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This week I wanted to take a break in between the first and second part of the “Me>Them” Poem, to give a bit of background to a person that pushed me down the path of creating such content. Any of my content really. Not to give this person all the credit but my work would still be left in the drafts, hidden away, for my eyes only if not for them. It is also the same person who helped push me through my final leg of treatment and find the confidence to rediscover myself after being stripped away of all that I knew. For those reasons I thank them and will always remember them with high regard.

I was a softball player for many years, for the majority of my life really, and definitely for as long as I could remember. I have no recollection of a time where softball didn’t consume my entire being, and I also never spent any time pondering on what my life would look like if it didn’t.

Before I got to college, my life looked the very same each year that passed. Softball, school, more softball, and more school. I didn’t party, I didn’t go out, I didn’t see friends outside of school, I didn’t date outside of school, I didn’t have a life outside of school, and believe it or not I liked it that way. It kept me out of trouble because in the city of Miami, it’s easy to get into drama and even easier to be the drama, so I avoided it as much as possible. It did amuse me, though, when I got to college and everyone assumed that, being from Miami, I lived the “Miami Life”. Miami is like no other place I have ever been to, and I believe that to be an understatement. My brother tells me that the city of Miami is a simulation, and I can’t help but entertain the idea from time to time. I don’t want to go too deep into that statement and explain to you all what Miami is like because, quite honestly, it’s only best understood through experience. But just know that when I got to college, what I believed to be normal was indeed the absolute opposite.

A month into college, I was learning the ropes: the language, the food, the lifestyle, and the people. I know I sound a bit dramatic, as if I went to a foreign country, but I assure you it may as well have been. Honestly, I believe it to be the reason I fell in love with Michigan so easily. All of it was an opportunity for me to find out who I am outside of everything I have ever known. That thought and feeling alone was intoxicating, and then I made my very first friend outside of the softball team.

Since my freshman year coincided with the COVID year and all of those fun restrictions, making friends outside of my team was the most challenging obstacle of beginning college. All of my classes were online, and the second I stepped foot out of my dorm room, it was to have my mask on and stand five feet away from everyone at all times. I took this American Culture class as an elective based on ancient newspapers, and I thought it would be an interesting topic and free credits. I gave that class a fair shot, a week, and that was all the time it took for me to conclude that it was very interesting and, for that reason, it was not for me. I then got switched into this college readiness English class or something to that matter. For the life of me, I don’t remember because it wasn’t the material that convinced me to stay; it was a person.

Being that this class was online, it allowed me the opportunity to prop up my laptop where the lighting was hitting my face just right. I would put on a big sweatshirt and halfway brush my hair to give myself that “I just woke up like this” look. I am embarrassed to even admit it, but this person, for some reason, had a hold on me and I didn’t even know them… yet. We soon connected, and it was the easiest I’d ever gotten along with anyone. In contrast to the drama that would follow in new connections forming when I was in Miami, this one brought life. Life I didn’t know could be enjoyed without having to put out, be something I’m not, or be the center of attention. I just had to be myself. As much as I wanted more than what it was at the time, I wasn’t ready for more. I wasn’t even ready to start doing what I needed to do to get ready. I was a freshman in college – young, dumb, naive, and looking for the next temporary thrilling bit of excitement.

Sophomore year, it is not likely for anyone to take steps backwards, but then again I am not just anyone, and I really wanted to put that to the test. Life hit hard the summer before going back to school for my sophomore year, and I knew right then and there I would never be the same. My heart stayed in Miami that year, and my mind and body—really just my body—went back up to school. I forgot about my friend I had made. I did so intentionally to preserve the friendship. I made new friends, a different kind of friends, friends I did not need to be ready for. It was just what I wanted at the time.

Junior year I was stripped away of all friends and was presented with family. True and real family. I was at the most vulnerable and weakest point in my life. Times like these, it is said to be when you latch onto people the most, and I laugh at the fact that it couldn’t be further away from the truth for me. It hurt me to see people hurting for me, crying for me, and fighting for me. It hurt to have to explain my reality to people and to see their reactions. It hurt to not even have to explain and to see their reactions. It hurt to not know who I am when softball goes away, when working out goes away, and when the looks go away — what people used to be friends with me for, what they used to love me for. It was all gone and it was a lonely place. It honestly doesn’t surprise me that I found Jesus, or more truthfully that Jesus found me. I was so lost fighting for a life I didn’t even know what it would look like when I made it out the other end.

I started to get to know the Lord and what He had in store for me, and it was a beautiful thing. I surrendered my life and control all to Him, and by doing so, I knew I wanted to be better, I needed to be better. That my life was not about me; it’s never been about me. It’s been about glorifying the Lord and what He does in my life. Everything started coming together for me. Struggles of mine that I dealt with in the past began to fade. I started to release old habits and toxic bonds. I let go of things that did not serve me anymore to allow room to serve God.

My friend popped back into my life shortly after. When I wasn’t looking. When I wasn’t wanting. When I wasn’t needing. But, when I was ready. Ready to realize a quality person and to not take them for granted. Ready to let them in. Ready to run the risk of getting hurt. Ready to let them see me, all of me. Ready to listen. Ready to learn. Ready to wait. Ready to speak the truth. When I was ready to be real.