We Gon' Be Alright ...

Inspired by and Dedicated to Mac Miller.

This past Friday, as I was driving, I got a snapchat from an old friend and then a text from my bestfriend (both at the same time) … I saw the text before I opened the snap which said the same exact thing and I read the words “Mac Miller died”.  Disbelief is one way to describe my initial reaction. It felt like my heart kind of stopped like “nah, I’m sorry .. what??” And I kind of just started laughing in confusion as tears came to my eyes and then this feeling really just hit where it was like “wait … what??”And the only way I could describe my feelings towards Mac’s death is... “Wait but … what?”

It just doesn’t sit right with me and I don’t think it ever will. I feel like I knew him, the way his death makes my heart hurt. No exaggeration – like I lost a friend. There’s an empathy for what led to his untimely death and it makes me unbearably sad yet so very concerned. I can’t figure out what it is that we’re all running from and why it is that we all feel such hurt so deeply. It point blank scares me.

About a month ago, we almost lost Demi Lovato to the same damn thing and everybody’s so quick to make jokes until all of a sudden, it’s just not funny anymore. We’re too young to be dying like this. When the news about Demi broke, I remember literally freezing, because just like Mac … nobody saw it coming. To know me is to know that I love Demi Lovato. She’s such an integral part in how Bee learned to love Bee and to hear that she almost died … so young at that, because of her battle with addiction; it’s devastating and unfortunately we’ve seen this play out too many times before. Truth be told, I’m just tired of seeing death at the hands of drugs and mental illness.

I've also noticed, that when tragedy like this strikes, we’re all so quick to go to social media and fix our fingers to type “Check on your friends”. And while I agree that you should most definitely check on your friends, I also think that we can’t rely on our friends to help us battle our demons because at the end of the day, there’s only so much they can do and it’s really not fair to place that kind of responsibility on someone else. Especially because it’s such an inside job. I’m the first one to want to be there for my friends but honestly speaking, sometimes I just can’t. Emotionally and mentally, we’re all battling our own demons and sometimes we just need a break. This doesn’t mean we don’t care for them, we’re all just going through something and emotions are hard and exhausting.

What concerns me about Mac’s death and Demi’s overdose is that we all know that they were self-medicating to help cope with whatever they’re dealing with and it’s scary because we all do the same exact thing, the only difference is – we’re not battling addiction … but we could be. Mac has this one line on his last album titled Swimming, on a track called Come Back To Earth where he says "I just need a way out of my head, I'll do anything for a way out of my head"  and it's daunting now, but we all know exactly what he's talking about. I’m guilty myself of feeling my depression creeping and instead of sitting in it, I want out of my head so I’ve self-medicated. Sometimes, things are too hard and deep to deal with on your own and I get that, but all of this has really just pushed my agenda for seeking therapy. These effects that we seek, only last so long before we have to seek them again and in the end, the feelings and hurt are still there, unbothered.

J.Cole dropped a whole album about this specific issue – refer to KOD- and while my first post was inspired by it, I leaned more towards mental health and neglected to really touch on the drug part of it. In the song titled FRIENDS, he references over and over again how we’d rather do drugs than seek help because we avoid communicating our thoughts. All of our lives, therapy has been such a taboo thing and to need it means that you’ve got serious issues. Or so we’ve been taught. We seem to be okay with just diagnosing ourselves as “depressed” without wanting to figure out the root of why and how we can learn to manage it.

I, myself am high functioning depressed – you would never know unless I decide to disclose it to you or unless it’s really affecting my ability to be present because I’ve learned how to navigate myself through the years. And through the years, I’ve been in an out of therapy up until recently when I decided that it was best to go back and deal with things. It may be taboo to ya’ll, but my emotional and mental state is the best it’s been in a very long time and I have no fear or shame about it, because …. Therapy.

I say all of that, to say this … put the drink, blunt, and anything else down if its sole purpose is to mask what’s really going on in your mind. Because guess what? It’ll still be there waiting when you come down, and it’s not going anywhere until you sit with it and make peace. Nothing beats that peace of mind, I promise. You’re the only one who truly knows what you’re going through and because we’re our own worst enemy, I just ask that you instead become your own biggest fan. Don’t hide behind your vice, your life deserves more. You’re no lesser than the next person for choosing to care about your mental health.

To the people that I love who I know are struggling too, we gon be alright. Believe that. And to end it all, in the words of Mac – “Self Care, I’m treatin me right. Hell yeah, we gon be alright.”

Rest in peace.