Courage Scares the Sh*t Out of Mediocrity

In the quiet space where neither sun nor moon shine, the earth waits for morning. I lay watching the Chicago skyline flicker, wondering.

My full form limp from exhaustion, grief, relief, horror, and excitement collide so quickly that tears fall unapologetically. A sigh emits, evolving into inappropriate laughter. If someone else were in the room, they might question my sanity. My body feels the full range of emotion held over time, all happening at once.

If someone were next to me, I would hope they would hold me with a gentle firmness only full-chested love can offer. A squeeze at the fingertips, not the palm. Muscles wrapping around soft flesh without words, telling my body it is okay to cry, rage, scream, and be confused. To remind me that I can emote all the things, at once, right now. But this time, I lay alone in the comfort of my oneness, with a growing sense of courage that comes by way of betrayal and a revised version of truth.

Courage looks good in daylight. It looks like friends saying they’re proud. Chosen family half-joking that they live vicariously through you. Texts that read, “Your ancestors are proud.” Those words are valid, true, and loving. But in the stillness of the in-between, when the world is quiet and dark and the body feels confused and full

of betrayal, courage looks like juicy tears, hot on the face, nose red, quickened breathing. And then it settles in: the new reality, the understanding that you are okay.

I unravel the belief that I had to be twice as good, maybe three times. I replay the shape-shifting, bending, flexing, and code-switching. For a while, I relive the sacrifices of self, things, and experiences.

All of that, only to be left in the cold. No thanks. No acknowledgment. No prayer. No “atta girl” for choosing myself. Betrayal is offered to those who dare hold a mirror to madness and ask it to answer for its wrongs. Madness looks at the mirror with unabashed rage, having been allowed to remain mediocre for so long that it knows no other mode of operation.

Courage unsettles those who extract. To madness, courage is a flaw, a pattern interrupt that limits self-promotion absent accountability or effort. Self-love disrupts systems that depend on contortion. A body twisted into something unrecognizable, yet polished enough to be displayed as token proof of progress. Madness relies on a body taught to believe it is an imposter when it is, in fact, the blueprint.

Powerful Words: I Quit.

The words left my mouth calmly, almost elegantly, like pearls resting against a collarbone. They landed on ears conditioned to hear only yes. An exposed ego quickly turns tyrant. Contributions once praised become ammunition.

In short order, you go from pet to threat. It is now time to embrace the villain status of angry, unstable, ungrateful Black woman. All because of courage. How dare I love myself? How dare I step off the chessboard eight moves ahead, refusing further extraction? With two words, I raised the shield. Energy protected. Soul preserved.

Humans are built for relationship: platonic, romantic, professional. We begin them, grow them, suspend them, end them. Leaving the workplace shouldn’t feel like a breakup. The separation. The heartbreak. The clarity of behaviors you once excused.

Ending things with a lover is painful. Ending things with a platonic abuser is something else entirely.

Powerful Words: I Quit.

Quitting this game does not mean I disappear from the ecosystem. It means I choose how I participate in it. My work to create safer spaces for people, especially those marginalized at work, begins in earnest.

I quit because I love myself clearly and abundantly.

If you are navigating workplace abuse, misuse, or extraction, hear me: what you felt was not your burden to carry. It was externalized fear. Fear that cannot tolerate autonomy. Fear that curdles into anger because joy cannot live in a body that does not trust itself or hold space to value others.

Fear rules the hollow body.

I do not profess to have a guidebook, a perfect narrative, or the cheat code on how to navigate what I consider a form of workplace violence. What I have learned is this: even when things don’t make sense, your love, intuition, and self-trust are all that matter. If they cannot treat you as the beautiful and bountiful spirit you are, exit stage left.