ghost from 15 years ago

Dear God,

A ghost from 15 years ago reached out today. A friend from church who hasn't seen the trenches I’ve been living in.

He told me I was beautiful. He told me he was “happy” for me. He told me to walk in “humility.”

It’s easy to talk about humility when you aren't the one holding the warrant. It’s easy to be “happy” for someone’s growth when you aren't the one paying the $0.84 debt that’s holding your life hostage.

Dear God, tell the Secretaries of Hope that I am done with “cute” theology.

I don’t need to be told I’m beautiful; I need to be told I’m right to fight. I don’t need to be told to be humble; I need the strength to be loud.

Humiliation is what the system is trying to do to me—but my humility is found in the fact that I know I can’t win this alone.

I’m sending this bottle out for the women who are tired of being “encouraged” by people who aren't willing to get in the mud with them.

They told me I was beautiful today.

They said it while holding a warrant for my child. They said it while ignoring the evidence of their own corruption. They said it while they choked my life over a debt of eighty-four cents.

I’m writing this because the people who are paid to listen have turned off their ears. The Board of Supervisors has gone silent. The directors are colluding in the dark. And in the middle of this triple-life crisis, a man told me he was “happy” for me—as if my heartbreak was a spectator sport.

But I am not a dumb blonde, and I am not a decorative tragedy.

If I am in a “crap show,” it is one they built with manufactured lies and altered truths. They want me to walk in “humility,” but what they really mean is they want me to walk in silence. They want me to be a "Secretary of Despair," filing away my own destruction.

I refuse.

I am handing this letter to the Secretaries of Hope. I am sending this message in a bottle because I can’t handle the weight on my own.

I am writing down the pain, the truth, and the absolute absurdity of a system that spends thousands to take a child but won't pick up the trash for pennies.

I am releasing the humiliation they tried to wrap around me like a shroud. I am trading it for the lightbulb moment that reminded me: I am the author of my own diary.

If they won't answer my emails, let them read my heart. The Secretaries of Hope are listening, and they don't care about my "looks"—they care about the truth.

Amen