A friend who married later in life once told me, "Simone, you have to approach dating like you handle your job. You set goals, objectives, benchmarks etc. and work towards them. Set a goal to have a love life." I shrugged then just as I am shrugging now. I don't buy the idea that women should have to work so damn hard at love. That's too much work for so little in return, and yet, like a fool, late last year, I took her advice and tried my hand at online dating. I was forewarned that dating in NY is hard and that you only really do it to shake off the rust, presuming that there is rust. Granted my coworker met her husband on one of these sites, but even she admits that it was kismet. So I thought that I was going into this with eye wide open. I'd lowered my expectations of what would come of setting up dating profiles and I kept an open mind about the kinds of men with whom I would be willing to interact because this is the one area in my life where I truly do not know what is best for me. I am more particular about toilet paper than I am about men, and to be honest I think that is because I've never really been one of those women who truly needed a man. I need accessories. I need wine. I need coffee. A boyfriend, and certainly a husband, have always been optional, not necessary. The men in my life and around me always seemed to have a sense of entitlement and predilection for a certain kind of woman, usually someone totally unlike myself. I am not thin or classically pretty. I don't suffer fools lightly, and although I am all woman in every sense of the word, I have a very powerful and dominant energy that is usually synonymous with masculinity. I've been known to make men cry. No seriously. I have. I rarely cut people slack, especially if they walk around swinging a dick. Now let me be clear; I don't hate men. Quite the opposite. I like sizing up builds, beards, and bulges. I am the woman who will look a man up and down, make eye contact and show no shame. I admire the granite-like nature of the male aesthetic, but I struggle with the delicate constitutions of their ego. Blame it on upbringing or the constant enabling by other women who do in fact need a man; whatever, the cause, I am not gentle enough to be the glue that holds a man together. I am a supporter and protector by nature, but I am less of a consort and more of a co-regent. Come already put together, ready to withstand life's blows, or stand aside and let me handle this on my own; in my own way. For a while, I thought Breon, maybe you are being too hard. Soften up girl. So I tried the softer approach, and to be quite frank, that doesn't work for me. I am not a background player. While I admire him, I am not cut out to be the Hurts to your Tagovailoa. Either we both shine or he needs to be secure enough to not ask me to dim mine. At any rate, we need to find some common ground that allows us to both be franchise players. I know. I am asking for a sort of unicorn, but I know that they exist... they do.
And that brings us to now...
After 3 months of online dating, I am taking a page out of Tracee Ellis Ross's playbook and learning to be happy just being my own fabulous self. I'd rather take amazing selfies on a vacation that I paid for myself than sit across from a guy who believes that the Netflix Kevin Hart docuseries was - and I quote- "triumphant". That says to me that you too are emotionally stunted, and a disappointment waiting to happen. I have found a lot of emotionally and conversationally stunted men in these virtual New York streets that cant seem to get past a "good morning beautiful" text. I've met some freaks that I had to calmly remind that nothing on my profile says that I am into polyamory or fetishes. Thanks but no thanks; I don't want to finish my drink. I just want to leave. There have been the baby mama bashers, the "I like having sex with women but women are the problem" types, and my favorite "I have a girlfriend but she aint ackin' right, but hold on; this is her texting me" characters. There are the posers who have a polished introductory routine but once you spend time getting to know them, you realize that they can barely form a coherent sentence. Then there are the "oh you are a lawyer, so you ballin' right" guys, for whom, everything you do is an exhibition of your spending power. My dude, Navient gets most of my check. If I would've known that you were this kind of date, I would've save my time and money (because he didnt pay) and drank the free wine I have at home. I did meet a nice school teacher, but he has a rain cloud over his head that just wont let up. No, I cant stand the rain, and I have given up trying. Dating was supposed to be fun, but its work, and as I have already established, work is ghetto.
So where does this leave me?
I still communicate with the school teacher, but when I imagine my life a few years from now, I don't see him in it. John Mayer has a line - one of a zillion- that I love: "...and I can't remember life before her name." Life before him and the others was calm. It was something that I could balance and keep stable, and while I am fond of him, his name I can remember... his face is growing fuzzy. The thing that sticks with me the most is during a moment of loss, him in the dark, bending down to rest his head on my shoulder and me briefly holding both of our weight. Although I care for him, I am not the glue that will hold him together. If anything he has shown me that it takes all that I have to simply hold me together. My singleness makes more sense now than it ever did before.
Dating in and of itself, made me realize that people pair off for a few reasons, love not always, if ever, being chief among them. You find someone who adds to you what you have yet to grow in yourself. You find someone who is on a similar journey and needs a traveling companion. You have so much to give that not having someone to shower it upon is a sin against God's nature. For someone like me, I am hyper self aware and everyday I learn something new and invaluable about myself such that I find myself still falling in love with newly found pieces of me. And while we are communal creatures, I have found great joy living life in my head, content to walk alone for as far as I can just to see if I can do it. My, how many miles I have walked alone, and amazed the hell out of myself. But yet through all of this I am still learning what it means to love myself as fervently as I have loved others. Right now, I can't be anyone's glue but my own. It's hard to type this but its also liberating to know this.
I haven't thrown in the towel on companionship of the romantic sort. It's just not a goal of mine. Ambivalence is the word that comes to mind when I think of being in a relationship, and angst with regards to dating. I am open to whatever the Most High sends my way, but I am simply not pressed. I deleted all of my online dating accounts and blocked numbers. I feel lighter and more in alignment with myself.
The teacher occasionally reaches out but we keep it light. Its for reassurance, I guess. Its pleasant and not a bother. However, sometimes I don't respond, and we both know why.
Wednesday, January 15, 2020
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
Changing My Mind About Working...This is Ghetto
A friend sent me a text from her excursions in Sint Maarten, a place she was not feeling the day before, but now pleasantly resigned to her current situation. Lamenting on the thought of leaving and returning to mundanity of her 9-5, she shared words that have now become a sort of benchmark for quality of living: "working is ghetto". Now as I type this in my dungeon of an office, tucked in a corner at the back of the lowest floor, I too must admit that working is indeed for the less couth. I mean who willingly and eagerly signs away their life to take on tasks and responsibilities that they'd rather not have? The modern human does. That's who! Consider the white collar 9 to 5. You sit at a desk, and if you're lucky, in an office with walls, in front of a screen and silently crumble apart on the inside. I keep flowers on my desk just to remind me that I am yet still among the living flora and fauna of the world. When they die after a week, I find myself envying their escape. For them, at least, there is an end to this senseless torture. They say figure out your passion and work wont feel like work. I call bullshit. Work is work. I am only here because I need a check. Do I like helping people? Yes of course. If I didn't need to pay my student loans would I be helping people? Maybe but not Monday thru Friday from 9 to 5. I don't like people that much, and frankly I think if there weren't a whole entire professional landscape built around helping people, the altruism we so desperately seek in the world would finally have room to manifest. Maybe the government would remember that its supposed to serve people? At any rate, I lie to myself every morning. Its the power of this lie that gets me out of bed in the morning, onto two different trains and through throngs of zombie-like New Yorkers, to my pit of an office, just to "help people". Even when I had the so-called "cool job", I had to lie to myself to get going. For starters anyone who believes that multi-national corporations hocking ice cream can be a force for good is certifiably delusional. Secondly, getting white men to "pay what they owe" to society, in particularly people who look like me, is a Sisyphean task. The lie stopped being so powerful; all of its euphoric sway lost. However, the grander lie that working the way that we work is normal, has a cult-like grip on my logic. Everyday I tell myself that I must work to matter. I must contribute something so that I can add it to a piece of paper proving my value to society. I must work to accumulate validation from others who I hope will say that I am both smart and productive. I get results. But what happens when those markers of success cease to trigger floods of dopamine in the reward center of my brain? What happens when I can no longer ignore the heaviness of fatigue, or the finish line that seems to get farther away with each achievement. The addiction no longer gives me the high, and suddenly I realize that Whitney was right: crack is whack and so is working for a living.
There are days that I wished that I didn't like nice things. That I could value my freedom more than the fleeting joy of finally buying a Chanel bag or even something more practical, calling myself a homeowner. All signs that I am upholding my side of this social bargain. I long for the sense of freedom that would allow me to live day to day and figure it out as I go along, but the fact is, I like my things. Love of things might be the most ghetto of all mindsets. Listen, I'm not saying be a bum. I do value productivity and purpose, but less in a capitalist framework. I think about Coltrane towards the end of his earthly run. His music was not made for sales or to appease the masses. Ole dude, literally became a conduit. A divine experience. We wont all be that exceptional, but I do believe that we have the capacity to do amazing stuff... when we are not consumed with the need for things and a paycheck to acquire things.
Maybe I have worked so hard up until this point that I am literally out of fucks to give about work and the working world. I've always been the model of get it done. If there was anyone who was going to succeed, it was going to be me. There were times that I didn't give my all. Take law school of example. I was literally taking up space, doing the bare assed minimum - believe me it showed - because I didn't know what else to do. I just knew that I had to work at some point, and law seemed like a lucrative and important avenue for me to venture down. It was like walking down 5th Ave knowing I can't afford anything. I can however admire the windows. I spent three years admiring the concept, never intending to buy into it completely. But there were those times where I gave my all a little too much, and despite getting it done, I didn't get the return I'd hoped for. Those times left me spent and questioning why. I'd do something remarkable and the CEO would barely mention my name, but would revel in my achievement. A colleague, whose sense of self was bigger than mine, would proudly explain my doings as if they were their own, and I, too tired to fight, would convince myself that the only thing that mattered was that it got done. This is not to say that I've just been a victim of my own making. There were some hard fought victories that still drag a smile across my face, but not as much as reading something that I wrote years ago or looking a crisp photo that I took. Lately, I've derived more pleasure from cleaning my closet than completing a policy manual. At least having a clean closet matters to me. My coworkers can run amok and I've just decided that I don't care anymore. As people, most of them are great, and that goes for all of my colleagues past and present. I just don't care about them as coworkers, which is ironic because my current job is all about creating a caring and cohesive team. I gotta laugh at that.
At some point or another, most of us have found ourselves sitting at a dining room table in front of a plate of food that we usually wouldn't touch with a javelin pole. Our host, eagerly looking at us, hoping that we delight in their creation as much as they took pride in creating it. You know deep down inside that this shit is ghetto, toxic even, but you fix your face, adopt a steely resolve, and shovel a mouthful onto your palate. You chew and somehow manage to suppress your sense of smell, all the while slowly dying on the inside. You eat enough to ease the fears of the host and put your fork down without having to explain why. You uphold your end of this social bargain. The reward: you aren't ostracized. The downfall: you'll likely be invited to dinner again.
Every 2 weeks I get a sizable check. Everyday I am expected to show up and keep showing up. This is the arrangement.
I was off for 10 days. I came back to work for 3 got frustrated, and left for another 5. Most of those days, I sat on my couch questioning work and my career. I picked apart my life choices:
There are days that I wished that I didn't like nice things. That I could value my freedom more than the fleeting joy of finally buying a Chanel bag or even something more practical, calling myself a homeowner. All signs that I am upholding my side of this social bargain. I long for the sense of freedom that would allow me to live day to day and figure it out as I go along, but the fact is, I like my things. Love of things might be the most ghetto of all mindsets. Listen, I'm not saying be a bum. I do value productivity and purpose, but less in a capitalist framework. I think about Coltrane towards the end of his earthly run. His music was not made for sales or to appease the masses. Ole dude, literally became a conduit. A divine experience. We wont all be that exceptional, but I do believe that we have the capacity to do amazing stuff... when we are not consumed with the need for things and a paycheck to acquire things.
Maybe I have worked so hard up until this point that I am literally out of fucks to give about work and the working world. I've always been the model of get it done. If there was anyone who was going to succeed, it was going to be me. There were times that I didn't give my all. Take law school of example. I was literally taking up space, doing the bare assed minimum - believe me it showed - because I didn't know what else to do. I just knew that I had to work at some point, and law seemed like a lucrative and important avenue for me to venture down. It was like walking down 5th Ave knowing I can't afford anything. I can however admire the windows. I spent three years admiring the concept, never intending to buy into it completely. But there were those times where I gave my all a little too much, and despite getting it done, I didn't get the return I'd hoped for. Those times left me spent and questioning why. I'd do something remarkable and the CEO would barely mention my name, but would revel in my achievement. A colleague, whose sense of self was bigger than mine, would proudly explain my doings as if they were their own, and I, too tired to fight, would convince myself that the only thing that mattered was that it got done. This is not to say that I've just been a victim of my own making. There were some hard fought victories that still drag a smile across my face, but not as much as reading something that I wrote years ago or looking a crisp photo that I took. Lately, I've derived more pleasure from cleaning my closet than completing a policy manual. At least having a clean closet matters to me. My coworkers can run amok and I've just decided that I don't care anymore. As people, most of them are great, and that goes for all of my colleagues past and present. I just don't care about them as coworkers, which is ironic because my current job is all about creating a caring and cohesive team. I gotta laugh at that.
At some point or another, most of us have found ourselves sitting at a dining room table in front of a plate of food that we usually wouldn't touch with a javelin pole. Our host, eagerly looking at us, hoping that we delight in their creation as much as they took pride in creating it. You know deep down inside that this shit is ghetto, toxic even, but you fix your face, adopt a steely resolve, and shovel a mouthful onto your palate. You chew and somehow manage to suppress your sense of smell, all the while slowly dying on the inside. You eat enough to ease the fears of the host and put your fork down without having to explain why. You uphold your end of this social bargain. The reward: you aren't ostracized. The downfall: you'll likely be invited to dinner again.
Every 2 weeks I get a sizable check. Everyday I am expected to show up and keep showing up. This is the arrangement.
I was off for 10 days. I came back to work for 3 got frustrated, and left for another 5. Most of those days, I sat on my couch questioning work and my career. I picked apart my life choices:
I work because I must support myself and my habit. What's life without a constant stream of things to sedate me? I could get married and be a housewife, but I like control. Being a housewife doesn't give me that, unless I start stashing money in secret accounts or convince him to let me manage the finances. Shit. That's work too. I don't have any wealthy benevolent elderly relatives who will write me into their wills or set up a trust in my name. I'm clever but I have a bullishly strong sense of fairness in my blood. So I cant foresee me coming up with a Theranos equivalent. I'm too practical to invent something like the fidget spinner and dupe people into buying such nonsense. I'd be a poor salesperson for my own product. So around 5pm on Sunday, I told myself "Self... you are going to work tomorrow and you will tell yourself the same lie that you've been telling yourself for years. Tomorrow you will believe it even when you don't. Why? Because we have bills to pay. Adulting to do. You've had 15 days to figure out a solution, and you didn't. So you don't get to whine. You take what you have been given and go get it done."
...This shit is still ghetto though.
Thursday, December 26, 2019
Changing My Mind About Social Media
I'm giving up Facebook at the start of my 40th year. I have been on the site on and off for nearly a decade and a half. I am not sure that this was the best use of my energy even when it was lighting up the reward centers of my brain. This constant surge of like-driven dopamine has made my love of words and reading dull. My passion for music, a simple movement through motions. Great conversation an echo of what was already posted as a status. At the worst, its robbed and continues to rob me of time. I feel like I broke myself. As I barrel towards my fourth decade, time is now the most important thing to me. How, where, and with whom I spend it. What is the return on investment? Ideally, the long term, mid term, and short term outcomes would be joy, joy, and joy, in that order. Right now, I get bursts of joy but I've come to accept that...
Facebook does not elicit joy. Instagram does not evoke joy. Twitter does not create joy.
I don't care how many likes I get, how many I give, what kind of kindhearted comments are stacked below my photo, or what meme keeps me giggling during a boring workday; all of it pales in comparison to having an actual full-bodied experience with people. The tingle of not only hearing a person laugh in real time but also feeling their laughter reverberate through a room or shake the sofa you are both sharing, wakes up parts of me that bring joy. Looking someone in the eyes when they compliment you connects you to that person in ways that a heart emoji can't. Hugging someone opens you up in ways that "*huggs*" simply cannot. There is nothing vulnerable about this parallel existence we have in the social media universe. Yes we can and often do overshare but that is in an attempt to capture what this digital world simply cant give us. We waste time seeking an idealized form of what the real world already offers us- intimacy. If I am okay with this Utopian ideal of intimacy by proxy that social media offers me, its not time wasted, I guess. However, I have reached a point where its not enough. It doesn't work for me. It is time wasted in a life that suddenly has no more time to waste.
I am going analog in a digital world. Kinda.
I want to recommit to living a life that shows by means of action rather simply displays. I came of age in the 80s and early 90s. A world of emergent technology- CD players and digital watches. Not only was owning these items seen as the cool thing to do, it also represented a movement toward instant rewards versus putting in effort to get the chosen effect. I no longer had to wait for my song to be played by a DJ or to have it come up in the cue on a cassette tape. I could now select the number and jump straight to it. The joy of listening to a DJ's rotation or creating space to enjoy an artist's entire 16-song offering started to dissipate. We became our own DJs. We curated our own 16-song sets. The joy of the exchange was being lost. Telling time the old fashion way is now something that a lot of kids and adults struggle with; they need the display. Because they cannot process time, the instrument that displays controls them. Not unlike how social media controls us. Its a display of emotion, intimacy, vulnerability rather than the process of truly engaging in it.
And its not just social media. Its the cellphones, the personal portable screens, Inspector Gadget- level watches, doorbells, refrigerators. Its a world of display... a virtual reality usurping our concrete one, completely erasing our incorporeal one. Our gears and pulleys now electrical particles and keystrokes. Our spirits, netherworld ghosts. I know that we've hit an event horizon because when we can't access this virtual existence, we have withdrawals that render us useless. Its another way to escape the fact that we are spirits choosing to move through a physical world, and that these two states of being don't often sync up in a way that makes us comfortable. We hope that by creating a 3rd existence, we can do what God failed to do. For this, we are paying dearly.
I didn't realize how important the ability to feel was to me until I found myself hearing that my cousin had passed and I couldn't feel enough to cry. I knew that I was hurting, but because I'd spent the better half of my adult years displaying emotion rather than wading through it, I couldn't process it. There's been a lot that I have opted not to process and social media has allowed me to skip this very real human experience. When I have faced rejection, I post a picture that I know will get quick likes. When I've been dejected, I have posted funny memes so that I could pull from a universe of laughing emojis. I looked for the world to display instant goodness; the kind that soothed me in the moment, but did not teach me how to like myself or laugh in spite of. It did not sharpen my mind's eye enough to see that goodness is ever present; it just takes some work.
I no longer want to see NeNe Leakes' exaggerated laughter. I want to experience and feel yours in real time.
I get it, we live in a global world that allows me to trade quips with a like-minded individual in Southeast Asia. But not unlike my sight, this connection is spotty and my brain is filling in the spaces. This connection is more of an assumption than it is fact. Sometimes I assume correctly. Many times, I don't, but its easier to lean into this presumptive reality than working to understand and build in one based in fact. I've lost friendships because people preferred this alternate existence in an echo chamber to the messy conflict that comes with real life interactions. I mourn those losses but as with most things as of late, I let it go with grace. Their departures have made space for people who are willing to get messy with me. I even tried online dating only to find that when the veneer of the display was removed that most of the men I met lacked the skills and emotional acuity needed to build and sustain a relationship. I didn't give expected instant gratification. I gave complexity. That's not what we seek any longer.
But that is what I want... complex, rich, interactions.
And for that reason, I am cutting some of the wires that have found their way into my mind and heart. I struggle with disconnecting from Facebook because that means I will literally lose connection with many folks, but to be honest, I question the soundness of these connections if a virtual platform is all that held them together in the first place. I question our commitment to the relationship if we cant make the effort to connect in real life. The hallmark of any kind of relationship is making the choice to keep engaging. To keep trying. To keep showing up. Sometimes I believe that we are more committed to choosing the platform than the people on it. We live for the temporary thrill more so the reward of something more sustainable
I'm not willing to make that trade off any longer. At least not on Facebook. Its been my digital watch, and I need to relearn the art of telling time. I need to let the DJ lean into his art form and share his gift with me. I want to listen to the entire album of life, not just play those tunes that I like because in doing so, I am missing out on magic. Sidenote: all the magic happens on the B-side. Great DJs know this, but most folks are rarely curious enough to flip the vinyl. Let them open you up in ways that the listening to lead single on repeat simply cannot.
I am leaving room to be present and feel. So if suddenly it appears as if I am not present, its because I am out catching a feeling somewhere. Disconnect and join me.
Facebook does not elicit joy. Instagram does not evoke joy. Twitter does not create joy.
I don't care how many likes I get, how many I give, what kind of kindhearted comments are stacked below my photo, or what meme keeps me giggling during a boring workday; all of it pales in comparison to having an actual full-bodied experience with people. The tingle of not only hearing a person laugh in real time but also feeling their laughter reverberate through a room or shake the sofa you are both sharing, wakes up parts of me that bring joy. Looking someone in the eyes when they compliment you connects you to that person in ways that a heart emoji can't. Hugging someone opens you up in ways that "*huggs*" simply cannot. There is nothing vulnerable about this parallel existence we have in the social media universe. Yes we can and often do overshare but that is in an attempt to capture what this digital world simply cant give us. We waste time seeking an idealized form of what the real world already offers us- intimacy. If I am okay with this Utopian ideal of intimacy by proxy that social media offers me, its not time wasted, I guess. However, I have reached a point where its not enough. It doesn't work for me. It is time wasted in a life that suddenly has no more time to waste.
I am going analog in a digital world. Kinda.
I want to recommit to living a life that shows by means of action rather simply displays. I came of age in the 80s and early 90s. A world of emergent technology- CD players and digital watches. Not only was owning these items seen as the cool thing to do, it also represented a movement toward instant rewards versus putting in effort to get the chosen effect. I no longer had to wait for my song to be played by a DJ or to have it come up in the cue on a cassette tape. I could now select the number and jump straight to it. The joy of listening to a DJ's rotation or creating space to enjoy an artist's entire 16-song offering started to dissipate. We became our own DJs. We curated our own 16-song sets. The joy of the exchange was being lost. Telling time the old fashion way is now something that a lot of kids and adults struggle with; they need the display. Because they cannot process time, the instrument that displays controls them. Not unlike how social media controls us. Its a display of emotion, intimacy, vulnerability rather than the process of truly engaging in it.
And its not just social media. Its the cellphones, the personal portable screens, Inspector Gadget- level watches, doorbells, refrigerators. Its a world of display... a virtual reality usurping our concrete one, completely erasing our incorporeal one. Our gears and pulleys now electrical particles and keystrokes. Our spirits, netherworld ghosts. I know that we've hit an event horizon because when we can't access this virtual existence, we have withdrawals that render us useless. Its another way to escape the fact that we are spirits choosing to move through a physical world, and that these two states of being don't often sync up in a way that makes us comfortable. We hope that by creating a 3rd existence, we can do what God failed to do. For this, we are paying dearly.
I didn't realize how important the ability to feel was to me until I found myself hearing that my cousin had passed and I couldn't feel enough to cry. I knew that I was hurting, but because I'd spent the better half of my adult years displaying emotion rather than wading through it, I couldn't process it. There's been a lot that I have opted not to process and social media has allowed me to skip this very real human experience. When I have faced rejection, I post a picture that I know will get quick likes. When I've been dejected, I have posted funny memes so that I could pull from a universe of laughing emojis. I looked for the world to display instant goodness; the kind that soothed me in the moment, but did not teach me how to like myself or laugh in spite of. It did not sharpen my mind's eye enough to see that goodness is ever present; it just takes some work.
I no longer want to see NeNe Leakes' exaggerated laughter. I want to experience and feel yours in real time.
I get it, we live in a global world that allows me to trade quips with a like-minded individual in Southeast Asia. But not unlike my sight, this connection is spotty and my brain is filling in the spaces. This connection is more of an assumption than it is fact. Sometimes I assume correctly. Many times, I don't, but its easier to lean into this presumptive reality than working to understand and build in one based in fact. I've lost friendships because people preferred this alternate existence in an echo chamber to the messy conflict that comes with real life interactions. I mourn those losses but as with most things as of late, I let it go with grace. Their departures have made space for people who are willing to get messy with me. I even tried online dating only to find that when the veneer of the display was removed that most of the men I met lacked the skills and emotional acuity needed to build and sustain a relationship. I didn't give expected instant gratification. I gave complexity. That's not what we seek any longer.
But that is what I want... complex, rich, interactions.
And for that reason, I am cutting some of the wires that have found their way into my mind and heart. I struggle with disconnecting from Facebook because that means I will literally lose connection with many folks, but to be honest, I question the soundness of these connections if a virtual platform is all that held them together in the first place. I question our commitment to the relationship if we cant make the effort to connect in real life. The hallmark of any kind of relationship is making the choice to keep engaging. To keep trying. To keep showing up. Sometimes I believe that we are more committed to choosing the platform than the people on it. We live for the temporary thrill more so the reward of something more sustainable
I'm not willing to make that trade off any longer. At least not on Facebook. Its been my digital watch, and I need to relearn the art of telling time. I need to let the DJ lean into his art form and share his gift with me. I want to listen to the entire album of life, not just play those tunes that I like because in doing so, I am missing out on magic. Sidenote: all the magic happens on the B-side. Great DJs know this, but most folks are rarely curious enough to flip the vinyl. Let them open you up in ways that the listening to lead single on repeat simply cannot.
I am leaving room to be present and feel. So if suddenly it appears as if I am not present, its because I am out catching a feeling somewhere. Disconnect and join me.
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
Changing My Mind About Me: 10 Things That I Learned About Myself in 2019
Ahh 2019. While I have seen others slam you for being brutal, I will be the first to laud you for your transparency and honesty. I am leaving this year a much stronger person than when I started. I'd like to be snarky and say that its because I am no longer in Vermont, but no, not quite. There was more to this year than transitioning out of Maplelandia, and each lesson, each event, each movement builds on the other. It was a year of order. Making sense of my intentions. I am not 100% in order, and I know that I will never be. That is not how this thing called life works. Its a lot of organizing and a lot of being able to function in disorganization. But for all of this philosophizing, I did learn a bit about myself this year. Want a list? Well here it goes:
- I am more of a free-spirit than I give myself room to be. This year I saw myself shake off some of the values that I had as a result of my upbringing. The most profound and the one that I am still trying to make sense of is religion and faith. I might've stepped foot in a church maybe once this year. Part of me feels liberated, but a big part of me feels a void. If I don't have this ritual of church-going then what do I have? If I am no longer digesting the body and blood of Christ, then what is feeding me? I don't have the answers as of yet, and oddly, I am not in a rush to figure it out. I might go to hell. I might reemerge as a new being. I might very well become energy in the universe. I don't know. I keep a belief in a higher power. That's all I got at the moment.
- That brings me to my next point: I am suddenly okay with not knowing a lot of stuff. Will this government collapse? Maybe. Are we being ruled by reptilian overloads? Possibly. Does my mom really like me as a person. Ehhh, who knows. Who cares? My existence and how I am moving through the world now takes up 85% of my mental space. The other 15% is for random stuff. I think that I have spent so much time worrying about the world around me, that I owe it to myself to finally wonder about myself for a while. Notice I said "wonder" and not "worry"
- I stopped worrying this year. Well, not completely but not nearly as much as I used to worry. Look, a lot of shit is out of my control. I accept that. I fix and handle what I can, and the rest, I leave it up to God and the adults who are actually supposed to be handling things. Everything is not mine to fix. Every good work is not my work. I learned personal restraint.
- Women are told that we need men to be whole. I tried the dating thing and it confirms what I already knew about myself: I don't. I like male company, but needing it is a bit of a stretch. And please don't insist that I have yet to meet the right guy. I don't believe that there is a singular Mr. Right. I do believe that I am entitled to make a choice to be with someone who I know will be tragically flawed and will get on my fucking nerves. I make that choice a few times a year, but I don't feel compelled to tether myself to someone nonstop. I lose me in ways that I don't like. I compromise too much. I have to suppress a lot of strong energy when I am with men, and its much too debilitating. At the end of the day, I love me more than I will ever love a man. I will always choose me first.
- I moved this year, and part of the reason was that I wanted to prioritize my personal life over my professional. Put work on autopilot and live. Truth is, I am a workhorse, a taskmaster, a sergeant by design. Getting shit done is in my DNA. I can't turn off work. I don't want to. It makes me happy! Conversely, I also discovered that as long as a I have a steady network of friends, a few dates, and some real travel, I'm good. I don't need to throw myself blindly into social settings for the sake of having a decent life. I have a GREAT life. There is no dichotomy here. Just balance.
- I learned fear a long time ago. Hard stop. It was taught to me, and became my ethos. I let it go. A lot of the shit that scared me is actually easy and/or harmless. If it scares me, I'm gonna do it. If my spirit says "yo... leave that alone", then I will avoid it. There is a profound difference between being scared and being intuitively aware. I'm getting better at distinguishing the two.
- If you have been following my life's saga since the start of the year, then you know that I walked away from a good job that was all wrong for me. I discovered that I could not, would not, and should not educate or save white people from themselves. I don't dislike white folks. I do hate that white supremacy somehow makes it seems as if it is my responsibility as a Black woman to fix what I have neither created nor benefited from. These strongholds are not mine to tear down. That's emotional labor that, in the name and honor of Sadie L. Wilkerson, I refuse to do. Period. Dear white folks, do your own work. I'll see you on the other side.
- Here's the big thing... I earned the right to say "fuck you" to anyone who crosses my boundaries, and be unapologetic about it. As a sat on my coach's couch (say that 5 times really quickly), red and puffy eyed from crying, I realized that at best I have a few more decades in this body. For whom am I living while I am here? For 39 years, I've given a great deal of consideration to others, even when it wasn't given in return. Its made me ambivalent about life in general. This year, I stopped being ambivalent and got intentional about what is mine to own, shape, and create. Its mine, and no one else's. People might no like it, but they'll get over it.
- I used to think that I was cool with playing to the background. That it doesn't matter who gets the shine as long as the greater good is served. Now I know that I have been selling myself short. I want what's mine. I work too hard and share too many great insights just to be behind the scenes. I shouldn't feel bad about stepping up and being out front. I am more than confident in my abilities and ideas because I know from where they originate. Bernice King's last words words to me as an employee of hers were" You are a leader. You know that don't you? You are a leader." Those words stay with me, not because she meant them as a compliment, because she didn't, but rather because it was an acknowledgment that my light was too bright for her shadow. That's not my place.
- Lastly, joy... I learned and am learning what sparks joy in my life. Some of it is simple. A lot of it is unconventional and complex. I don't judge it. I just let it all wash over me. I am intentional about seeking it out, but less inclined to hold onto it and try to control it. That's not how I want to expend my energy. Its like dancing: I don't need a routine to move effortlessly to the rhythm. I just move.
Friday, December 6, 2019
Changing My Mind About Joy
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