#1: IT STARTS WITH A WHISPER, AND THEN IT SCREAMS

“Wasn’t it all supposed to be more beautiful than this?” — Glennon Doyle

I like the number 33.

Religious scholars believe thirty-three is when Jesus’ mission on earth had culminated; when he died on the cross and fulfilled his purpose on earth.

By the age of 33, I had accomplished many of the things I wanted to do and many of the things I was supposed to do.

For undergrad, I attended the same Christian university my father had. While he was no longer alive by my freshman year, I knew it was what he would have wanted, and I hoped it made him proud. By senior year, I won the award for the best thesis in my department, graduated summa cum laude, and received invitations to apply for the Juris Doctor program from schools like Stanford Law School. I attended George Washington University’s law school because they had one of the best international law programs in the country at the time and offered me a scholarship. When I graduated, I received an outstanding law graduate award from the American National Association of Women Lawyers. A few months after I took the New York bar exams, I met a guy, and within a year, I had a diamond ring from Tiffany’s on my finger. I made it to the proverbial finish line that is the wedding altar before thirty, and I know this made my mother proud.

Within a few years post-graduation, I had built a solid career in social justice and impact I was proud of. After full-time and consulting roles at organizations like UNDP and the ONE Campaign, and recognition for my work from organizations like the British Council, I had become a Deputy Director on the global team of the largest foundation/NGO in the world. My role gave me access to two of the most well-known people on the planet and a multi-million-dollar budget to manage. I accomplished in a few years what it took many in my field years (and even decades) to achieve.

By 33, I had attained many of the external markers of success:
The job.
The marriage.
The high-rise apartment with a view of the Manhattan skyline.
The rolodex.
The frequent flier miles.
The friends (and the “friends”).
And yet, I was skirting the edges of misery.
I had done almost everything right, and yet, so much felt wrong.

By 33, a feeling that had been taking shape within me gained voice once I met this sentence: Wasn’t it all supposed to be more beautiful than this?

The whispers began to haunt me, relentlessly.
In my sleep. At dawn. In the middle of my workday. In the shower. The same question would come to me, over and again.
Darling, wasn’t it all supposed to be more beautiful than this?

I tried to suppress the whispers.
Tried to achieve them away.
Tried to travel them away.
Tried to watch-TV-them-away.
Tried to social media them away.
Tried to intellectualize them away.
Tried to eat them away.
Tried to pray-and-church them away.

But rather than disappear, the whisper metastasized and spread like cancer.

“ I tried to drink it away. I tried to put one in the air. I tried to dance it away. I tried to change it with my hair.”

— Solange, Cranes In The Sky

Oprah once said: “Life whispers to you all the time. If you don’t listen to the whisper, it gets louder. If you don’t pay attention to the whisper, it becomes a pebble, a brick, or even a brick wall, until you get the message.”

The whispers became screams, became sinking feelings in my belly, became a brick wall in my chest.

33 is when Jesus got crucified.

33 is when a version of me that had been dying for years finally had to face a cross: a depression that threatened to swallow me whole.

The Bible says Jesus resurrected in three days– my redemption arc came nowhere near as quickly as my Savior’s. It took me 3 more years post 33 to die all the deaths my living required.

The good news is the various graves I faced are not the end of my story.
Indeed, they are where a new story—my own gospel—begins.

This month, three years ago, a psychiatrist prescribed me anti-depression medication to help me function. Today, what was once a seemingly far-fetched affirmation in my journal is now a reality in my day-to-day life: happiness is my baseline.

Pieces of me I thought would be buried forever, a peace that seemed unattainable: these things are now firmly in my grasp.

And: I am still resurrecting.

Welcome to (some of) the story of my pivot journey.