The Long Way Back to Myself

Recently, I came across a story about a woman who spent years working toward becoming an attorney only to walk away and become a restaurant server. The internet was confused. Some people thought she was wasting her potential. Others thought she was brave.

What struck me wasn’t her decision. It was the realization that many of us spend years chasing lives we inherited rather than lives we intentionally chose.

For most of my childhood, there was a clear vision of success: doctor, lawyer, doctor, lawyer. Those weren’t suggestions. They were expectations.

My mother believed deeply in education. She would tell me that people could take many things from you, but they could never take your knowledge. They could never take your mind. Knowledge was power. Education was security. Achievement was freedom.

And to be fair, she wasn’t wrong.

Those lessons came from love. They came from survival. They came from a Black woman who understood the realities of the world and wanted her daughter to have options.

But somewhere along the way, I learned something else. I learned that my worth was often tied to my performance.

If I brought home an A-, the question was why it wasn’t an A+. If I got a B, the question was how I planned to fix it. There was always another level. Another benchmark. Another accomplishment waiting just beyond the horizon.

So I became an achiever.

Not because I was forced to, but because it became the language I spoke fluently.

When I started college, I thought I wanted to be a doctor. Then biology humbled me quickly. I remember telling my mom I was interested in art and fashion, and she immediately asked how I planned to make money doing that. Economics felt more practical. More respectable. More secure.

So I studied economics.

At the same time, I became fascinated by systems. I was interested in racism, law, politics, power, government, and the ways institutions shape our lives. I took sociology classes, political science classes, and courses like Racism and the Law. Law school started to make sense.

I wasn’t chasing prestige. At least not consciously. I genuinely wanted to understand the world. I wanted to help change it.

So I went to law school.

Then I graduated.

Then economics led me to finance.

Then finance led me to an investment consulting firm.

Then life happened.

And somewhere between the degrees, the jobs, the grief, and the constant striving, I found myself asking a question I had never seriously considered before:

What do I actually want?

Not what makes sense.

Not what sounds impressive.

Not what pays well.

Not what proves I’m smart.

What do I want?

The question sounds simple. It isn’t. Especially when you’ve spent decades being rewarded for meeting expectations rather than exploring desires.

The truth is, I achieved almost everything I set out to achieve. I graduated from Spelman. I earned my law degree. I built a career. I became financially independent. I survived things I wasn’t sure I would survive.

Yet after all of that, I realized something surprising.

My deepest passion wasn’t hiding somewhere in adulthood waiting to be discovered.

It had been sitting in my childhood bedroom the entire time.

When I was twelve years old, I used to write stories in little notebooks I got from my dad’s job. I had colorful pens and an endless imagination. I wrote fantasy stories inspired by my own life. I wrote poetry. I doodled. I created characters. I built worlds.

I would play The Sims for hours, creating alternate realities and imagining different futures.

I wasn’t doing any of it for money. I wasn’t doing any of it for approval. I wasn’t doing any of it because someone told me it was practical.

I did it because I loved it.

The little girl I used to be wasn’t dreaming about billable hours. She wasn’t dreaming about corporate ladders. She was dreaming about stories.

She wanted to write.

She wanted to explore.

She wanted to travel.

She wanted to learn everything she could about the world and then go see it for herself.

Looking back, I don’t think I ever wanted to be one thing. I think I wanted permission to be many things.

The problem was that our culture rewards specialization while my spirit has always been interdisciplinary.

I’ve spent my life moving between law, economics, finance, spirituality, psychology, history, travel, and storytelling. For years I thought that meant I lacked focus. Now I realize it means I’m curious.

Law became one lens.

Economics became another.

Finance became another.

Writing was the thread connecting them all.

Writing allows me to hold every version of myself at once: the lawyer, the economist, the grieving daughter, the traveler, the spiritual seeker, the woman trying to understand power, love, trauma, identity, and liberation.

Writing is where all of those people meet.

Losing my mother forced me to confront this truth in a way achievement never could.

Grief has a way of stripping away performance.

When you’re sitting alone with yourself, the titles become quieter. The expectations become quieter. The applause becomes quieter.

Eventually, you are left with one question:

Who am I when I’m not performing?

For a long time, I didn’t know.

I only knew how to achieve.

I only knew how to strive.

I only knew how to become.

Now, at thirty, I am learning something different.

I am learning how to remember.

Remember the girl who loved stories.

Remember the girl who asked questions.

Remember the girl who wanted to see the world.

Remember the girl who created because it brought her joy.

That doesn’t mean I regret law school. It doesn’t mean I regret finance. It doesn’t mean any of it was a mistake.

Every chapter taught me something. Every detour became material. Every success and every heartbreak became part of the story.

In fact, I still plan to take the bar exam again one day. Not because I need a title to validate me, but because I believe in finishing what I started. I missed it by ten points and I want to prove to myself that I can do it.

But whether I pass the bar or not is no longer the defining question of my life.

The defining question is simpler now.

How do I spend my time?

What experiences do I create?

What stories do I tell?

What kind of life am I writing?

For years, I was trying to become the woman everyone told me I should be. Now, I am becoming the woman twelve-year-old Zariah was quietly dreaming about all along.

A writer.

A storyteller.

A traveler.

A student of humanity.

And for the first time, that feels like enough.