you get it.

Lately, I’ve been so in my head thinking about the next move in my life. For the first time ever, I am just going to go with the moment. Go with the moment without obsessing over pictures in my head, or what I think my twin would want me to do, or who I think I should be, or who I think people need me to be.

“Thank God for granting me this moment of clarity, this moment of honesty”

– Sean Carter

You’ve been and amazing crowd. Get home safely,

-Otivia