#communicate my personality my worth and my desire for friendship all while risking rejecting

[king-ludwig-ii]

T shirt that says I still have social issues and trauma from things that happened over a decade ago

[grindskull]

Shit that fucks me up #1 - Toxic Masculinity and being a “man”

Gotta have some way to organize my random thoughts here. I’m going with the obvious thing - Shit that fucks me up (STFMU). This is about me and my experiences. It is not my intention to discredit or question other human experiences. Sharing in the hopes of connecting with others who may have feel similar in their own skin. There are things here that others may define as triggers so read at your own risk (rape, abuse, and this fucking world). ---

Here is me being vulnerable.  I am putting myself out there by discussing masculinity and how I often do not identify with the larger concept of “being a man” in any positive way. You can call it toxic masculinity if you prefer. It’s acceptable shorthand for something that is just as nuanced and difficult to wade through as anything gender related.  I read this article on The Atlantic yesterday and there were some things that really resonated with me and my experience as a man/male (he/his/him). You can read it here (sorry there is a pay wall if you read more than 4 articles a month) but I will also be quoting some of the article below.  If you have time to read the article I’ll wait. It’s a bit long (many articles on The Atlantic are) and kind of academic at times. It’s okay if you don’t agree with everything in the article. Just read it.  Done? Okay let me set the stage a bit for how this shit fucks me up. ---

I’m male. I have always identified as a male/boy/man in my life. Unfortunately my experience with other males/boys/men has been mostly negative. It started at an early age when I had a hard time connecting with other boys my age. I was not interested in typical “male” interests like sports, violence, competition, and achievement. I had few (usually 1 or 2) friends at any one time and they typically had some kind of unhealthy power dynamic over me where I was subservient to my “friend” in some way.  I have some thoughts on reasons why this happened. The short version is I lived in poverty (often extreme) and I was searching for help and support in order to survive. At home I had abuse (mental, physical, verbal), drugs, addiction, and neglect. It was not a safe place to be so I did whatever I could to not be there. It was not unusual for me to eat maybe one meal during the day (typically what I could get from others at school or their home). Winter was the worst as we often did not have heat. Some of my “friends” used this as a way to hold power over me and make demands of my personality, time, and attention. Imagine finding yourself in this situation - you have to actively work to not be yourself in order to appease others for your very survival. Of course as a youth I didn’t identify it this way - my “friends” were just bossy or demanding. All of my male role models were basically assholes who did not give a fuck about anyone except themselves. This was a huge part of the 80′s zeitgeist in popular culture at the time as well. In some ways nothing has really changed. “... when asked to describe the attributes of “the ideal guy,” those same boys appeared to be harking back to 1955. Dominance. Aggression. Rugged good looks (with an emphasis on height). Sexual prowess. Stoicism. Athleticism. Wealth (at least some day).“ Under this common definition of “masculinity” I do not see myself. I am loyal, honest, caring, and sweet (to those I love). I love my body though I am non-athletic and have been most of my life. I am an attentive and talented lover but I have had very few sexual partners in my life and never saw them as moments of “conquest”. I was dirt poor most of my life but now live comfortably in my own home with my long term partner. So while not “wealthy” it is far beyond anything I could have imagined I would have in my life as a boy. Stoicism I have down. That one was easy. For me it’s just a nice way of saying “I have completely disconnected from my emotions and not having feelings or emotions is the best way to be a man”. I believed that for a very long time - it’s only in the past 2-3 years I have begun the work of breaking that down and reconnecting with my own emotions. It’s all tied up in trauma, depression, and anxiety so it takes a bit of fucking work but it’s very much worth it. If you are a man/male who thinks it is normal to not have emotions (or that emotions make you feminine/weak) please listen to me - THAT IS BULLSHIT. YOU OWE IT TO YOURSELF TO HAVE EMOTIONS.

“... young men described just one narrow route to successful masculinity. One-third said they felt compelled to suppress their feelings, to “suck it up” or “be a man” when they were sad or scared, and more than 40 percent said that when they were angry, society expected them to be combative.“

Emotions are not weakness. You are not weak for having them, feeling them, or connecting with them. There is great strength in connecting with yourself and understanding your emotions. Don’t let anyone tell you different. They are delusional at best and actively trying to harm you at worst.

“While following the conventional script may still bring social and professional rewards to boys and men, research shows that those who rigidly adhere to certain masculine norms are not only more likely to harass and bully others but to themselves be victims of verbal or physical violence. They’re more prone to binge-drinking, risky sexual behavior, and getting in car accidents. They are also less happy than other guys, with higher depression rates and fewer friends in whom they can confide.”

---

How did we get here!? Have men always been this way? What about the good ole masculinity of ye olden times? It was a simple time where men were men right? A man’s man? “According to Andrew Smiler, a psychologist who has studied the history of Western masculinity, the ideal late-19th-century man was compassionate, a caretaker, but such qualities lost favor as paid labor moved from homes to factories during industrialization. In fact, the Boy Scouts, whose creed urges its members to be loyal, friendly, courteous, and kind, was founded in 1910 in part to counter that dehumanizing trend. Smiler attributes further distortions in masculinity to a century-long backlash against women’s rights. During World War I, women proved that they could keep the economy humming on their own, and soon afterward they secured the vote. Instead of embracing gender equality, he says, the country’s leaders “doubled down” on the inalienable male right to power, emphasizing men’s supposedly more logical and less emotional nature as a prerequisite for leadership.”

Take a minute to read that and really take it in. Like many things in the US (and the world) the effects of industrialization and war shaped our current version of accepted masculinity. More specifically the leaders of this country (and leaders in other countries) used their positions of power to strengthen men and this new masculinity in our institutions. Then we were taught that this was the “right way” to “be a man”. FUCK. THIS. SHIT.

“Today many parents are unsure of how to raise a boy, what sort of masculinity to encourage in their sons. But as I learned from talking with boys themselves, the culture of adolescence, which fuses hyper-rationality with domination, sexual conquest, and a glorification of male violence, fills the void.“

Here we have the core of what I experience as a man when it comes to the current socially accepted version of masculinity and why it fucks me up. I don’t identify with any of this shit! It does not feed me. It does not make me feel fulfilled and happy. It doesn’t make the world better for anyone it simply dehumanizes us all. 

“In a classic study, adults shown a video of an infant startled by a jack-in-the-box were more likely to presume the baby was “angry” if they were first told the child was male. Mothers of young children have repeatedly been found to talk more to their girls and to employ a broader, richer emotional vocabulary with them; with their sons, again, they tend to linger on anger. As for fathers, they speak with less emotional nuance than mothers regardless of their child’s sex. Despite that, according to Judy Y. Chu, a human-biology lecturer at Stanford who conducted a study of boys from pre-K through first grade, little boys have a keen understanding of emotions and a desire for close relationships. But by age 5 or 6, they’ve learned to knock that stuff off, at least in public: to disconnect from feelings of weakness, reject friendships with girls (or take them underground, outside of school), and become more hierarchical in their behavior.“

I’m not going to get into the topic of my own father (that’s another post in this series for sure) too deeply but I will say I completely identify with these ideas. Emotional distance, only expressing anger, telling me having emotions was weak. This was reinforced societal norms throughout my youth through today. Don’t talk about your problems or feelings. Ball them up inside. Wall yourself off from the world. Connections = weakness that others will exploit. You must control every situation and hold power over others. FUCK. THIS. SHIT.

---

So when did I wake up? When did I start to see through this shit in some way? When my younger sister was born. It was really obvious to me that she was treated in a different way and expectations of her as a girl/woman were not the same as the expectations others had for me. Mostly I just saw the negatives in this. It took me time (and lots of communication and experiences with my partner and others) to recognize the root of this was more fucked up socialization. 

“Girlfriends, mothers, and in some cases sisters were the most common confidants of the boys I met. While it’s wonderful to know they have someone to talk to—and I’m sure mothers, in particular, savor the role—teaching boys that women are responsible for emotional labor, for processing men’s emotional lives in ways that would be emasculating for them to do themselves, comes at a price for both sexes. Among other things, that dependence can leave men unable to identify or express their own emotions, and ill-equipped to form caring, lasting adult relationships.”

Read this carefully. Nobody is responsible for your emotional well being but you. If you are a male/man this is especially true - females/women are not responsible for managing your emotions and your reliance on them to take care of this is a form of abuse. They are not responsible for your emotions. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN EMOTIONS.

It can be really hard to see this. It was a blind spot for me for way too long. Don’t let it be one for you. Connecting with and taking responsibility for your emotions is one of the biggest things you can do to improve yourself as a human being. If you are sad you can cry. If you are happy you can laugh. You have a wide range of emotions and they don’t all lead to frustration or anger.

“As someone who, by virtue of my sex, has always had permission to weep, I didn’t initially understand this. Only after multiple interviews did I realize that when boys confided in me about crying—or, even more so, when they teared up right in front of me—they were taking a risk, trusting me with something private and precious: evidence of vulnerability, or a desire for it.“

---

Okay so putting aside all of the reinforcement we get from our parents and institutions and our lack of emotional vulnerability why do we all buy into this dumb shit? Who convinced us all this is what masculinity is? And why do we listen?

“What the longtime sportswriter Robert Lipsyte calls “jock culture” (or what the boys I talked with more often referred to as “bro culture”) is the dark underbelly of male-dominated enclaves, whether or not they formally involve athletics: all-boys’ schools, fraternity houses, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, the military. Even as such groups promote bonding, even as they preach honor, pride, and integrity, they tend to condition young men to treat anyone who is not “on the team” as the enemy (the only women who ordinarily make the cut are blood relatives— bros before hos!), justifying any hostility toward them. Loyalty is paramount, and masculinity is habitually established through misogynist language and homophobia.”

Sounds familiar right guys? Don’t kid yourself. This is what being a man looks like in almost all situations in which we feel “safe” to express our self right? You are either with us or against us. Anything different or anyone questioning this behavior must be “othered” as they are clearly not “on the team”. FUCK. THIS. SHIT.

This was my entire experience as a youth. As someone who did not fit into this group (nor wanted to) I was immediately “othered” and deemed a “pussy” or “fag” or “homo” or “weirdo”. My friend group reflected this - mostly others who also were “not on the team” like women, gays and lesbians, and men who also did not identify with this version of masculinity. Which just made it easier to group us all together and identify us as the enemy. 

“Just because some young men now draw the line at referring to someone who is openly gay as a fag doesn’t mean, by the way, that gay men (or men with traits that read as gay) are suddenly safe. If anything, the gay guys I met were more conscious of the rules of manhood than their straight peers were. They had to be—and because of that, they were like spies in the house of hypermasculinity.” Without the ability to connect with and express my emotions I often reacted in anger. I started fights. I got violent (with words and writing mostly). I returned this “othering” and treated them all as the enemy. I had other reasons for this (being abused by men as a boy) but at the crux of the issue I had no trust for men. This helped me connect with women and my gay friends as they also experienced this distrust in similar (and different) ways. 

Years later I found myself in a job where I managed a group of men (100 or more at any time) working as a team (video game industry) and totally unable to connect with any of them as a human let alone a man. It was at this time that I realized this was a problem beyond my own experiences and when I started to understand my own participation in this system. 

I tried to question things as they came up. I tried to hear my teammates and help them navigate this murky sea of masculinity to find their own place in it. Most people didn’t want to participate. They learned to keep their mouth shut if I was within earshot of their typical “bro talk”. They learned to act differently around me so as not to incur my wrath (using my anger and position of power to punish them for being sexist, racist, or intolerant). I felt powerful and I tricked myself into thinking I was making a difference. I was wrong. 

---

“Recently, Pascoe turned her attention to no homo, a phrase that gained traction in the 1990s. She sifted through more than 1,000 tweets, primarily by young men, that included the phrase. Most were expressing a positive emotion, sometimes as innocuous as “I love chocolate ice cream, #nohomo” or “I loved the movie The Day After Tomorrow, #nohomo.” “A lot of times they were saying things like ‘I miss you’ to a friend or ‘We should hang out soon,’ ” she said. “Just normal expressions of joy or connection.” No homo is a form of inoculation against insults from other guys, Pascoe concluded, a “shield that allows boys to be fully human.”

It wasn’t long before my “making a difference” spread into our hiring, training, and management of the team. I brought in women who wanted to work in the game industry. I tried to shut down any of the bro culture bullshit that came up and used it as an opportunity to teach other men why it was fucked up. It worked for some (maybe 5-6 people out of hundreds) but the majority either quit or tried to get me fired. Most did not change their behavior in any way. 

The women said they knew what they were getting into. I don’t believe they knew what it was like to actually be in the middle of the situation. I assume women in the military probably have a lot of experience like this. In short - it’s fucking toxic and disgusting. Like other males/men they too have to fall in line and “become one of the boys” or risk being antagonized and ostracized for being “different”. It’s Lord of the Flies. It’s fucking mob mentality. It’s masculinity at it’s absolute worst. And this was in a “progressive” creative city working for a small company with a woman CEO. Men simply don’t give a fuck and it’s almost always easier to go with the flow. FUCK. THIS. SHIT.

My first experience with a trans individual in a work setting occurred was while I was managing this team. One of our long term employees made the transition and I had to watch how they were treated by the “bros’. Jokes were made, memes were shared, snickering and fucked up behavior was rampant. I had to talk to, discipline, and fire many individuals. These were men I thought were “on the team” and working to be good examples of masculinity. I should have known that was just part of the act - their way of surviving and showing subservience to me as a man in a position of power over them. My trust was further eroded in masculinity. 

Putting yourself over others is not power. It is dehumanization and it stems from hate. We can be different without being better or worse than someone else regardless of who they are. Not everything has to be a competition. It took me way too long to undo the damage done to me by these ideal of toxic masculinity. You can do it too - you just have to start today. 

---

Beyond the negative effects this version of masculinity has on us as males/men it also fucks up our interaction with women and sexual partners and it’s certainly done so to me. I’m actively working on unfucking my fucking and aware that many of my heterosexual ideals of sex stem from the same shit I have been actively fighting against most of my life. Connecting emotionally with your sexual partner takes things to a completely different level.

“It’s not like I imagined boys would gush about making sweet, sweet love to the ladies, but why was their language so weaponized ? The answer, I came to believe, was that locker-room talk isn’t about sex at all, which is why guys were ashamed to discuss it openly with me. The (often clearly exaggerated) stories boys tell are really about power: using aggression toward women to connect and to validate one another as heterosexual, or to claim top spots in the adolescent sexual hierarchy. Dismissing that as “banter” denies the ways that language can desensitize—abrade boys’ ability to see girls as people deserving of respect and dignity in sexual encounters.”  

This is the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear the term “rape culture”. As men we are taught that to be masculine is to claim “wins” in sexual conquest. Sex is property and we can collect it. Even if it’s with our long term partners or spouses. Ever tried talking to men about this? Ever questioned others on how it’s fucked up? You probably heard about how it’s all in jest. Just a joke! I’m just joking!  “When called out, boys typically claim that they thought they were just being “funny.” And in a way that makes sense—when left unexamined, such “humor” may seem like an extension of the gross-out comedy of childhood. Little boys are famous for their fart jokes, booger jokes, poop jokes. It’s how they test boundaries, understand the human body, gain a little cred among their peers. But, as can happen with sports, their glee in that can both enable and camouflage sexism. The boy who, at age 10, asks his friends the difference between a dead baby and a bowling ball may or may not find it equally uproarious, at 16, to share what a woman and a bowling ball have in common (you can Google it). He may or may not post ever-escalating “jokes” about women, or African Americans, or homosexuals, or disabled people on a group Snapchat. He may or may not send “funny” texts to friends about “girls who need to be raped,” or think it’s hysterical to surprise a buddy with a meme in which a woman is being gagged by a penis, her mascara mixed with her tears. He may or may not, at 18, scrawl the names of his hookups on a wall in his all-male dorm, as part of a year-long competition to see who can “pull” the most. Perfectly nice, bright, polite boys I interviewed had done one or another of these things.”

Let me be clear in case you are confused. This shit isn’t funny. Laughing at other people’s misfortune is a long standing human tradition yes - and it still dehumanizes everyone involved. That doesn’t make me laugh but maybe you are still amused? Why?

“At the most disturbing end of the continuum, “funny” and “hilarious” become a defense against charges of sexual harassment or assault. To cite just one example, a boy from Steubenville, Ohio, was captured on video joking about the repeated violation of an unconscious girl at a party by a couple of high-school football players. “She is so raped,” he said, laughing. “They raped her quicker than Mike Tyson.” When someone off camera suggested that rape wasn’t funny, he retorted, “It isn’t funny—it’s hilarious!”

The classic toxic masculinity force field present in my life has been the “just joking” phrase with the ultimate no consequence phrase “it’s hilarious!”. Say something you don’t want to manage the consequences for? Just a joke! People still question you or your morals after saying some heinous shit? No.. it’s cool... it’s hilarious! You just gotta laugh! FUCK. THIS. SHIT.

“Hilarious” is another way, under the pretext of horseplay or group bonding, that boys learn to disregard others’ feelings as well as their own. “Hilarious” is a haven, offering distance when something is inappropriate, confusing, depressing, unnerving, or horrifying; when something defies boys’ ethics. It allows them to subvert a more compassionate response that could be read as unmasculine—and makes sexism and misogyny feel transgressive rather than supportive of an age-old status quo. Boys may know when something is wrong; they may even know that true manhood—or maybe just common decency—compels them to speak up. Yet, too often, they fear that if they do, they’ll be marginalized or, worse, themselves become the target of derision from other boys. Masculinity, then, becomes not only about what boys do say, but about what they don’t—or won’t, or can’t—say, even when they wish they could. The psychologists Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson, the authors of Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys, have pointed out that silence in the face of cruelty or sexism is how too many boys become men. 

I feel like I may have already gone too far into this dark hole of shit that fucks me up around toxic masculinity. I hope I didn’t lose you. I hope you have questions and thoughts about how this impacts your life. Perhaps ways that you make a change today to fight against this bullshit. You may be asking yourself “what can we do!?” At the end of the day its up to males/men to change this culture. It’s not about self-hate or self-abuse. We gotta name this and own it. We need more men to step up and say ‘It doesn’t have to be like this”. Our collective mental health requires us to be more flexible and connected to ourselves and emotions. We need to find ways to deal with our anger, frustration, and desires in ways that don’t hurt ourselves and others. We need to teach ourselves (especially youth) that it isn’t enough to only talk about things we shouldn’t (and hopefully won’t) do. 

If this shit fucks you too you can do something about it. Start with yourself. Question these things when they come up. And not only when you feel “safe” to do so. Do it consistently in ways that are non-confrontational (they will probably lead to confrontations with most men anyway - sorry). Be okay with not always “winning’ in these situations. You’ll be surprised who you might connect with in the process. Hopefully one of those people will be yourself. 

[bloodfcst-a]

(Had to swap blogs, tumblr denies me to express my desire for headcanon questions.) Does Yuffie have a good relationship with her parents while growing up? Any particular good memories?

HEADCANON.

Yufi’s memories with her father typically have to do with proving her worthiness to him. Originally, Godo is disappointed that he doesn’t have a son…he wanted an heir, and did not consider a female to be suitable to the cause. 

His animosity is also in part that she resembles her late mother, and that’s sure to cause him grief… that Yufi, upon being brought into the world, seemingly stole the life from her mother in the process. Obviously not purposely, but Godo doesn’t need a reason to be so suspicious or hostile towards her– and his attitude with her is reflected within his staff, and extends into the community as well. It’s only when Yufi begins to openly reject and rebel against him that he begins to see the error of his ways and attempt to garner her favor…. leading them to have a strained relationship in her adulthood.

Early in Yufi’s life is dictated by Godo’s rejection of her: he places distance between her by sending her off with her paternal grandparents in infancy to older toddler, believing he has not the time, resources, or instinct to care for a child, despite living in a complex with live-in/help and personal assistants who could easily care for them as such. When the idea is suggested to him once Yufi has some autonomy (approximately age 4), Yufi returns from the countryside to the mainland, but will continue to spend the summers with her grandparents learning domesticated chores and tasks. Once she returns to the community, she’s immediately placed into the care of maidens and lecturers. Yufi does not attend formal schooling, and instead learns the basics of education along with specialized attention to history, economics, culture, calligraphy, and music. Yufi is proficient in the zither, but enjoys playing lute and the shamisen. However, despite her ability to intellectually excel, Yufi’s ever aware of her father’s avoidance of her, and asks to learns trades and skills, such as archery, alchemy, and smithery. Regardless of being well-rounded, it’s not enough to garner his attention.

As a teenager, Yufi grows tired of being paraded as an item or artifact to be showcased and instead wishes to be treated as an equal. In order to do such, however, her physical ability and prowess must be tested. Thus, Yufi learns arts of self-defense as well as attacks, finding that in lieu of her stature or overt strength, she can instead focus on stealth, evasion and precision. She trains from the bottom rank of the dojo to the top, where eventually she can challenge Godo himself. It takes a number of attempts before Yufi is successful– but even then, he does not see her as a successor; instead, he finds her worthy of being under him as second-in-command. She takes it.

As a result of Godo’s distance to her, Yufi’s hesitant in allowing people to be emotionally close to her in her relationships, and finds that even friendships can be difficult to maintain. However, she has a lighthearted personality and is fun-loving, making it easy for her to form partnerships and acquaintances– rather adequate for business. 

Yufi has two major showdowns with her father–at age 14, and again at 17. It is at 14 where she demands that he not force her into one box as either his son or his daughter… Yufi is his child, his heir, an undeniable truth that does not require Yufi to either be just a treasure OR just a talented person… Yufi can and is both. At 17, when Yufi is successful at besting Godo both intellectually and physically, she demands he recognize her for what she is… worthy, or risk losing her forever. Given that he’s already lost his wife, he has no intention of losing the remainder of his family and then attempts from then on to put in effort towards their relationship. 

Even as an adult, Yufi recognizes him as a parent in the sense that she came from him and that he provided for her… but doesn’t hold a close relationship to him outside of recognizing his position of reverence as leader of their community, and that she must defect decisions to him. She also recognizes that bad publicity she creates would reflect poorly on him, so she is hyper-vigilant of how and what she’s recognized for in public, using it to either promote him or weaponizing it against him depending on the situation. Godo realizes that he does not know anything substantial about Yufi, and attempts to learn more about her interests and to bring associated businesses into the community in order to win favor. It’s not entirely successful, but Yufi appreciates the thought and does notice his effort, despite how late it took him to actually care. She still isn’t entirely convinced it’s for her well-being, suspicious that he primarily cares about his own prestige before her.

But in reality, it’s more or less that Godo is pained by Yufi because he remembers her late mother Kasumi when he sees her, and he just… doesn’t handle his sadness in a manner that allowed him to have a cohesive relationship with his child.

So…. he’s a bad dad and Yufi’s insecurities stem from him……. she’ll have daddy issues forever…. all the pieces come together now.

Are there good memories? I mean… the small moments of praise he would give her, perhaps, because she loves being noticed, likes the attention he would sporadically give her if she succeeded. And as a result, Yufi for some time attempted to perfect everything…. until that rift at 14, when Yufi finally decided that life is worth living and being true to herself first and foremost before anyone else… including her family. 

Money can buy a lot of things but it can’t really buy substantial relationships, and… it’s taken Godo a long time to see that providing means a lot more than just the physical… it’s the emotional bond as well.

I hope that was helpful! …….and sad.

[rhondaadorno]

Double Consciousness

“One ever feels his twoness, -- an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” ― W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk

For many years, I’ve dodged commitment to the identity of a writer because I’ve been afraid of the backlash that would come with my words.  I tend to have an out-of-body experience when I put words on paper. They become 3D powerful images, a kind of synesthesia occurs, and arrows whistle towards a target...and there are always casualties.  

So, I stopped writing, avoiding opinion articles, blogs like this one, essays, controversial FB posts, because, if people actually read what I had to say beyond the armor of poetry or a creative piece, they’d feel quite different about me as a black female. And I couldn’t risk that. 

2.5 Words

I’ve been conscious of myself as a black female since the third grade. Once, I had forgotten something on the PE field, and while walking back to get it, a little boy, on the other side of a fenced in playground, yelled out to me, “you're black.” 

2.5 words without an ounce of hostility or error in them.

He didn’t taunt or provoke me, but when I got back to the car, I just remember feeling... wrong. Not different, just faulty or wrong somehow. 

I dreamed up a clever retort too late which was, “...black is a color in the crayon box.”  I guess I’ve always been a creative and insightful thinker....

This boy was 6 or 7 years old, riding a schoolyard tricycle; I didn’t even know him.  

Yet, after that non-hostile experience, I was terrified to walk by that playground again. 

Remember, he only vocalized his observation that I am indeed black. I still recall those sharp feelings I felt despite the words being true and true. 

But I wonder why he believed it was his prerogative to point it out, to make me notice I was not the same skin color. 

Safely Black

This experience was pretty much my introduction to learning I was black. Of course I knew I was not white, but I didn’t know that other people, especially kids, cared that I was not white. From there, it was being laughed at because I said “ax” instead of “ask.” One of my classmates saying, “ew, gross” because of the product in my hair, which was touched without permission. Years later, it was the shade of my knees, which are darker than the rest of my legs. Now, it’s trying to decide if I should purchase a wig for an interview or self-identify on a job application, never sure if my natural hair or shade of melanin will be the undisclosed reason behind “not the right fit.”

From K - 12th grade, I attended predominantly white, private Christian schools. Overt racism never happened to me. Yet, not once did I ever feel safe among my teachers and friends to be a black female... to fully explore what that even means. I was always hiding something.  

Yes, I had meaningful friendships and positive experiences, but never as my self.

I feel that I have lived my life dressed up by a host of unsolicited tailors specializing in the way I speak, how I present myself, how I must act inside of stores, the opinions I voice, and the list goes on. 

I have learned how to become invisible and nondescript so that I can be “safely” black. 

And it’s been to my detriment. 

An Angry Black Woman

Many people are feeling shocked by the recent events caught on video and shared via social media. Without me even mentioning the race of this little boy, it will be inferred that he was white. Because, even if some “don’t see color,” everyone knows that Asians, Hispanics, Native Americans, Caucasians, and every other group of people, have worked very hard to point out how we are not the same skin color, and somehow a lesser pedigree of human, for generations. 

Until a few days ago, I had remained pretty quiet on the topic of racial injustice--always looking for ways to share my experiences, relate my double consciousness to friends, while not offending anyone.

But right now, black people are being threatened and murdered on live cameras by white people. 

And for some reason, despite my coveted relationships with white friends, for several years, I have nursed a fear that it would damage something between us if I commented on any news story about race. 

I’ve believed it would alter our friendship if I became a fist-raised Black Power advocate. It would make things awkward if I were to steadily post black injustice on my newsfeed. That, if I said I’m so angry that police are killing little boys and young men, I would be viewed as, wait for it, an angry black woman.  Nevermind the truth that I feel wrecked from my core; I’d just rather not make any waves. 

That’s what’s been on my mind. Not exclusively the horror of the murders I’ve been stockpiling in my conscious since a young girl, but the fact that I actually know people who would eventually wish I’d stop posting the “angry racist stuff,” and stop trying to “take us back to the past.”

Bullets of Truth

But this is my own mess, my own web of nonsense because I have cultivated and catered to this twisted sense of peace among all men when I shonuff’ know there ain’t been no peace cuz no cops are walkin’ around viewing my black brothers as men. 

My shame is that I know I have denied myself and my friends the conversations about what it really means to be black in America BEFORE we were shown these awful attacks. It’s not like I didn’t know it was happening. 

But I have been so afraid to put my bullets of truth out there--mainly because you learn, way back in elementary school, when you are black, you just don’t talk about being black with white people because they will somehow make it about how they feel wronged and attacked. You just lock up that door and know what you know.

Except, I can’t feel anything but sick lately-- like I have to projectile vomit my self up from the place I’ve swallowed my self to become fiercely black, once and for all, and unabashedly own what that little boy “accused” me of being.

To finally say out loud, ”No, I am not the whitest black friend you know.”

To shoot down, “You sound white on the phone.”

To reject, “You don’t act like other black people.”

To refuse, “You’re very articulate for a black person.”

To say, “I’m disinterested in being the official tour guide of Black History month” because to be honest, I am still trying to understand what it means to even be black.

Black in America

My mother’s hard decision for my life was to go the route of private education on the other side of town, or attend the public schools we were zoned for in a less desired part of town (by no fault of the town, because lines were redrawn on purpose.) The outcome was me, immersed in a homogenous environment where I got a pretty decent education, but striving to fit in, losing my cultural heritage, pride and identity in progressive stages to the point my mother actually asked me in high school did I want to be white. Whenever I spent time in the black community, I couldn’t quite find my foothold there either, because they too thought I was “trying” to be white. 

I don’t regret her choice, but I, as a parent, now know what choosing the first one meant. There are times I am not sure who I am when it comes down to the spectrum of black identity, and it’s sad, confusing, and alienating. 

And honestly, I, along with many in my community, don’t have enough moments of peace to experience true self-discovery, to nurture who that person really is. 

As soon as we’re proud of Barack and Michelle Obama or overjoyed about the historical Black Panther film or inspired by the shocking legacy of Katherine Johnson or choose to kneel with Colin Kaepernick or feel paranoid by the Confederate flag or unified under the banner of #BlackLivesMatter -- a whole lot of people, including the president of the United States, feel it’s their prerogative to tell us who we are for us [re:thugs]--and that narrative is never, ever good. 

We are constantly trying to push it out, fighting cops for our kids’ lives, warding off suspicions, navigating extreme violence and poverty in our own community, and trying to prove our value and worth for school and career, while raising our babies to be proud of their skin color, our beautiful brown babies, who, as soon as they graduate Kindergarten, will cease to become non-threatening. 

By the way, we are processing all of this, while watching white people protest masks and quarantine with assault rifles. In 2014, Tamir Rice was shot dead for having a toy gun. He was 12. 

 Under the Radar

So, I’ve come to this point, feeling like it’s crazy and impossible that I’m literally living through some of the things in my mother’s lifetime, that I must raise my daughter with a keen awareness that not all people are treated equally, even when the Constitution declares we are. 

That I must actually teach her that even though the “colored only” signs are gone, the stone place of men’s hearts from where the words originated still exist. And they will mean it and enforce it with all the boldness of the Jim Crow era, just under the radar. 

I’ve been trying to understand why in the world I am being so affected by this now, so much that it alters my mood and impacts productivity, why I feel like I have to force myself to be positive and hope for change. Is this what it also means to be black? To stir up my ancestors’ concoction of will, determination, resilience, and sing my own kind of Negro spiritual, and march my way to freedom? No wonder they were so strong! 

I am cognizant of the fact that there are many great white men and women who work in the armed forces, and in law enforcement to protect all people in America. And I know there are those have worked in the past to abolish laws and helped to enact civil liberties for people of color. 

I also know that it took the braveness from the likes of Frederick Douglas and Harriet Tubman and W.E.B. Dubois to shed light on the black experience...so together these powerful people could push change forward with a vengeance.  

I am nowhere near as proficient in elocution as they, but this is my piece. I’m finally saying something about what it means to be black in America, but I am also feeling like that’s not enough. 

The White Wall

I have many friends who are parents and who are educators and who are the complex cocktail of both.

Black people have not ever wanted to educate their white friends about what this terror feels like, and honestly, we shouldn’t have to because-- internet. 

But I am realizing, with my own education in a predominately white environment, I didn't learn anything from my teachers about me and my world. 

Nothing truly existed beyond the white wall--white writers, white poets, white leaders, white composers, white heroes, and Martin Luther King Jr.

From K - 12th grade, what I learned about the realities of being black wasn't taught by teachers or textbooks. The little I did learn was by being in the midst of my community, and eventually reading and pursuing and chasing after knowledge. 

Therefore, it’s positively unrealistic to imagine that white people know much at all about the black experience. And both public and private education do not place importance on real diversity. Now, with the visual horror of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, I venture to believe, for many white people, these past few weeks have been pretty much earth shattering.

But why is knocking down this wall and learning about the black experience (and other races and ethnicities) important?

When a white person’s basic lifestyle is free from external conflict, the tendency is to want to live there and only there. Problematically, she will grow increasingly out of touch with the world beyond her (and perhaps surrounding her if people of color have come into her world). But she will fail to see the good and the bad, except for this: negative media will only show her the bad, and tell her how to think, and what to believe about everyone else who looks different than her, subliminally, judgmentally, until eventually she behaves in the audacious, debased manner of Amy Cooper, a white woman who knew what the fatal consequences would be for a black man if she simply called the police to say she was feeling threatened, and to have had the presence of mind to wield it like a weapon.

A Gaping Chasm

Learning about the black experience is important because Amy Cooper probably did not wake up believing she was a racist or even had a racist bone in her body. But she knew that she was white and he was not, and in her anger, decided to weaponize her whiteness by calling the police on a black man, which depending what “bad apple” was on duty, could have ended his life--too. 

That is how it works. It doesn’t always end in loss of life, but always ends in loss of masculinity, loss of spirit, loss of soul, loss of faith, loss of trust; it just ends in loss.

When you don’t fight to change the system, you become part of the system.

So, unless (or until) a white family has been very intentional, they and their children are not learning about the black experience. 

Even when teaching my child about the origins of America and the Civil War and Reconstruction, I had to be intentional, essentially going back to school because there are things that were blatantly omitted from my years of learning and were still being omitted for hers if I did not break out from the wall.  

To put this in perspective, I was in college when I learned there were accomplished black leaders besides Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. I was in my 30s when I heard black women and NASA in the same sentence together. 

My mom had Black America encyclopedias, and she wore her Afro proudly with a fist in the air, but she trusted my education to the school system--the private, Christian school system, and they emptied out all of the other crayons in the box, and asked me (and my classmates) to only color with the white crayon. 

So, for white families, between choice of schools, places of worship, and by not having or seeking out any predominately black cultural experiences, there is a gaping chasm between us. 

One that I’d like to lay a log across for my part.

Gateway for Change

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a sucker for kids. I’ll bleed for them. I’ve spent the better years of my life surrounded by them. And from them, I’ve learned they are not afraid to learn something new when it’s presented to them in a digestible manner. I’ve been thinking a great deal about kids lately--my nephews and nieces, my former English students and chess kids, my friends’ children....They have heard the chatter, seen our reactions, and may have even seen the same videos on YouTube. 

All of these kids, our kids, are being shaped by this society, and they will one day become adults who must interact and deal with each other politically, socially, emotionally, physically, spiritually, economically, and mentally. 

So who is educating them? Who is explaining empathy and justice and teaching love and acceptance? One thing this virus has taught our nation is that parents are capable of teaching their children too. No matter how great your school system is, they are not going to teach your children about race relations with any consequence. 

Education is the single most important gateway for change. Yes, there are people who will perpetuate ignorance regardless because they are blocked in by their incestuous beliefs, but for those who wish to break out of that crippling heritage or emerge from the silos of their communities -- with empathy and insight, you have to learn something new and share the wealth.

You have to know what’s being taught inside the homes of black families, multi-racial families, Arab families, Asian families, and most recently, the Navajo nation. Buy books with diverse characters by diverse authors --for yourself, your children, your students. Watch films with diverse casts. Find positive images and media that celebrate the success and vitality of black excellence. 

Listen to the lessons and conversations we've been having amongst ourselves for generations and still teach today. White society is not a bad society. Black society is not a bad society. We are not going to see eye to eye on many many things, but we can agree that every life is valuable. 

I do not represent every black person, nor does every black person hold my same views.

But absolutely, we do not live or experience life the same way as our white friends and family. This truth is not a victimhood or disadvantage we seek to revel in or exploit, nor does it devalue the privileges others know and experience. Within our own community, we definitely have very real problems to address, but right now, daily life should not be a mental obstacle course that’s filled with active minefields laid out for us everyday.

Lately, it just feels like no matter what we do or don’t do, the fatalities are adding up, and wicked people in this country are treating the taking of our lives like points in a video game.

As you think about these words, and listen to the stories of these young black men, who are being hit the hardest with racial injustice, dare greatly to share widely within your community. 

“But we do not merely protest; we make renewed demand for freedom in that vast kingdom of the human spirit where freedom has ever had the right to dwell:the expressing of thought to unstuffed ears; the dreaming of dreams by untwisted souls.” ― W.E.B. DuBois

Pixabay photos used by permission. Video sourced by New York Times.

[charbear177]

All The Ways You Are Sabotaging Your Relationship

You say you want a relationship, but the minute you are in one you tend to do things to end it. It is a pattern repeated all to often by you. You are a self-saboteur, and relationship destroyer. If you find yourself entering relationships with high hopes, only for it to crash and burn unexpectedly, time and time again, it may be time for some self analysis.

There are many reasons people will sabotage a relationship, but fear is usually the number one culprit. Fear of being of alone, and fear of rejection. Sounds weird, right? You fear being alone, so you do things in relationships that make you end up alone. It’s about protecting your heart, and self-preservation. Unfortunately, you may lose out on a great relationship, maybe even the love of your life, due to your sabotaging.

Perhaps after reading this blog, you won’t stop sabotaging your relationships, but at least you will be aware of the signs when you are doing it.

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The Ways You Are Sabotaging Your Relationship

Unrealistic Expectations

Did you really think that you would continue having sex twice a day, every day, for your entire relationship? Sex is a very important part of a relationship, but it is unrealistic to think that your self life will not change over the course of your relationship, for many different reasons. If you find yourself unhappy with the frequency of sex in your relationship you need to make your feelings known, in a thoughtful, non-accusatory manner.

Did you think your partner would not age, or their body wouldn’t change over the years, especially after having kids? Completely unrealistic, shallow, and possibly indicative that you are not truly in love if you hyper-focus on your partner aging, or gaining a few pounds over the years.

Comparing Your Relationship To Others

If there one thing that I have learned over the years, it is that things and people are not often what they seems to be. People tend to have a public and private persona, and that goes for couples as well. Some couples can seem so loving and perfect in public, and may be a hot mess behind closed doors. It is often after couples split that truths come out, and only then do we realize we were trying to live up to an illusion.

Focus on your relationship. Live your best happy. No one’s relationship is perfect. Your relationship may be amazing, or it may completely suck. Either way, your thoughts and feelings about your relationship should be about how your relationship makes you feel about yourself, and how it makes you feel about your partner.

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Not Communicating Your Feelings

While we sometimes assume or wish our partners were mind readers, they are not. If something in your relationship is bothering you, or upsetting you, you need to speak up, and let your partner know. They cannot fix a problem they are unaware of. Yes, there are times when it should be obvious, at least to you, that something they do or say is not okay with you, but they are not you. If your partner is constantly doing and saying things that annoy or anger you, tell them. If it continues, it may be time to move on.

Keeping Secrets

Whether you sneak the occasional cigarette or hide purchases from your partner, eventually you will be caught, and the issue of trust will come up. Do you need share every single thought or desire that comes to mind, I would say not necessarily, but keeping secrets in a relationship can be dangerous.

The gauge I recommend using regarding whether or not you are keeping a secret is to think about how your partner would feel about the information you are not sharing. If you are withholding information from your partner because you think they would be hurt, angry, or feel betrayed, then you are keeping secrets.

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Being Selfish

It’s all about you, all the time. It has to be your way, and if not, temper tantrums, and bouts of sulking will commence. Does that sound familiar? We all want to have things our own way. We all have our own wants, desires, and preferences, but in a relationship sometimes you don’t get your preference. Relationships require compromise, and sometimes that compromise may mean doing what your partner wants. If you choose your partner wisely, their wants and desires will closely align with yours. If you chose an opposite, or someone pretty different, be prepared for a lot of compromise, or to be completely selfish.

Relationships are challenging, and require work to maintain a healthy one. Not every relationship will work out, or is meant to be, but is important give yourself an opportunity to truly be happy. If the right person comes into your life, don’t sabotage things because you are afraid. Life is short and there are no guarantees, but taking a risk for chance of happiness will be worth it every time.

What are your thoughts on sabotaging relationships? Do you agree my list? Are you a self-saboteur? Please share your story or experience!

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

[pigletsmiddlefinger-blog]

Day One

Conversations are starting to echo through the same loop. Experiences are turning from a physical and emotional presence into observations. Any form of patience that exists is interrupted by an uncontrollable jolt of anger similar to a grumpy old man possessing my body. Anxiety is mutating and has created a permanent structure - a pump stationed in my chest compressing, pumping, stabbing, and radiating tension through my veins as quickly as possible while tiredness is causing notes, passions - everything that’s truly important - to slow and dull through my fingers. I find myself reaching for words in songs as if I can physically touch them - similar to trying to grab someone’s hand as they dangle off of a cliff in a 3D movie.

I find myself seeking truth in scanning body language and the expressions of others. Art has never looked so beautiful. Each line represents a thought or emotion someone else had and lived through. Songs have never been so alive. I’m able to be fully immersed in the exact emotion that was created for each song. They cradle me and then carry me back in time like the ghost from Christmas past giving me a second chance to walk through each unique moment only this time with a heart of love and wonder. A reminder of how special life can be even when you may have previously thought a specific event to be insignificant. A catalog of experiences recorded on tape over time. Each tape assigned to an emotion that I can draw from my collection and press play at any time. Pure Imagination, Good for You, Mad World, Mia and Sebastian’s Theme, The District Sleeps Alone Tonight, Mouth of War, Love is a Losing Game, All I Want is You, Violin Concerto: II, I’d Rather go Blind, Cochise, I am the Highway, One by One, Ex-Factor.

Wait..wait wait wait. Shit…Shiiiiiiit. Dissasocistion, irritability, mood swings, internalization, vacations to 1998 la la land via the Third Eye Blind express. It happened again. I’ve been stuck in this cycle for a week comparable to a slow motion car crash from the movies. Another doubt caused my body and brain to prepare for failure by shutting down in order to have the strength to process and survive the predicable yet unavoidable situation on the horizon. Unfortunately the impact has already passed and the car has stopped moving. I can tell because I’m able to focus on the broken and smoked glass laying on the asphalt as it cuts into my face. I can tell because I wake up feeling nauseated and hungover without the fun that usually goes with it and I have no memory of the actual impact. Surely I should’ve been able to record the event that I survived that caused so much destruction but maybe there wasn’t an event to begin with, maybe there wasn’t a start, end, beginning, purpose…just pure failure. I’m without a doubt alone again. Heart ripped out. Stomach gutted. Chest crushed. Yada yada.

Day One. Day One. Day fucking One.

I’ve been here many times before (hence my preference in music as previously outlined) and each effort to process my experiences and move forward has become less and less productive considering the end results are all the same.

First comes butterflies, chase, connection, the idea that this time it’s real, followed by actions and words that reinforce that it is real. From today’s top ten hits such as “You’re the best”, “My Dreamgirl”, “My dear”, “I haven’t stopped thinking about you since we met”, “I want us to be honest with one another” to the classics such as “I’ll always love you”, “I was put on this earth for you I swear”, “I’m going to trick her into marrying me”, “I haven’t had a girlfriend in forever but I think you might be the one”, “If anything ever happens to us I wouldn’t know what to do I’d probably have to move to another state in sadness”, “You’re meeting my mom”, sprinkled with home cooked meals, introduction to friends, romance, and talk of future plans. You can throw the he’s just not that into you rulebook out the window for today’s love bombing men. That book practically handed men a manual on what not to do if they wanted a woman to fall for them…and shit they serioisly had to make a movie about it that plays every Valentine’s Day just in case they need a refresher course each year…Reassurance…the ingredient that removes all doubts allowing a woman to be truly vulnerable, feminine, sparkle, and selfless. A fragile state of being that should be cherished. But this fragile state seems to only ever exist for a moment because it takes so much for a woman to feel reassured…so rather than go through the effort to keep this vulnerable mystical creature alive- once it’s been played with, it’s taken for granted and typically returned within the 30 day dating window return policy with a shock to the system…30 days, long enough to enjoy but brief enough to question any adult’s sanity who is emotionally impacted by the short duration of the experience and connection to the rented object… it’s almost as if we’re expected these days to provide a receipt with each kiss and expected to immediately hire a construction crew to constantly build emergency exists in the background during the entire period of the relationship…we’re expected to indulge but not have feelings…we’re expected to be prepared to apologize if we do in fact develop real feelings…we’re expected to expect and accept the end of a relationship…we live in a world where people completely avoid love, pain, rejection or any idea of it. They only want love and pain when they’re told that they can’t have it - when they feel rejected. Fucking golden egg children. We live in a world consumed by self preservation, entitlement, and a targeted will to survive… but there are how many billions of us? How many infinite number of potential connections? We are surrounded by people and different cultures, we have the freedom of speech in this country and all of the tools it requires to take risks, build ourselves, destroy ourselves, be exceptional, and have the luxury to fucking feel and express ourselves- yet we take it all for granted and throw our lives away.

That’s when the reminder sinks in…that no matter who you are, what you feel, what you do, what you give, it’s never enough and people suck, hide in fear, dishonesty, and selfishness. Most people don’t give a fuck about you period. You’re a wallet, a new toy, a pretty face, an accessory, a fun time, a house keeper, a cook, a nurse, a series of short stories - companionship - nothing really special nothing new; therefore, as soon as you show humanity and expect sacrifice, commitment, and or compromise as reassurance that your vulnerability isn’t in vein, you’re redefined as dead weight, a speed bump, an old toy, a clingy desperate creature, a crazy fool, an insecure puppet, an idiot, an annoying talkative child, or best yet a mere distraction. Never worth an invitation to be truly inspected, understood, or cherished. Never worth the courage it takes to let go and let someone in. Never worth an invitation to be on the same team unless you know how to play the game. The basics of the game are be impermeable to vulnerability from the start in order to have power in the relationship and never be the one who adores the other person more. My first boyfriend’s Jewish mom told me this once “In marriage, there’s always someone who loves the other person more”. I remember thinking to myself…wtf? What about everybody fucking communicating and giving it their all and seeing all of the love in each other? Not taking it for granted or using it as a platform for power and manipulation? Why can’t we chose to be with people we love unconditionally - people who can rip us apart and destroy us beyond recognition if they die? Why are relationships calculated? Every minute on this earth is more precious than the last. We are anomalies that have walked out of the stars by some miracle of events that took billions of years and more luck than winning a billion powerballs in a row.

I refuse to play the game. Never played it and never will. I either have romantic feelings or I don’t. If I don’t have romantic feelings I’m clear about it and offer plutonic friendship. Growing up looking like a boy - I’m seasoned in the art of plutonic relationships. Romance is tricky and I learned the hard way (AKA seven years of my life) you either have chemistry or you don’t. And if I do have romantic feelings for someone - feelings that appear to be reciprocated, I dive in head first into the coral hoping I come out alive. So here I am…alone again…no games…no playbook…with a few pieces of coral stuck in my head.

This is why my team gave up a long time ago and demanded so much more from me. So much more than the courage to be vulnerable and feminine. So much more than the desire to be in a partnership. They demand self sufficiency, logic, knowledge, confidence, physical strength, and all the building materials to withstand a category five hurricane. My true friends, my family, my team- they’re the real superheros in this world.

Day one after day one after day one - whether it’s starting something new by choice or being set back by others - the wheel keeps bringing me back to the beginning and never seems to end. Maybe it’s finally starting to drive me mad. Maybe it’s changing my physical makeup and turning me into rubber allowing me to be resilient like I was as a child. Maybe I’m starting to enjoy it knowing with each fresh start I have a new chapter in my life book under “how to deal with the asshole human race for dummies”. Maybe I’m starting to enjoy it knowing that there’s so much possibility with a new beginning…an infinite number souls and minds, songs, blades of grass to lay on while gazing out into each direction of infinity.

As a child I survived on this concept. I survived on the idea of infinity. I survived on the stars, the blades of grass, the asphalt that makes you feel connected to worlds away. I survived on the weightlessness of water while being submerged in pools. The strength and resistance of air you feel while being propelled through it or while sticking your hands and face outside of the window of a moving car. The untamed power of watching and feeling fireworks as they exploded, shook your bones, and damaged your ear drums. But nothing felt more infinite than human touch from someone you loved. Love can turn skin into electricity magically raising each hair from your toes to your back to your arms, to your neck. Love can make a single arm feel as heavy, protective, and as encompassing as a tank shielding you from all harm. A single touch can close your eyes without touching your face.

So here’s my attempt at deconstruction in the hopes that a literal description of the output of my configuration will somehow make me feel less alone in this world and help guide me through this journey called love.

Chapter One. Day One.

Real physical pain. The type of pain that makes you believe that life as you know it will never be the same. The type of pain that is so excruciating that it turns seconds into days making breathing unbearable. The type of pain that carves a pit in your stomach turning everything familiar to you - all your loved ones, all the places you’ve visited, your experiences, the maze of memories you created, even your own hands and your own body - turning all of these things into strangers. The type of pain that only completely satisfied people can accept…but for the rest of us it’s just a reminder for how alone, insecure, primative, and how desperate we are to survive.

This is my day one. My very first memory. My very first experience. My very first emotion.

A beautiful piece of art I couldn’t comprehend. A climb. A grab. A leap that felt like my stomach wouldn’t make it with my body to the ground. Then fear knowing something was wrong and coming down to harm us. Then strength wanting to hold and protect this beautiful piece of art I placed more value on than my life. Holding it tightly with both hands while I curled my body around it to protect it. I could feel each inch of that dresser as it got closer to me and to this day I swear I can sense things coming towards my spine before they physically connect. The crash we all fear - the moment the object makes contact - the scenes in the movies that cost millions of dollars to rectify - the scenes that are filmed at a million angles - I have no memory of this grand theatrical spectacle. No matter how hard I try to remember the sensation, no matter how hard I try to capture the unbelievable experience of living through an impact significant enough to slice a piece of your spine off- it all just goes black. But I remember being stuck, crushed, losing all patience while seconds turned into days and I just wanted the hell out of that uncomfortable crushing situation. I then remember laying in bed for what seemed like a lifetime. Unable to breathe. Unable to move. Pain constant with no escape.

A crash course in wonder, butterflies, excitement, fear, strength/protectiveness, and hyper sensitivity all taught within a couple of minutes to a blank soul followed by seemingly endless physical pain, breathlessness, and emotional frustration. The one lesson I didn’t learn from this experience was to stop climbing shit, stop being crazy, and stop monkeying around every free second...which is why my parents threw me into every activity and eventually decided professional training in how to climb and flip your body was the only option. What really got me through the entire experience was frustration. I don’t think that we give frustration enough credit. Frustration forces us to be so much more than we are - fearless, practical, grown up - giving us no choice but to put aside all other emotions as well as the depth and complexity of a situation in order to simplify it, comprehend it, focus on it and arrive to a solution before you pull all of your hair out.

Frustration demands us to move on and it doesn’t let go until we do. Maybe frustration will finally force me to to move on, shrink my heart, and give up on love. Maybe then I’ll play the game and at least get a prize at the end of the journey like the ones everyone else has taken from me…but until that time comes I guess I’ll keep finding myself laying here on the asphalt in shock, spine crushed, chest crushed, stomach carved, unable to breathe, blood fueled by anxiety…desperate and confused starring into infinity trying to find answers within these infinitely long seconds while holding onto your return receipt.

Day One