The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We

-Chazeem, photographed wearing white and drenched in sweat,

In the early beginning of the month of May I had drove home from my final class of the semester. The leaves had begun to slowly awaken from the winters frost and something lingered in the air. with one hand of the steering wheel and the other wrapped around my phone, I sent a text. It had been a few months since we last spoke and I was terribly anxious as I was unsure what the reaction I would get might me.

-An exposed heart placed squarely on his chest.

As my tires hit the asphalt below me I tossed the phone over on the empty seat beside me. It’d be a few hours before I got a reply, but I didn’t know that, I honestly wasn’t expecting a reply at all but it was worth a try. I’d been dealing with so many emotions during the drive, regret, annoyance, sadness, and finally acceptance. I had reached a point where I could no longer run from what I knew was the right thing to do, I had to apologize.

-Sat still, begging? praying?

Accepting the fact that you made a mistake is sometimes a difficult thing to do. As human being we hate believing that we might be in the wrong, its somewhat of a bias we have towards ourselves and our beliefs in general. This isn’t inherently a bad thing though, in order or us to move forward in life we must have a strong conviction and belief in ourselves to do anything, we simply must. This however can also be our downfall as when two opposing immovable forces collide there is often only destruction in its outcome.

-Solid, immovable, and jarring, like an obsidian monolith dawned in dress.

I can sometimes be that immovable force, I’m stubborn, I get it from my mom and dad, and two Caribbean parents they we the immovable objects I had in my life who refused to move even eight years after coming out to them. What I didn’t realize though was how this mindset was a negative boon on my mental state primarily because I often dealt with an avoidant anxious attachment style that often left cracks in the relationships I had or attempted to foster with others. A subconscious fusion of that stubbornness and avoidance that made me steadfast in my invisibility.

- “The headshot for this one looks pretty good”

Not once did I question what was happening in my mind and subsequently in my personal/social life. This was routine, if I felt threatened, if I felt scared, if I was worried, I would run for the door as soon as I could and vanish without a trace. The change occurred when I begun to think deeply about how my actions may have impacted others and particularly how my actions may have hurt someone. An awful feeling washed over me then. Empathy? the sudden sense that I may have made someone feel how countless other have made me feel, a dissociative feeling leaves you questioning and yearning for, why?

-Wearing pearls, a cropped, fitted blazer, along with a cream colored pant and a Calvin Klein leather belt, Chazeem poses,

Once I came to that conclusion, once I realized what I’d done, I knew what I had to do. But doing the right thing is never easy, it takes time, fully understanding yourself and making a commitment to not only putting your beliefs into action but staying on that path and continuing to better yourself regardless of how you may struggle. It took some time before I worked up what I needed to send that message, an olive branch. I wanted to take the first step in the direction of doing what I thought was the right thing.

It was more meaningful if I said it in person, I didn’t think apologizing to someone through text would be of any consolation, and so in time we met up. It was brief, a small conversation, an exchange of how we’d both been feeling and my apology. That was that. The food went cold. The anxiety subsided three days later. Since then we haven't spoken a word to one another, it seems as though the chapter has concluded and I feel okay with that. Knowing that I did the right thing was enough for me then. I felt renewed.

-Chest exposed, with a heeled Converse sneaker.

At times even in the best intentions were able to hurt each other, and unfortunately it takes time to learn that, time that comes at a cost. Recently I received an apology from someone who hurt me. While I hadn’t thought about that hurt in quite sometime, I received it and warmly and appreciated the gesture. It felt as though the growth, I’d experienced during this period was spreading like the roots of a tree. “Sometimes we make the dumbest mistakes.” and its important we take own up to them do what we believe the next right thing is.