family – Creatorskind

Posted on May 8, 2022May 11, 2022 by She Who Rises

Just Stay … please?

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but…

You are not alone.

You are seen.

You belong.

You are needed.

You are no accident.

You were made with intention, regardless of what’s happened since.

You have a purpose, despite all the pain.

So, stick around a little while longer to see what it will be.

Decide to stick around for one more day.

Just one – one day at a time.

Every day.

And I promise you will get there, love.

Because, for real, you really are loved.

If you need a virtual ear, hit me up @ creatorskind@gmail.com 💜

Posted on January 30, 2022February 20, 2022 by She Who Rises · 2 Comments

Words of wisdom

“Don’t let someone piss on your head and call it rain!” These were the words that rose to the surface of my mind during an EMDR therapy exercise. I immediately erupted in laughter.

Though not in her voice, I instantly recognized the personality behind the words. Memories of my grandmother’s sharp wit and no-nonsense attitude streamed through my mind as I considered whether she would say these words to me in real life, and not just in a dream. Another laugh straight from the gut is my answer. Yes, she would… emphatically yes.

This is how she would react to my stunned silence at my supervisor’s behavior. She would want me to call him out on his garbage and get it all off my chest, professionalism and consequences be damned. She would want me to fiercely fight back in any instance where I have been mistreated. So strongly would she have felt this, that I am certain that if she were alive, she’d offer to tell him off herself.

Ma was a smart, funny, kind, and mannerly woman. Through her influence, her children (grandchildren and foster children too) were renowned for our exceptionally polite and respectful ways when in the company of adults. Visitors would say, often in genuine astonishment, that we were “so well-behaved”. When we were guests of someone else, an invitation to return “anytime” was the norm. She expected her family to be respectful and respectable. But she was also a street-smart fighter.

She didn’t take crap from anyone and never hesitated to put someone in check, if need be. For her, it was always better to nip it in the bud. And she didn’t mince words. Ever. Her epic no-nonsense and no B.S. attitude is one of our favorite topics of conversation in my family. And regardless of what the actual scenario is, it’s often hilarious, simply because it’s true. So, those initial words were no surprise to me. But as we resumed the exercise, the next ones were.

“Save yourself.”

Now THAT gave me pause. We were using EMDR to try to break down some of the stress I’ve been having about the situation at my job, along with some particularly difficult past trauma around race and work that continues to come up.

Because I’ve been so concerned about what my grandmother would think of me and how I’ve handled these experiences in my life, my therapist thought it would be a good idea to envision a conversation with her about it. Like the one in my dream, I would meet with her and see what comes of it. I don’t know what I expected, but whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t that. But in an instant, I knew what those words meant.

“Save yourself” was a call to arms. It was a call to come out from under the strong Black woman stereotype, even if I didn’t know that I was hiding within it. It was a call to let go.

The strong Black woman is resilient by reason of necessity. She is familiar with hardship. But is expected to be hardened to all of it, racism included. Stoic. She is expected to stretch herself to superhuman proportions, unemotional about the dizzying shapes in which she contorts herself.

When presented with less than “enough” of whatever, the strong Black woman somehow manages to pull everything together. She juggles multiple plates and takes on more without ever letting one fall. She does not disappoint.

She does this at home. She does this at work. She does this in her relationships. She is the person who endures anything, gives everything, and asks for little to nothing. And that is the curse.

She appears to handle everything so well, even the hard stuff, that no-one thinks to offer her help or protection. No-one expects that she needs it. So, she grins and bears it, while her legs buckle under the weight.

Inherent to the strong Black woman stereotype is self-sacrifice. Her needs, wants, hopes and passions come last in-order to wear the crown that comes with lifting everyone and everything else up above herself.

You can argue that it’s a choice. But it isn’t always a conscious one. Without having the language for it, this kind of fortitude was built into my childhood ideas about Black womanhood through example. As a product of strong Black women, and The Cosby Show and Living Single era, I fully expected to do it all and have it all. I just didn’t know that eternal self-sacrifice was one of the trade-offs. I also didn’t know that in-order to reverse course, I would have to fight against another stereotype… the angry Black woman.

Posted on January 9, 2022January 23, 2022 by She Who Rises · 2 Comments

A grandmother’s legacy

My eyes swish in their sockets, moving left to right beneath my eyelids. I’m about to wake up. My eyes open as I hear a door gently close and then the synchronized creaking of a banister and the heavy footfalls of worn house-shoes. Slowly, both sounds fade to the floors beneath me.

It’s still dark and, as my eyes adjust, I realize that the day hasn’t yet begun. Though I am never willingly up this early, I find myself climbing out of the daybed in the large, converted attic of my grandparents’ house and heading downstairs. My bare feet move down to the homes second floor with a stealth usually reserved for Christmas Eve.

Two more sets of carpeted stairs stand between me and what I now see is a dim light emanating from the first floor. As I turn the corner to arrive at the last set, I see my grandmother sitting quietly by herself at the dining room table. The lights are dim, and a single candle is lit before her. Within seconds, she turns to notice me. I’ve caught her in an intensely personal moment, the only such moment I would ever see.

Ma died a little over a decade later. But a few weeks ago, she appeared in one of my dreams. I remember walking through the front doors of her immaculate and richly decorated home into a living room that seemed to be edged in clouds; its duskiness a frame for the scene before me. My grandmother stands before me elegantly styled in a manner almost identical to a photo I’ve seen of her on my mother’s wedding day. In both, she’s barely smiling, yet a weighty joy covers her face and seems to emanate from every pore. Maybe it’s pride. Maybe it’s love.

She walks the few steps toward me and cups my face in her hands. And while this moment is not one we’ve played out in real life, it is one we fall into seamlessly. We stay this way for a long while. No words, no tears, just a silent and joyous greeting that could only happen on the other side of eternity, only in Heaven.

I love my grandmother, my mother’s mom, though I barely know her at all. My grandparents’ home – one that always welcomed and made space for children – was a place where children were seen, not heard, speaking to adults only when spoken to. She died just as I was entering a time when I could be both. As a result, I know more about her through watching her ways than by actually talking to her.

My wise-cracking grandmother – who had left Jim Crow and a family farm in rural Virginia for big city living and its resident chaos and hypocrisy in the North; married and faithfully loved my grandfather for over half a century; raised eight children, plus one in heaven; and nurtured countless others through fostering – didn’t have too many conversations with children.

But love was there. It was in the clothes on our backs, sometimes purchased, other times hand-sewn, ice cream and homemade desserts after dinner, dance lessons and a special room in the basement called the playhouse – a room filled with enough toys to fulfill any fantasy. Love was everywhere she was, though I would learn that much too late.

But there is one thing that I know for certain. My grandmother prayed for me. Though I only saw her in that scene once and never heard her words, this singular experience told me that she knew God and that one day, or perhaps on many, they would talk about me.

This realization, gifted only in the hindsight of adulthood, is a thought I return to often. In the years since, I have wondered what situations those prayers have covered. I’ve wondered whether they shielded me from harm, opened doors, saved me from myself or simply kept me sane in a world that she knew all too well was crazy.

When I think about her story and where her life took her, I see a woman who trusted God – with her future and her family – despite rarely, if ever, saying a word about it in my presence. Sometimes I wonder if I owe my entire relationship with God, and its many benefits, to my grandmothers’ unseen prayers. Is this detail a key part of how the profound loneliness of my depression led me to God? Maybe. I may never know.

But one thing I do know, is that this simple example and my suffering combined to open me up to the possibilities of an intervening God; a God who was interested in what happens to me and what I have to say.

Hers was just one simple, yet impactful example; a small part of who knows how many other pieces that joined together to spark my faith in God – The Father, Son & Holy Spirit. For her role in bringing into my life even the possibility of consciously living in God’s passionate love for me, I will be forever grateful. She was one of many direction signs, stepping-stones and signals pointing me to an available and loving God. Yet, her contribution was vital and one that I stand on today as proof that God loves me. And it’s one of many reasons why I can look you in the eye and tell you that God loves you too.

Posted on November 28, 2021January 23, 2022 by She Who Rises

Rejection

This isn’t a thanksgiving post, especially since the day has already passed (LOL). But with that said, given the week that we’ve had preparing for and welcoming, enduring or escaping family, we all have a fresh reminder that family is a trip, right? I’ve heard it said that there’s the family we’re born into and the family that we choose. That is, our friends. No family is perfect – even those we choose. And every family comes in one of many shapes and sizes.

Even the family that we’re born into doesn’t always look like the self-contained nuclear family of black and white TV. Like me, many people are raised by a village and your “family” may share some of your DNA or none at all. In my own, bloodlines never mattered and thankfully, they still don’t. But…people are still people (who be peoplin’) and so those bruises and breaks still come along with them. It’s an unfortunate truth that those who are closest to you can hurt you the most. It’s something from which we can never be immune. We are often compelled to make choices around how we handle the hurt and those who do the hurting. The same is true about the bruises and breaks that we inflict on ourselves.

When I think of my experience with mental illness, and depression specifically, it seems to me to be a very selfish disease. Not selfish in the sense of being stingy, but instead, self-centered. Depression is a disease that takes our natural pre-occupation with ourselves and both perverts and expands it to the point that it can be nearly impossible to see through or around it to the other manifold aspects of life. With depression, you are always on your mind. And most often, it’s our most unflattering aspects that are the focus.

Maybe it’s the time you excused yourself from an important meeting to go to the ‘potty’ instead of the very adult restroom on your floor. Or maybe it’s the time when you spent an entire day at work and happy hour afterward with spinach between your two front teeth. Or, more seriously, the day someone you thought you knew ~~became~~ a predator and labeled you prey.

Somehow, whether silly or severe, each thought or memory that darts through your brain all have a common and well-traveled pathway. Those tinted visions of ineptitude, a lack of sophistication, clumsiness, gullibility, and whatever else that speeds through your brain all lead to one destination and that’s … rejection.

I find that regardless of who started the assault, because I am with myself more than anyone, the heaviest beatings come from my own hand. And believe me, no-one’s dagger is sharper than my own. Because depression underscores and magnifies the negative and is so self-focused, it can feel nearly impossible to do anything, but reject ourselves. I mean, what other conclusion could there be?

The self-rejection in my life made me want to hide from the rest of the world. I couldn’t let anyone truly get close to me, because if they did, they would see what I see and, ultimately, reject me. What other choice could there be?

One of the things that is so remarkable to me about this faith thing is that I have never felt rejected by God. It has certainly crossed my mind that God should reject me. But I’ve never had the sense, once I started talking to God (a.k.a praying), that God would ever echo the sentiments that I had about myself.

Even as I complained and mocked myself, I never had the sense that God would agree. I didn’t feel it or see some cosmic co-sign in the heavens. Most days, I saw and felt very little beyond depression’s walls. But after learning about God’s character, I now have a visual to go with that stillness.

It’s a facial expression that, hopefully, we’ve all seen in the eyes of someone who really loves us. It’s a look of concern. A head tilted, angled as if to hear me better. A hand holding both cheeks and chin and brows furrowed, signaling the seriousness of the thoughts in the brain above it. And a sadness creeping into loving eyes. When I think of the days where I struggle and depression riddles my every thought, I see Jesus listening intently and then whispering, ‘My daughter, I long for you to always see yourself the way that I see you. But I’m here and ready to remind you again and again for as long as it takes.’

What about you? Do you have a visual in your mind that reflects who you know or believe God to be? Leave a comment or shoot me an email at creatorskind@gmail.com.