Good Intentions With Negative Impacts

Hello friends, fam, and all around lovely humans. Happy Black History Month! As an artist I would like to pay tribute to the amazing contributions from Black artists that have influenced me as a person. I will end each of my posts this month with works from Black artists that I’ve been impacted by and think you should check out as well. I hope you will enjoy them and please reach out to me if you have any of your own suggestions for things I should check out.

Speaking of amazing artists there is something that I would like to talk about that was ignited by the halftime show- our need to comment on other peoples bodies. This thought first started to linger in my head as headlines scattered across my screen following the Super Bowl half time show. I’ll be honest, I didn’t watch the Super Bowl and I only watched the half time show after it was posted all over my feeds. I don’t really care about it unless the Packers are playing, so sue me. (GO PACK GO.) After watching the half-time show I remember thinking what’s the big deal? Why are people so concerned about these people? What is it about skin that freaks people out? Is it the fact that it is brown skin? Is it the fact that it’s the skin of people with vaginas? Is it because it’s “old” skin that “looks young”? Their art, and it was beautiful art, was clouded with judgements about their appearance. It just didn’t sit well with me.

I didn’t realize how much it didn’t sit well with me, until today. I was out for my daily run and a person insisted on yelling loud enough for me to hear over my loud AF headphones: “It’s okay honey, thick is good. THICK IS GOOD.” I think their intentions were kind. I think they didn’t want me to think I had to run. BUT, and pardon my language here, F**K YOUR INTENTIONS. As I continued my run, I thought about how they don’t know me or my body. It didn’t make me feel good, it made me feel violated. My body is not for anyone else and I don’t want advice or comments or anything else about it. That shouldn’t matter if I am famous or poor or rich or naked in the middle of the street.

I spoke to my friend about it who said, “it’s good it was you, a person that feels confident in themselves [most days]. Imagine it was someone else, who’s whole day or progress could’ve been brought down by that.” My day isn’t ruined and in fact I love being thick. Heck, my insta bio specifically says I’m a ‘thicc NYC babe always’. I just think about the lack of disregard for what people are experiencing and how we shouldn’t be assuming anything about people. Shakira and Jennifer Lopez may have their lives documented in the public light all the time, but we don’t know anything about them. Just because they are famous, doesn’t mean we have the right to say things about their bodies. They, as much as we forget sometimes, are humans. We are all just humans.

As humans I want to urge us to move forward with more intention. When the intentions are good and the impacts are negative we must be able to sit with that and work to remedy it. We must also being willing to speak up about those negative impacts. When they yelled this to me, I smiled and moved along, not wanting to make waves. I always fear making waves, believing that they will swallow me whole, rather than believing I can ride them. I want to be better about speaking up and telling people when I’ve been hurt by their words or actions. I want the people around me to do the same.

In fact, some of my favorite moments in my work is when people tell me how I might have misspoke or misinterpreted or misjudged. I don’t love messing up, the Type A in me actually hates it, but I do love it because of the powerhouse sitting in front of me. No, I don’t mean the mitochondria, that’s the powerhouse of the cell. I mean people acknowledging that they want better. They are recognizing their worth and their need to be respected in the way they want to be respected. That energy when I see someone speak up is power. They are power; you are power; I am power. I am channeling that power moving forward.

I actually felt some of that power this week when I had a lovely conversation with an acquaintance from high school. She reached out to me via FB to discuss some of the feelings she was having about the halftime show. She was honest and brave and we had a beautiful dialogue about what it means to be a person in this society and how that gets interpreted and what that means for others. I bring this up because it is moments like this that I am speaking about when it comes to being powerful. You don’t have to be famous to make an impact. There is power in talking, texting, putting words out there, even when it seems scary or overwhelming. Every time you tell someone what you are thinking, feeling, needing, wanting, scared of, excited for, worried about- the world is a safer and kinder place to be.

Be brave. Be honest.

A[wo]men

“Love heals. Heals and liberates. I use the word love, not meaning sentimentality, but a condition so strong that it may be that which holds the stars in their heavenly positions and that which causes the blood to flow orderly in our veins.”

-Maya Angelou, Mom & Me & Mom

Published in 2013, this book explores Maya Angelou’s relationship with her mother. It is raw and beautiful and made me bawl on an airplane in 2016 when I first read it. Maya Angelou was a human of many talents and her art is something that will always make me feel so many things. I highly recommend Mom & Me & Mom but in all honesty just get anything done by her and you will feel things you didn’t know you needed to feel.

An all or nothin’ gal

“I know there is love that doesn’t have to do with taking something from somebody”  is currently singing softly into my ears as I contemplate what I should write about. (Thanks, sis, for the recommendation; Francis Quinlan- Rare Things.) What happened this week? What is relatable and helpful for people to know? Should I write about my distaste for PSL’s (pumpkin spice latte’s) as a person that identifies as basic (as my one friend urged me to do)? Do people perhaps want to hear about my recent dates? Maybe they would like to know about my most delicious meals from the week? Or how I almost impulsively bought a cat? Which I am glad I did not because I found out my roommate is allergic. Or would it be more interesting to write about my month long of visitors?

I think I will start right here. Right here in this coffee shop on the verge of tears. As I sit in my feelings I will say today I feel down. I was riding a 4 week high only to crash into one of my lows. 4 weeks is the longest I can remember feeling content. I’ve never gone 4 weeks feeling stable in any feeling really. An accomplishment, to say the least. Yet, on Monday when I woke up feeling like maybe getting out of bed was too much work; and perhaps brushing my teeth would cause physical pain; and probably washing my face was too much to ask for.. I was taken aback. A bit of a shock to the system really.

My therapists words echoed in my head “this is just a story you keep telling yourself. You have to pull yourself out and keep fighting.” Okay, I thought, I will keep fighting. I pulled myself out of bed. I ate breakfast and showered as each step felt heavier and heavier. I went to work and listened to other’s sad stories and absorbed more sadness. I cried on my lunch break. As I wiped the tears away I took a deep breathe before entering the building and said ‘keep fighting, Sarah.’

That night I tried to reason with my emotions. Perhaps you could leave now and, hey, why today? Then I decided to take a step back and look at what happened within the last 4 weeks: I ended therapy because I was doing well. My parents came to visit, then my friend, Kitty, came to visit and then my old roommates came to visit. I started dating again. I texted my ex. I drank alcohol. *Not in that order. I didn’t exercise. I ran out of probiotics. I ate amazing food. I spent a copious amount of money. I wrote an amazing blog post about my sister. I worked. I had my first Saturday off in a long time.

BTW, I know what you’re thinking… ‘She skipped right over that whole ex text pretty quickly. Blame the alcohol and the ex text, for sure.’ Fair thought and def. not my finest moment, I admit. However, I don’t believe that was the catalyst for my low. I think about my experience with him often and have messaged him before even while I felt happy. I’ve come to terms with the fact that moving on from that experience is just going to take time.

What was the trigger then? I skimmed through every conversation I could remember and every scenario that I thought potentially brought on these feelings. It was a lot of processing.  Then, to add some humor to it all, as I am feeling this way (with my whole shtick being honesty and bravery mind you) I post a picture to instagram sharing how much love I felt and how happy I was. The caption reads “My heart is so full I’m at a loss for words” and even as I was posting it I thought ‘this is everything I hate about social media. Why am I lying?’ If I were being honest the caption would read “I can’t think of anything to write because I feel extremely sad and I don’t know why, but here are some hella cute pics.” They truly are hella cute pics.

Then it hit me. Between all the laughter and happiness over the last four weeks, there were other emotions that I was pushing aside. I was clinging onto this idea that I was “cured from feeling sadness” even though I know that isn’t how it works. It was as though my therapist saying I don’t have to come in weekly anymore translated to ‘you’ll never be sad again’. I know from my training that all emotions are valid and normal, yet as soon as I got a glimpse of happiness it’s all I wanted to feel. Every moment I thought I was even feeling anything other than sadness I distracted it. I wrapped myself up in happy activities to push away anything else I could feel. Then, when I woke up feeling sad I immediately went down he rabbit hole of ‘this was all I was ever meant to feel’. Again, logically, I know this isn’t how emotions work. We are not all or nothing creatures, even though my type A personality wants it to be that way. I’m an all or nothing girl in a not so all or nothing world. I think it’s because it makes it easier to keep track of in my head. I know how to handle one emotion at a time. When I start to mix them all together I break down. CANNOT COMPUTE. SYSTEM OVERLOAD.

Yesterday, when I was still feeling down and trying not to fall into this boxed thinking, I thought back on my feelings of happiness and on my previous bouts of depression. Currently, I don’t feel suicidal. I feel tired and even that isn’t debilitating. In fact, the more I think about it the more I realize my sadness is actually warranted. In the past there wouldn’t always be a reason for feeling low, sometimes it just was what it was. This time around I was feeling triggered by different events. I was feeling depleted of energy because I pushed myself as a hostess for four weeks. I didn’t take any personal time to recharge between visitors. Now, as I am writing I am also realizing that although I feel sad, it doesn’t mean that I can’t also feel happy. Heck, I can feel sadness while I am happy, anger while I am sad, happiness while I am angry and so on and so on. Again, my type A personality would beg to differ, but she’s going to have to get used to the flexibility.

On Sunday, when I could feel my energy depleting, I decided that I needed to do more tasks that help me feel grounded when my emotions started to feel overwhelming. So, I started reading again, something I stopped when I moved to Alaska. Even in these last few days, it’s brought back this new power in me, where I can feel like I am learning again. #imissschool I forgot how much I missed reading and how much it encourages me to keep writing. How words, when strung together just right, can send a surge of energy through me when I didn’t know I needed it. Even sometimes my own words heal me in a way I didn’t think was possible.

I started this post feeling stuck in my emotions, I even considered skipping it for the week- I am glad I didn’t. As I wrote and unpacked it all, I am feeling lighter and as though life is just a little bit easier. Our emotions are part of being human. If you are feeling stuck in your emotions today, know you are not alone. It may be helpful to write it down or draw it out or even say it out-loud. Say I am human and my emotions are just a part of the ride in a way that feels like a release to you. We all go through it and how powerful is it to know that?

A[wo]men

---

no words can make you heal

but

touching a pencil to paper

or

the grace of a hand on a keyboard

or

the sound of a booming voice

or

the rhythm of a body matching gentle sounds

having your works etched into the universe

that is where you find healing

-the power of your art