2022 in Review

"You know my soul look back and wonder... how did I make it over?" -Mahalia Jackson

I won’t lie to you: 2022 felt a lot like 2021. Maybe slightly less insurrection-y. Still pretty 2021-ish, though.

One of my biggest revelations of 2022? It is too expensive outside. Forreal. Gas is expensive. Food is expensive. Rent is expensive. Being broke is expensive. I’ve been tryna stay inside more. It’s a little cheaper in here. Not by much. But enough to make my dollars stretch a little bit further.

Being broke is kinda tough sometimes. I mean that in a very real sense. In an episode of Three Black Men, we had a chance to speak with health psychologist Dr. Olajide Bamishigbin. One of the things we discussed was the impact that a lower socioeconomic status can have on your mental health. It’s not a pretty picture. And that’s something that’s been weighing on me more heavily lately.

But it hasn’t driven me to the point of despair just yet. Because something pretty dope happened to me in 2022. I found out I was a writer. To be clear, I always knew I could write. I just… never thought of my self as a writer. On January 3, 2022, I launched this newsletter. I didn’t know what to expect from it. I just figured it couldn’t hurt. But in the months that followed, I discovered that I not only enjoy doing this, but that there is a community of people with whom I can enjoy doing this.

And community has this way of making me feel less broke.