Nobody Asked Me to Die for Them

What walking away from an overturned car made me realize about the habits I’ve built.

Yesterday, my car overturned. Three vehicles were damaged. Mine, to the point of no repair.

I walked away.

My car was totaled, but somehow, I walked away physically unharmed.

And in the 24 hours afterward, between the police reports, insurance claims, and picking up a rental car, and the reality that I now need to figure out how I am going to replace my car, I keep coming back to one thought: I am tired.

Not I need a nap tired.

I mean the tired that comes from running a mile a minute mentally and physically and convincing yourself that because you can keep going, you should.

Y’all, I've been going.

My kids are back in school. The baby shower I hosted is finally over. Work. Extra work, including Afro Fest this last weekend. Family responsibilities. Upcoming work trip. There's always another work thing, another event, another trip, another person who needs something.

It’s funny. I went to New York because I needed a pause. And somehow, I turned that pause into another thing to accomplish. Museum. Library. Lunch reservations. Books. Shopping. Pictures. Train.

I had such a beautiful day.

But I didn't actually stop.

Then yesterday morning happened. I was trying to get home because, as usual, I had things to do.

A few hours later, there I was, standing outside my car, with the kid's breakfast in my hand, as my vehicle laid on its side. I couldn't explain exactly how the accident happened. I just knew that I had been inside that car.

All I know is that I walked away.

And then I came home

After the accident. After the police. After seeing our overturned car. After realizing how differently that morning could have ended. My child looked at me eating the Chick-fil-A I ran to get before the accident and asked:

“Ma, did you get my water?”

I barely had my life. let alone a meal. I was pissed.

But later, that question sat with me. Was my child trying to be insensitive? Not intentionally, no. But in their world, Mom came home. Mom was standing there, right in front of them.

Mom was okay.

And Mom handles things.

That's what I had taught the people around me to expect. More importantly, it's what I had taught myself to expect.

Nobody asked me to die for them.

Crazy, right? But I’ve built a life where I equated dependability with being constantly available. And when I say carrying it all, I mean the responsibility. The expectations. The mental load. The schedules. The people I love. The work I care about. And the quiet belief that somehow, all of it is mine to manage.

I rush.

I squeeze it in.

I make it happen.

I carry all the things.

And because I almost always pull it off, nobody has any reason to notice or care how tired I am.

But today I noticed. I've been thinking differently about rest and resilience since the accident.

There’s often a lot of talk about Black women's resilience. Our strength. Our ability to make a way. Our capacity to care for our families, lead and build careers, show up, problem-solve, pivot when necessary, and amazingly keep everything moving. I’m proud of my resilience. But I'm beginning to understand something about it that makes me uncomfortable. I once heard Dominique Morgan say something that has stayed with me:

Resilience is the by-product of trauma. — Dominique Morgan

Those words have stayed with me, but after yesterday, they land differently. Sometimes we become extraordinarily good at getting back up because life has given us entirely too much practice being knocked down.

I'm no longer interested in measuring my strength by how much I can survive.

Women…especially black women don't need to die just to prove we were capable of carrying it all.

And yesterday, I almost died trying to be capable of carrying it all.

That's a hard sentence to write, let alone read.

I don’t want to turn yesterday's accident into something it wasn't. I will not romanticize what happened by declaring that God flipped my car, and the universe caused an accident because I wouldn't sit down.

I'm not going to tell myself that everything happens for a reason.

Something scary happened.

And it interrupted EVERYTHING.

Enough for me to accept the fact that the pace I’m living is not sustainable. Because even after walking away from an overturned car, you want to know what my brain started doing?

Figuring out what was next.

What will my husband say/think

Insurance.

Rental car.

New car.

Work.

Still planning. Still calculating. Still carrying.

At some point, when talking with my cousin Sharon, she had to ask me: Girl, when exactly are you planning to sit your ass down? And because apparently life has a sense of humor, an email landed in my inbox today. “Happy National Yoga Awareness Month!” I had to laugh. Because even the universe's suggestion for how I should rest came pre-scheduled, pre-branded, and dropped into my inbox like one more task.

Rest and Resilience Cannot Become Another To-Do List.

I don't need another perfectly curated self-care day. I don't need to travel somewhere to rest.

That's the trap I've set for myself. I don't need rest sold to me as a program. A month. Something to opt-in and do correctly.

Maybe I need to leave something undone.

Maybe someone will have to wait.

Maybe somebody else can handle it.

And maybe every time attention is needed, my automatic response doesn't have to be: “I'll handle it.”

I don't know yet what yesterday will ultimately mean to me. I'm still processing it. I'm still sad about my car. I loved my car. I'm still shaken when I look at the pictures. I'm still incredibly grateful that I walked away. But I know this much: Nobody asked me to die for them.

And nobody asked me to prove my love, dependability, ambition, motherhood, leadership, friendship, or worth by carrying everything until I collapse. Some of those expectations weren't handed to me.

I handed them to myself.

So now I have to build some new habits. Slow down. Say no. Leave something undone. Let somebody else handle it. Make room for a life that doesn't require me to recover from living it.

Because nobody needs to die to prove we can carry it all.

And this Black woman doesn't intend to.