My four and a half years living in Wilmington, NC were traumatic and transformative.

Over the course of one’s life, I believe it’s important to switch things up: change jobs, date, travel, relocate, etc. However, I have never felt as lonely as I did when I lived in Wilmington.  Now, my husband is the greatest and we ride through life as one. He always makes me feel loved and cared for, but it is quite humbling to be active in a whole ass city where, unless you know or are directly benefitting someone established, you are treated as forgettable and/or insignificant.

I. Work-Life Imbalance

After working for almost two decades of my life by 2021, I resigned from my first job based on something other than education or relocating. It was at this corporate job where I experienced some of the most overt macroaggressions, leadership insecurities, resentment, and political BS that went up the “human” resources ladder.

I became a different person during the final few months leading up to my notice. I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop when I started workdays due to the passive aggressive emails waiting for me, sent before or after work hours. My weekends were plagued with shedding off the previous week and then mentally preparing for the next. I was catching my leadership in lies and pathetic attempts to make me look like less of a team player and more of the “angry Black woman” who was beginning to “struggle” with her work. I was losing sleep, nutrition, and passion for all the other awesome things in my life.

I cringe at the thought of how much time I spent venting my friends’ and family’s ears off with daily stories of workplace trauma; however, after I started talking to my therapist more about it, I got a better, objective view of what that job was doing to and taking from me and how supportive my husband was ready to be. The only bright sides ended up being that I made two amazing friends during my time there, and I had saved up enough to be able to take about half a year off from working to heal and resuscitate passion in my projects.

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II. 321 Friendship Lane

I’ve never been very lucky in platonic love. I give a lot to friendships and expect the same in kind. When not met, as a Taurus, I move on and erase those people from my life faster than a Pink Pearl. The Wilmington friend group my husband and I initially had dwindled over time after a very revealing period that started during the planning for our April 2019 wedding. (That’s a much longer story for another time).

Add to that the difficulty I found in trying to make and maintain friendships with fellow Black people in Wilmington, and the result is pretty sad. The difficulty in breaking into established Black circles in Wilmington was discussed in a UNCW focus group I attended in early 2021. It was a hard reality I had to face in a historically racist city that is already only about 18% Black and 76.5% white. ¹

Making new friends with follow through, who reciprocated effort, seemed nearly impossible. So, in January 2020 I joined the Bumble app, on the “friend” side, to connect with other young people in the area. Great idea, right?!

“Bitch, you thought”

2020

Media: Tenor

As an introvert I didn’t mind the lockdown. My husband and I saved money, avoided germs (until the Delta variant in August 2021) and were able to re-evaluate our present and future. It was difficult, however, to be miles away and socially distanced from family, and gatherings would not be a part of the equation again for who knew how long.

There were also several instances of “ally”-bombing that occurred in mid to late 2020 when non-Black acquaintances (many of whom I had not spoken to in years) reached out across all platforms of communication. Black-owned businesses experienced the same uptick, I’m sure, resulting in their sales numbers skyrocketing until around Spring 2021 (when the “fad” wore off). On top of everything else Black people were dealing with, it felt like we were receiving performative and hollow, one-time responses from faux-friends and supporters in the face of the global, racial uprising, to alleviate their feelings of guilt and/or helplessness.

I was so tired.

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III. A Place Called Home

While there has been bad, if I had not moved to a new city and experienced trauma and feeling unfulfilled, I may not have evolved and found my voice and drive to grow in my activism and entrepreneurship.

A home isn’t just the brick and boards around you, although that is a blessing to have. It is also the community and village of people in your life who value you for who you are, and not just what you do. And if 2020 taught survivors anything, it is that life is too short and can be too unpredictable to stay in unhappy situations.

I am excited to see what this next chapter has in store and where it takes me as I step into it more evolved.

And this isn’t even my final form. 😏

References

¹ https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/wilmington-nc-population