Category: Personal Journey

Beyoncé & the Utility of Anger

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Warning: I curse more than a few times in this post.

 

Let’s be honest. I give off an energy that is slightly more mouse than lion. I’m okay with this. As Marie-eve likes to say when I’m down: “You’re a tiny ball of survival!”

Scar

I’m not a bold or in-your face kind of person. Not that there’s anything wrong with being that way. Some of my best friends are the “don’t take shit from anyone” types of chicks. And I love them for it. They get shit done! But that just wasn’t me. I tend to keep the bolder, more aggressive emotions locked away. Anger and rage being two of them.

But y’all…

Something happened to me when I heard the first lines of Beyoncé’s “Don’t Hurt Yourself“. Something snapped. That shit resonated in the depths of my soul. That shit echoed through every moment of the last three years of my life.

Who the FUCK do you think I am? You ain married to no average bitch, boy. 

Beyonce

I listen to that song more than any other on Lemonade. I sang my LIFE out to it during the Formation tour.

I used to think being angry was synonymous with being bitter or an ‘Angry Black Woman’. I couldn’t let myself feel that or become the cliché.

But I was wrong. Anger is necessary. Anger is powerful. Anger is useful when justified and wielded for good. It’s a way to stand up and tell the world how it will or won’t treat you. It’s a way to remind yourself how you should and shouldn’t be treated. When the anger is rising, it means something is happening that shouldn’t.

I spent so much time in my past relationship and its aftermath trying to quell the rage rising in me. Rage for allowing myself to be treated so shitty. For being promised progress and growth but being served lemons. For defending this person to my friends, explaining the second chance – only to have to eat those words a few months later. For blaming myself at every dip of that roller coaster/circus, instead of the person causing them. For continuously watching someone put their own hopes/dreams/fears/pain first, but still I put myself last. For allowing myself to become smaller to accommodate him. For compromising what I truly knew I deserved. For blaming myself so much and for feeling not enough. For feeling ashamed. For swallowing past anger (and unknowingly, my pride) just so we could be okay and move on. For believing I was seen, when really I wasn’t. For being put aside until he was “ready”. Only for that to be ready for someone else.

And mostly, for staying…so…fucking…long…in limbo.

But what I should’ve said from the first day of shit was: Who the fuck do you think I am? 

What I should’ve said was: You fucked me over. You are poison to me. You don’t get to feel sorry for yourself and then live happily ever after. Love doesn’t live here anymore.

How different things may have been.

I had and have a right to be full of anger. I deserved better. I deserved more. I knew it but I didn’t demand it.

Anger has become my reclamation and liberation. It is a reclamation of all I had thought was lost from my past. My voice. My self-esteem. My right to be treated with care. I allow myself brief moments to revel in anger. To learn from it. To use it for healing. To let it burn away the edges of shame and guilt. I’m angry and I have a reason to be. I will not hide that anymore.

I am worthy of being loved fully. That’s the kind of love I give. Sometimes you just need to be reminded of that. Sometimes you have to scream it.

So thanks, Bey. It’s like I needed this song long before I could voice the words. You helped me more than I could ever say.

BeyonceHoldUp.jpg

Photo credits: 1. https://ohmy.disney.com/movies/2014/01/23/scar-so-bad-hes-good/; 2. theroot.com; 3. http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7348332/beyonce-stylist-b-akerlund-lemonade

Diverge // Digress

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I feel myself separating. Detaching.

Diverging in a new way. In a way that is both sad and merciful in its making. In a way I could never have predicted. I feel myself separating from you in a real way. Growing out and away. I feel quietness when thoughts of you broach my mind.

What is this?

The love that we cultivated was the netting on which I built my universe. It’s so strange to not feel that anymore. Or at least, to feel so very far from that. So very distance. Almost as if I have to remind myself of how real that once was.

What is this?

I call this detachment both sad and merciful because it really is. Sad, because our connection was so central to who I was. To what I wanted to be. To what I could see, feel and hope for. Merciful, because I thought I could never let go, or worst…that it would never let go of me. I thought I would drown under the weight of our damage.

But maybe not. Maybe I’m finally done. Maybe I can finally breathe deeply once again.

With time, I’ve changed. Grown. Released. Cried. Been tormented. Prayed. Meditated. Cried. Laughed. Longed. Raged. Released. Become…

Become something different. A new animal.

One less…wounded. Devoted. Bound.

One more…awake. In control. Tired. Honest. Detached. Ready.

I don’t want to go back to where I was before. I felt like I was shattering and burning. I was self-destructive and called it love.

I can’t be attached like that anymore.

“I let you leave. I need someone who knows how to stay.” – Warsan Shire, the unbearable weight of staying – (the end of the relationship)

Wanderlust & Solo Travel

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I had never really traveled by myself until this past month. Before this, I’d always gone places with someone or had plans to meet someone when my plane/train/automobile stopped. So when I found out I’d be going to Europe for work, I knew this was my chance.

At the end of May, I spent two weeks in Dublin, London & Copenhagen. I traveled mostly alone, ate mostly alone and explored mostly alone. It was like breathing fresh air for the first time in a long time.

Being alone, so far from home and everyone you know, is equal parts liberating and reflective. I don’t even know if I could fully explain it. The quiet gives you time to be uninhibited, to explore, to think, to eat, to smile at strangers, to be meditative, to feel lonely, to wander and get lost, to practice gratitude, to feel annoyed that you missed that train because you couldn’t figure out the damn map, and mostly…to feel alive.

Traveling alone and outside of your comfort zone is a privilege. I know that not everyone has the time, money, or energy to do so. A year ago, a trip like this would’ve been a fantasy for me. But as soon as you are able to travel, I sincerely recommend that you go.  It is an essential element for growth. You don’t have to go that far. Just go. And take no one with you. I’ll let Cheryl Strayed take it from here:

“Go! Go! Go! You need it one more time, darlin? GO.

Really. Truly. As soon as you can. Of this I am absolutely sure: Do not reach the era of child-rearing and real jobs with a guitar case full of crushing regret for all the things you wished you’d done in your youth. Sugar knows too many people who didn’t do those things. They all end up mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions of the people they intended to be.

It’s hard to go. It’s scary and lonely and your band-mates will have a fit and half the time you’ll be wondering why the hell you’re in Cincinnati or Austin or North Dakota or Mongolia or wherever your melodious little finger-plucking heinie takes you. There will be boondoggles and discombobulated days, freaked out nights and metaphorical flat tires.

But it will be soul-smashingly beautiful, Solo. It will open up your life.”

– Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

 

An optimist’s guide through melancholy

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Most days I feel fairly optimistic about the future. I feel like I’ll be fine. That I’ll mend and find love again. A love that is fuller. Less weighed down by barriers. Less weighed down by betrayal. I know that I’m a good person and I know I can be brave. So I think this is possible. Likely, even.

But there are other days…

Days when the loneliness creeps in and swallows me whole. Days when I viscerally miss the familiarity, closeness, and companionship of our past. Days I wish I hadn’t taken those past days for granted. Days I wish those past days had never happened because to remember them, but have them taken away, yet still watch others have them…it cuts me down. It makes me feel small. And like I’m emptying in all the wrong ways. Like I’m moving in reverse while everyone else is moving forward. Like I started out the gate too soon with this love thing. And stumbled. And fell. And shattered every bone. And everyone else is still running.

And on days like this I feel both love and hatred so close to the surface. They tangle with one another, leaving an acidic taste in my mouth. A taste full of melancholy and resentment; joy and tenderness. I want so much for these things to not be intertwined. I wish so much to feel like I’m not moving in reverse.

Tomorrow is another day, though. Maybe I will figure it out.

“The best thing you can possibly do with your life is tackle the motherfucking shit out of love.” – Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love & Life from Dear Sugar

An Ode to Old Wes

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Five years ago to date, I graduated from Wesleyan. Who the hell was I even on that day? Petrified? Mentally exhausted? Hopeful? All of the above & more. Mostly, I was completely unaware of how much my life had been altered by those four years.

The first words I ever wrote about Wes were: “Day one has come and gone and I survived. Not only survived, I thrived. I absolutely love this place. I can’t believe I’m saying that, but it’s completely true.” It’s funny how telling that became.

Wes became the second place I ever called home. It was a place that sparked a fire in me. A place I found a community of activists & artists, WOCO, a tribe, and a first love. I remember picking Wesleyan for all the most ridonkulous reasons (none of which I would recommend to people making big life decisions – or who cares, do what you want). After academics, my top reasons were:

  • It had the same name as one of my favorite characters (so you know, fate!)
  • The Gilmore Girls made a quaint town in the middle of Connecticut look pretty hilarious
  • It was different from the Bahamas in EVERY way possible (jackpot!)

These were my actual reasons. Literally, in that order. Why do we even let 17 year olds make life decisions? But no one could’ve told me different. When I realized Joss Whedon had gone there, there was no better stamp of approval. I had made the best decision possible using the most ridonkulous criteria possible.

And I’ve never regretted it. For all its pitfalls (poorly-veiled racism, losing classmates to terrible acts of violence, unbridled anxiety, loneliness, tears, and sooo many all nighters) it become home. Complicated, messy and difficult to love at times. But always home. The extraordinary people we survived and thrived with made it that way. Now that I reflect, I’ve realized that it’s incredible how much a place and its people can challenge and change you in a really good way.

Although I couldn’t be at our fifth year reunion this weekend, know that my heart is there.

“It’s interesting because that is the thing that you don’t realize. That there’s something completely artificial about the way college is; the way going away to some experience like that is. You’re together inside this pressure cooker situation for this period of time and under those conditions you get very, very close in ways that you wouldn’t have otherwise. And then it comes just to an end, like you come to a cliff. And it’s just like, okay now it’s over. And when that happens, it’s very powerful.” – Felicity

Grad2011 4

Photo credits: http://wesleying.org/2015/05/24/liveblog-wesleyan-commencement-2015/ and https://www.facebook.com/wesleyan.university/photos/?tab=album&album_id=342993924994

an analysis of heartbreak

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So I’ve been sitting on this piece for a long while, terrified to share it openly. This piece is much longer than my usual ones. It was both difficult to articulate and painful to recount. But doing so is needed. This space deserves it and so does my process. I hope you find what you need in it…

I loved someone with all of my heart and it failed spectacularly.

Not only did it fail, but throughout the entire process of loving, holding, and losing, I felt desperately not enough. I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t do enough. I didn’t try enough. I wasn’t exciting or soulful enough. My essence was…sub-par.

I know this isn’t true. Everything about this screams that this isn’t true.

But I would be lying if I said this shame didn’t seep into my cells and change my DNA. It is the constant aftertaste when I think of the past six years. It is the nasty little whisper I hear when the days are long, my energy is low, and life has hit me with a thousand little paper cuts.

But let’s start at the beginning.

Several things used to form my core belief structure: love conquering all, optimism, justice, karma, and fate. Without ever verbalizing it fully, I’ve intrinsically believed that what you put in is what you get out. And that good things come to good people. I know these beliefs have been proven wrong a million times over, but somehow, someway, I thought I’d be different. I believed that the universe would always correct itself and drown out the bad.

So when I fell in love I thought: this is what I always believed in but hadn’t yet experienced. This is a gift I couldn’t have known to even ask for. This is lightning caught in a bottle. This is love from the soul.

And it was for a long time. And in some ways, it will always be. He was my person. He was my family. Our relationship was the single most transformative, substantive, healing experience I had ever had. We laughed so hard and we reveled in the joy of our spirits connecting. So much of our personal histories were woven together, it’s hard to remember an experience without him being by my side. Sometimes all we’d have to do is look at one another and say “Adventure?!” and we were off, often in the direction of 24-hr diners that would become ‘our place’. Sometimes all we’d have to do is sit in silence, patient with each others’ hearts, minds, and bodies.

Mostly, we saved each others’ lives. In more ways than I can count. He waded into the deep, found me, and pulled me to shore. And I did the same for him.

So in short: it was deafeningly real.

***********************************************************************

But when the seams started to come apart in our relationship, I came apart. My gift turned into this…darkness. It became such an unhealthy personal sacrifice. It became…begging to be loved like I loved; begging to be fought for like I fought. It became making myself smaller to accommodate the depths of his emotional needs. But it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. He was broken and I was breaking. I was so deeply unhappy for such a long time but I couldn’t see it; couldn’t feel it. Because I was convinced that our love was stronger than the pain. I believed so powerfully in the universe correcting the bad. I believed he was my soulmate and that was all I needed to hold on to us, regardless of the emotional costs. Regardless of if I was losing parts of myself in the process.

But it wasn’t like I was on that ledge alone. Promises were made. Futures were planned. And images of dancing in our kitchen to Sound & Color as an old couple became my buoy.

When we finally tore apart and the chasm became too big, I collapsed into myself. Even though I knew how unhappy I had been before, the absence of our connection was unbearable. Watching him quickly move on with another tasted like ash. I allowed the whispers of not being enough to consume me. And they still do some days.

It is such a scary thing to question your self-worth. To turn on yourself. I didn’t understand why or how I got there. Why did I break apart like I did? I wanted to blame him for everything, but I knew there was more there. More I had to understand about myself.

***********************************************************************

With a lot of introspection, I’ve come to understand a part of what happened.

Instead of allowing my belief structure (love conquering all, optimism, justice, karma, fate) to ebb and flow as experience necessitates, I let it anchor me; drown me. Instead of adjusting my beliefs as I grew up, I turned on myself for not living up to them. I rationalized that I must have deserved such a hollow ending. That somehow I didn’t deserve the love I had first thought was a gift. And that…that’s why I was alone now and he wasn’t.

(…God, what an awful thing to think about yourself? I blamed myself for a messed up situation, instead of blaming the situation.)

My love for him is unquestionable. Even today. But my love for myself has wavered. And that’s what I need to work on now. That’s what I need to forgive myself for. I’m working on allowing a new belief structure to take hold; one made of self-care, compassion, community organizing, courage, letting go and releasing, celebrating love in all its forms, and still…a little touch of optimism. Maybe this marks a new era of my life. They are beliefs that are better suited to who I am and who I want to be. They are beliefs that aren’t so heavy to carry as the ones before.

And maybe somewhere in this I’ll realize that I am enough. And that I did enough. And that we tried everything. I’ll realize that loving from the soul is always a gift (and lightning in a bottle), regardless of how it ends. And maybe the next time I’m confronted with heartbreak, I won’t break. Instead, I will ebb and flow.

I know that pain comes different for everyone. I know everyone has a story of shame, insecurities, and fighting the good fight yet seemingly still losing. But I hope you feel a little less alone knowing you are not the only one fighting.

Peace & love,

K

Soft, Wild, Ever-Changing & Rooted

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  • My relationship with my hair (yes, it’s a full-blown relationship) is the most tumultuous, forgiving, difficult, loving, shady relationship I’ve ever had. Some days it respects me, other days I wear a headband and pray for the best. Some days I worry so much about the decision I’ve made, other days we coexist beautifully.
  • Many see my natural hair as a political statement, but most days it’s simply a deeply personal decision that also happens to be displayed for the world to see.
  • I’ve found that support and encouragement will come in big and small ways, often unexpected but always appreciated.
  • I’ve found that criticism and judgment will come in big and small ways, often accompanied by someone tryna put their grubby hands in your hair without asking (*major side-eye*).
  • I try to take both compliments & criticism with a grain of salt. Mostly, I try to remember that someone’s feelings about my hair is often more of a reflection that person than my actual hair.
  • I have grown to love my coils. This was an unexpected event. To get here I had to work through a lot of internalized bullshit and misconceptions about natural hair. Before I went natural, I assumed there were only two types of natural textures; one being more socially accepted and beautiful than the other. But I was so, so wrong. There are millions of iterations of natural hair, as many as there are women of color on this Earth. I could never have known what texture my coils would be like until I took this leap.
  • My bathroom looks like I robbed a hair salon.
  • Cutting my hair off was an act of courage I never thought I had in me. But I am so grateful I did. There’s something about my hair that feels like who I want to be: soft, wild, ever-changing, and rooted.

 

“You have to kind of really have conviction with it because there is so many pressures to straighten your hair all the time. But the result is a beautiful thing, you know? And it’s funny because I always think it’s interesting that to keep my hair the same texture as it grows out of my head is looked at as revolutionary. Like, why is that?” – Tracey Thoms, Good Hair (2009)

Letting Go

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It’s so strange to read back on my writings from just a year ago. It feels like a story unfolding. It’s a story that I didn’t know would end how and when it did. And though I knew things were crumbling, I didn’t realize just how fragile it all was.

I didn’t ask for this ending. Some days I feel it isn’t truly one. But on most days I’m able to understand that love should flow easier than that. Love like that – though magnanimous in its essence – was still very human and very flawed. It wasn’t full-bodied love, not really, not in the end. It had barriers, compromises, long distance, and brokenness woven into its DNA. A love like that hollows you out in the best and worst ways. It provokes a force in you, simultaneously imbued with melancholy and healing. It was almost too much to bear.

And for that, the story had to play out as it did. Had to end as it did. It couldn’t have been any other way. I couldn’t have been better at holding on to it. No one could. Letting go means recognizing that the past could not have been any different than exactly how it happened.

This love was soft, powerful, tender and, ultimately, beautifully human and beautifully flawed. It was exactly what I needed to be who I am today.

(Funny enough, this perfectly captures the end of loving a person and a place.)

“You see love liberates. It doesn’t bind. Love says, ‘I love you. I love you if you’re in China. I love you if you’re across town. I love you if you’re in Harlem. I love you. I would like to be near you. I’d like to have your arms around me. I’d like to hear your voice in my ear. But that’s not possible now. So I love you. Go.’” – Dr. Maya Angelou

Dualities

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I have to remind myself that it’s okay to be both happy and bitter. Light-hearted and shattered. Resilient and pissed the fuck off. I can be friendly, hopeful, nostalgic, spiteful, broken, envious, self-involved, and regretful…all in the same moment. I can want so desperately to correct the past and know that that can never happen. I can be in the process of letting go and still dive into the depths of grief. I can know that I both had and have soulmates. I can wish for something with every fiber of my bones…and still recognize how profoundly empty it is to need that. I can be sad for myself and happy for others. I can have swells of immense joy and laughter in the light and still break apart in the shadows.

I am the in-between. Maybe not forever. Maybe not even for much longer. But this is what it looks like. This is what it feels like. This is what it takes to expand your horizons. It doesn’t always feel right. Or just. Or easy. And it doesn’t go away in a day, week, month, or maybe a year.

I just have to find my way back to the light. Even if it means crossing through the in-between.

You have – which is a rare thing – the ability and the responsibility to listen to the descent in yourself. To at least give it the floor. Okay? To accept [this] duality is to earn identity. – Joss Whedon

Reaching Out

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The single greatest skill I learned in undergrad was how to ask for help and support. I know that seems ridiculously simplistic. And perhaps it may even seem like a huuuuge waste of tuition dollars (considering Wesleyan’s price tag, this is probably true haha). But the older I get, the more I realize how foundational this skill is.

Specifically, I’m referring to:  How to ask for help || When to ask || Who to ask it from

Knowing the above adds up to you being a better, more functional, more evolved individual. It is the acknowledgement that no one person can do all things, be all things, hold all things, and endure all things. It’s the recognition that help exists if only you ask. It recognizes that humans are fundamentally social beings. We need each other like we need oxygen. The absence of either leaves us dead. Yet, we are rarely proactively taught this skill. Even worst, we are at times shamed for asking for help; for reaching out to others.

It’s in this context that I learned the other element to reaching out: you gatta be deliberate. Who you ask for help is just as important as how you ask. Recently, I had a particularly shitty day where I felt someone was intentionally, maliciously undermining me. After leaving this situation, all I wanted to do was rage (re: cry) to the first person I saw about how unfair and unwarranted this was.

But I forgot to choose carefully who I opened up to. I forgot that not everyone is capable of responding to your need for help, and certainly not everyone is well-intentioned. There are some that hear your story and their immediate reaction is, “Oh you didn’t know that that’s how the world works? Well where you been?” There are others who will say, “That’s bad, but my day was even worse” (these are actual responses I heard -___- ). Both responses invalidated my experience and left me feeling anything but helped or supported. In fact, they made me feel bad for even having this seemingly inconsequential problem.

Instead, empathy is what you really need from someone. Salt of the earth empathy. Not condemnation or minimization. This empathy will come from your tribe. Your tribe are the people in your life who will hear what you’re saying, absorb it, make you feel as okay as possible, and help you work through ways to solve the problem. They make you feel a little less alone and they will “show up and wade through the deep with you.” And maybe…just maybe, you will even leave the conversation laughing when at first there were tears.

Find your tribe. They’re out there.

And know that help is just an ask away.

“Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.” – the ever illuminating, Dumbledore

Taking Stock

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I had a great conversation with Marie-Eve a few weeks back. I am so grateful for the friendship we have cultivated. She is a best friend and family in so many ways. As we were talking she offhandedly praised me for really making the best of my time at home. For doing all the things I said I wanted to do: eating better, yoga, making a blog, my video journal, and going natural. It made my heart smile with gratitude. She said I was doing so much better and I looked happy.

That moment was unexpected but so deeply needed.

Truthfully, I’m working my way to happy, but I’m not there yet. I want to be joyful not in spite of anyone or anything, but simply because I am.

I cut my hair off because I needed to feel like I was walking towards change instead of being dragged, for once.

I started yoga because it touches a part of me that needs healing and strength.

I started a video journal because my spirit needs to remember the sweet moments and days as much as my tear ducts remember the hard ones.

I write because the writings of others have literally carried me to salvation.

I want to be a fuller version of myself. For too long I lay broken and shattered across the eastern seaboard, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from monuments to sand dollars. I left shards everywhere I went and I picked up new splinters along the way. Now I’m back in harbour, picking up the pieces, molding a new figure, and breathing life and light to that being. I want to love the person I will become. I want to love her fiercely. I want her to forgive me. And I want to forgive. I want her to set boundaries, healthy ones, and live true. I want her to feel powerful and worthy of all the sweetness this world has to offer. I want her to be imbued with strength, vulnerability, and most importantly, wholeness.

And I want the same for you, whoever you are reading this.

“Don’t let anyone take your magic away. Not even you.” – M 

Becoming

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Be easy.
Take your time.
You are coming
Home.
To yourself

 

– “the becoming | wing” by Nayyirah Waheed

 

Growth can feel tedious, exhausting and unfair at times. Especially when it is punctuated by loss. As I’ve talked about before, no one warns you about the amount of mourning there is in growth. And maybe no one has to…

This poem gives me hope more than anything else. The idea is that as difficult and soul-crushing as growth and change can be, try to be easy on yourself. Treat yourself as kindly as you wished the universe would sometimes. Be compassionate and soothing to yourself in ways you haven’t received from those you trusted. Just know: no amount of warning can change what needs to be experienced.

Know that taking your time is elemental to happiness. Because movement is happening. Even if you feel despairingly stuck. Even if you feel like you’ve diverged from the dream you had for yourself, for love, for your career, for communion with friends. Movement is there, always. You are coming home. And home: home is the purest form of who you need to be in this world and who the world needs you to be. Home is protective and empowering. Home is love that endures.

Home is you.