Find The Fight

It took a few seconds for me to realize I was utterly and completely lost. Somewhere new, hours away from what I knew as home, as my own. But riding through it all with family.

“I want you to know that I still love you, Neveah.” my aunt Elise says as we pull into a Chick Fil A, still two hours from our destination. Even then I still have to sit through more hours of driving, driving all the way to old-town Colonial Beach, Virginia. I found the statement unnecessary because not only do I know that she still cares but I’m not in the mood to listen to how she does when she’s shipping me off to the worst person in my universe. My mother. “We all want what’s best for you and that’s stability, I can’t give you that right now with everything going on.” Elise says. Again, she’s right, yet it’s something I’ve already made sense about in my own mind. She’s going through a divorce and I needed to be back in school to start senior year weeks ago. It’s been six months since I’ve been away from my mother and siblings. I’m sure my two youngest brothers have grown, my younger sister might seem the same size but her heart might’ve shrunk through this hell of a summer I dragged them all through. I couldn’t care less, about it all, because if I do I agree to being the bad guy for doing what I thought was best for me. I want to fly but it feels like everyone around me just keeps clipping my wings.

Living with my mother is bad because of one major thing. Her. Being the first born to a broken woman with a line of vendettas doesn’t put you in the best mindset as a kid. Seeing my mother get her heart broken by so many men, trying to find a replacement for the void her father once filled. Looking to men for comfort, guidance, or a sense of stability. I too have that habit. Trying to fill a void in my life from the beginning, thinking light would make it falter but it just swallows all the stars leaving nothing left but an abyss. We try to give the boys in men’s clothing our love without knowing that that alone is poison because it doesn’t come from within ourselves. The love we displayed to the males that came in and out of our lives were trauma bonds instead of sparks, more like sizing up stab wounds with one another and just putting a band-aid over it because neither one knows how to properly heal. Now I’ve turned my heart cold, a piercing organ pulsing inside my chest never meant to feel warm again, so that no one would ever think of taking it again and Mom had once as well.

When I saw my mother, puffy cheeks and pearly whites, she held me tight with a wide smile and tears in her eyes. I resisted the urge to cry as well but held her tighter. I wish she could’ve held me through all I've been through without her. If only she was better. But I can’t push down the spiraling hope that maybe she is. On the drive back we talk about plans for school and a job when we touch down in the beach. Paths race through my head the whole night, the rest of the drive, everything that’s changing right in front of me. The street signs fade into highway signs for cities I’ve never been to, places I’ve never thought of going. Somewhere I know I don’t want to be. My life changes in the rearview, middle school fantasies of how I imagined living my senior year. My best friend, beside me, matching prom dresses, gorgeous dates, diplomas, senior sunrise. Tears come back to me but I push them down, trying not to let doubt escape. I remind myself of my plan; finish school early, emancipation, job, save, get back to Georgia, Wesleyan.

When my mom first moved us from our home town in Toledo, Ohio I was ten years old. I didn’t know the difference between family and friends back then, everyone pretty much blended into this community I just knew. Burning to a crispy brown skin, I made new friends, a new home, a new community for myself. I had friends, I succeeded in everything I put my mind to because I knew I could, because I was told I could and because a part of me knew I could too. After Mom had my first little brother, in Arizona she started working double the time she was with just me and my sister. I was eleven taking care of a toddler and infant while dealing with becoming a woman and going through changes I didn’t know would come from myself. I was twelve taking care of two toddlers and a newborn while going through COVID in sixth grade and homeschooling my little sister through kindergarten. Whenever something wasn’t done right I was the one to blame.

Then we moved to Georgia when I was thirteen. It was harder, because this time it wasn’t just me and my mother like it was when we were in Ohio until I was seven. It wasn’t just me, my pregnant mother and the little sister I begged for. Lost promises of stability. It was me, my kid sister, toddler baby brothers, my mom, and another man. Mama wanted me to have more of a life without having to take care of my siblings so much. She knows I hold a grudge for the loss of my childhood against her. Even if it was her working double, triple the amount mothers do in general to try to fill our voids for us. Little did we know we were stuck on a treadmill. Running in place, frozen in pattern, step after step yet going nowhere. I did a lot, but the fact that everything I did was negatively criticized and I did nothing for myself that benefited me mentally hurt me internally and left me with doubt that I could not only do better for those around me but for myself.

I tried not to doubt my plan as I worked through it in the following weeks of October. On the first day of school I was told I wouldn’t be able to graduate early despite the fact that I enrolled with four more credits than the average Westmoreland senior because apparently those exact four extra credits don’t apply in their credit curriculum. But the counselor couldn’t even tell me exactly how that was the case. My best guess, she couldn’t exactly say “Well we’re a new school and the government is on our rears because of how big of a school we have and they need the money back. So your seat hours are going to help us do exactly that. Thank you, now get to your cell- I mean class.” She’d probably lose her job.

The second day of school I’m literally bombarded with several introductions at a time. The first day of school I avoided lunch to avoid the wondering eyes I see when I walk in the halls. Small town in Virginia, high school, and not to toot my own horn but I’m sweet on the eye, I expect them to be attracted to my existence. To feel the shift in their vibrations as another person is added into their home. It’s funny because I’ve only ever been on the other side of that feeling. As I sat there with my lunch, at a table that was once empty before I sat down. Now, quite literally, the entire cafeteria has migrated to my table. “Where you from?”, “What’s your name?”, “You’re so pretty.”, “I love your hair.”, “Mind if I sit?”, “My name Bounce, you won’t forget that.”, “Can I have your pizza?”. The voices clash together, I start to blend the faces, everything turning to a blunt black and grey hue. “Georgia. Yeah, first Atlanta then Macon.”, “Neveah, Neveah Wright.”, “Thank you.”, I just smile at the hair complement, I know she’s just glazing, my crocheted locs are old and frizzy. I shrug. I nod. I smile. It’s unexpected and caused by a complete stranger. I give the young boy my pizza, probably a sophomore, and eat my peaches. I listen to them carry on in their own conversations about how to spell my name, Atlanta, and school drama. I just want the bell to ring.

I got a job at a grocery in the beach boondocks that pays me pennies. We’re way out in the country, stinky lakes, groves of oak trees for miles and miles and one highway that leads to the city and strikes throughout the little towns on the outskirts. The oak trees are patterned in goldish-orange, crimson red, and yellow. If it weren’t for the indecision of mother nature in autumn I’d like the season a bit more with a sight like this. My days are simple, they fly past most of the time. I could go a whole day without talking to my long distance partner but by the second day I’m concerned why girls hit him up for weed and his homeboys call to hang out and he answers, but when his “future” calls he doesn’t pick up. I let it go, decided I’m better on my own, decided that I was on a path I wasn’t letting anyone drag me off of. Then I caught another’s eye and he caught mine.

I convinced myself I still knew where I was going even though emancipation and early graduation had failed. Wesleyan was closer in reach when I was in Georgia, now here in Virginia where my honors credits aren’t counted for and there’s no FBLA at school. I tried basketball but that didn’t work out either. Working and still broke, hating high school and no college in mind. In reality I was left even more lost than I was on my way here.

October flew away, left me with nothing but burdens of wasted time, feeling so lost in the world I once carried on my shoulders. “You make any friends?” Mama asks.

“No. Kids are weird.” I reply dryly. She asks the same question almost every week when I come home from school. “You won’t even try Neveah.” I couldn’t debate, not even the fact that I was too tired to but she was right I hadn’t tried. I eat breakfast in the library, sit in the library for lunch, and rush to my classes. I don’t even make eye contact with people in my classes let alone speak. But I’m okay with that. Then there’s Day’Quan Jones. I know his name because I know his brother. I know his brother because his name isn’t quite easy to forget- Bounce. Day has this look in his eyes that’s so sad, so longing. I know the feeling and it looks good on him but I can’t help but feel like I could be the one to bring him joy. We live in the same subdivision as everyone who rides our bus, Placid Bay, nestled between Oak Grove and Colonial Beach yet somehow we don’t go to Colonial Beach High School. I take my mom’s advice and make friends with Bounce, winding up closer to Day.

Time goes on and distant attraction turns into deep conversation, turns into a playful flirtatious situation and now we can’t keep our hands to ourselves. He helped me find the brightest light in the darkest places. But while that light beams on us, seeming to block us from the world, it still crumbles around us. My feet have no landing, my footing is misplaced, I’m still lost even with a flash of light, I still can’t feel the right path. Now that I’ve made it clear that my long distance relationship with the boy my mom thought I was going to marry is through and another guy has my attention she wants me to be alone. I get it, I need time to adapt myself. But I don’t want to feel alone, I don’t want to be alone. I want to be alive. Day makes my days worth seeing.

For months I pull myself together just to get ripped to shreds again and again. I’m accepted into Mary Baldwin University and it gives me faith that I’m still going somewhere. I hold on firm to the belief that Day’s meant to help me heal myself. January and February I fought to stay alive in my own mind through school drama and home quarrels, trying to stay positive. But death is never good with timing, Day’s grandmother and grandfather passed a week away from each other. His pain pulled me down with him and I didn’t know it until I was ten toes up. March was a blurr of emotions that followed in consequences I wasn’t ready for but revealed a truth I needed to find.

When my eighteenth birthday came around I found that I was no longer lost but stuck not knowing where to go next. I had ran away at seventeen, running myself right off a cliff falling into an ocean, unable to fly. I pulled myself to the surface and tread lightly until I could swim to shore. Now that I’ve made it back to land and my feet have solid ground I’ve walked a remote island trying to find paradise without knowing where to look. “You’re eighteen now, your choices are your choices. What you do is completely on you, the decisions you make will have consequences and you’ll have to accept them no matter what they are.” Mama said, fatigue dragged every word. I know I had to do better, for me, not anyone else. Stuck at a crossroad, not knowing where to turn, right or left. Hesitant only on the doubt that my choice would again be the wrong one. “I have faith you’ll make the right choices, mija.” Mama said firmly.

Hello Ms. Mary Gilbert,

First off, it was a pleasure meeting you, your acceptance inspired me to get through so much this year, to push, to keep going no matter what, to fight for what I want. Now I know exactly what I want. School had its challenges, home was stressful, but I got through it all. In the end I graduated and my sight was set on Mary Baldwin University. But as I'm sitting here thinking about all of my year and all that I've accomplished I'm reminded of my failures. I have faith you'll continue reading this and judge me not by how many times I fell but judge me on how many times I got back up. March 23, 2025 I was admitted to Mary Washington Hospital due to self harm and later admitted to Snowden where I was professionally diagnosed with extreme depression and severe anxiety. I stayed a consecutive 72 hours. March 26, 2025 I was apprehended at school and taken into emergency custody, late that night I was issued into Kempsville. I was then diagnosed with bipolarism.

Those facilities, they have a way of doing things that I don't particularly agree with while I was there myself but they set me right. Turns out I still had more to learn about myself, I'm pretty sure I'm going to keep learning that as well, but that's not my problem. In fact I don't have one. I used to, however, have a habit of doubting myself. I have an amazing support system around me, loving parents, kid siblings, caring boyfriend. I'm surrounded by family and friends I haven't even adapted to yet. I have not yet gained the stability I desire. So how can I go where I desire if my feet aren't even planted to walk firmly? I've fallen so many times to know that it hurts, I've fallen so many times that I catch myself. This is me catching myself.

I have no doubt that Mary Baldwin is a place that'll get me closer to the career and life I want for myself. But moving away from home when I still have so much with myself I need to gain control of before I step out on my own would be detrimental to the goals I want to reach at the rate I've been going. I've learned one thing quick, 18 never means you're grown. I just need to give myself time to grow some more and then I'll be ready to soar. Thank you, Ms. Gilbert, for the chance to seize this opportunity and I will never forget it. I plan to stay in contact if you actually read this short story of an email. Thank you again for that.

P.S. You asked me what's something consistent I've done my entire life. I thought the answer was leaving home. leaving my mother and siblings, the ones I thought were to blame for my instabilities. But the most consistent thing I've ever done is doing my best to reach my mother's expectations. Which in return have become my own- doing my best to reach my Highest Self.

Sincerely,

Neveah Wright

No longer lost but still on the way to where I’m meant to be.