Member-only story
How I Found My Black Girl Joy Again
No amount of money could make up for a life that felt empty
By Claire Soares, as told to Tomika Anderson
I knew it was time to go when I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning.
At my old apartment in Oakland, California, my bedroom window framed the most incredible sunrise — the kind you see lovers gazing into, arm in arm, in rom-coms.
Still, all I saw was darkness.
I was depressed when I should have been basking in Black girl joy.
As one of the few Black people on the sales side of the Fortune 500 company I worked at for more than a decade, I was breathing rarified air.
My job was 100% remote, and most weeks I spent my time flying around the country to wine and dine clients at similarly successful companies, smashing through deal goals in the process.
As the primary sales engineer, I brokered some of the largest deals in my company’s history, securing contracts with the U.S. government, Microsoft, Disney, and IBM to name a few — contracts worth billions of dollars.
A 10-time President’s Club winner, I was treated to luxury trips most years on my company’s dime: a reward for a job well done. These trips were to exotic destinations with…
