SEPTEMBER 23rd, a QUEEN was born and that queen 👸🏽 is ME. 🎊✨
✨ I am not supposed to be alive you see folks, I was born at a time where my mixed-ethnic existence was a threat to the beautiful country that I was born in ‼️
I am a child of a Hutu mother and a Tutsi father and for that my life became unsustainable in my home of Burundi 🇧🇮. My family managed to escape the war and we made it to Tanzania 🇹🇿 where we lived as refugees for 5 years.
We got “lucky” as I’ve heard from time to time. When we were resettled to the USA in 1998. Let me back up a bit, my life in the refugee camp was a typical tragic story of starvation, malnutrition, and sexual abuse. The molestation was much worse in the refugee camp, because the adults who were supposed to be protecting me were the ones busy raping me and many other children. I survived this also. I survived and with my family made it to the USA 🇺🇸 in 1998.
My first year in Arizona was primarily spent at the children’s hospital trying to gain some semblance of good health from the years of malnutrition. I survived that also.
I started school, and struggled severely in school due to language barrier and lack of educational support. Throughout it all though God somehow saw it fit for me to continue to survive 🙌🏾 Middle school and high school were mostly a blur infused with drugs and alcohol and I spent 7 years at a community college not certain of what my educational future would hold, but I finally figured it out ❤️
I chose social work! I realized that I could help more people if I got my stuff together and started to focus on school 👩🏾🎓I did just that!! I completed my bachelor with high a GPA than completed my Masters Degree with a 3.98/4.00 which I could have never imagined happening🙌🏾
Yet even with the educational and career advancements my mental health was continually getting worse. I attempted to unlive myself several times between middle school and grad school. I spent several years in therapy and prayed for my healing. Therapy and Prayer worked for me in rejuvenating my mental health. 🙏🏿 I learned to love myself! I learned to care for myself, and I learned to forgive myself for the things that I have no control over 🎯
Today I am celebrating 33 years around the moon and sun 🥳 🎉 I am ALIVE, mentally stable, in a career that I love with a family that I love and friendships that I cherish to my core. I’m financially better than I could’ve imagined and the life I am living now is what my 15, 18, or 25 year old selves could not fathom would exist 😩💖.
This is not to say I don’t have rough days, this is to say that on my worst day I have the right coping skills and support to manage. Sober, Joyful, Grateful and Peaceful. I am no longer just surviving, I am thriving.
Happiest birthday to me and this year will be my year of saying YES to everything that brings me JOY. 🥹🎁
InspiredbyAline 