The "End Times" or Just Another Tuesday?

I saw a reel where the guy said everything that’s going on in the world was "Just another Tuesday" for black people, and I felt that shit.

I woke up this morning, looked at the news on my phone, looked in the fridge, and was reminded that I need groceries. Damn! Do y’all know how much ONE pound of ground beef is?!! I look up and ask the ceiling: “Are we really doing this right now?” Nobody responds, but RJ, my miniature mountain lion (domestic house cat, if Akira asks), and damn it, he needs food too. But rent is due on the 1st, the phone bill is due, DUKE coming for my ass!! Lo and behold... looked back at my phone, and sure enough it was Tuesday.

I’m 45 years old, but I’ve seen enough “once-in-a-lifetime” crises to last me three incarnations, yet lately, the air just feels different. Thicker. Heavier. It's pressure. It's got people whispering about Biblical revelations and the Four Horsemen like they’re expecting them to drop a pin on Google Maps any second. And honestly? I can’t even blame them for the paranoia.

Between the silly ass president out here beating war drums like he’s playing a video game and ICE acting like state-sponsored hunters in our own neighborhoods, it feels like the world is trying to shake us off like a bad habit. Gone 'head and add a killer flu outbreak and a housing market that’s basically a "No Vacancy" sign for the working class! And THEN, throw in a little winter vortex! It makes you wonder: Is this really happening... are we actually hitting the point where we can’t sustain this?

AND!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If I’m being for real, I have an Apocalypse in my own backyard. The "end of the world" doesn't just look like a headline. For me, it looks like a missed opportunity because I didn't have my planner, my little people trying their best to hold back tears, and a school project due tomorrow. (Again... don't forget that DUKE bill) I have three kids playing soccer ( 2 in Girl Scouts (of a troop I lead), 1 doing dance and basketball, and another who has an obsession with Robux ), which means my "schedule" is less of a plan and more of a hostage situation. I’m out here hauling orange slices and muddy cleats in a car that needs an oil change, a detail, and a new set of tires. Playing chauffeur, coach, and cheerleader without a lick of help from my ex-husband, who seems to think parenting was a seasonal hobby he’s since retired from. I digress.

I get a few seconds to breathe and hop on social media to clear my head, and what do I see? More weaponization. Hell, I swear I'm trying to get a new man this year, but every conversation on the internet is a battlefield. Peddling this narrative that Black men hate Black women got me looking crazy.  It’s exhausting to look for a soft place to land only to find that the people who should be our armor are being coached to be our critics. Everything—our hair, our attitudes, our parenting, our very existence—is being weaponized against us.

At my age, I have to balance this dread with a bit of historical memory. We’ve been living in the "last days" since they put us on the boats. The Middle Passage was an apocalypse. Jim Crow was a revelation. But just because we’ve survived it before doesn't mean it’s okay that we’re still gasping for air now. So, how do we handle the pending apocalypse when the ex is useless, the kids are sprinting, and the world is burning?!

*sigh *

We start by refusing to give our peace away to the chaos. If the world is ending—or just shifting into something uglier—then my joy becomes my most radical weapon. If they want us terrified, we choose to be calm. If they want us working ourselves into an early grave while the "state of the union" crumbles, we choose to sit down and rest.

If the "end" is coming, let it find me well-rested, stubborn as hell, and deeply in love with myself. We aren't just surviving the end of an era; we are the evidence that life persists anyway. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a soccer practice to get to—cause like I said... it's Tuesday.