The Greatest Humiliation is Life

Don’t ever think it can’t be you. 

Don’t ever think it can’t be you that will be cheated on. Don’t ever think it can’t be you to lose someone whether you lose them and they’re still here on earth or six feet under. Don’t ever think it can’t be you that can have it all today and lose it all tomorrow.

Because it can and this thing called life happens.

March 7th, 2022 my heart felt like someone was trying to suffocate it with a trash bag. Someone took my friend Darrien away from his family and friends by killing him. As bad as this may sound I’d rather him ended up in jail because he’d still be here. 

I found out from an instagram story post of someone I didn’t know in real life just from social media. At the time I found out I was getting my hair done and was in no place to boohoo so I refused to believe that what I’d just seen was even remotely true. A couple of minutes pass and I go back to the story to comment. They weren’t responding fast enough for my liking so I began to call them through the instagram app. No answer.

Now everyone knows that if someone calls you through instagram they’re out of their mind because if you had business calling me you’d call my number. I didn’t care, I needed answers.

I call a friend and in a laughing way I ask “Why’d I see a post saying Darrien was dead?” Their mouth was on the ground because he was the invincible kind not to me but to everyone and was the last person we’d thought wouldn’t be walking this earth. I hung up.

I sat for a moment and thought how could this happen? As I sat there in silence or at least I thought I was. The woman who was doing my hair stops everything she’s doing and says “Are you okay? Do you need tissues?”

I was so shaken I didn’t even realize I had enough tears to fill a wishing well. 

I knew there was one person that could verify this information for me and it’d all be true.

Chanel. My sister. She was his also.

Chanel would know. She’s how Darrien and I had met. She’s my ace boon coon but they were two peas in a pod. Darrien and I would even argue about which one of us loved her more. I called her, no answer. I saw her post an instagram story that said “Stop calling my phone.” I called again anyway.

The FaceTime connected.

There were no words, just tears. She didn’t have to say anything because the tears spoke more than words ever could in that moment.

It was true, I lost someone I’d spent the most of my last few months with (at the time.)

The ache didn’t go away for weeks. I never knew or thought I could hurt like that. I wouldn’t get out of my bed for days at a time. There was a side of my bed that appeared to be laid on more than the other because that was the side I rolled over on to cry. And I was on that side a lot.

I never thought I could be depressed. Who? Me? The happy go lucky girl that’s having the best day of her life just because the sun is shining? Yeah right. She's always going to be okay. She’ll never be depressed.

Truth be told I didn’t know if the sun was going to shine ever again for me. It did, eventually. But see this story isn’t about when things got greater for me. It’s about how if you’re on this earth long enough you’ll learn that life is just a long lesson in humility.

And if you think “This could never happen to me.” Leave the humbling up to the universe. The good and bad.

“You think it will never happen to you, that it cannot happen to you, that you are the only person in the world to whom none of these things will ever happen, and then, one by one, they all begin to happen to you, in the same way they happen to everyone else.” ― Paul Auster