https://anchor.fm/isiahirby (Audiobook Here)
Thanks for at least coming here. No seriously, it takes a lot to read something that someone else has written when it's not assigned to you. If you're reading this and you're someone I know, awesome! It's great to know you dropped by. If you're someone new and we don't know each other that much, then also cool. The only thing that matters is having an audience. Nevertheless, recapping my year thus far was something I already had planned before this year even started. However, like most of us and our “new year resolutions,’ it did not work out from the get-go.
Here I am though, in a state consumed by forced-upon self-reflection. I take the time to think about what this year means, why some things have worked out, and why some things haven't. You have to take time in life to look back at what has happened to truly understand how you got where you are now.
This is what you're reading. Here’s my 2020.
January
I started this year walking into an all-white house party with my partner and her roommate as the only diverse people in not just the room, but I am for sure the entire general vicinity. Nonetheless, it was a spectacular night to ring in the New Year. (Shout out to my good friend for hosting it). My partner is good with one-liners. She told me "diversity has entered the group chat now." I laugh about it every time I recall it.
We stayed and even took the generic New Year’s Eve photos and took shots when the clock struck midnight. I couldn't remember much of the night after that, which will speak to how much fun I had. All I knew was that if there was any way to start off the year, then that wasn’t the worst way to do it. I had goals to set of getting in better shape, focusing on my grades, finishing my novels, and getting ready to end my college career in the Spring.
Following that, the next few days of the year weren’t that bad either. It certainly had the feelings of a great start (as I’m sure many people thought as well too).
January ushered in such a rush of great momentum. I had never been so organized. My planner was all ready and written in and I had a new job I was excited to start at my recruitment office on my campus. I celebrated a good friend’s birthday in the middle of it, and even found the time to attend my second leadership retreat and put together the first big event of the organization I was a part of.
It was a professional workshop night that my vice president came up with. This was really my first time this year seeing my other executives working together like this. Funny enough, just a few nights before, practically all of us all linked up accidentally at a party.
For me that was new. I knew it was going to happen eventually (trust me, this isn't the only time we all got together), but I was surprised to see it this early. It was without a doubt the night that gave me a peek to just how chaotically successful being in a group with them would be. As for the event we held, It went well of course. We helped a lot of people with their LinkedIn profiles, head-shots, resumes and even interviewing. We had a strong start, that's what mattered. The group was growing and looking to be very successful. Scarily enough, everything else was going too well in the beginning.
Sunday January 26th,
I remember refusing to leave my bed in the morning and deciding to sleep in a bit more. When I awoke from my second morning slumber, I unlocked my phone that was last placed right beside me. The last app I had been on was Facebook. (Don’t judge me for being 22 and still actively using Facebook). When the app opened and I saw Kobe Bryant’s face underneath a TMZ article, I knew it wasn’t something good. It was just half a second between when I looked at the TMZ logo and when I read the actual title of “Kobe Bryant Dead in Helicopter Crash.”
I immediately refreshed it and brushed some of the tiredness out of my eyes. I wish I didn’t refresh the page. A few seconds had passed…another news page posted the same. Within the hour, doubt became realization.
I just felt numb.
Kobe Bryant, a hero to everyone and an icon in basketball and in life, gone at the age of 41 in a horrible helicopter crash. To this moment I still can't fathom it. My introduction to Kobe came from watching him and the Los Angeles Lakers go against my hometown team of the Boston Celtics. In 2008, The Celtics beat the Lakers for the NBA championship. I idolized the fact that Kobe had this killer mentality of a ruthless winner. His death affected me like I think it affected a lot of athletes and former athletes. It was almost as if a part of the motivation to be better was taken away.
My connection with how much he wanted to be great was deep. I'm someone who allows myself to be inspired by others and things. This is because sometimes you can’t pick yourself up alone, but seeing someone who always wants to improve, was the push I needed.
Me, as a black man, when I see around the internet how the world WANTS me to act, wants me to love and whatnot, and then see a man who worked hard, went through the bad times and then succeeded and made the most of his life get cut short, it confuses me. It makes me question why someone who has done so much to impact so many people positively can be gone so fast, with his daughter and fellow friends and children too.
I’m someone who thinks deeply about these things, and it keeps me up some nights, wondering where my own motivation would come from again. Then, seeing everyone’s love for him and wanting to be better was what I thought I needed to see. In reality, It broke me even more. It was like my own motivation faded and was replaced by an outrageous doubt of succeeding.
Kobe was a natural storyteller that wanted to make and do things that pushed people to be better. Before I even knew who Kobe was, I had a similar mindset. A mindset that I watched in someone who played basketball. When he retired, he didn’t do what everyone else did, he did his own thing. He won an Oscar for something he made with his vision and love of storytelling.
Losing him still affects me now even as I’m writing this, because there are a lot of people I spend my time with who sometimes inhibit negative energy about being better. However, I always have a shred of optimism and confidence because of people like Kobe. His death was foreshadowing for the sadness that would be felt for months to follow.
January was the beginning of something I never saw coming, but it was also the beginning of the process of my own Spring Break trip back to my hometown of Boston, Massachusetts . Late in the month, my partner and I purchased our tickets. I let my mind roam sequence after sequence of things I’d finally get to do when I was truly back home. That trip didn’t happen until March, so it was onto February and preparing for Black History Month and making the most out of my role as the President of the only black organization in my college of study at my university. The only thing was, no one warned me that it was going to take the most out of me too.
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