Oct 24, 20233 min read

Homecoming Season: What's Your Favorite Part?🏟✨

It’s Homecoming season at colleges from across the nation. What is your favorite part about homecoming season? Is it the roadtrips, the outfits, or the tailgating? Are you there for the halftime show, the band or are you there to watch the game? For me, it’s all the things. Homecoming is a time to reunite with friends and family, to travel and tailgate and of course to pull out your best looks.

Photo collage with photos of Teryn at Southern University's 2023 homecoming.

This homecoming marked my first as an alum of a Historically Black Law School, one of six in the nation. In May, I graduated from Southern University Law Center and achieved my dream turned reality of becoming a lawyer. #lawyerbae Just days before homecoming, I found out that I failed the Louisiana Bar Examination and would not be sworn in as an attorney the following week. It was devastating. I felt ashamed, I felt disappointed and embarrassed. For months, I had been fasting and praying and waiting, and then SLAM, my worst fear, I failed the bar exam. It sucked, but I knew that I had to keep going. I just did not know what that would look like.

My parents and I had already made plans to travel to Louisiana, believing in faith that I would be sworn in that following Monday, the weekend leading up also happened to be homecoming. As God would have it, the trip ended up being everything I needed and some. I was able to spend much needed time with friends and family, eat some of my favorite foods, and literally see constant reminders of God's faithfulness in my life.

Photo collage of teryn with her parents in New Orleans.

The past few weeks have given me an opportunity to practice what I preach. To really love myself despite what was going on in my life. I had been trying to pick up the pieces. I was trying to hold it all together while also giving myself the space and time to grieve and heal. I had been worried about finding a job after a big move, about what my future would look like post-law school... post-school period. Per usual, it is all working out. #ButGod

After months of interviews, resume revisions, and rejections, I finally landed a job! 🎉 I had written down prayers, specific prayers, bold prayers for the things that I wanted in my first "big girl" job. I had still been fasting (and still am) and praying and pushing forward. Before the trip was over, I received a job offer that was very much in line with what I had been praying and believing for, in fact, if I am honest, it was bigger than what I prayed and believed for. 🙌🏾

What I love about #radicalreflections is the ability to turn everyday experiences to what some would call, "think pieces." Sometimes though, it might be necessary to dig deeper, to be so intentional about the practice of mindfulness that you are able to catch some of the million little miracles that are happening around you. Homecoming is about remembering where you came from, how far you have come, and how far you still have left to go. Homecoming is about freedom, it's about celebration, and to me it is a personification of Black love in its many forms.

What is your favorite part about homecoming season?