Losa Smith

“In the first four months of 2018, you could find me pacing back and forth in front of the Counseling and Psychology Services office every afternoon. I wore out the already worn carpet like it was my job. The weight of depression and incessant buzz of anxiety had finally caught up to me and I felt like I was doing everything in slow motion. When I finally did walk through the doors a few weeks before the semester ended, I bailed on the free counseling at the last second because the student employee was a younger sibling to a friend I had grown up with in Texas. The shame at clearly not being the charismatic, easy-going brown girl anymore slapped me across the face and felt like too much too soon. So I turned around and left.

Eventually, I did find a therapist in that office. And we stuck it out for about two years, on and off. Around that time, I decided to apply for a study abroad program. Incredibly out of my comfort zone, but stoked that I had been accepted, I applied for what felt like hundreds of scholarships to fund my travels. From Beijing to Shanghai, Hong Kong to Bangkok, and Auckland to Sydney-- I felt the Pacific Ocean return parts of me to myself I hadn't realized were missing.

As I sat alone on the deck of a night ferry from Sydney to Manly, I realized that I had the capacity to do whatever I needed to do, whenever I needed to do it. I was born with it. My parents came from such small islands in the South Pacific, left all they had and all they knew to pursue the unknown. That voyager resilience was in my blood, in my bones, in my soul-- and I would overcome any shame at continuing therapy, any doubt at building a life I knew I could, and ultimately become, what Layla Saad calls, ‘a Good Ancestor’.”