At the top of this month, timelines filled with proud parents, rising Class of 2025 graduates, and screenshots of college acceptance letters. The digital confetti flew—commitment posts and school colors filling up the feed. While there was celebration all around, you were holding something a little heavier.

You weren’t ready to post your plans, because your plans weren’t traditional. Or simple. Or easy to explain at the Juneteenth cookout.

You made a different kind of decision. You chose you.
You chose the dream.

Maybe it meant deferring your admission. Maybe it meant saying no to college altogether—at least for now. Maybe it meant trading dorm tours and meal plans for auditions, canvases, cameras, choreography, grant applications, or freelance gigs.

What it definitely meant was standing in your truth, even if your voice shook. That’s not a small thing.

I want you to hear this: there is no shame in choosing a path that looks like freedom.

We don’t talk enough about the courage it takes to look your family in the eye—especially if you’re the first one in line to go to college—and say, “I need to try something else.” We don’t talk enough about how hard it is to say, “I know what you hoped for me, but I have to go figure out who I am first.”

We don’t talk enough about how choosing your dream can feel like betrayal before it feels like liberation.

Some of the most impactful artists, creators, and culture-shapers started by stepping off the path that was laid out for them. Some of the brightest Black stars had to say no to convention in order to say yes to purpose.

“I always dreamed of going to an HBCU,” Beyonce said in her 2019 Homecoming film. “My college was Destiny’s Child. My college was traveling around the world and life was my teacher.”

That doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. It means it’s going to be worth it.

It means late nights and early mornings. Rejections and redirection. It means knowing your worth when no one is clapping yet. It means holding on to a vision only you can see.

It also means community. Alignment. Peace. It means waking up and doing what lights your spirit up. It means the slow and daunting work of becoming.

College is a beautiful and valid path, but it is not the only one. The system hasn’t always made room for our kind of brilliance. So we’ve had to make our own doors, stages, tables, platforms. Now, you’re continuing that work.

Don’t think for one second that you’re falling behind. You are starting exactly where you’re meant to.

You are the kind of brave that makes change possible.

This isn’t about glorifying struggle or ignoring the practicalities. You still need a plan. You still need a tribe. You still need systems that keep you grounded and rooms that pour back into you. Take the workshop. Apply for the grant. Study the craft. Learn the business side. Protect the vision. Keep receipts.

But also: keep going.
Even when the applause is quiet.
Even when your cousins don’t get it.
Even when doubt tries to knock on your door.

We believe in you. We see you. We’re saving you a front row seat.

Your life doesn’t have to follow the standard script in order to be successful. You are writing a different kind of story—one rooted in faith, creativity, and Black imagination.

So here’s to the artist who dared to choose differently.

We’re watching. We’re rooting. Most of all, we’re grateful.

With love,
Thiy Parks
Editor-in-Chief, I Love Us

Cover photo: To the Black Kid Who Said No to College—And Yes to the Dream / Credit: Ari Shojaei on Unsplash