Let’s Talk About It… is BrownStyle Magazine’s new column written by Aikisha Holly Colon. In this candid series, the mom and multi-hyphenate entrepreneur creates a safe space to be real, raw, funny, heavy, but always honest.
Let’s talk about something we don’t say out loud enough, especially in February. Black women are tired. Not the “I need a nap” tired. I mean the kind of tired that settles into your body. The kind that shows up in your chest, your head, your hormones, and your spirit. The kind that doesn’t care how accomplished you are or how many boxes you’ve checked.
Yet we’re still dreaming. We want love. We want success. We want marriage, children, purpose, stability, and joy. And we want to live long enough to enjoy it, which shouldn’t be too much to ask.
For many of us, especially professional Black women, our twenties and thirties were spent chasing degrees, careers, and callings. Our time was spent proving ourselves, surviving, showing up, and holding it together.
We were told to focus, grind, secure the bag, establish ourselves—and we listened because we thought it was wisdom.
What Happens After You Get Everything You Dreamed Of?
When I was finally ready for love, marriage, and children, my heart was open, but my body had its own timeline. What followed were years of fertility struggles, prayers whispered through tears, doctor visits, and learning what it really means to trust God when the plan doesn’t unfold the way you imagined.
By the grace of God, I now have the marriage. I have the children. I’m pivoting in business and redefining success in new ways. From the outside, it looks like the picture finally came together. But here’s the part we don’t glamorize. My body is tired.
Menopause has entered the chat, and she did not knock, she kicked in the door and send me to the hospital! I experience heart palpitations that landed me in a cardiologist’s office. Headaches that required a neurologist. Irregular cycles that sent me back to my OB-GYN. Weight gain that led me to a nutritionist. I needed a calendar full of appointments just to figure out how to feel normal again.
The Heart💓 Of The Issue
It’s Heart Health Month, and while we talk about awareness, we don’t always talk about why Black women’s hearts are under so much pressure.
It’s the years of carrying everything. It’s the delayed rest. It’s the emotional labor of wanting it all while being told to sacrifice ourselves for it.
We are expected to be strong, soft, ambitious, nurturing, patient, faithful, available, productive, beautiful, and grateful— all at the same damn time. And somewhere along the way, our bodies start waving the white flag.
Here’s the gentle challenge I want to offer this month:
Love should not cost us our health.
Wanting marriage doesn’t make us desperate. Wanting children doesn’t make us behind. Wanting a successful career doesn’t make us cold or unavailable. And wanting to slow down, rest, and protect our bodies does not mean we failed at balance. It means we’re listening.
The question isn’t whether we can have love and success— many of us already do. The question is whether we can give ourselves permission to care for our hearts the same way we’ve cared for everything and everyone else.
That may look like:
- ✨ Saying no without guilt
- ✨ Redefining productivity
- ✨ Letting go of timelines that no longer serve us
- ✨ Going to the doctor before the emergency
- ✨ Choosing peace over proving a point
This season of my life has taught me that arriving at your dreams doesn’t mean the work is over. Sometimes it means the work changes. Often times it means learning how to live in what you prayed for without losing yourself in the process.
We Deserve Everything Good— Including Good Health!
Black women deserve full lives, not just successful ones or just sacrificial ones. We deserve healthy, loved and present lives.
This February, while the world is loud about love, history, and strength, I hope we’re also quiet enough to listen to our bodies. Our hearts are trying to tell us something, and we deserve the time, care, and grace to hear it.
And I’m learning that God is not asking us to sacrifice our health to prove our faith. He is not impressed by burnout or glorified exhaustion. The same God who allowed the dream is also invested in our ability to live well inside of it.
This season, I’m choosing to believe that caring for my body is an act of obedience, not weakness. That rest is holy and listening is faithful. And most importantly, God is just as present in the slowing down as He was in the striving.
