The Invisible Black Woman

I’m finally starting to feel like myself a bit. I’m also starting to think that hubby is right that I’m part plant: low sun in the winter ain’t my cup of tea. Winter blues be bluing to the utmost. Granted, it didn’t help one lick that 2025 ended how it ended and 2026 began how it began. Imma need all the years to stop tryna outdo each other from here on out ‘cause ever since 2020, they really been on one.

But I digress…

Been doing a lot of reflecting lately, especially as I try to fight my way back to at least semi-okay. A lot of self-affirmations. A TON of prayer. And just really doing what I can to focus on the positive.

One of the biggest changes I made I wish I’d done sooner is to go dormant online. Not in the way you think though. I’m still gon be out in these blog streets for as long as I’m called. But the other stuff? The me thinking I was ‘sposed to be this social media personality or content creator or whatever they’re calling it these days? We off that now.

And no, I didn’t make this decision lightly or overnight. But I was forced into it, if I’m being honest. I thought I was supposed to put myself out there and share my so-called “expertise” and connect with people and engage and on and on and on. In some ways, I am not entirely sure I’m not supposed to be doing this.

What I do know is that right now, in this season, I need quiet. Solace. Calm. Peace. I had ZERO of that last year. I had to be on 1000% of the time and for an introvert, that’s asking for a hell of a lot. The time to recover and decompress after each activity got longer and longer.

Then the bottom began to fall out. Friendships folded like wet napkins. Well, ion even know if I can call ‘em friendships if they faded that quickly, but you get my point. Depression grabbed a hold of me so tight I just wanted to stay in bed, but I still had shit to do. So you put on your brave face as best you can and you do what you gotta do.

But I was on empty most of the tail end of 2025, but everyone still wanted a piece. Interactions became more extractive and performative than fulfilling. And the more they occurred, the more they chipped away at who I was. And I began resenting it. Because the number of times people peed on my leg while telling me it was rain was wiiiiiiild. And soon that resentment turned inward. And more than anything, I hated myself for being a person that apparently had some type of tattoo on her forehead that said, “users and emotional vampires welcome.”

I saw firsthand the cost of “internet fame”—and one of these days I’ll break down the difference because y’all know it ain’t real, right? But I got to see and be on the receiving end of what people are willing to do to go viral or to get just an inch closer to some level of notoriety. You know: the reposts, the likes, the comments. I truly understand why it’s an addiction for some.

Somewhere along the way, I began to question everything. My calling. My gift. My purpose. Because I tied my worth to whether or not people stayed in fellowship or connected to me. Not realizing that “followers” are fickle. And y’all already know how I feel about the word “followers.”

But lemme get on my soap box right quick… I’m not a fan of the word. But all the social media platforms with very few exceptions use it. And truth of the matter is it’s problematic. Subscribe is literally right there! Maybe it has to do with growing up in the church and all I hear in my head is, “the only person I follow is Jesus.” Maybe that’s why. But the implications are heavy and maybe for some it ain’t that deep but it is for me. So I am very careful of the term or of asking people to “follow me.” Chile, I ain’t one to follow. I’m just doing my level best to make it through each day.

But the gag is—as Keke would say—followers are very much that and behave just like, well, followers. Meaning they are fickle. They are attracted often by the size of your following as much or if not more than the substance of your content. And as your popularity or visibility wanes, so does their interest or attention. They’re often on to the next one.

And to keep their attention, you gotta produce or perform. And the one thing 2025 taught me full well is that ain’t nobody got time for that. Well, I don’t anyway. Neither the time nor the desire. My goal was always to hold space for others who struggle with similar struggles and I found that mission got more and more diluted the more of myself I exposed online.

So I found myself questioning it all. And the one thing that kept bouncing in my heart was, “I don’t want to do this anymore. Not like this.”

And you know what the Lord had the nerve to say?

“So don’t.”

Like, just that simple, God?

“Yup.”

And then I spiraled. Agonizing over whether this was the right thing and what would happen and how that would affect me and what about this and that and the third.

Then that still small voice just said, “try it and see what happens.”

So I did. Slowly in some cases and not so much in others, I started to dip out of social media. Then a crater opened up in the middle of the earth and swallowed me whole.

Okay, I know y’all know I’m kidding.

Nothing happened.

And more importantly and thankfully? Nobody cared. No one checked in. No one messaged to see where I was at. It was just quiet. And I don’t say the “thankful that nobody cared” bit flippantly. It was a literal weight off my shoulders. Because it was confirmation that by and large, it wasn’t real and astonishingly shallow, quiet as kept.

And in the silence, I went back to my first first love: writing. I came back here and began to write with no pressure on myself to perform or to write x number of days in a row or x number of times in a day.

I just poured my heart out on paper (digital paper, I guess?). And as I did, I began to see more of that light at the end of this dark depression tunnel.

I got a lot more to share, but I’m tryna pace myself. I am making no promises on how often these posts will land, but I am making a promise to myself to stick to my roots and to my true calling. Whatever else happens outside of that, God really gon have to go old school and drop a burning bush in front of my tail for me to heed.

I say all this to say that if you find yourself performing, producing, but yielding no fruit. And you know fruit ain’t the same as results, mmkay? If you are more empty than full and you hear that voice saying, this isn’t what I was called to do.

If you find yourself saying, “I don’t want to ‘put on a show’ for people who are more interested in extracting than communing with me,” allow me to extend to you the very feedback I got:

So don’t.

Until next time, I wish you nothing but sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns, which are no less fictitious than the deserving of peace you are.