Category Archives: Adulthood
Untitled. On Feb 11, 2022.
If I take this shot, will it have all been worth it? Will it be worth it? Will it be the end, or another beginning? I’m beginning to-. No, I’m fine. I swear I’m fine. When she finds me by my lonesome, I am asleep under a blanket, book still in hand. Or I quickly wipe away the tear; no crying, no tears shed. No time for sadness; only writing, reading, and reflecting. But sadness is-. No, I will not think it. Allow myself to feel it. For, it feels like desertion, or a type of rejection. Conjuring images of everyone who cast doubts like harpoons, hoping to real in my dreams. Have they already won? I dream of riches and treasure; are they material or spiritual? Trips to Disney or precious moments with my children? My heart yearns for the latter; though I cannot shake wishing for the former.
Poisonous. Gaseous. Cancerous. Asphyxiation. This thing affixed to my mind, clouding my judgment. Holding my soul hostage. How can it be? I am well read; which matters only that I know all of the cliches: Time waits for no one…Search for inner peace…Fear of failure… As though those words will make me feel better about walking the dog on a Saturday morning, then washing the kitchen stove, only to change my clothes and cut the grass, before rushing off to baseball, wondering if I told my son I love him enough; showed him how to catch well enough; gave him positive encouragement enough, so that he could pursue he dreams of playing in the pros. My mind adrift as to whether I missed a patch of grass for the adult-party we’ll have tomorrow; if the lawn feels like luscious carpet underneath my daughter’s feet. While my youngest son wants to speak of imagined toys and characters and so I try shutting my inner thoughts and immerse myself, with him, in the clouds floating, carelessly, above us.
And will I be enough? Strength. Resolve. Masculine. Feminine. Patient. Role model. Care giver. All of the things I had; and all of the things I had not. Like flying into space just to get closer to the sun. When a trip to the beach would do the same. But I do no like the beach – too much sun and too much water. Well, who can say if I am enough? I do not hear the compliments. They play above me like elevator music, in the background, in the distance. For the ambiance of it all. To set the scene; make it feel less lonely, more humane. Like the human connection of a gentle embrace. Or a mother wiping away a child’s tears. A sister reassuring her brother that it was all a dream; that he could sleep in her bed; but only tonight…and the next night…and the next night…and the next.
Family. Is that my shot? Family. The embrace for which I am hoping? Typing fearlessly. Vulnerabilities galore. I kid not.
I Wonder What a Thousand Feels Like
The speedometer cruises
Foot sitting softly on the pedal
Accelerating gently
Oh so gently!
Moving forward through daily life
Cruise control keeps you constrained
0 and 25 miles per hour
No words exchanged as we fall asleep
It’s just after nine o’clock
We lie next to each other, annoyed by warm breadths
Barely indulging in life, barely experiencing each other, barely moving,
At just two miles per hour
Leave for work with a peck on the lips –
The kind one might grace a grandmother’s cheek with –
Ups the speed to five
Garage door opening in the late afternoon after a long day
Lips brush, once again, against mine
Six
Folding the kids in your arms
Twenty-one
Damn. What that must feel like.
That first sip of wine after a hell-of-a week
Seventy-five
The sweet taste of triumph and victory and success
And letting go of drama at work and kids’ whines and unreturned phone calls from friends
That second sip
(Even) sweeter than the first
Steel-aged Chardonnay with magical powers
Lifting the weight of life from your weary shoulders
And your laughter becomes giddy again
As you zoom along at 90 miles per hour.
Again I wonder – what that must feel like.
That smile still planted on your face
Still talking, your words soon drift off in the distance…
Another night when I know what two feels like
Excitement peaks in your voice unexpectedly –
Friends calling, needing a girls night
A smile stretches from ear to ear
As you zoom throughout our home, excitedly; over 85 miles per hour.
Funny stories
Pouring wine
Jokes about the husbands
The giggle bug jumping in and out
Laughter so infection it lasts for days,
Even as you return to the monotony of married life
I cry a little bit inside as you make plans of hot tubs, wine pairings, staying up past midnight
I know you will come home exhausted –
Your voice hoarse from laughing so hard
Your face aching from smiling even harder still
Perhaps a bruise on your thigh from a fall
The story only your friends find funny
Bags under your eyes
Coming down off a high –
And damn what I wouldn’t give to experience one thousand miles per hour with you.
Laughing, uncontrollably at the humor of favorite movie lines;
Glasses clank glasses and bottles of wine.
Dancing to music that does not play;
Regaling each other with our firsts –
First kiss first dance first fight and how silly it is now
The time we did that thing in that place with those people watching.
Pop! goes another bottle of wine
This time, the special wine
We swore we’d only open to celebrate something special…
Like a thou-?
Experiencing life with me.
With me,
While on a high.
Hearts racing at a thousand.
I wonder if that is what it feels like.
Get a Side Hustle!
This was someone whose footsteps I always wanted to follow. We were RAs together and after graduating, she went into higher education. A year later, after graduating, I found myself going into higher education. She ventured into student leadership and development, and I went into student leadership and development. She made the jump into the corporate world, and I wanted to make that same move. All though her journey, I had no idea that her some of jobs were just as UNFILFILLING as my own. Upon interviewing her for the webinar I facilitated last week on the elusive dream job, I uncovered this nugget of wisdom from my friend, Jen, which is just as fitting for recent college graduates as it is for seasoned professionals:
“Get a side hustle! If your job isn’t filling you up, then find something that will – something you can do alongside what’s (currently) paying the bills. It could be working on a book you always wanted to write, or volunteering at an organization. For me, it was DJing. I totally stumbled into it. I basically taught myself. And in the beginning, I would work all week at my full-time job and be miserable and mentally exhausted by Friday. But then I would hit the boards at a club on a Friday night and the dance floor would be PACKED and people we having a great time and I was like “I did that!” And it just lit me up. And I was instantly hooked. I would only make a couple hundred dollars per gig, but it was not about the money – it was about doing something that felt like I was applying my talents to bring joy to people. And now, here I am, five years later, turning down gigs because I’m too busy!”
The Elusive Dream Job
Still on a high from the webinar I facilitated for my alma mater!!!! The topic: the elusive dream job. To prepare for the webinar, I interviewed several friends with whom I graduated about how they have been able to attain their dream jobs AND what lessons they learned along the way. From my preparations, I learned (fortified, really) that the dream job – or the very idea of it, anyway – is, indeed, elusive.
Before I get there, I had done some prior research into friends’ pursuit of the dream job, that, I think, will provide a framework here. Some years ago, I had a conversation with a friend who admitted he was in a rut. He was in his mid-twenties, he had a great career (a lawyer, for god sakes!), lived on his own, was single and ready to mingle, and was your typical bachelor. But, still, he felt stuck in a rut.
He wasn’t the only friend who professed this to me. Another friend lives in Boston (well, just outside of Boston, really, like most people who live in Boston) and is ready to party as soon as his phone starts to buzz. At the time, he was a manager at his job and by all means was successful. Yet, he also felt stuck.
Another one of my friends lives in Connecticut also felt their pain. She was unhappy but not miserable at work – which only means she didn’t really like her job, and it’s not what she wanted to do (although at the time, she did not really know what she actually wanted to do); but her job was not terrible enough to make her quit. Beyond work, she was out partying every Saturday, at Happy Hour every Friday, and had Girls Nights about once a month. She vacationed with her girlfriends and had heart-to-hearts anytime she needed them. Despite that, something was missing.
If that wasn’t enough, another friend from New Hampshire, who is married, has two children, and makes six figures (which makes my puny paycheck look like crap!), wishes he could go back. He loves his life now — his wife, his children, dog, white-picket fence, and all that nuclear family jazz – but every now and then, he talks about the way things used to be.
And then there was me. Stuck.
We were all afflicted by it.
But what if the issue was not with us as much as it was with how we were all taught to view the idea of a career? More specifically, the dream job.
Our brains are still forming until our mid-20s, most teenagers are still unsure of themselves in high school, yet we expect people to know what they want to do for the rest of their lives. First problem.
I liken this to the way we are socialized to view women in the media. Pick any magazine cover with featuring a woman and you will undoubtedly see flawless skin. Eyes that pop. Pouty lips. Long, flowy hair. Impeccable physiques.
This image is dated, I’ll admit that. But, I used it on the webinar because it was tame (relative to the others from Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition) AND features a notable celebrity.
See, we adore these images (and our female celebrities) because in our eyes, at least how we have been taught to view them, these women are perfect examples of beauty. But it is almost as if we pay no attention to the editing, enhancements, and Photoshoping that has taken place to deliver to us the image of (in this case) the perfect woman. For many of us, those adjustments to the image do not matter – all that does matter is what we see: flawless skin. Eyes that pop. Pouty lips. Long, flowy hair. Impeccable physiques. Because this image has been enhanced and adjusted, it becomes an illusion.
And this illusion begins to color how we respond to women in the media (they become sex objects, which is another lesson, for another day) and impacts how we treat women in our everyday lives.
The reality is we are given perfected images of what a beautiful woman looks like, and gone unchecked, the images become our standards for beauty. Standards based on illusions.
How we have come to see career is similar. Something that, for most of us, can feel both real yet unachievable at the same time. We learn that our careers should provide financial wealth, allow us to afford a home, go on vacation, and ultimately become a boss! Rarely do we hear about those things we may not attain through our career such as family or a sense of belonging, and how those values impact our professional selves.
So what I encourage students, and new graduates to do, is reframe that way in which they see career, the amount of value they place on a career, and how much influence they allow a career to have over them. Not easy, by any means. But this mindset can be adjusted by working on self-reflection, developing and working towards both a personal mission and goals, as well as working to achieve work-life balance.
Our problem is we have already frolicked through the fields of heaven (that was our college experience), so the circumstances we’re going through now simply feel like purgatory. We’re all wishing we could somehow fuse our lives now with our lives from back then. We all wish we could return to a life that was.
I’m in Love with a Career that Doesn’t Love Me in Return
Because sometimes it feels that the career we love so much
Yes, I’m in love with my career. It’s my passion, one of them, anyway. It’s (probably) the one thing I am good at doing. How good I am at my career brings to mind the line from Good Will Hunting:
“Mozart, Beethoven. They saw it, they could just play. I can’t hit the ball out of Fenway and …. But when it came to stuff like that, I could always just play”.
When it comes to providing education on sexual violence prevention, I could always just play.
I love what I do. Mostly because as a result of doing this work I am helping to make the world a better place. Like the camouflage-pants wearing guy, who approached me after a training because he wanted to shake my hand, and say thanks for presenting the material in such an engaging and non-threatening way. Or the dozens of young people (mostly women) who wanted me to tell me they knew someone who had been victimized, that they had been victimized, and wanted to know (more specifically) where they could turn to for help. Or the thank yous I receive from friends and family member who contribute when I ask for their support, who speak of the good work I’m doing. I should also mention the student who came up to me, to ask if the way her history teacher had been looking at her was wrong. (Yes, it was!)
These (along with countless others) have come to be my success stories. My very own personal motivational speeches. Reminding me of a job well done, especially on days that I need it most. That I am actually making a difference, on days when I cannot tell the difference.
So I love my career. But, lately, I’ve come to think that my career doesn’t love me.
No hyperbole here. This isn’t some haphazard comparison to abusive or toxic relationships. For, I’ve had far too many family members, friends, and clients experience abuse within their relationships to make some bullshit comparison. No, the empathy I have for survivors will not allow me to compare my career journey with the debilitating effects of abuse.
What this is about, however, is navigating this career while experiencing few strong leaders and mentors. I need only one hand, and indeed, just a couple of fingers, to count the number of strong supervisors I’ve had the pleasure of working under. Supervisors who knew how to lead a team and how to motivate each member of that team. Supervisors who empowered and engaged, instead of managed and micromanaged. Supervisors who actually cared what I thought, and did not tell me what I should know. (For that, thank you, GH.)
Being in this career knowing that adequate financial compensation is realistic…yet, my career will shell out thousands of dollars on expert so-and-so. Two separate points, though they are tied at the hip. On the one hand, my career pay is mediocre, at best. If I want to provide for my family – in the sense of affording family vacations, summer camp for the kids, and date nights for me and my wife, I would be better served working in some mindless job in the corporate world. With my career, I have to choose – family vacation or summer camp for the kids or regular date nights with my wife. Nothing extraordinary, just basic life pleasures. I can’t have it all, or so it seems, and that it disheartening.
On the other hand, if should my career (as a whole) ever finds itself in a good financial position, I don’t think those of us who work in this field, will see any of that compensation. To earn real money – the kind where you don’t have to choose between that family vacation or summer camps for the kids – you have to become an expert. What actually constitutes an expert is unknown, however. Does an expert have strong familiarity with all of the leading programs in their field? Or have almost a decade’s worth of experience? Or have provided education to over 10,000 students (middle school, high school, and college)? Does an expert do all of those things, and serve as a trustee for a state-wide agency? What about provide training for professionals? What about…, I could go on, but the point has already been made. Although I would rather not speak of my own successes, when I compare my accomplishments with those of expert so-and-so, not only do mine stack up well, but in some cases, they actually exceed the expert’s. I’m also finding that we bestow the label expert on those who have a following (a celebrity, if you will) who happens to speak up about these issues. So an actor will quickly become an expert, although the clinician who has worked with survivors for decades does the work, can speak to theory and trends, and (as my students would say) is about that life.
I do love my career. But my career doesn’t quite have a path, per say. No linear line of progression like most other careers. You’re an educator, a clinician, or a manager (and those skill sets are all vastly different). In most fields, one could expect to work as a clinician and then become a manager. But this doesn’t work that way. Most of the managers I’ve had, have just average management skills. Practically no supervisory abilities; big-picture thinking and planning are decent, at best; but they are people persons! They can check in (a term I’ve come to hate, by the way) though like nobody’s business. A hundred times per day, if necessary. They can chat your ear off about their thoughts on whatever topic. However, listening to, or being receptive to your feedback, is a skill that has seems to have evaded them.
I’ve seen high turnover in my career. Chewing people up, spitting them out. Co-workers turned friends often speak of the long hours, with little pay and no recognition, the lack of support, the ever-changing landscape (a funder once used the term, build the plane as we’re flying it, to express how their expectations would be fluctuating from year to year, hell even week to week). Wearing down our mental health and resilience, while we empower and celebrate the mental health and resilience of others whom we serve. As I write this, I accept that these traits of my career may be similar to others. That we all may have these same things in common.
Still, that doesn’t make me feel any better about being in a one-sided relationship, where you love your career, but apparently, your career doesn’t love you.
And though this feels like an abrupt ending…it’s actually symbolic of the abrupt breakups colleagues have had with our career. No personal, hand-written thank yous to co-workers…like we would send to presenters. No warm announcements of moving on to a different career field…like we get from clients once their sessions have ended. No get togethers to toast all of the successes and memories…like we always say we should. Instead, work a zillion hours today, and gone tomorrow. Abrupt.
Yet, for me, and I’m guessing for all of us, it is the impact on survivors or clients or the children or our patients that keeps up coming back. Those that we serve, both literally and figuratively.
This back and forth is precisely what it feels like to be in love with a career that doesn’t love you in return.
Happy Birthday, Tashi
I logged into my Facebook account recently, and saw a notification that it was your birthday, Tashi Nicole King. I still remember saying Hi to you on graduation day – beaming that cheery smile, wearing that natural hair, as only Eryka Badu can, radiating with the lively, yet warm spirit for which you were known.
Sadly, the birthday reminder also let me know that you’re no longer with us. That you will never get to read the birthday messages posted on your wall or hear the constant dings on your computer. That you will not be able to attend the next QU reunion in the physical sense and watch Jen dance on the bar, or Euric crack yet another sexual joke. That you will never be able to read the countless letters of love from friends and family members, pouring out their hearts to you, hanging on their last memories.
Like the time we shoved a couch in the back of your old school Range Rover, bungee corded the door closed, with Jim and Stacey laying on the couch, laughing all the way down Mt. Carmel Ave. Or like the time you broke up a party my friends and I had, and I offered a wiseass remark at the sight of seeing the RAs, and your expression was priceless. It just said really, and that was one of my first lessons on accountability that year. Or like our graduation day…
Alas, I will never get to tell you that I looked to you as a role model during our college years. Not just because you were older than us traditional-aged students, but because you were comfortable in your own skin, being who you were and not who everyone may have wanted you to be – the smile, the hair, the spirit. I found that comfort, maybe 5 or 6 days out of the never ending week…but, I was mesmerized that you were Tashi all the time.
Much like our national or cultural icons, your name has come to have a particular meaning for me. Tashi. A frees spirit, like the bird Maya Angelou writes about, if it had been uncaged. A beautiful treasure, forget the Mona Lisa, you embodied a Bob Ross painting with its breathtaking baby blue skies and happy accidents.
And I won’t pretend to have been the best of your friends, but seeing your birthday moved me. How could you be gone so soon?
And though our paths crossed for but a brief period in time, I sit here wondering what you would have been doing at this very moment, had you still been with us…and I am reminded that maybe this world was not fit for your, that maybe, just maybe, you were meant to be in another world or another universe or another lifetime. There’s no other explanation for how or why you, of all people, could be gone so soon. But maybe that’s the point. To those who knew you, there were no words to adequately or accurately describe you…similarly there is no explanation for why you left us.
What is it about life that it would take the young? Those that had barely cemented their places in the world, and, by my account anyway, have more living to do. What is it about life that it would take the kind? Those who would offer the shirt off their backs (or whatever your cliché), those that were happy and gentle and kind even in spite of adversity. What is it about life that it would take Tashi? The smile, the hair, the spirited.
As graceful as your entrance, so too was your exit. So thank you for blessing us with your presence, for making our worlds better and brighter. Thank you, Tashi, for being you, and helping us be better versions of ourselves.
Seat at the Table
For all of the young people out there (especially), and my social-justice warriors too, struggling with the results of the election, this one’s for you.
—
With many of us still in shock – and indeed, disheartened – over the results of the very-heated election, I’m reminded of a conversation I had with one of my students. A conversation that is befitting of this particular set of circumstances, as we look for some way to channel our energies, going forward.
I listened to her speak, hoping, just hoping I would be able to offer her some piece of wisdom. After all, she had come to me out of confidence and being one of my favorite students, I owed it to her to not only not steer her off course, but actually help her navigate muddy waters. After listening and reflecting, I came up with – Don’t give up your seat at the table.
It was a literal table that I was talking about, but a figurative one as well. I desperately wanted her to consider how powerful her voice was. Whether she exercised her voice or not, there was (and is) power in it. I wanted her to know how removing herself from a space where key decisions were made, would ensure that she could not (and would not) be a part of those decisions. I also wanted her to know – and, indeed, consider – that as a woman, with her foremothers fighting just to have space at the table, as a product of those sacrifices, she is absolutely deserving of that space. That if she had given up that space, she would be giving into the patriarchal system working to keep women in their place – and that’s not at the table.
Given where we are at this time – the conclusion of the 2016 presidential race…some voicing their outrage at fellow Americans who voted for the president-elect…others filled with glee over the changes he might bring – I look back to that conversation, and to those words, hoping I can heed my own advice.
Don’t give up your seat at the table.
I know it will be gut wrenching and will make your skin crawl. Hearing sexist comments, jokes about sexual violence, and other, as it was described, locker room talk. Knowing that men have a virtual license to engage in such behavior because of little, to no, accountability. Taking it one step further, a license that actually encourages men’s degrading behavior and treatment of women. Being at the table, knowing you (or your mother, wife, daughter or sister) are the object of ridicule or objectification can feel utterly helpless. But that’s when you cannot give up your seat at the table. See, as with all things in life, the tables will turn, and if you give up your seat now, you may never get it back.
I know it will be scary and intimidating. Seeing a certain population of men carrying guns professing it’s because of this constitutional rights, with swastikas (or other divisive symbols) tattooed on their skin, spewing hatred about taking back their country, making their presence known, looking to instill fear into the hearts of anyone not part of their clan. They needn’t be a part of some militia; no, just an ordinary guy proclaiming that we should just “leave”, if we’re so unhappy. For some of us, these images are not fiction, but realities of everyday life. There is constant fear, or at least a threat, that they are coming for us. More than that, there’s an understanding that the justice system will let these men inflict violence and intimidation. (They haven’t been held accountable before, why the hell would it start now?!) But, don’t give up your seat at the table. If we’ve learned anything from our fight against terrorism abroad, it is a lesson of not letting terrorists move us from our day-to-day routine. So when these guys alter what we do or how we do it, they win. When they discourage us from exercising our voices, they win. When they instill in us a fear of being at the table, for what violence that are capable of inflicting, they win. We can dismantle this sort of divisive, hateful America by not giving up our seat at the table.
And I know it will be disheartening, knowing politicians are just itching to pass law to subjugate our constitutional rights. Making it so that some of us cannot adopt children, or get married, or access our partner’s medical records, all because of our sexual identity. All but treating us as though we are not actual people, but people who needs to be healed, or somehow redirected, to conform to their heterosexual ways. We may as well be one of The Others, like a monster from Chuck E. Cheese’, with horns, warts, and fangs, the way co-workers, politicians, hell, even family members, treat us like outcasts. When we get so disheartened that we feel like giving up, remember we cannot give up our seat at the table. It’s not that one president, alone, will take us back to a sexist, racist, homophobic America. But the scores of people who put him into power can bring us back to that America if we give up our voice (thus our seat at the table).
Those words that I shared with my students are applicable (I think!) to those who feel scared of, angered by, and dishearten at the results of the election. My student didn’t know this at the time, but I was fighting back tears as I encouraged her to sit with her detractors, work with them, and strive to let her voice be heard. Days after the election, I feel a similar sadness. Still, in the spirit of heading my own advice, we should look to do the same – that is, how can we work with our opponents because, after all, we are not giving up our seat at the table. It’s just as important now, as it ever has been, to keep the spaces that our forefathers and foremothers have fought for, spaces that we’ve earned, spaces that we can influenced. So although we may not feel an infinity towards the president-elect, let us not give up our seat at the table. For, as Matt Damon said in Good Will Hunting, “cause fuck him that’s why”.
The Boogeyman
The shape, the mask, the music. Everything about the movie “Halloween”, used to scare the shit out of me. Back when I was a kid. Who saw shadows even in the darkness. Who heard noises and never knew that houses settled. Who ran from the boogeyman as soon as the lights went out, terrified that he might do to me what he did to them.
All grown up now, I no longer believe in the boogeyman. Not that boogeyman at least. Not the one that wheels a large kitchen knife or has an appetite for blood. No, this boogeyman is different.
I remember telling myself that work – a profession or even a career – was just an entity that helped earn an income. That it didn’t have any other value besides that. Until this past summer, when I began to feel him following me.
I’ve been a stay-at-home dad for a little over 5 months. It’s a never-ending job, really. One that cannot be quantified in the typical 9-5pm time frame…knows no boundaries (my daughter regularly bursts in the door when I am using the bathroom)…and does not allow you to take sick days or go on a break. Sure, it doesn’t produce income in the traditional sense; but it does produce years of nurturance and emotional connection. Priceless memories that I will cherish forever. Teaching my son how to swing from monkey bars. Basking in my daughter’s laughter as she chases bubbles.
And yet, because I have not been acquiring income in the traditional sense, I saw a silhouette of his figure behind every bush. Reminding me that I should be working.
Work. That entity that most of my employed friends tell me they wished they were doing differently. My best friend from college is a veterinarian but wishes he raced cars. Another friend in the corporate world longs for a career making and selling her own wine. Not exempt, in my previous job, I wanted to be an author and leadership trainer. All craving a different life. Or, at least, a different part of life. Even when we have it, we want something different. The boogeyman, feasting on our hopes and dreams, until they become the nightmares scaring us to death.
I try tell myself work shouldn’t define me this much, knowing it’s not the truth. Everything piece of academic and intellectual fruit I’ve eaten since my days as an undergrad tells me differently. That everything I did in college and beyond was for work – so that I could have a job, and always have access to a job. That while work does not have to define you, it should be a strong part of you. That if you’re not working, it had better be for a good damn reason; otherwise, you are the issue – it’s not work’s fault you’re unemployed. That as a man, you have but a few purposes in life, and work is one of them, if the primary one.
That’s when the bone-chilling music runs through me. When I know I cannot escape the thoughts. I. Should. Be. Working. Looking for relief, I step into the next room, and stop. He’s staring right at me. Expressionless mask. Blue jumpsuit. Fingers wrapped around a kitchen knife. Shit, I better run.
Quarter-Life Crisis
I had a conversation with a friend recently, and he admitted he was in a rut. He’s in his mid-twenties, has a great career (he’s a lawyer, for god sakes!), lives on his own, is single and ready to mingle, and is your typical bachelor. But, still, he’s stuck in a rut.
He wasn’t the only friend who professed this to me. Another friend who lives in Boston (well, just outside of Boston, really, like most people who live in Boston) and is ready to party as soon as his phone starts to buzz. He is a manager at his job and by all means is successful. Yet, he feels stuck.
Another one of my friends lives in Connecticut also feels their pain. She is unhappy, but not miserable at work – which only means she doesn’t really like her job, and it’s not what she wants to do (although she doesn’t really know what she actually wants to do); but her job is not terrible enough to make her quit. Beyond work, she’s out partying every Saturday, at Happy Hour every Friday, and has Girls Nights about once a month. She vacations with her girl friends and has heart-to-hearts anytime she needs. Despite that, something’s missing.
If that wasn’t enough, another friend from New Hampshire, who is married, has two children, and makes six figures (which makes my puny paycheck look like crap!), wishes he could go back. He loves his life now — his wife, his children, dog, white-picket fence, and all that nuclear family jazz – but every now and then, he talks about the way things used to be.
And then there’s me.
We’re all afflicted by it. The life that was. What’s haunting us can’t be found in the DSM, and can’t be cured with a pill. We have no physiological deficits, and we’re not suffering from PTSD.
Our problem is we have already frolicked through the fields of heaven, so the circumstances we’re going through now simply feel like purgatory. We’re all wishing we could somehow fuse our lives now with our lives from back then. We all wish we could return to a life that was.
We’re all going through the quarter-life crisis, in our own way. Here’s how my quarter-life crisis started.
Letter to my White Friends – Part I
You probably didn’t want to talk to me last week. You already know why – two Black men killed by White police officers, in separate incidents, in cities hundreds of miles apart. I could have been either one of those men, just like I could have been Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, or many years prior, Emmitt Till. (Given my inter-racial family, I damn sure could have been Emmitt Till.) It wasn’t that I harbored any hateful feelings towards police officers, or White people, or even White police officers. I just could not put what was swimming around in my head, into words, without first giving a bunch of disclaimers and apologies. But now that I’ve had a chance to reel in my thoughts from running on hyper drive, here is just one perspective (as these issues are complex and multi-faceted) I felt important to share, specifically to my White friends.
—
Dear (if you’re my friend, and you’re White, insert your name here),
Because the answer to the racial tension we are experiencing as a country is not to retreat to our individual racial and ethnic sides of the fence, and point the finger at the other side as if to say, you’re what’s wrong with this country; but instead, to engage in meaningful dialogue, I am writing to start the conversation.
How are you holding up?
See, social justice warriors would avow that during times like these, we shouldn’t worry ourselves with the feelings of the majority, but instead, with the rights of the minority. And while I believe in this idea on many levels, on one particular level – from my experience in helping bring under-represented groups to the figurative table (as a member of the dominant group you aren’t particularly under-represented, but just go with it) – these are the times when we should be engaging in dialogue with the dominant group. So again I ask, how are you?
I’m guessing you can’t been feeling particularly well. If you’re my friend, that is. Knowing you are part of the larger group that has historically inflicted harm and marginalized other groups. And even though you do not participate in those inflictions, you still benefit from the marginalization. It’s similar to the bouts I face with my own privilege as a male. No matter how hard you try, you just cannot undo all of the atrocities committed by the group of which you’re a part. So, if you are my friend, you undoubtedly have inner conflict over the racial tension sweeping across our nation with flu-like quickness. I’m sure you’ve been scapegoated, and stared at, and had insulting remarks yelled in your direction because of the actions of some of the people who are in the dominant group to which you belong. So I’m writing because I’m worried – unbeknownst to you, you’ve worked so hard at becoming, and remaining, an ally to people of color (as we’ll see below), that I’d hate for you to retreat because of the inner conflict you’re experiencing. I’m also writing because although I can’t tell you with any certainly that the inner conflict will subside, I can offer this: I’m glad you’re my friend.
In looking back on our friendship, I’m glad you laughed with me (and not at me) when I told stories of growing up Black, and poor, and fatherless. I stole a line from the “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” when I used to say, “I’m just a poor Black man trying to make it at Quinnipiac”. And even though you may not have fully understood what I meant, I appreciate that you were willing to try. Like listening listening to Tupac on full blast with me (remember those days?!) or engaging me in dialogue when I told you the reason I couldn’t swim – we don’t got pools in the hood. I’m glad we had those conversations and shared that laughter. Most times, the laughter was really was a cover for the pain.
It’s no surprise I still remember those deep talks we used to have – how your father left your mother for another woman, how there was only one Black kid in your high school graduating class and how he got picked on to no end, how you always wanted to date another girl but couldn’t find the courage. Those talks helped me see the world through your eyes, and how you culture works, like the adherence to your Italian heritage. Those talks helped me connect with you in ways that could never be duplicated in a classroom or some diversity training. More than anything, those talks helped me see you as my friend first, and your racial and ethnic group second.
By having those talks, I now see that we were able to correctly conclude that there’d been historical and institutional injustices committed against damn near every racial and ethnic groups. So when I spoke of injustices members of my family had faced, I could see in your eyes that you felt I wasn’t making it up. That validation has been important to our friendship. To be my friend, I’ve needed to know that you get it, that being Black brings about a certain level of burden. But it wasn’t just Black and White – yesterday it was the Irish, before them, Native Americans and African slaves. Now, it’s African Americans, the entire LGBT community, and our Latin brothers and sisters. Injustices have also afflicted Asians and Italians, Jews and Muslims. As Pastor Martin Niemöller famously wrote, “Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Jew.” I think it’s safe to say they came for me, just as they came for you. And we’ve remained friends because we spoke up for each other.
I’m also glad we’re friends because there’s a certain level of emotional and psychological safety I feel in your midst. You have, and continue to allow me space to share my organic thoughts when it comes to issues of race. Like the soliloquy I crafted about whether I am truly an American, after the officer who killed Michael Brown was not indicted. Or like all of those times I quoted jokes from Chappelle Show. They weren’t White jokes any more than they were Black jokes. Instead, they were humorous analyses of our cultural differences, because sometimes using humor helps lessen the pain.
See, sometimes you just need a vent session, like when women get together for a Ladies Night. Nothing against men, sometimes women need a forum to share their thoughts and experiences with other women, without judgment, and without fear of offending anyone. Similarly, sometimes I wanted to admit that I didn’t understand how some White people could do (fill in the blank – whether it was kill a lion for sport or not season their vegetables), knowing that I love you and White people, too. I appreciate that you joined me in that space. Never one did I hear I was mentally weak or that my response is just a part of my narrative or rhetoric. Your response to my response told me that I was free to have my perspective in your midst, and that I could be my authentic self.
Along those same lines, I’m better off that you challenged me when I needed it. Whether it was calling me out for being am ableist, exhibiting male privilege, or reminding me that not all White people do (fill in the blank). Even though those were tough conversations, we were able to have them – and I was willing to listen – because you are my friend. Through I may have given you the finger a couple of times during those talks, I can honestly say I’m a better person because you’ve challenged me.
I am particularly grateful that you have been respectful of my experiences, and never asked me to give a black perspective. Instead, you asked what I thought or felt, understanding that MY black perspective may have been different than another black person’s.
Thank you, as well, for celebrating my culture, focusing more on our similarities than our differences, and for not trying to define my Blackness for me (as you’ve seen, you can be Black and listen to Alanis Morrisette!). Most of all, thank you for learning with me. Calling me you brother from another mother was funny. But referring to me as your nigger wasn’t cool. I know I called you that word several times, and I referred to our mutual friend who’s also Black, as my nigga. And sure, we listened and dances to music, where the lyrics seemed to be nigga this and nigga that. Through all of that, I love that you understood my boundaries and respected them.
Within our friendship, we have been able to expose each other to new ideas, and push each other to extend our comfort zones. As I sit here empathizing with you during these times where racial injustices seem like they’re at an all-time high, I have to imagine you feel as if you’re part of the problem, simply because you’re White. While I can never give you a She’s Down card for other Black folks to see, I can let you know that you are an ally and that I value your friendship. When shit goes down, I know I can count on to help stand against the injustice, and for that, I’m proud that you’re my friend. For those, and countless other reason, thanks for being someone I can count on.
So this is your ally card. Though you’ll have to do these same things to the next person of color you come into contact with, in order for the card to remain valid. If you ever need someone to help you process the inner conflict, you know where to find me.
Stay Black!
Abdul