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
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
No comments:
Post a Comment