Moving the Subconcious Forward

In these weeks, maybe since the "Transition" post - and I've been thinking more about it since I read a post over at darkdaughta's place about making sure her child has sufficient time and opportunity to be a child - I'm trying to let myself be 28, and learn and live as though I've got time to grow and figure it out. This is hard for me - I am someone who wants to know everything now and I don't have much patience with myself. I think really, really hard about a problem for a minimal amount of time, and then I make a decision. I think that is how I usually operate. I don't think I sit with the feelings of whatever it is that is happening...I make a move to get out of that uncomfortable place as quickly as possible. It makes sense for things like abusive relationships and dangerous life threatening situations, but not so much for things like grief and anger. I don't know if this is making sense, but mainly I'm giving myself time to make a decision. Time to sit with everything I'm feeling. Time to think about reasons why I might feel the way I feel that are irrelevant of the very basic fear of other people's actions. I'm looking for the deeper reasons for why I'm struggling with voice in this moment when I don't recall too many times that I've struggled with it the past. Of course I want to blog openly. But I am not willing to open my blog again just to close it again when the next threat shows itself. I want a plan for how I’m going to push through that and keep blogging. I’m thinking of the repercussions and whether I’m willing to accept them if it happens. When I think of the possibility of not graduating next year based on some ego tripping person who may become pissed about what I have to say, I get ill. Ill because that means more of this, more of what I’ve already been through. It becomes a “push through now, or stay longer” frame of mind. The myth rests in the idea that this is the worst that can happen – 2009 comes and goes and I’m still here. The truth is that the worst that can happen is that I manage to graduate from this place with a hole in my head and chest where my brain and heart used to be. Bottomless holes for eyes where my soul should be. I am typing this and so I am hearing this in my head…but I do not believe it in my heart…I do not believe that the loss of myself is the worse that can happen…how is that? How did I get to a place where I subconsciously believe (and now that I pulled it out of the deep regresses, consciously) that who I am is not as important as the degree, read: lifestyle, read: money that I’m seeking? This reminds me of that day in physical assessment where I realized I would trade my body for this degree/lifestyle/money. Why is who I am not as important as who my family thinks I am? What kind of warped sense of duty allows for self growth only if it doesn’t interrupt the persona that was created in the span of 18 short years. Does that mean that person I was raised to be, came to be, in a family who clearly loves me is the only person I’m allowed to be from now on? What? Seriously? I cannot believe in myself, my worth, if that’s the case. Who’s asking this of me? And why? All this time I thought the fear was ‘them’ not letting me graduate…maybe that is not the fear.

Maybe the fear is that if I do not graduate from this place at this time, the person who they think I am/thought I was will be replaced by someone else, someone who they begin to isolate... I don’t think that the me who puts her 100,000 education on the line to continue to have a voice- that they ironically made some space for her to have- will be someone they can understand or respect…I think it’s too far out there…I don’t think they understand the knee on neck feeling… I feel like I’m living a dream for 250 people right now. Seriously. It’s really not the strangers who teach me and make up the institution…I don’t give a rats ass about these people here not being able to recognize my talent, my dedication, my potential to contribute to something greater…this would not be the first time in the life of dark skinned, nappy headed black girl…there are other schools…But I do care about what that means for me as a first generation college graduate who has a family full of little people watching…I care about the people who love me and say “my daughter/cousin/sister/neighbor goes to…” and somehow feels like this means that they can too. I care about the dreams that the man gave up, hopefully only temporarily, to pay for this dream of mine and I don’t want to waste the sacrifice of his own life goals. My shoulders feel heavy. But these…gladly accepted obligations…do not sentence me to silence… I am reminded of Audre Lorde. I feel like I am going 10 steps backwards. I thought I had already figured out this silences thing. I know my family loves me. But what do we make of love that strangles or stifles? How can we separate the ways we learned to love…brooding/close to chest for fear of theft, harm or death – ingrained sense of duty to those who raised you – do not falter under the strain because you are strong and there is so much more to come/toughen you up for the world love…from the ways that may be more kind/effective…loving.