In March of 2019, I got a new job. I was desperately unhappy in the job I had at the time, so I just started looking for a new one in February. As with any job that is really worth having, the process from submitting the application to receiving an offer letter was a long one. Three rounds of interviews, waiting through the process of a background check. So I got the job. A really good job that I liked from my very first day.

Then the pandemic took center stage and we went into lock down. Because my new job was considered “essential,” I was able to continue without interruption. We were given official letters to carry in our cars or person to show any authority who might want to know why my coworkers and I were out and about. Basically, we needed permission to live our lives the way we saw fit.

While we were at work , we were required to wear masks and answer daily questions about our off work behavior. Our employers had to know where we went, who did we go with, what we did, and who else was there. We lost any and all right to privacy on a most basic public level. Choosing not to answer the questions, or to give dishonest answers, was grounds for immediate termination.

I am a grown woman who has made decisions for herself for a very long time. Longer than most. And even longer than most people my age. Through much of my childhood, I was left to make many decisions for myself that were out of the ordinary. My single mom had had her hands, heart, and mind full her entire life. By the time I was born, she was running on empty. Just getting herself through the day was a hard enough climb.

Coming out of that childhood, I was propelled by a great sense of freedom. I hadn’t learned how to be contained by someone else’s notion of what I should be doing or how. I made decisions based solely on my view and took my own counsel. I answered only to those I decided to answer to.

Until the pandemic.

During those three years, I grasped at whatever small slice of freedom I could. I also leapt any sense at all of a small semblance of privacy, wholeheartedly jumping in, often times way over my head. And, as always with that level of elation, I lost sight of what was real, what was important. I let myself slip through my own fingers.

I languished there and then came 2023. It was, without a doubt, the worst year of my life. My most beloved companion died in March. It was through him that I learned how to experience life on the outside. My life experience had kept me sheltered but safe within myself. Very few people saw beyond what I displayed because I had lived life under many layers. Tupac taught me that safety was the key to true freedom. He made me feel safe. Then in July, his brother passed. Habibi was a sweet, docile soul who couldn’t understand where his brother, his everything, went. He carried his sad, broken heart in a little nap sack of despair as he crossed the mythical rainbow bridge.

An event in June, which I didn’t learn about until late October, nearly broke me. My best friend, my person, had passed away. Her daughters were trying to find me in the months between her death and her celebration of life, which they held on what would have been her birthday. It was another unrelated calamity that put me in position to be in touch with her daughters. My friend and I would often go without speaking for months and then just resume where we left off. I thought that would be our lives until the end. And it was.

The unrelated calamity was the death of my sister. Her long term illness had taken her on a decidedly circuitous route the her final destination. The last year had been marked by hospital stays that would inspire her to try harder to get better. The final two months were a remarkable period that began to look like she was putting her health issues behind her. Then it all crashed down. She ended up in the hospital for what looked to be a minor infection. But that infection belied her decreasing heart function. I visited her the day she went into the hospital, talked with her, made plans for the following week. The next day she was intubated. I never heard her voice again.

The year of loss made me examine me and my life in a way I hadn’t before. For many years I was on a path that I would hope teach me how to find the moment, enter it and stay. I couldn’t have imagined that a year of loss would be the piece of that puzzle. I found that it was in the moment where my loved ones now reside.

I quiet myself and exhale. The protection that Tupac provided is still there, as long as I maintain a baseline of awareness. As long as I stay connected to his soul, I will know what I need to know. And if I feel safe, I can experience the gifts that the others brought to my life. My moments are as full of life and love as the minutes as they pass. The calm I found with them is still here. My culture taught me that death is not the end. The end of life is only the end of life here. They have merely moved their existence onto an plane. Their hearts beat within mine and will be the rhythm that moves me forward.