One Day Back in April When I was Losing It

I want to get away from them. Seriously, their voices are like fingernails on chalkboards. I feel like I'm in an alternate universe. A Stepford wives, Pleasantville type of place. Where there is only one way of being, knowing, interacting. Where those who don't smile all day and curtsy, and pretend to care about the mundane are destined to be called mean, angry, and otherwise difficult. Where, when, and why did women learn that they were only to agree and acquiesce? Why am I expected to play nice, and pretend I want to stand around and talk to you? What is it about you that makes you think your time is worth more than mine? I pulled myself outside of my own head and showed up today. I sacrificed the sliver of sanity I have left to attempt engagement. I showed up for your 1:15 meeting that you scheduled all by yourself without regard for what the other 12 or so people in our class wanted to do or already had planned for today. So when, at 1:25 I'm still standing in the hall for the meeting to start, I think it's perfectly warranted that I ask if there is really going to be a meeting? The fact that you don't know pisses me off. I have so much to do. This is the only reason I came to school today. The only reason I packed up my stuff and dragged it all the way here. The only reason I battled those dreaded earth worms and the rain. No, there is no smile wrapped in a pretty bow for you today. There is no mask, what you get is me. In all my beautiful realness. No, I don't want to hear about your birth, that's not why I came in today. No, I don't want to hear about the international trip that's coming up and watch you all argue over who should have the right to go...and why, please tell me, since you're already going for other reasons, do you need to go to the meeting other than to talk nonstop about what you think? I'm so sick of hearing what you think. I'm so sick of other people sitting around giving you so much space to put what you think on the table while everyone else fights for their word. I'm so sick of you answering everyone's questions that they ask to someone else. I'm so sick of your voice. I don't even know how to explain that to people, but it is like what Claudia was talking about in The Bluest Eye...

Revelation & Affirmation

When a woman is in transition...the hardest part of labor...you can not ask her about what will happen tomorrow or the next day, or even five minutes from where she is right then. She can not hear you. She can not think of anything other than what is happening for her right then, in that moment, with that breath. When we are with laboring women, we recognize and remember this. We do not ask her to make important decisions, because there is a great possibility that her ability to do so is altered. We are patient, and forgiving, and encouraging, even when she swears (and truly believes) she can not do it.

I am taking this moment to fully acknowledge that I am in transition. I am putting it down on paper that I am in no condition to make major decisions, and therefore am giving myself the next 4 weeks to suspend such responsibility. I am making the commitment to be kind, patient, forgiving and encouraging to myself.

Where I am does not define who I am.
I am me, regardless of who I could be, should be, am wanted to be, or am thought to be.
I am loved, if by nobody but my mama and me.
And that is enough.