I went to a party last month and some guy insisted I just start reciting a story on the spot to prove I was a writer. In the moment, with a number of eyes on me I failed to come up with a story that placated him. There’s a scenario I think about often and have been meaning to write about where a brave balloon forges a thorny forest to make it to the other side. It’s not super well thought out, but it’s something I plan to expand upon maybe and genuinely felt like it would be an interesting story. This is what I was trying to explain when I was abruptly cut off by this dude and told I wasn’t really a writer because I couldn’t tell a story at the drop of a hat. He then proceeded to string together the most nonsensical sentences, finished, and looked around proudly at everyone who looked just as confused as me. Even with his embarrassing display, his words still got under my skin. I keep revisiting this incident because it made me feel like a fraud and so small.
BHM: Looking into the past and facing the future
My family!
Being black in this country can be taxing and exhausting- sometimes deadly. We are confronted with how much society refuses to accept its past mistakes and even embrace inequality to avoid facing reality or responsibility. Seeing video after video, witnessing the severe lack of change over decades, watching books being burned that celebrate our history and explain our traumas, being subjected to the entire spectrum of racism from microagressions to shootings. We are oftentimes inundated with negativity, but we seem to find a way to carry a on. We find a way to cope, to sit with the onslaught of transgressions and move through the world with the weight of this pain, in spite of it, oftentimes with grace. Sometimes not, but that is not without warrant. And it’s not about being strong, because that is not always the case. Strength isn’t something innate in us all, we are human. There are times when this world certainly does consume us. I can’t speak for every black experience and I shouldn’t have to. We all have different ways we deal with the past and understand who we are and our identities. However, we are still here and that does mean there is a perseverance and persistence that cannot be ignored.
How Much More Can We Take?
An image of a sunset for Tyre.
Here we are again talking about another young man taken away by police. Unfair. That word seems to be going around a lot lately with good reason. What happened to Tyre Nichols was just that. Unfair, unjustifiable, unhinged. These are all words that describe the brutality shown towards 29 year old Tyre, the young man killed in Memphis earlier this year by police officers who were also black. I’m not going to link to an article, because the video was just released of the way they tortured him, and I don’t want to link that traumatic event here. I will, however, share this video I saw on Twitter of Tyre skateboarding, because that is just a much better representation of who he was-
2022: A Year of Growth
A lot has happened this year, and I like to think it’s because I set an intention for myself. Not a resolution per se, because I never called it that, but I guess those words can be synonymous. My intention this year was to be more decisive. I want to sum up last year with a few words. I learned a lot about myself. And now a lot more words-
I made it a point to do more self reflecting starting last year, finding a therapist and being more intentional about my personal growth. I tried Betterhelp which I cannot say enough terrible things about for the experience I had. With the high-volume monetization of mental health services comes with it an abundance of risk. I found myself paired with someone who simply should not have been my therapist (or maybe not even at all) and had a number of sessions that left me feeling confused, irritated, and hopeless.
My Body, My Choice
I wrote a lot of this post LAST YEAR in September 2021 at the beginning of this steady decline of human rights, but added some additional thoughts based on the recent events to round out the post. I’ll highlight when those kick in.
I don’t even know where to begin with how infuriating this ruling out of Texas is and the subsequent exclamations about the need to “protect innocent lives.”
Abortion is something that is such an uncomfortable subject to breach because there are so many tender feelings wrapped around what it means to get one, think about one, need one, have access to one, the aftermath, the list goes on. It’s an incredibly personal decision that has been politicized and turned into a mechanism for this extremely weird moral olympics where the winner is no one. As someone who can bear children, seeing the way this subject has been discussed and who’s loudest has always made me angry. Why? So glad you asked…