On the Outside...

On the outside people see the attachments and assume happiness. But what is happiness? An absence of sadness? And isn't sadness needed: to put things into perspective?
I haven't been able to write lately.
I've been stuck in this space between childhood and adulthood, hesitating, holding onto the past like my life depended on it. After all, isn't that me?
The other day I said to someone that I am the same person today that I have always been.
What does that mean? they asked me.
I don't know.
It is what I am in the midst of finding out...

I'm a Very Angry Girl...

When I was a child, I felt powerful through rage.
I wasn't in control of the fact that we moved a lot. I wasn't in control of my father's frustrations, alcoholism and substance abuse problems. I wasn't in control of my mother's unyielding loyalty to him (which I'm still conflicted about). I wasn't even in control of my father's very Caribbean methods of discipline. What I could control, or so I thought, was my power.
I found this power, at a very early age through fighting. Back in Brooklyn there was something that overruled fancy clothes, Ataris and adidas. It was being a badass. Although always small for my age, I took pride in the fact that I never backed down from a fight, in fact, I often sought them out. I rebelled, blindly, towards all that I, at the tender age of nine, had come to loathe: my family. I stopped listening to my mother, whose reaction, as with everything else, was passivity (which pushed me to such extremes-I just wanted her to draw the line! She never did.) I gave up on the notion that my father would ever learn to control his temper and stop beating us (by then I'd learned to stand up to him and numb my body to the lashes of his leather on my skin.). My sister, going through the complexities of her teenage years in a foreign land had, at 16, already left home (that too would be the age I threw in the towel), My brother, like me, stopped going to school, spent all his money on video games and learned to boost all the gear we couldn't afford, my mother, who now when I look back just couldn't cope had already lost my respect for staying with my father, and my father? I loved him so but he, quite unintentionally taught me that the only way I could survive was by becoming a bully. So this is the compass I debuted into my adult life with.
When I get angry I snap. Things I have done while angry: destroyed all my father's studio recordings. Thrown a bike down a flight of stairs. Attacked someone with my pocket book. Slapped a few people. Grabbed my son too hard. Destroyed many things--not least of all many relationships. Not smart, huh? But, I am a very angry girl. And it is time to work on this anger, to let go of this anger, to heal. Luckily I seem to have met the right circle of friends, be in the right job, be blessed with the most amazing son to point me in the intended direction. It is time for me to put down my anger, and forgive. And this time, I actually think I might know how.
And I know I must. When I look at pictures of my son, even from as far back to when he was three, there is a distinct furrow on his brow...the furrow is familiar: It is mine. How could a three year old have such an expression? He learned it from me. Just as I have learned my anger from my father. It is no cliche that these things are passed on...and I must, must, for the sake of my child, teach him that it is never too late to change. And I am blessed. So blessed, to be given the opportunity to not only identify my weaknesses, but also, to do something about them. And this is how I will survive. Not through anger. But through compassion, understanding. I will live life beyond survival mode: I am not that angry 9 year-old anymore. I am an amazing woman, with an amazing life and I will not let anyone, not even my irrational anger, destroy it.

Before she married, she thought she was in love; but the happiness that should have resulted from that love, somehow had not come. It seemed to her that she must have made a mistake, have misunderstood in some way or another. And Emma tried hard to discover what, precisely, it was in life that was denoted by the words "joy, passion, intoxication," which had always looked so fine in her books.
--Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary (1857)

Thanks KG for passing along this Audre Lorde quote:

"we have to consciously study how to be tender with each other until it becomes habit because what was native has been stolen from us, the love of black women for each other. but we can practice being gentle with ourselves by being gentle with that piece of ourselves that is hardest to hold, by giving more to the brave bruised girlchild within each of us, by expecting a little less from her gargantuan efforts to excel. we can love her in the light as well as in the darkness, quiet her frenzy toward perfection and encourage her attentions toward fulfillment. maybe then we will come to appreciate more how much she has taught us, and how much she is doing to keep this world revolving toward some livable future....it would be ridiculous to believe that this process is not lengthy and difficult. it is suicidal to believe it is not possible."