Let me guess. You just had a birthday. Let me also guess this. You feel more connected yet at the same time so expanded, which might often times feel a touch like disillusion or confusion, right? I would like to inform you of something, just in case you really do not know this about yourself. Your greatness is not only contained within your gift. The greatness that people receive, when they truly receive and see you, is the gift that is you. Whether you feel like you’re on top of the world and can conquer anything, or even at times when you shy away because you’re hesitant to tell people that you really crave being alone, so that you have the fuel necessary to energize the masses. There was no mistake nor second thought to your creation. When you open your mouth, do your best to continue evolving, not only to appease those around you, but to appease the holy spirit that dwells deeply within you. God is not one to play with, which means that you should stop playing with yourself.

Whenever you are framing or adjusting to the real time consciousness that is your flaws, your upbringing, your morals and convictions and values, remember to show yourself just as much grace, as you feel as though God would do for you any day. Mind your mouth, because you not only hold the power of life and death in your tongue and your words, but also your tones, the amount of mindfulness that you practice by thinking before you speak. These little and sometimes simplistic details can make all the difference in getting the right message to the right person at the right time. Congratulations on your songs. Congratulations to your blossoming career, and congratulations to giving me the space to get out of my own way. You’re not 31 and alone. You’re not 31 years of age and getting gone. You’re not buried underneath the ground, because the ground is not meant to contain fire.

It’s okay to coexist with things and people and ideologies that may at times the same challenging but are not a threat to you in any way. That boundless optimism that you’ve always possessed is not artificial nor is it pretend. When you smile, it’s as if every available light in the cosmos smiles back at you. When you cry tears, you’re helping to usher in new seasons; along with canceling restrictions and limitations on what anybody can do, if they simply put their mind to it. A mind is a terrible thing to waste, and you never had done this. Remember that.

Be kinder and available to let people love and love on you. Stop minimizing the impact that you have and mingle with, daily. Get your behind up and start your day, as if God called ONLY you to say Good Morning. When it concerns your career moves, going forward, learn to play the game but remember your role is not to be played. Be observant without having to be seen. Practice and never stop actively listening and applying what you hear into what you feel. Whenever you have a question, continue to ask it, even if you’re asking yourself. Whenever you have a problem, even if it’s one that you are burdening for someone else, never avoid the altar and the heal from where your help comes from. All of those that you have lost and all of those that you are becoming aware that you have gained love you on purpose. They may not always like you, but you learn to love you. Irregardless of flaws and anything else, because even your bad days can still reach mountain peaks.

A great vocalist and songwriter once said that I can love you to death or I can love you to life, but I cannot love you to the death of me. Putting others over self, like I’m stuck up on a Shelf is disrespectful to me. I learned to love me, flaws and everything. Even my bad days still have peace, so I can love you to death or I can love you to life but I will not love you to the death of me.

Carry On Sir And Keep Up The Amazing Work. I love you.

Sincerely,

Seulomon

I was today years old, when I realized. There is a reason it was never my season. I cannot do what everybody else does. I will not go wherever they go. Alone I may know. As I journey this winding road. Picking up pieces of peace, as I grow. Sewing seed of redemption and faith. As my eyes see the lies I taste. My dreams hold on as my memories change.

10 years ago, I could write a song about anything. From wars on words and vengeance to resiliant melodies. Easier to imitate than to live. Terrified my all wouldn’t be worth the give. I hid behind intelligent performances. But emotionally I could not lie, so logically loneliness began to overwrite. Permeate the inner sanctum of my mind. Making simple the impossible. The rejected, the respected. The forgotten, the source and seed harvested in every moment of grace.

Loneliness made an enemy of me. The moment it let me think that my obedience was punishment for the smile and laughter God gives. For the praise I lift in love, even when my tears have only just begun. I am more than anger and rage. I’m more than smiles and joy that you can’t erase. I learned to love me, flaws and everything. Merciful thru my falls. Forgiven for AWOLS. Uniquely seasoned and reasoned for being me.

They asked me what I could bring to the table. I told them the room. They said, “Why do you need the room?” I said because if not in the room, then I’m outside, and do you know what’s outside? Bugs. Things that bug and pest. Things that bug and pests tend to get noticed, raided, and even physically dismissed. But just like the atmosphere of an 8am court case, I’m standing on business, and in my room is where the table was made.

The prompt for tonight’s challenge is to formulate and attempt to describe, for a moment, the greatest memory of 2024. I can already tell you that every great memory that now submits for me for 2024 includes a desk or some sort of table, where I believe divinity manifested the return of my Unapologetic nature and Curiosities about self, immersion to my immediate and extended, perhaps even cosmically inclusive, environments and ecosystems, and why all of that matters. My favorite memory, if I had to isolate it to just one thing, that cannot overlap with anything else, it would be the first time that I got into a company designated vessel for a very high profile technological and navigationally Innovative and involved Corporation, and was able to feel the enclosure and borrowed security, vehicular security, of driving my first vehicle in over 6 years, that was not commercially licensed, and have the freedom to take it wherever I wanted it to go. For the first time in my life, being a black person with a company designated, dispensed, and accounted for credit card, with my name correctly spelled on it. Having a job and corporate cellular device that acted as the epicenter for how I would eventually maintain as well as fail and sustaining, what I would deem as consistently sufficient, communications with my superiors. I had no idea that buried within this particular memory, I sat on what eventually became my most thrilling summer yet.

A 30-year-old man, from English Avenue, which is also known as an area called the bluff, in residential Atlanta Georgia. A product and incomparable abnormality of the Atlanta Public School System, who then fought and self-educated his way to not only the University of West Georgia but also all the way out to the University of Southern California, just to enter into a six-figure debt for a piece of paper that means nothing. That same 30 year old man, who really had to grow up and become someone who not only walked the walk but had to walk the specific talks that I’ve been privy to and kind of locked into with both the rearing and the passing of my mother only years prior. The same 30-year-old man who knew what hand towels and Rags were for, which is to dab the sweat off of the face, as opposed to continuing to run a race Against Time, community, and myself, when all you have to do, sometimes, it’s just be willing to take the next step, trusting and having the audacity to consistently believe that the next step, irregardless of Road or texture of pathway, mean something, even if you have to Define what that is. The very first time I sat in that company vehicle and closed the door, certain rooted emotions began to consume and then accompany me all the way from home in Kennesaw, Georgia to the dusty and wisdom paved roads of Dyersburg, Tennessee. I remember the bends in the evergrowing flatness of the horizon line up to St. Louis, Missouri. I remember the risk it was driving to Ottumwa, Iowa and the speed I never knew I could sustain trying to escape an inevitable traffic citation in Fargo, North Dakota, only after a long and enduring overnight drive through Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which only springboarded me right to where I finally was headed…Glendive, Montana. I drove every mile. I made it to every stop, every city, and completed every assignment that was allotted to me. At just 30 I can say that I’ve seen a lot of places. At 30, I can say I’ve gone out of my state, and not just because of some academia-based program, but for work. My favorite memory of 2024 isn’t a memory it’s an ongoing experience that just so happened to start when I hit a button that said push to start. I look forward to what the next year has in store, and I hope God is looking forward to our next Journey, because I will never be able to repay him, for the grace and continued favor I managed to find like grains of sand on the beach every day this year. I found me out on that road. And I finally brought him home. I look forward to more submissions to this platform, so thank you for the opportunity.