Tag: lemonade

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!”

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. 

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.

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