Written by Felecia Williams, owner of My Spa My Way
In this life where we are calling our new normal to begin, so many of us still struggle with our so-called old normal. With all the changes and fears today, it makes you think that maybe yesterday wasn’t so bad because today isn’t looking so good.
With so much going on in today’s world, I struggled where to begin in writing this article. Do I begin by trying to motivate women, who like me, are learning to love the skin they are in? Do I talk about the hurt I feel as an African-American woman today with the huge racial divide in our country? Do I continue to talk about Covid-19 that has dominated our lives for so long that I dread turning on the television? Do I struggle with talking about the political climate that has our country, and even family and friends, at odds? Do I talk about, as a small business owner, wondering if I will be able to re-open my doors?
With what-if’s and questions about the future threatening to consume us, how do we have time to even think about hate? Think about taking a life over one’s color? Think about a person’s being treated differently because of their looks? Where they live or don’t live, as many of you say? How do we begin to heal? How do we begin to take back our lives and start living like today is our last?
I felt numb many days as I sat at home waiting for the day we could leave our homes and begin to live again. As someone who struggles with depression, the last two months could have been my last days if I hadn’t had support from family and friends and learned how to deal with my emotional ups and downs.
But I ask myself, was I happier inside with my little dog, not seeing the world as it used to be? Was I happy with only getting an occasional hello from a stranger or friend as I made my paralyzing weekly trip to the grocery store and sneaked into the senior citizen’s line, hoping to get hand sanitizer or toilet paper?
Then I stop and think about my friends in New York who can’t even get simple things like milk, bread and sanitizer, or who must be inside their homes by 8 p.m. every night. I try to comprehend the anguish and sorrow they feel when they pass the hospital that so happens to be on the block where they live, and see all the trucks piled high with the bodies of people who have not been laid to rest. It is then that I thank God. I say thank you! Thank you for the days I could breathe! Thank you for the days I could eat! Thank you for the days I was able to hear my parents’ voices, and able to hear the day God said to me, “Not yet my child, not yet.” As I prayed, he said, “Not yet shall you come home, not yet shall this end your journey, not yet shall what you lost yesterday be your loss for tomorrow.”
I am thankful for today because there is a today. I challenge you to live like today is your last. Be grateful for each day and be hopeful for the next. Decide today that, if today were your last, would God say to you, “Great job! Welcome home!” Or “Not yet my child, not yet!”