June 2023 – Write 2 Be

Excuse me while I get a little real for a moment. It’s been a rough month to say the least. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t struggling, not just financially, or physically, but mentally. As I feel the depression setting in I try to deny it’s presence but it’s pretty hard to hide what everyone else can see so clearly. Last week I said in one of my videos that I felt like I was in a tunnel and I just couldn’t see the light at the end of it right now. That was the moment I stopped denying that I was, in fact, depressed.

Logically I know that with everything I have gone through in the last month I have every right to be depressed but the irrational part of me is just like, no depression this is not the time for you to appear. I have too much to fix and to straighten out to get depressed right now. I don’t know what to do. I’ve never been in this position before and I never thought I would be. I feel like such a failure and like I’ve let anyone who has ever seen potential in me down, at the top of that list is myself and my daughter.

I wanted to post something happy and optimistic today and I know there’s still some positivity deep down inside me but right now I just need to get this out and essentially scream into the void, so to speak, how I’m really feeling. The positive me will return by my next post, I’m sure, but real life is full of ups and downs and I always promised to be my most authentic self in the spaces that I hold so this is me, telling you all, how I’m really doing right now. I am not okay.

Until next time… #BeVulnerable #BeBrave #BeMindful

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Jimmetta Carpenter

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

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It’s been a couple of weeks since my last blog post and to say that things in my world have changed drastically would be quite the understatement. While I don’t always feel the need to share every single facet of my life, I do pride myself on being as authentic and transparent about this writing journey, and life in general (because life itself even without such high ambitions is a journey) so since everything can’t always be sunshine and roses here goes total vulnerability. I am now homeless and currently writing this post as I am temporarily in a hotel room that I am sharing with my daughter who still lives at home with me (because she is in college but is doing her classes online from home).

On Friday, May 19^th, in the shadiest way ever, I was evicted from my home of nearly 23 years (would have been 23 in October). I say shady because while I’m not going to act like I was completely caught up in my rent, I had fallen a bit behind, however, I had an arrangement with my prior property manager (who I did not know had left the property until this eviction happened) because she knew that I had been a valued tenant for more than two decades and that I had applied for some assistance programs the state has to help those who are self-employed and had fallen behind (due to Covid) and that I am also applying for disability (which is still waiting to be processed). Well without any word to any of the residents, they replaced the old property manager with a new one who did not value my long-standing tenancy and did not honor the prior arrangement that I had and effectively gave me five minutes for me and my daughter to grab what we could and leave.

You can imagine that we weren’t able to grab much. You can also imagine that the very first things I grabbed were all writing related (like my laptop and the notebooks I was currently using). We managed to put a large amount of stuff in a storage unit but it certainly wasn’t everything and when we came back later everything that was left was gone. My desk, the vast majority of our clothes, everything. My neighbor who had been living beside me for the last 15 of those years and we always made sure to check in on each other, gave me enough to get a room for me and my daughter the first two nights and a church friend helped with the third night for that first weekend. A GoFundMe was started on Monday and while I haven’t reached my goal yet, a large amount was raised and that is how we are still able to stay in the same hotel room that we got that first night (at a discounted rate because the hotel manager took pity on me).

I won’t lie and say that this wasn’t a traumatizing event. Every time I think of something else I lost in all of that I get a little emotional and my daughter’s words to me were “did they have to be so joyful about throwing our stuff out” and that will stick with me too. I try to always stay positive and see the good in everything but it’s a little hard in this case. That said, everything does happen for a reason and even though I’m not completely sure what that reason is right now I’m sure it will reveal itself to me in time. Perhaps this needed to happen to push me to a level that makes me feel uncomfortable and out of sorts. They say sometimes the best things grow out of what you feel are the worst things that can happen to you and if that’s true then I must be due for some really good things down the line.

I have taken the last two weeks to stew and to settle into this new reality of mine, one that I hope doesn’t last for a long time, but I can’t pretend that this isn’t going to be a hard road to getting back on track. In saying that I also realize that the work doesn’t stop, and shouldn’t stop, just because life threw me a major curve ball. I still have books to put out (another poetry book is releasing on Friday June 9^th) and that I don’t still have dreams that must be accomplished one way or another. That’s the thing that each obstacle in life teaches me over and over again. I am a fighter, and I don’t quit. I will always get back up when I get knocked down and the thing about hitting rock bottom is that there is literally nowhere else to go but up! So no matter what obstacles you are facing, you’re not alone and the one thing that you can’t do is give up. Stay in the fight and keep striving for those dreams!

Until next time… #BeDiligent #BeFearless #BeCourageous