There’s something different about standing on land your family once walked.
It’s not just history.
It’s presence.
I remember taking it all in—the air, the space, the stillness.
And feeling something I can’t fully explain.
Like I had been there before.
Like something in me recognized it.
You can research all you want.
But some things…
You have to feel.
DNA gave me percentages.
But it didn’t give me the full story.
It showed me African ancestry.
European lineage.
Native roots.
But what it couldn’t show me…
was how those identities were lived.
How they were navigated.
How they were protected.
That part…
came through the journey.
There’s something surreal about meeting someone for the first time…
and knowing they belong to you.
No shared childhood.
No memories together.
No familiar history in your everyday life.
And yet…
There’s a comfort.
A recognition.
A quiet understanding that doesn’t need explanation.
That’s what this journey gave me.
Conversations that didn’t feel forced.
Connections that didn’t feel new.
Moments that felt like catching up… instead of starting over.
It challenged everything I thought I knew about what makes someone “family.”
Because it turns out—
it’s not just time.
It’s not just proximity.
It’s something deeper.
Something rooted.
And once you feel it…
You can’t unfeel it.
I packed my bags without knowing a single person. Someone I knew I needed to do this
I walked into a room full of people I had never met…
and somehow, I wasn’t a stranger.
I remember looking around, trying to take it all in.
Faces that resembled mine.
Mannerisms that felt familiar.
Laughter that sounded like something I had heard before.
It was overwhelming in the most beautiful way.
Because how do you explain that?
How do you explain feeling like you belong somewhere…
you’ve never been?
That day wasn’t just about meeting family.
It was about seeing myself reflected in ways I never had before.
It was about understanding that my story didn’t start with me.
It was about realizing…
I come from something.
And that something has always been there—
waiting for me to find it.
This Well Runs Deep 