She Who Wants It All but can’t get off the couch long enough to make it happen!
by Paula G. Akinwole

I’ve gotten two different answers to the question of having it all.
A preacher friend said you can’t have it all. You can dedicate your life to the work you want to do but might sacrifice love, children, and the enjoyment of recklessness. It means that something suffers when you do one thing exhaustively but it’s not a suffering if you’re doing what is your purpose. You’ve made a choice.
A healer friend of mine said you can have it all just not at the same time. Your seasons may overlap a little or be one after the other but you can have all the things you desire in due time even if not the same time.

Which I suppose is the burden either way. There is no all at all, huh?

I lived with both understandings as law at one point or another. I dedicated my life to ministry knowing I would have to give up on some of my wilder dreams. I also tried doing one passion at a time and felt myself longing for something more. In both aspects, I was unfulfilled and seeking more. So I stopped doing it all. And now I am she who wants it all but can’t seem to get off the couch long enough to make anything happen.

It feels like a real curse. My therapist handed me a few alphabet that should explain some of it but Idk. Maybe I am a great poet & orator from a far off magical world who was trapped on Earth as a way to imprison me and stop my greatness. In that world, I wrote poems that opened the minds of wicked men to virtue and released the enslaved mind to explore new visions. My essays and stories captured the voice of the generation and represented the people. I walked in it bravely and virtuously. So the government captured me, wiped my mind, and sent me to a new realm in which I didn’t overcome my trauma, grew up angry and ashamed, and ultimately struggled to become who I was meant to be.

Thinking that someone did this to me, distorted my mind so everyday I forget who I am and how great I should be, is a real masterpiece of self sabotaging and imposter syndrome. New achievement unlocked! However, maybe it gives me something to fight for. Most days, when I sit down to write and all that comes out are the ramblings of my maddening mind, I can’t consider well enough why it matters or what purpose this is for me to keep going. But if I could see a glimpse into a version of myself that does what my heart desires and does so triumphantly then maybe it’s not about just doing the work but tapping into who I am.

So I’m cursed to be here, oh well. This world is full of iniquitous and broken things that there is still use for my power here, right? So now what? Off the couch. Maybe after this episode of Real Housewives of Potomac. No, now! DVR that shit and do the work now!

How I wish it was that easy; encourage and motivate myself to do better. Do I need something tangible? Someone tangible? Did I have a golden staff and an ancient muse in my other world. Here, I have a laptop and my son. Maybe my laptop is magical. My son surely is. If anything, he is proof that I make magic.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe I need to remind myself of the magic I make. Cause forgetfulness is one of the tricks of the enemy; if I forget who I am constantly and what I can do, it’s easy to fall back onto the coach thinking I’m incapable.

Practical Suggestion: (I did this in 2022 but forgot to do this in 2023 and the results showed) Keep a list of your accomplishments and successes. Every time you do something to be proud of, weather it’s washing and folding the clothes or getting an A on an exam, write that shit down! Watch it grow, watch it be proof of your greatness.

Okay, I think I’ve rambled my way into where I’m not feeling how I felt when I first set down to write at 5Am on a Thursday morning. Next step will be for me to spend some time remembering who I am. I can’t focus on an old or other life, I got a glimpse but that’s gone now. This one, the one I am in now, is what matters. I don’t know if this is the 100th time I’ve lived it or if it’s the last one I got so I gotta give it my all.

Off the couch now, girl! It’s not that comfortable anyway!