A Walk Back to Life
Some mornings don’t come in like a blessing.
Some mornings sit on your chest like an unpaid bill, a full laundry basket, a family group chat with too many opinions, and every disappointment you thought you had already healed from. All at once. Before breakfast. Rude behavior, honestly.
That was how the morning found Nia.
She opened her eyes in the small bedroom of her rented place in St. Catherine and stared at the ceiling fan turning slow, slow, slow, like even it was tired of trying. Outside, Jamaica had already begun without asking her permission. A rooster was carrying on like he had been appointed town crier by heaven itself. Somebody’s radio played low from a yard nearby, gospel slipping through the zinc fence in soft pieces. A dog barked twice, then changed his mind, as if he too had reconsidered his commitment to the day.
Nia did not move.
Her room held the faint smell of coconut oil, clean sheets, and the lavender lotion she rubbed on her arms the night before because self-care was supposed to help. The bottle was still on the dresser, standing proud like it had done its job.
It had not.
Her spirit felt dim.
Not broken in a dramatic way. Not the kind of broken where you throw plates or cut your hair at 2:00 a.m., though she had considered both in other seasons and knew better now. This was quieter. Heavier. Like someone had poured wet cement into her chest while she slept.
She couldn’t explain it. That made it worse.
No big argument last night. No fresh bad news. No one had called her out of her name. No crisis had burst through the door wearing shoes in the house. Still, sadness had arrived as if it paid rent.
Nia lay there and whispered, “Lord, I don’t know how to do today.”
The room did not answer.
But something in her, small and stubborn, did.
Get up.
She closed her eyes tighter.
Get up, Nia.
“I’m up,” she muttered, still flat on her back, which was a lie and God knew it.
She got dressed before sadness could negotiate
Nia did not feel brave. She did not feel healed. She did not feel like one of those women who wake up, drink lemon water, journal three pages, and glow like a mango under professional lighting.
She felt like a woman who had slept but not rested.
Still, she pushed the sheet back.
One foot touched the cool tile. Then the other.
There are miracles that look like parting seas. There are miracles that look like putting on leggings when your heart is acting like wet cardboard.
Nia pulled on an oversized T-shirt, black leggings, and her walking shoes. The shoes had seen better days, but so had she, and they were both still available for service. She tied the laces tightly, then stood in front of the mirror.
Her face looked puffy from sleep. Her eyes looked older than thirty-six. Her scarf had shifted in the night and was sitting sideways, giving “auntie who knows all your business and half of the pastor’s too.”
She almost laughed.
Almost.
“Alright,” she said to her reflection. “We going outside looking like somebody’s testimony in progress.”
That was enough.
She washed her face, brushed her teeth, and opened the front door before her bed could call her back with that sweet, dangerous voice. The one that says, Come lie down, darling. We can avoid everything together.
Outside, the morning air touched her cheeks.
Not a grand touch. Not a dramatic wind from a Bible movie. Just cool air, clean and slightly damp, carrying the smell of earth, hibiscus, frying dumplings from somebody’s kitchen, and the faint salt of far-off sea even though the shore was nowhere near enough to justify it.
The sunlight had spilled across the yard in bright patches. It caught the edges of the croton leaves, lit the dew on the grass, and made the old metal gate look less tired than usual. A lizard darted across the step and disappeared like it was late for work.
Nia locked the door.
Her sadness came with her.
Fine, she thought. But you have to walk.
And just like that, the morning had its first joke. She left the house feeling broken, but even sadness had to keep pace with her walking shoes.
The road knew how to hold her
The lane outside her yard was narrow, the kind with patched-up edges and little stones that liked to roll under your foot if you got too confident. On one side stood a row of houses painted in brave colors: mint green, peach, powder blue, cream with red trim. Some paint had faded from sun and rain, but the colors still insisted on being seen.
A woman across the road swept her veranda with serious focus, as if each leaf had personally offended her.
“Morning, Miss Nia,” she called.
“Morning, Miss Joyce.”
“You walking?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Walk off anything weh a trouble yuh.”
Nia smiled because Miss Joyce did not ask questions she already knew the answer to. Caribbean women had a spiritual radar. They could smell a heavy spirit from three yards away, right through Vicks, Blue Soap, and Sunday dinner seasoning.
Nia kept walking.
A taxi rolled by slow, music low, driver’s elbow hanging out the window like it had a full-time job. Two schoolchildren in uniforms hurried past with backpacks bigger than their patience. One boy dragged his feet, and his sister said, “Hurry up nuh, you walk like old fridge.”
Nia actually laughed.
Not a big laugh. More like a cough that changed its mind and became joy.
The sound surprised her.
She put a hand over her chest.
“Look at that,” she whispered. “Still in here.”
The road sloped gently downhill. Trees leaned over the edges, their branches stirring in the breeze. Banana leaves moved like green hands waving somebody onward. A mango tree stood in one yard, heavy with small fruit not ready yet, each one holding its own little promise.
The morning was not trying to impress her.
That’s what made it beautiful.
It simply existed. Light on leaves. Dust under shoes. Birds calling from wires. A goat with an expression that said it had seen enough foolishness for one lifetime.
Nia walked past the goat and nodded. “Same, friend.”
The goat chewed and judged her silently.
The air moved again, and something inside Nia loosened by half an inch.
Not peace. Not yet.
But space.
She told God the truth without dressing it up
Nia had learned to pray properly as a girl.
Head bowed. Eyes closed. “Dear Heavenly Father” in a voice that sounded slightly more holy than her regular one. No foolishness. No attitude. No rolling eyes, even if Sister Marlene took five minutes just to say the opening line.
But grown-woman praying had become different.
Now prayer sometimes sounded like, “God, I’m tired.”
Or, “Jesus, if one more person asks me when I’m getting married, please give me the fruit of the Spirit in bulk.”
Or, “Lord, I want to forgive them, but I also want them to stub their toe gently on a chair so they can reflect.”
This morning, she didn’t bother with pretty words.
She walked with her arms swinging softly and said, “God, I feel empty.”
A bird answered from somewhere in the guinep tree.
“I don’t know why I wake up so sad sometimes. I do what I’m supposed to do. I work. I pay bills. I show up for people. I answer messages when I have nothing left to answer with. I smile. I encourage. I pray for everybody. I try to be grateful.”
Her throat tightened.
“But I feel like I’m disappearing.”
There it was.
The truth.
Not the cute version. Not the church-safe version. The truth with no lip gloss.
A truck passed, rattling over the road, then faded into the distance. Nia stopped by a low stone wall where wild grass pushed through cracks. Beyond it, the land opened into a small patch of green, not fancy, just alive. Morning light moved over everything like a hand smoothing wrinkled fabric.
She breathed in.
Then out.
“Lord,” she said, “I don’t want to just survive. I want to live. But I feel guilty even saying that.”
The breeze lifted the edge of her T-shirt.
“You made me, right?”
Her voice went softer.
“If You made me, then I can’t be a mistake.”
Something in her chest shifted.
“If You love me, then I don’t have to beg for scraps.”
The words came slowly, like they were stepping out of a locked room.
“If You never forsook me, even when I felt alone, then maybe I’m not abandoned. Maybe I’m just tired.”
A tear slipped down her cheek.
She wiped it with the heel of her hand and kept walking.
This was not the kind of cry that collapses you. This was the kind that clears a path. Tears can be rude little things, showing up uninvited in public, but sometimes they know exactly what they’re doing.
Nia let them come.
The world kept whispering that she was still here
She passed a breadfruit tree, its leaves large and glossy. A man in a white merino sat on his step drinking tea from an enamel cup. He lifted two fingers in greeting.
“Morning.”
“Morning.”
A woman in a head tie was hanging laundry, pinning shirts to a line with quick, practiced hands. The clothes moved in the breeze like they were learning freedom one sleeve at a time.
Nia watched them for a second longer than usual.
Freedom.
The word rose in her.
It did not feel like running away. It felt like returning to herself.
She thought about all the names she had worn.
Strong one.
Reliable one.
Single one.
Too much one.
Not enough one.
Good daughter. Good worker. Good friend. Good Christian. Good woman.
Good, good, good.
Sometimes “good” felt like a room with no windows.
She kept walking, passing a little shop still half-closed, metal shutter not rolled all the way up. A man inside arranged bread and tin goods while talking to someone on speakerphone. Somewhere, oil hissed in a pan. The smell of fried plantain nearly convinced Nia that healing could wait until after breakfast.
“Focus,” she told herself.
But she smiled.
Her stomach growled, loud and disrespectful.
“Traitor,” she said.
For the first time that morning, her body felt present. Not just heavy. Not just tired. Present.
She noticed the rhythm of her steps.
Left. Right.
Breathe. Release.
Left. Right.
Still here. Still here.
The road curved near a patch of yellow flowers growing wild by the drain. They weren’t planted in a neat bed. Nobody trimmed them or watered them on purpose. They grew anyway, bright and unbothered, as if beauty didn’t need permission.
Nia stopped.
She looked at those flowers for a long time.
Then she heard it inside, quiet but clear.
Today.
Not yesterday with its old ache.
Not tomorrow with its unanswered questions.
Today.
She pressed her palm against her chest.
“Today,” she whispered.
The word felt like a key.
She began to choose herself without apology
Nia found a quiet spot under a lignum vitae tree near the bend in the road. The shade was soft there, and the ground held scattered petals. She stood with her hands on her hips, catching her breath, looking like a woman who had come outside to argue with despair and was finally gaining ground.
She closed her eyes.
The breeze touched her again.
This time, she did not ask God to fix everything.
She did not ask for a husband by Christmas, a raise by Friday, emotional stability by lunch, and a sign so obvious even her overthinking could not wrestle it into confusion.
She simply said, “Teach me how to live today.”
The answer did not arrive as thunder.
It came as remembering.
Love, but with understanding.
She thought about how often she had called it love when she abandoned herself to keep peace. How she had stretched herself thin, then called the tearing “service.” How she had answered calls she did not have strength for and listened to people who never once asked, “How is your heart?”
Love, she realized, did not have to mean leaking herself dry.
“I can love people,” she said, “and still understand my limits.”
Trust, but with forgiveness.
That one stung.
She had carried old betrayals like canned goods in a scandal bag, heavy and always bumping against her leg. People had failed her. Some had apologized. Some had not. Some had acted like their bad behavior was a small clerical error.
Forgiveness did not mean pretending it didn’t hurt.
Trust did not mean handing the same person the same knife and telling them where to aim.
“I can forgive,” she whispered, “and still move wisely.”
Respect, but with honor.
She thought about how she spoke to herself when nobody could hear.
Girl, you should be further by now.
What is wrong with you?
Why can’t you just be happy?
If another person said those things to her, she would block them, pray for them, and possibly side-eye them in the supermarket for ten years.
But she had been saying them to herself.
“I will honor what God made,” she said. “Even when I’m still becoming.”
Patience.
That one annoyed her. Patience always sounded cute until you actually had to practice it. Patience was like okra, good for you, but not everybody wants the texture.
Nia sighed.
“Lord, help me with that one.”
Gratitude.
She opened her eyes and looked around.
Sunlight on the wall.
Birdsong in the trees.
Her own lungs filling.
Her legs holding.
Her heart, bruised but beating.
Gratitude did not erase grief. It simply placed grief in a larger room. A room where sorrow could sit, but not rule.
Freedom.
The word returned, bigger now.
Freedom to rest.
Freedom to laugh.
Freedom to be single without being sorry.
Freedom to want more without being ungrateful.
Freedom to live a soft life that did not require performance, perfection, or explaining herself to people committed to misunderstanding her.
Freedom to choose joy in small pieces and not feel guilty for chewing slowly.
Nia lifted her face to the morning.
Something warm moved through her. Not the sun. Deeper than that.
Divine love.
She did not hear an audible voice, but her spirit understood.
You are Mine.
You are loved.
You are not too late.
You are not too broken.
You are still becoming.
The tears came again.
This time she did not wipe them fast.
The walk became a way back to life
By the time Nia turned around to head home, the neighborhood had fully woken up.
More cars moved along the road. A vendor pushed a cart slowly, calling out produce in a voice that sounded both tired and determined. Children laughed from a yard where somebody’s grandmother was warning them not to mash up the good slippers. A young man rode past on a bicycle with a bundle of callaloo tied to the back.
Normal life.
Plain life.
Holy life.
Nia noticed all of it.
The morning had not changed her circumstances. Her bills were still waiting. Her unanswered messages were still sitting in her phone like tiny stressful bricks. Her singleness had not dissolved into a romantic movie scene where a kind, emotionally available man appeared carrying coffee and healed attachment patterns.
Honestly, that would have been a lot before 8:00 a.m.
But something had changed.
She no longer felt trapped inside the sadness.
It was there, yes. But it was not the biggest thing in the room anymore.
Hope had entered quietly and taken a seat.
She walked slower now, not because she felt weak, but because she wanted to notice. The sway of palm leaves. The bright blue of a gate. The way a little girl in pink sandals skipped over puddles like she had personally invented joy. The smell of fresh bread drifting from the shop.
Nia bought one bun from the shopkeeper, because spiritual reset or not, a woman must respect breakfast.
“Yuh walking far this morning?” he asked.
“Far enough,” she said.
He put the bun in a small paper bag. “Good fi clear the head.”
“And the heart,” she said.
He nodded like he understood, because maybe he did.
Outside, she stood near the doorway and took a small bite. Sweetness filled her mouth. Simple. Soft.
She thought about the poem she had read the night before from Poetic Emotions by Racquel R. Reece, the one that had stayed with her. “Today.” Not as a demand. Not as pressure to be cheerful. More like an invitation.
Today, breathe.
Today, notice.
Today, begin again.
The words had followed her into sleep and met her again at sunrise, not as a perfect solution, but as a hand extended.
Nia looked down the road toward home.
“I choose life,” she said softly.
No lightning flashed. No choir appeared behind the breadfruit tree. The goat from earlier did not bow in respect, which felt like a missed opportunity.
Still, heaven heard her.
She felt it.
She came home softer, not finished
When Nia reached her gate, the sun had climbed higher. The yard looked different, though nothing had moved except the light. The croton leaves shone brighter. The steps looked less lonely. Even the lizard came back, pausing on the wall like it wanted credit for guarding the place.
“Thank you for your service,” Nia told it.
It ran off, humble as ever.
Inside, the house was still quiet.
Her bed still looked tempting. Her phone still had notifications. The laundry basket still sat in the corner with offensive confidence.
But Nia did not feel swallowed by it.
She poured water into a glass and drank slowly. Then she opened the windows wider. Fresh air moved through the room, lifting the curtain.
She stood in the middle of the floor, hand on her heart.
“Today I begin again,” she said.
Not tomorrow when she felt prettier.
Not next month when money looked better.
Not after she figured out every wound, every pattern, every prayer, every disappointment.
Today.
She would begin by speaking to herself with honor.
She would begin by letting love include wisdom.
She would begin by letting trust grow at the pace of truth.
She would begin by forgiving what she could, without forcing her heart to perform a healing it had not yet reached.
She would begin by resting when tired, laughing when laughter came, crying when crying came, and refusing to make her life a punishment for things that had already hurt enough.
She would begin by choosing gratitude without shaming her grief.
She would begin by remembering her self-worth was not up for public debate.
She would begin by letting God love her without trying to earn it like overtime pay.
Nia sat by the window, tore off another small piece of bun, and watched the yard glow.
For the first time that morning, the sadness did not feel like a sentence.
It felt like weather.
Heavy weather, yes. The kind that makes you want to stay inside and cancel your whole personality. But weather can pass. Light can return. Even clouds have to keep moving eventually.
She leaned back and breathed.
There was no grand finale.
No instant fix.
No perfect peace wrapped in a bow.
Just a woman in a quiet Jamaican room, still tender, still tired, but no longer convinced that sorrow had the final word.
Her spirit, dim at dawn, held a small flame now.
Small flames count.
Ask anybody who has ever lit a stove, a candle, or a prayer when the power cut.
Nia smiled.
Outside, the rooster shouted again like he had personally raised the sun.
“Alright, man,” she said. “We hear you.”
And this time, she laughed for real.
Today is still a gift
There are mornings when healing looks like therapy, hard conversations, medication, rest, boundaries, or asking for help. There are mornings when healing looks like a walk down the road in old shoes while God meets you beside the flowers.
Nia’s life did not become perfect in one morning. That was never the promise.
The gift was gentler than perfection.
She remembered she was still here.
She remembered she was created with care.
She remembered divine love had not left her, even when her emotions told a darker story.
She remembered joy could return in crumbs, in birdsong, in sunlight on the yard, in a breeze soft enough to feel like mercy.
And she made a vow, quiet but strong:
Today I will begin again.
May we all receive the gift of today that way. Not as pressure to have everything figured out, but as an opening. A new day. A healing journey. A spiritual reset. A chance to choose life one breath, one step, one honest prayer at a time.
If this story stirred something in you, let Racquel R. Reece’s Poetic Emotions keep you company. Purchase a copy, sit with the poem “Today,” and let its gentle invitation remind you that your life is still worth celebrating.
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