All You Need to Hold Onto...Is You

"Bag Lady" by Erykah Badu

...so pack light / pack light / pack light / ooh ooh...

This song is the realest song she ever wrote.  I remember hearing it for the first time when I was about 13 years old.  By then, I had enough bags to relate to the song, love the song, cry with the song, sleep to the song.


I wasn't old enough to hear her invoking me to drop my bags...all you must hold onto is you...but I did know she was talking to me.


To do this day, I have yet to learn to drop the bags.  Not to be so cliché, but I didn't necessarily think of the bags as something separate from me.  I hold onto them thinking I am holding on to myself.


With age, I have realized that they are indeed just bags.  It is baggage, dead weight, old clothes, useless gadgets, intrusive memories, broken things, broken promises, and dreams deferred, sagging like a heavy load.


I am not my damage, so to speak.  I am not my pain.  I shall not be a victim of my own victimhood.  Pack light.


...girl I know sometimes it's hard / and we can't let go / when someone hurts you oh so bad inside / you can't deny it / you can't stop cryin' / if you start breathin' / you won't believe it / you'll feel so much better / so much better baby...

Who can argue with that?


And love can make it better.  True love can make it so much better.


I was going to write about how all men are the same.  I believe this.  At some core, existential, unseen place, men are the same.  The react the same to their egos being slighted, because that is only thing that can really be slighted and it is THE thing for which a man will make you pay.


I have seen and heard men do that to me over and over again like a broken record and I still don't know the words (I can't recognize it when I see it).


And I wanted to write about how something is wrong with me.  And something is, but it ain't permanent, and it ain't irreversible, and it ain't debilitating.  I can fight it and change it so that as soon as that record comes on, party's over.


I am packing light.  This entails me expelling other people's baggage too.  People don't talk about that but I have never believe that all your baggage is your own.  That would imply that every man is an island and we create, maintain, and nourish our own pathologies.


Sh-------------------------------------t.

People provide each other with baggage at times.  People pack my bags with their insecurities, their inadequacies, their problems, and tell me that they are mine.


Well I don't want them.


For a little bit, I will have to be selfish and do things for me so that I can be better for you, all of you, everyone I love.


You will notice some distance from me.  You will notice that I don't engage you like I used to.  You will all notice that sometimes, I just don't give a damn and I'm not going to argue, explain myself, excuse myself, restrain myself, or blame myself.


I want to responsible and accountable for creating a space for sanity, peace, and happiness in my life.  I want to be a powerful African woman.  I want to be proud of myself.  I want the cleanliness I deserve to satisfy myself and not to show you.  Hell, if you look for dirt, you will find it.



I am not responsible for any of what ails y'all.


What you eat don't make me sh-t, right?

Disequilibrium

About an hour ago, I was daydreaming on the bus on the way to campus for this tortuous cognitive development class.   I was sifting through my phone but not particularly paying attention when I heard someone call out my whole government.  It was a female voice so I wasn't so much startled as I was intrigued about who could possibly know me in the part of town.

I looked up at the face from which my name came and I didn't really recognize her.  She was kind of tall, slender, pregnant, and in this completely red, typical Richmond "getup".  She looked familiar, but all the contextual information about where I knew her from, when we knew each other, the kind of relationship we had, etc was all lost.  I struggled to at least generate a name so as not to make her feel bad.  I have to know her moderately well.  She knows my whole name and pronounced it perfectly, like it was a comfortable and familiar name on her tongue.



She waddled over to me, pregnant belly guiding her to the seat beside me and plopped down.  I looked in her face intensely and I saw the outline of a little girl I used to know, but this face was so different, it didn't seem possible that this was the same girl.


But it was her, Ci Ci, 10 years later.


We went to middle school together and she was my ride or die.  She and Candi were my two best friends in middle school and everybody knew us.  Candi was an energetic, intelligent, gentle, and kind cheerleader.  Ci Ci was the outgoing, confrontational, brilliant intellectual (with very hoodrat-ish tendencies) trackstar.  I was the cool, articulate, socially conscious, hardworking nerd with no propensity for sports, but attended every sports events because Dee-Dee was running or Candi was cheering.


All of our teachers in 7th and 8th grade thought we were a little troublesome, but we did very well in school, and friends with many different groups.


I remember Dee-Dee to be so brilliant.  She was so, so, so smart.  She was so giving and funny and generous and kind.  She was so brilliant.  When we got in trouble, she could talk us out of anything (even better than I).  In fact, she and I were often the only 2 Black students in the advanced classes in 7th and 8th grade (evidence that the educational system is full of ...yeah, another blog entry at some other time).


She was my ride or die.  She was the first best friend I had in Richmond when we moved.  It was a hard move for me, having completed 6th grade in North Carolina with kids I had gone to elementary school with.


She was the first friend I made and my best friend.


And then life separated us.  I went to  hell on earth a private school for high school and she went to the public high school I should have gone to in wealthy old Henrico County.


Almost a decade since we left middle school and life has brought us so far apart and able to meet again.


She is having her second child.  Her son is 3 years old, born as soon as she graduated from high school.


I just couldn't believe that it was her.  She is 11 months younger than I am.  She was so brilliant that she skipped a grade in elementary school and performed at that stellar level the remainder of her academic career.


All I could think to myself was "What happened Ci Ci?  I feel like she was so full of potential.  I always imagined that she would be doing something phenomenal with her life, up at some Ivy League school just being her royal badness.


But she didn't finish college and she's a single mother.


Where do our little Black children go wrong?  Why are we so susceptible to social pathologies?  I don't even know what questions to ask but something is so wrong my little Black babies.



And I didn't pity when I saw her.  I wasn't judging her.  I was just genuinely disappointed.  And her life is not over nor is it worthless and nor is she less than.  I just know the brilliance she possesses and the worlds she could change.


disequilibrium fosters cognitive development

Solace

"Free" by Destiny's Child

...ain't no feeling like being free / when your mind's made up and your heart is place / yea...

Sometimes it's hard to believe this is my life.  At times, I feel as though I am observing a work of fiction rather than my own life.  The drama can be so intense sometimes, so thoroughly devastating that I cannot even believe it is possible to happen.


Additionally, the people in my life can be so demanding and so unreasonable sometimes, I am trapped in some mental warfare, part of me believing, this is not happening and another part being fully aware that I am sitting in a load of crap.


I try to my best to remember that people are different, handle crises differently, handle stress differently and all those negative emotions that tend to contribute to people treating one another with a compromised level of respect or no respect.


However, I have a hard time empathizing because when I am upset, disappointed, irritated, etc., I try my best not completely lose it on people simply because it's such a painful thing to know you hurt someone you love.


But alas, it seems that only a handful us can refrain hurting a loved one in the midst of anger.  The anger that my parents demonstrated towards me was devastating to my life.  It actually should not be classified as anger but rather as rage.


I'm so tired.  I'm already a perpetual disappointment to myself and the people I depend on for emotional sustenance can be so wholly inadequate sometimes.  It's so painful.


For this reason, today, I asked myself to demand more of myself.  I need to be my own comfort and my own support, at least for now.


No womyn/man is an island so I don't expect to be my own biggest fan for as long as I live, but until I am better and can demand better from those in my life, I'll have to be my own crutch for a while.


Do they not say that if you don't expect anything, you cannot be disappointed.  So I resolve to understand that one day either the people who surround me will one day understand me and be able to support me unconditionally or God will introduce a new network on which I can rely.


Because on some real, I'm doing important work in this world and I need liberation from other people's insecurities and inadequacies.


Ain't no feelin' like bein' free...

Still in Love with You

"Just Friends" by Amy Winehouse

...when we will get the time to be  just friends? / and no i'm not ashamed / but the guilt will kill you / if she don't first / i'll never love you like her...


I'm feeling pretty satisfied today.

It's 47°F outside, it's raining, it's windy, and I have an assignment due that I cannot complete because I lost the tape.

Usually, I would be excessively upset and anxious about this missing tape, this unfinished assignment, and this lack of diligence, but I can't sweat it right now.

I have been in high stress mode everyday for several weeks now.  For that reason, I have been extra irritable, pessimistic, and whiny.  I feel a little disgruntled at how hard I work, how passionate I am, how much I care about the details and I'm not ever satisfied with my own product or the products of others.


It is a little ridiculous, this perfectionism business.  I have never really been that conscious of it as I have been of late.  In retrospect, I have been this way my whole life.


I can remember projects and assignments in elementary school that I worked on like it was going to guarantee my entrance into college.  And I was like 8 years old.


I have always, always been driven by my parents and more so by myself.  And I am seemingly unable to comprehend that the lack of perfection does not equal to disaster and that perfection itself it virtually impossible to attain.


Dearest Sarah pointed out that I have been negative about life, and I have been.  I have been having a lot of existential questions these days.  I'm not totally sure why I am here or what I am supposed to be doing with my life.  Why do we even live?  Sometimes it seems so stupid to be alive.  I often feel like my existence is so shallow and so negligible.  See the pessimism?


Anyway, I think I can find an answer to some of those questions.  I have no idea why humanity exists in general, but I believe that I partially know what I should be doing with my life.  Since I'm here, I might as well do something with it, no?


Last night I was complaining about how I didn't want to go to an event on campus that our organization, Afrikana, had been invited to.  It was being sponsored by a group that represents a lot of shallowness and lack of efficacy, especially in the Black community.


But, I was  so WRONG.  I had a great time, the people were so interested in what Afrikana was about and what we were trying to accomplish, they wanted to join and fight along with us, they were so engaged in the conversation.


I was wrong and I'm glad that I was.  It was awesome.  It was really rejuvenating too.  I didn't feel so purposeless.

It was so nice to see a room full of Black women interested in Black consciousness and African/African-American culture.


And there was food.  Food always brings people together so the Deltas (the hostesses) created a theme called "A Taste of Culture".  I made tola soup and rice for the event and they lapped it up.  I really thought that a few people would try it and I could take the rest home to my apartment to eat as I study through the weekend.  Not.


It was gone way before the event was over.  I always assume that Americans think African food looks weird, smells weird and won't want to risk tasting it.  Not.


I'm a little bitter that I have no tola but I'm happy that people are receptive to novelty.


I say all that to say that I'ma chill.  Happiness is elusive of course and I don't even really seek her fakin' liiiiiike a$$...but I want to live now and make use of this time.  It ain't all about planning and there is always food.


Huge shoutout to Sarah and Charity, who are such great sources of clarity.

Pata

"God Blocked It" by Kurt Carr

...you see my life was spinning out of control / and the fact that i'm still alive today / ain't nothin' but, nothin' but a miracle...

I always have so much to write about. Life happens to me, I notice life and I have so much to say. But my God, my life makes no time for my art.

Really, I make no time for my art. I love art like I love God and I be fakin' liiiiiike...

Last week Friday I was just having a bad, baaad day. I can't remember the details of the badness (which is just a testament to that fact that trouble don't last always). I just remember feeling so out of control, so helpless, so much self-pity, anger, and frustration about still being frustrated.

I thought that my whole life, not just whatever incident I was dealing with, was in shambles and even the good things were just life's way of mocking my misfortune. I lost my VCU ID, which is my whole life on campus. It was the last "bad" thing to happen that day, and you know it's the straw that breaks the camel's back.

I'm a habitual negative thinker. I know, but I'm praying on it.

And that's what I was reminded to do on Friday. I forget that things could be so much worse. This life is bad for me sometimes, lonely, solutionless, and seemingly not worth the effort. But I am still alive which is more than so many can say. And as long as I am alive, I still have some control. I still have some opportunity.

Someone found my ID and emailed me. Slowly, the rest of the messy injustice of my day and life rescinded or just didn't seem as big of a deal as they initially did. I went to the library, less loaded on my mind and studied, my purpose in life for the time being.

I pulled out my planner and was temporarily overwhelmed by my life...tests in red ink, bills in blue ink, more meetings in purple all up and through my planner.

Whatever song was playing on iTunes faded out and I started to open my mouth to complain. "I can't...

And they sang...

The Devil had a plan to kill me, I know
But God intercepted his plan
And told the devil, no
God blocked it
He wouldn't let it be so
No He wouldn't let it be so

And then Nikita told 'em...

Haven't lived a perfect life
Seems I've done wrong more than I've done right
But thank God for compassion and forgiveness
That kept me from a terrible plight

You see, my life was spinning out of control
The fact that I'm still a live today
Ain't nothing, nothing but a miracle

Obviously, I shut my mouth. and no matter how much I study my science, love my science, feel secure in the certain logic of science, I love my God. The fact that I'm still alive today ain't nothing but a miracle. I'm only here because He still wants me to be, because He protected me, because God blocked it.

I got work to do.

For real though, I have so much reading to do.