Writing with Juliet Iwelunmor

I saw purple cone flowers on my morning run today. The past week has been a walk through hell. Seeing purple cone flowers were the sight I needed to wrap up a terrible week. I took a picture of the flower. I read what they stood for. Flowers like this thrive in open wooded areas. They are also known for strength and health. Two things I desperately needed in this moment of my life. Yesterday I finally let my soul agree with my heart that working the way I do was totally not worth it. I have known this for a long time. I have fought to fight this thought too. The environment for one doesn’t help. The fact that I also have to constantly beg for support isn’t helpful either. So I declared out loud to anyone that cared to hear that what I do in the environment that it currently occurs in, is not worth the headache. It’s not worth the headache when your emails get ignored. It’s not worth the headache when your invoices get ignored. It’s not worth the headache when your ethics or morality beyond the framing state gets ignored and it’s certainly not work the headache when others try to teach you how to work.

So I got up this morning and went for a run. 4.64 miles to be exact. The plan was 3 miles. Something that I have always done, even when I take a break and return to running. But I pushed myself today for two reasons. First, what doesn’t kill you, will only make you strong. Second, because I know I can always push myself beyond my limits or what people think will cause me to fall. Not when my steps are literally ordered by a higher power. The work is never work for me and what some call frustration is joy for me. I saw that with the extra 1.64 miles I ran today. I am beyond the limits and places and environments people constantly want to box me in and I can do anything through him who strengths me. That was the message of the purple coneflowers on the run today. The fact that all strength, all health too that I need for this moment is within me.

The fact too that I am the history of persistence guides me. I am the history of forests. I am the history of long walks through forests dark and deep. I am the history of perseverance. I am the history of insisting life can be lived on our own terms. My steps through life are no accident. You don’t name us the offsprings of Onyelo and live our life to chance. The purple coneflowers get it. I do. We are the history of strength for still waters that run deep. History of a time when chaos roared like a flood, yet we stood. We stood back then and we will stand again because of the one who stood just so I stand today. Nothing will ever take my history from me. The next thing will surely amaze. I put all my history on it.