Five years ago I was living in Silver Spring, Maryland operating off of some off-brand hope and half of a prayer. A couple years prior I had what I thought was a solid plan that consisted of moving back to Chocolate City and finishing my bachelor’s where I had started (the illustrious Howard University). It all began fine but started to roll downhill when I somehow ended up with a tuition balance that financial aid didn’t cover. I had been working part-time since I was 14 while also attending school so I thought I’d be able to pull it off like I always did. What I didn’t factor in were all the aspects of adulthood like rent, groceries, personal necessities, and basically everything else that I needed that was normally provided by my family before I ventured off across the country on my own.
Hitting Rock Bottom
I ended up taking a couple of low paying jobs thinking I could put a dent in the debt that I’d started to acquire. I ended up having to put my education on pause because I wouldn’t be able to enroll until my balance was paid off. I was also living far from the city and everything I had been excited about moving back to. Life came at me fast and hard. Instead of rolling with the punches I did what any person with a whole bunch of Cancer placements would do — I let life’s blows knock me down, retreated into my shell, and kept going from side to side without moving forward thinking that would somehow break the barriers I had been halted by.
My interpretation of my first pull had answered my question and also made me wonder what else I could learn about myself and my situation(s) by taking time to intentionally connect using my cards.
I was renting a room (that I was embarrassingly several months behind on) and ended up meeting a woman that I now consider not only my personal guru, but one of my best friends living while in that house. We called it the “group home” for ridiculously hilarious reasons. And trust me, this is no shade to anybody in, or that came up in the foster system. There was a lot of craziness going on in that house and with the slumlords that owned it. We ended up coming across some information and…
