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When Life Goes Left, TURN IT RIGHT
dymond phillips • Nov 06, 2017
*Making Strides Of Atlanta Breast Cancer Awareness Walk*
Hello hello, I feel like I haven’t talked to you in forever. In reality it’s only been two weeks. It’s so many things that’s happened that I want to tell you about. Guess I’ll start here, as you know on October 21st, Dymond’s Diary participated in the Making Strides of Atlanta Breast Cancer Walk. The walk was at 8:30am at Suntrust Park. I invited all my Atlanta readers to join me. My family are my biggest supporters and the fact that they drove 10 hours just to participate means the world to me. My mommy, daddy, nana and little brother were all there bright and early eager for the walk. BUT there were so many things that went wrong. If my family wasn’t in town I honestly think I wouldn't have went. My family keep me sane, they push me when times when get hard, and wipe my tears and push me forward when I lose hope. I was super excited for the walk until about two days before.
As you might know I got sick on that Tuesday four days before the walk, and I was trying to push thru but my energy was drained. I missed my hair appointment due to oversleeping and when I was trying to reschedule, my hair stylist was not answering the phone. So the day before the walk my hair wasn't done and I was unsure if it would be done in time. At first the plan was to have everybody in matching shirt, but boy did things go left. The day before the walk, my t-shirt guy called me and said the machine was down and that he was unable to make my shirts. I tried almost all of the other t-shirt companies in Atlanta to see who could get my design printed same day, but there was no luck. ON TOP of that, this same week I was looking for cars almost everyday and none of the deals were working out. Everybody was either too high or were offering a low amount for my current car I had.
At 7pm on Friday October 20th, I was completely over it. I just began to cry in my car at everything that was going wrong. I couldn't understand why all these negative things were happening when all I was trying to do was participate in something that was for a good cause. My mom ended up calling me and heard in my voice that I was crying. She told me not to be discouraged, she said to come up with solutions instead of crying. She was looking at cars for me while I was trying to find t-shirts. After talking to her I had to call my dad because he always has great ideas. So I called him and he told me to keep looking for places and that he would call around. He told me not to get so hung up on t-shirts because the point of what I was doing was more important. My parents gave me that push that I needed when I was at my lowest point. I had to just stop breathe and pray. I’m such a positive person and I hated that I allowed these minor problems to get to me. So I decided to attack one issue at a time. At that point I decided to give all my problems to God, and to just relax.
An hour later my hair stylist called me and apologized for not answered and asked if I could come now. You know I ran at that opportunity. As I was getting my hair done I came up with an idea for the t-shirts. Why not go to Micheals and make my own shirts it’ll be unique and we will all be in unison. I looked at the time and realized that by time I left the shop all the stores would be closed. But then it dawned on me, my family was in town. All I had to do was text my parents and ask for help. Within a hour they had ran to three stores to get everything. I come from a family where we get things done! If it wasn’t for them I don’t know how I would have made it happen. Once I met up with them and got all the supplies I ran home to make the shirts. I thought everything was on the up and up, but yet I was wrong. When I got home and started I realized that the letter palette I had about only had one Y. I had five palettes in total. I could not make 15 shirts with just 5 Y’s. This time I didn’t let this problem get to me. I just laid down to get some rest
The morning of the I was in a great mood. I was excited. In total Dymond’s Diary donated $525 to the Making Stride Of Atlanta fund. I know that’s not a whole lot but I was pleased with that much because it was my first time ever raising money for a cause on my own. The vibe at the walk was great everybody had friendly energy and I loved seeing everybody come together. I ended up having the girls in pink shirts with black bottoms and guys in black shirts with grey shorts. Everybody had a pink bandana and a pink ribbon. I had the pleasure of having Beyond’97 Visuals capture this special moment for me. He’s always been a major supporter of Dymond’s Diary and I LOVED working with him. My family arrived a little late but I was so excited to see them ready to walk. I loved the fact that my friends came out to support me even though they were late too. The walk was held at the new baseball stadium, I was happy I was able to see how it came out. It only lasted about a hour. I received so many text messages from people apologizing for missing the walk, and I can admit at first I did feel some type of way. But after thinking about it, I got over it. It was homecoming week plus it was 8:30am on a Saturday morning, that’s early for a lot of people.
After the walk I went straight to the dealership to pick up my new car (I'll save these details for another post) It was then when I realized so many things. Everything I was stressing for didn’t matter. I was focused on the small problems rather than the big picture. I realized that in life no matter how hard you plan things out, it’s a possibility that things could go wrong. You can’t sit and cry over the issues, you just have to push thru them. Even now I stop and think, what if I allowed the problems I was facing to make me not even do the walk? I would have missed the opportunity to help something that's bigger than me. When everything in life seems like it’s going wrong, just stop breathe and pray it’s greater things coming just push thru the trials. I want to send a huge thank you to those of you who came out to support. Thank you for sacrificing your Saturday morning to give back to a great cause. I can’t wait until next year for it to be even better!
