The Invisible Black Woman

I’ve spent a lot of time talking about my husband in my recent posts. Definitely more time than I expected to, and certainly more time than some of you likely expected me to. For some of you, it might feel like I’ve let the focus shift too much. But when it comes to this space, I’ve never been one to separate who I am from what I’m going through. That’s the stuff I save for work. If you know, you know. But, talking about who I am without talking about what I’m going through, workplace-related or not, is near impossible to do honestly and transparently. And what I’m going through right now is my husband’s health battles.

I’ve said this before but if you’re just joining, this may be news to you: writing is my therapy. It always has been. Long before I ever started blogging, long before I shared my words with anyone else, I wrote to make sense of my world. I wrote to process pain, to heal, and sometimes just to survive. I wrote to feel heard, even when no one else was listening. And if you’ve been following along, you know that these past few years have been… a lot. Between the challenges at work, the near breakdown that led to my medical leave, and now this ongoing battle with my husband’s health, life has been relentless. Sometimes, it feels like the world is throwing everything at me, testing me in ways I never believed I could put up with.

But writing makes it bearable. It allows me to release all the pent-up feelings, the things I can’t say out loud. It gives me a space to fall apart without judgment, without worrying that my husband will see and it will be too much for him to handle (yeah, he only reads the posts I share with him: no more, no less). It’s my release. And, as much as it is for me, it’s also a way to let you into this part of my life that I’ve never fully shared before.

Some people run, meditate, do yoga. I write. That’s how I cope. And in a way, it’s also how I keep myself together. Honestly, I don’t have the luxury of falling apart in front of everyone (well, few instances notwithstanding). When you’re the person everyone leans on, you learn how to compartmentalize. You learn how to mask your own fears and anxieties, because someone else’s crisis is always more immediate, more pressing. But when I write, I don’t have to be the strong one. I can be raw, vulnerable, and scared. I can admit that I’m not always okay. I can let the tears fall.

Life keeps lifin’. It doesn’t stop because you’re dealing with one crisis (or ten). It doesn’t slow down or give you a moment to catch your breath. If anything, it speeds up. There have been days when I’ve felt like I was drowning, trying to keep my head above water while everything else swirled around me. The stress, the anxiety, the constant waiting for the other shoe to drop—it can be overwhelming. And yet, somehow, I’ve kept going. Why? I’m not always sure, but I think part of it is because writing about it helps me put one foot in front of the other. It gives me a sense of control in a situation where I often feel powerless. And, you may or may not have noticed that I’ve been writing daily. I’m doing my best to get this posted by 7 every night, but this writing and posting is happening in real time. So if you’ve been looking forward to seeing “more of me,” this is a win-win scenario. I’m hoping to make this the “new normal” in terms of frequency, but please give me a bit of grace if that isn’t always the case.

Now, I know it might seem wild to some of you that in the midst of all of this, I’m still posting regular-schmegular content on LinkedIn daily. Posting on LinkedIn, on Facebook and here, engaging with all of you—pouring back—that’s how I stay anchored. It helps me to keep a sense of normalcy while everything else feels like it’s falling apart. It’s the duality of being strong and doing for others while secretly feeling like you’re coming undone. Writing is how I get the poison out and sharing consistently regardless of how I’m feeling is part of that process. I have found in the midst of this latest crisis that writing daily, as things are happening, keeps me grounded, helps me focus, and gives me something else to hold onto when life is doing its best to knock the snot out of me. This blog is helping me show up for myself emotionally. And if you are following this blog, you get to see the real, unfiltered version that most folks on LinkedIn have yet to meet. This heavy shit ain’t for everyone and I’m okay with that.

So more to the point: writing about my husband’s current health crisis is a way for me to process what’s happening, to channel the roller coaster of emotions that come with watching someone you love fight for their life. It’s about giving myself permission to feel what I feel—to be scared, angry, frustrated, hopeful, and exhausted, all at the same time. There’s something cathartic about putting those feelings into words, about writing something that I can look back on later and say, “damn, I survived that.”

Writing about my husband is also about honoring our story. We’ve been through so much together, and I think it’s important to acknowledge that. We’ve walked through hell and back more than once, and we’re still standing. I can’t talk about my life without talking about him because he’s such a huge part of it. His struggles, his victories, his pain, his joy—they’re all tied to mine. When he hurts, I hurt. When he’s scared, I’m scared. And when he fights, I fight alongside him. That’s what marriage is, right? It’s not just about the good times—it’s about the hard ones, too. It’s about being there for each other, no matter what.

When I write about him, I’m also writing about love. Not the picture-perfect, Instagram-filtered kind of love, but the real, gritty, messy kind. The kind that survives the hospital stays, the sleepless nights. The kind of love that endures, even when everything else feels like it’s ripping at the seams. I’m writing about the moments when I’ve had to hold his hand and tell him it’s going to be okay, even when I wasn’t sure if I believed it. I’m writing about the times when I’ve had to be strong for him because he couldn’t be. And I’m writing about the times when he’s been strong for me, too, in ways that only he can.

This journey with my husband has also reminded me of something that I think we all need to keep at the top of our minds: It’s okay to not be okay. I’ve spent so much of my life trying to be strong, trying to hold everything together for everyone else, that I sometimes forget that I’m allowed to fall apart, too. I’m allowed to have bad days. I’m allowed to be scared. I’m allowed to feel overwhelmed. And that doesn’t make me weak—it makes me human. Writing about this experience is my way of reminding myself of that. It’s my way of giving myself permission to not have it all together all the time.

If I’m being really honest, writing about my husband’s journey is also about control. When everything around me feels chaotic and unpredictable, when the people I love are hurting and I can’t fix it, writing gives me a small piece of control. I can’t control what happens to him, but I can control how I process it. I can choose the words I use, write how I talk, focus on the details that stick out for me. When my world so often feels like it’s going to fly off its axis, that tiny bit of power makes all the difference.

And there’s something else, too. I think writing about this is my way of not letting this experience consume me. When you’re in the middle of a crisis, it’s easy to lose yourself in it. It’s easy to let it become the only thing you think about, the only thing you talk about, the only thing that matters. But when I write about it, I can take a step back and look at it from the outside. I can see the bigger picture that way. I can remind myself that this is just one part of our story—it’s not the whole story. It’s a chapter, not the entire book.

Writing is how I find meaning in the chaos. And right now, this is what my story looks like: it’s messy, it’s hard, and not at all pretty. And by sharing it with you, I hope that maybe, just maybe, it will help someone else who’s going through something similar. Maybe you’ll read my words and feel a little less alone. Maybe you’ll find some comfort in knowing that someone else understands what you’re going through. Or maybe you’ll just be reminded that it’s okay to not have it all figured out.

Right now, our life is filled with hospitals, doctors, and the sometimes-paralyzing fear that comes with watching someone you love fight for their life. But it’s also filled with love, hope, and the knowledge that no matter what happens, we’re in this together.

So, why did I do it? Because my story without him is incomplete. And perhaps most importantly because he has always seen me exactly for who I am and to him, I have never ever been invisible.