“I did. But now that it’s ending, it’s like I’m grieving the version of myself I’m finally meeting. You know?”
She didn’t say anything. She just listened because she knew I needed that.
“My time here reminded me that life isn’t supposed to feel like survival every day. It’s supposed to taste good. It should sound like live jazz through an open window. It should smell like homecooked meals on your fingertips. It should feel like skin-on-skin when nobody’s rushing.”
I took a deep breath and stared at my reflection.
“I didn’t shrink myself to be liked. I didn’t overthink, I didn’t people-please. I just… was. And he saw me. This version of me. This soft, ratchet, fun, unpredictable ass woman. And he liked her. Hell, I loved her.”
She smiled. “She was in there all along. She just needed the right stage.”
I laughed through the ache. “This city? Baby. New Orleans has been the mirror that I needed.
“I came to heal quietly. But I didn’t know that sometimes healing shows up loud, too. Loud like bounce music. Loud like a creole auntie laughing. Loud like your heart when you finally feel seen.”
She nodded. “So what now?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. But I know I’m not flying home the same woman who landed here.”
I stared at my reflection for a long time. My lips were half-done, wig still clipped at the back, and Sade humming in the background like she knew what I was going through. My hotel room looked unapologetically beautiful. Just like I wanted to be.
I didn’t feel lonely. I felt… alive. And that scared the hell out of me.
Syn was still on the phone, quiet but watching me closely, because she could tell something was shifting in me. Something I’d been holding in for too long.
“You know what’s crazy?” I said, finally breaking the silence. “I spent a whole year in my house. Lighting candles. Taking baths with Epsom salt and playlists that made me cry. Writing in my journal like my tears were ink.”
She nodded, listening.
“And I thought that was what healing had to look like. Like if I did enough ‘self work,’ God would finally hand me peace on a silver platter.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “But peace didn’t show up in my journal. It showed up in me—right here, in New Orleans. Covered in glitter, drunk on frozen Hurricanes, shaking my ass on Bourbon Street. It showed me to stop trying to earn joy and just let myself feel it.”
Her smile spread wide. “That’s deep as hell.”
“Girl,” I sighed, “this trip taught me that healing ain’t a straight line. It’s a damn playlist. Some days you cry to Summer Walker, other days you twerk to Big Freedia and don’t give a damn who’s watching.”
We both laughed, but I felt the lump forming in my throat.
“I think sometimes,” I said softly, “we mistake being still for being stuck. Healing doesn’t always mean isolation. Sometimes it means movement. It means living again. Dancing again. Flirting again. Letting somebody look at you like you’re expensive art.”
I wiped under my eyes before my makeup got messed up.
“I was trying to heal in silence because I thought I had to be serious about my pain,” I whispered. “But this week showed me that joy is serious too. Pleasure is serious. Laughter is serious. I felt like healing was punishment when it’s supposed to be a rebirth.
“I didn’t come out here to find love,” I said. “But I did find something.I found me.The version of me that doesn’t apologize for taking up space. The one that doesn’t dim her light just because she’s scared somebody might not like the glare.”
Syn was quiet and I could tell she was crying.
“Lyrix,” she said finally, “you know how many women need to hear that?”
I nodded, smiling through the tears. “I know. Because I was one of them. I thought being single was punishment. I thought God was making me wait because I wasn’t enough yet. But maybe He was waiting for me to stop waiting and start living.”
I leaned in toward the mirror, finishing my makeup, feeling a different kind of glow.
“I’m not healing to be chosen,” I said softly. “I’m healing so that when I am chosen—by someone or by myself—I’ll be ready to show up fully. Messy, whole, and deserving.”
I took a deep breath and smiled at my reflection.
