Written 06/14/2022

I always told myself when I broke my writing hiatus I would share how much growth I have made, all the life changes and the beauty in the journey. I was so excited and anticipating the day when I would be back writing and sharing. I spent months even years re-reading old blog post and journal entries and trying to reconnect to myself. The young T’yanna. The T’yanna who sparked up T’yanna Tells. I have laughed and cried reading my old post, it’s like I remember who I was at that time and miss her so much, yet I feel like I haven’t been able to write and share is because I am not that same girl who started the infamous T’yanna Tells. I have wrote so many blog post with the intentions of keeping that same tone and style up when in reality I started this journey at 18, I turn 25 this august. 7 years has past.  I have experienced so many blessings and some of the most darkest times, I have loved, lost and died in certain parts of life and been born in others. I have toyed with the idea of my first blog post and what I would name it what would be the theme, the whole 9 yards! And all I have for the first blog post is dedicated how shitty your 20’s can truly be. 

Shit is bound to hit the fan 

Believe it our not, summer 2021 everything fell apart for me. My hair randomly decided It was going to start violently thinning. I decided to get a major surgery was best to be done in the middle of June.I ended up getting covid and having such bad brain fog it was classified that I had a concussion. I lost something that I loved so much. I got dropped from every production I booked because I couldn’t remember things and I went ape shit in a production office due to the fact I did not understand what the fuck was happening to me, and why it was happening to me. 

I remember sitting in the office in the dull gray chair being told “ we are letting you go not as a punishment, but you need time to get better because we care about you.” And I remember hearing my heart in my ears and the room felt like it was closing in on me and all I could do was laugh until I started balling. All of this after I was humiliated on a zoom because I went blank when asked my own name, the same name I had for 24 years.  All of this happened around my birthday. And I remember I couldn’t talk to anybody about it. How was I going to explain a situation when I was confused as to what the hell was happening myself. I remember telling my friend Faith about how I couldn’t remember anything and she sent me this thick packet of activities to get my brain moving and working. And I remember tracing shapes and reading these little passages while crying about getting dropped from productions I worked my ass off to get. 

Life had won, I had no fight in me, nothing. Then a man I was dealing with at the time had basically sent me home, voted me off the island called NYC and sent me back on my way to Michigan. Paid for all the moving and shipping and even the flight, he was kind when I felt like the whole world was simply evil.  And I was so defeated I did not fight it. And believe it or not going home saved my life. I stopped moving so fast and slowed down. My hair grew back and stopped thinning, my brain came back to me and ironically I began to study neuroscience met a amazing person who had a wonderful impact on my life, and from the storm I realized all I really want and who I want to be surrounded by and loved by. 

Younger you would absolutely hate you at times. 

If 7 year old T’yanna met 24 year old T’yanna, she would hate her yet love her with everything in her. I never met my husband at school, I never got the pink barbie car, and I damn sure never forgave and forget much. Instead I turned around and grew to be the women who can barely stand the church, don’t really know what the hell is going on in life, but it’s going, and I grew into everything she hated. Yet I am happy I never grew to be who I wanted to be at the age of 7. She wanted a veterinarian and marry a beautiful rich man and have a bunch of kids and just be domesticated, and that’s not so bad, yet that was just not meant to be our story. We dated absolute fucking assholes. We had sex with men before marriage who we didn’t even really like, just did it to didn’t  it. We tear ourselves up over every and any little mess up we make. But we did one thing right. We try, and we try our best. 

After every asshole we decided we’re not dealing with that ever again. After realizing sex is not the fairytale bullshit the adults fed us as kids but is very intimate and should be handled as such we stopped acting like we had no self control. And more importantly we went through every phase we ever dreamt about week nights trying to force ourselves to sleep.  We made it out of Michigan and Georgia, we live in NYC now. We do so many different things with our hair and even stopped religiously straightening it to look “ prettier” people actually like us more when its natural and curly. We partied with people we would watch on tv, we ended up being on tv and being an actress and running a blog about our life because it was that captivating and people loved it and asked when we were going to bring it back.

 If we met each other at 7 and 24 she would be so confused as to how I was so happy because nothing aligned with how she views the world and how things should be. And If I was to meet her I would simply wish that she knew it’s all going to change it is okay, you will be okay. A little traumatized but you’ll learn so much and have the best advice/stories to share with the world from the changes, embrace them because they are inevitable. 

You are 100% the villain in peoples story, be accountable. 

For the longest time I was so mad at every friend who had crossed me. It was a long episode of “ they did this” “ they never said that” a whole lot of they, they, they. Like the friendship did not consist of them and I , Us. We. A duo. Now I am accountable to know I am not a perfect friend, yet no where near delusional and know I never did anything to warrant the way some friendships came to the end they did. 

 I had one friend who I loved to death. I am talking she was the person I celebrate everything with. One of the first people I would call, tested constantly she knew everything there was to know about me. I loved her. And till this day I do not know what exactly happened. I know we both were going through some real life shit and I would dump on her and I thought she was dumping on me then when I sit back and think, maybe I did not offer the same grace and equal yolk. The last message I sent to her I went off about how she was weird and how I did all these things for her and for her not to say anything to me is immature and weird because I did nothing to her. And looking back that could’ve been the reason. I never did anything. When she wanted space I gave it, I was so caught up in my own shit I never considered she may have been drowning in her own and I was constantly talking about me,me,me.  And when I finally reached out to own up she had blocked me back on everything, as would I if the roles were reversed.  

There was another friendship that ended with yet another girl I loved not because she did anything to me, but what she would allow herself to do and be surrounded with. I loved this girl, would go up to bat for her even when shit was bad. But how long do you try to save a person who is drowning and in the mist pushing your head under water before you give up? And me being the selfish person I have a tendency to be I stuck around because I knew It would hurt me more to let her go then to just continuously clash over her life and her choices.

 I stuck it out to the point I resented her. I started to get so mad because it’s like I saw her in this image that she couldn’t even see in herself. And I just left it. I left the relationship off on a conversation and mentally never checked back in. And that’s what the friend mentioned prior had done to me and remember how shitty that felt. If I could change anything about the two relationships it would be, the accountability. I was blind sided yes but not a hopeless victim. 

Wanting to be alive everyday on earth is unrealistic 

Surprising right? Me, T’yanna Angeline waking up and wanting life to just stop certain days. But you’ll really know what it’s like to feel like that until it happens to you. When my grandma passed I spoke at her funeral and held it together, my aunt recently complimented me on how well I delivered my message during the service, and the reality is the image of her in her casket is burned into my mind. I remember the feeling seeing her like that and it felt like nothing. And I’d rather feel gutted than nothing. 

I watch movies and think of how some people say “ a part of me died with them” and I believe a very important part of me left with her, and that part was my ability of perspective. She was the only person I had that really saw me, for me. I feel like I was born with a little too much curiosity I always want to know why and in a sense that had me unintentionally building my own personal hell in my head. I remember thinking during her service “ she left me just when I was starting to understand.”  And after her death I had a handful of instances where all I wanted was the world to stop. I didn’t want to face a world where everything keeps going yet nothing makes sense. But the beauty in life is it goes on. Some days things make absolutely zero fucking sense and other days everything makes sense. I think the holy grail is knowing when to wave your white flag for yourself and by yourself. 

You are the problem in 98% of your “problems” 

When you start to really learn yourself you will realize you are absolutely the problem. Countless times I caught myself crying over spilled milk, when I was the person who picked the cup up and turned it upside down. I realized in the mist of one of many pity parties majority of my problems are self inflicted and all of them have a solution that can get me out of it. I had to realize I was living in the comfort of my own lies I was feeding myslef and still time to time feed to myself in order to protect myself from the reality that I’m not a kid anymore. Nobody is coming to rescue me and give me all I want, I got to get up and try my best, even when I have nothing left to give. Try, try, try. The word of the 20’s try. 

Nobody knows what the hell is actually going on 

The first half of my 20’s have been a whirlwind. Not as one colored as my childhood but way more gentle. And I credit that to remembering who I was before life happened.  Who I was when I first started my writing with the world. Though I love her every single version of her, the state of mind I am in now and the way I live and carry myself this is definitely my favorite T’yanna. Feels the most me I ever felt.  So what I am asking you reader is are you living in your current truth or clinging to your past self because you know what to expect and made comfort in your own self fed lies ? Because the 20’s go fast and if anybody says there 20’s were graceful and elegant they my friend are a fucking liar. Embrace your mess, embrace your 20’s.