2023 · The Road of Trials
Toward a Public Voice
In late August 2023, TheIssa left home to begin medical training in Barbados. After years of imagining a larger future, he was crossing a physical threshold toward one. The move also placed distance between him and the ordinary family life that continued without him.
His mother was growing older. Nieces and nephews were changing, and weddings and funerals became harder—or impossible—to attend. The son who wanted to stay close enough to protect the people he loved was now living alongside the artist-student who believed leaving was necessary. Neither part of him could simply silence the other.
Heartbreak and eroding trust made the separation more complicated. As in 2018, movement exposed friendships that depended on proximity or access rather than mutual care. But this time discernment alone was not an answer. Even the relationships worth keeping could be strained by school, distance, and the pursuit of a future.
The emotional pull of “Mixed Signals” returned as a connection to the earlier chapter, not a new release: love, duty, belonging, ambition, and self-protection were speaking at once. Choosing to leave did not make him heartless, but it did not make the cost disappear either. The distance he had accepted as part of building a life was about to become the place where that life felt most beyond his control.