When the Village Was Enough

A reflection on growing up in the Upstate—with sweet tea, side-eyes, and the kind of love that still saves me.

Editor’s Note:
Sometimes I wonder if people really understand how much memory is tied to place. The sounds. The smells. The way your elders could correct you with just a look across the room. This letter is full of the kind of memories that raised me—and the honesty I’m learning to sit with now.

I was raised in the Upstate… on sweet tea and secondhand stories, elders calling you in from playing outside to help them unload groceries, and kids playing football between apartment buildings. Soccer was played on church lawns, school fields, travel teams, and any patch of grass big enough to chase a goal.

We mixed cultures, food, and languages. Sometimes even clothes—especially when those blue police lights hit and you realized you were out past curfew or you went too far into the woods and had to be rescued and had to adapt quick.

I remember singing gospel songs under the hair dryer at Crown of Glory Salon (Owner Bertha Austin - she taught me how to love the Lord and serve well.), with my elders hollering, “Sang, baby, sang!”

And I remember driving too fast down 123, only to get stopped by a police officer who didn’t write me a ticket—he called my mama instead.
She chewed me out six ways to Sunday. That was worse.

Yes ma’am and no sir weren’t suggestions.
They were required—and not just for show.
They were respect. They were upbringing.
They were survival.

And my aunties?
They came in every color, every background, every story.
They weren’t all blood—but they all showed up.
They fed me, prayed for me, loved me through my mistakes, present in my joys and yelled for me from the sidelines when my mama couldn’t be there.
They were the village, loud and proud.

When the church needed volunteers?
We were present and accounted for.
I didn’t always know what I was doing, but the adventure was figuring it out while laughing with people who had your back.

Now I’m the grown-up—raising my own babies on those same roads, under that same Southern sun, showing them that aunties still come in different colors with a heart full of old-school love and new-age worries.

Because today… there’s heartbreak everywhere.
In Gaza. In Texas. In small towns and big cities.
On social media feeds we scroll through too quickly and in homes where kids are still wondering why the world feels so heavy.

I turn around and hear my kids practicing music, playing games, and finding ways to keep busy over summer break.
And I breathe.

But honestly? Breathing’s been hard lately.

I’ve always been the chameleon in the group—the one who can adapt, switch code, switch languages, read the room.
Not because I’m cool, but because humor became my translator.
I can make fun of myself before anyone else does. I can get a laugh out of a stranger just to ease the tension in the air. I can come to the assistance to a momma because I’ve “been there & done that.”

It’s how I’ve learned to survive.
But survival isn’t always the same as living.
And lately? I’m trying to do more than just survive.

Because I know the weight people carry. I feel it. I feel it sometimes too much.
And I know sometimes it just takes five seconds of joy… five seconds of ridiculous laughter… to help someone breathe again.

So this is me, still here.
Still loving.
Still learning.
Still laughing, even when it feels foolish—because around here, we don’t need permission to show up with heart.

The Village is still enough it just make look a little differently at times.

If you’re carrying something heavy—just know this: you’re not alone.
This community was built for the long haul.
And around here? We serve. We love. We laugh loud. We also have some pretty awesome playlist I’m just saying.

Because that’s how WE make it through.

📍 From the Upstate with love,

Nakeshia