What Do You Want?
Has anyone ever asked you that question? Very few people have both asked the question and taken the time to hear me try to figure out the answer.
The thing is, I don’t always know what I want. Sometimes I want to be a mother, and other times the thought makes me want to do very bad things to myself because I am terrified of the idea of being a parent.
It’s not that I think I wouldn’t be a great parent; it’s the idea of giving birth that bothers me so much. Black women are far more likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth than anyone else in the world, and that’s largely because of medical bias that ignores their needs and denies them the medical care they deserve.
Racism is a bitch. It affects everything about our lives as Black people – as People of Color – and when we bring it up, we’re told, “Now is not the time,” or my personal favorite, “You’re anti-Semitic because you don’t like white people, racist…” There is no such thing as “Reverse racism.” It’s a gaslighting technique used by white supremacists to shut you up.
More and more people are becoming comfortable using this technique because it’s easy to point the finger at someone else and their behavior so that you don’t have to focus on your own. This is how folks avoid accountability.
I am starting to notice it in myself. This is why I am so quiet when my friends make their very valid complaints about things that are happening in our collective circle.
I think it’s because I am so busy thinking about how what is happening has been affecting me and how I’ve been responding that I don’t really have time to talk about how I am feeling. After all, until recently, I didn’t know what to say.
I spoke to my friend Lady C on the phone recently and I was quite eloquently able to say what I needed to say about the current situation in our friend group, but it took me weeks of saying “I don’t fucking want to talk about it,” before I was able to convey how I was feeling.
Every single one of us deals with trauma in different ways, but the thing is that trauma comes in so many forms that you can often feel like you’re living in a constant state of whiplash, without a soothing balm to take the pain away.
When folks go out of their way to deliberately challenge and traumatize you, everyone in the world will tell you that “It doesn’t matter what they did, what matters is how you respond,” and that can be really fucking frustrating.
Because so many of us have so much anger and resentment inside of you, and when it comes to letting it go that’s precisely what folks tell you to do, but they don’t always tell you how to let it go, and like, what the fuck?
“Let it go…”
How?
Give me a fucking answer, because that’s what I want. I want to know how to let go of these resentments, this feeling of rage, this feeling of despondency, that has left me feeling like the only road I have to follow is this one.
I know that I wrote an entire book on getting to know yourself, but that is not the same as knowing how to release the trauma of the past so you can move forward. The only answer I have is that no matter how hard it’s been, I’ve decided, and kept deciding, to keep going.
I haven’t given up on myself or my faith in the universe. I know good things are on my way and I know that when it comes to my dreams, I know how to achieve them, but I also know there are going to be fucking tears.
There are going to be days when I feel like I can’t keep going, like there’s no point, like there’s no reason to keep going on, and yet still I will continue.
I think it’s because I have a curious mind, I think it’s because I’m also very fucking patient, as much as it might not feel like it to those who know me.
I know that with the hard work I can put into the world, and with my dreams, and with my ability to make my dreams come true (Thank you, five-year-old self), I can do anything.
What I want is for the road to be easier, not just for me but for everyone. I want a world filled with peace, immigration that doesn’t cause harm and a system that doesn’t hurt and punish the most marginalized and gentle among us.
I want a world that is calm, and filled with peace, joy, love, happiness, and I want to be a part of building that world, because even when the piles of shit dump on me and I feel like I can’t continue, as Maya Angelou once said, Still I Rise.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall, The Original Loud Mouth Brown Girl
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 