Max
“How are you?” is starting to feel hostile. My neighbor attacked me with it the other day and I got so frazzled that I just said “I. . . am!” and kept walking. Mama, what kind of question is that anymore? Do I look like I’m thriving or something? We went through this yesterday and I was wearing these same clothes.
The day we learned about the KKK in school I asked my mom why I was born because, and I quote, “Who brings a baby into a world with the KKK in it?” I was so angry that I slammed my bedroom door and then quickly opened it and yelled, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to!” as slamming doors is for the predominately white.
For weeks I had nightmares about burning crosses and Confederate flags and men in hoods showing up at my house, terrorizing my family, and lynching us in the front yard one by one as all our neighbors watched. I’d wake up in a cold sweat and peek down at the bottom bunk to make sure my sister was still there, sleeping soundly. I never told anyone about them because it’s not the type of thing you bring up in the cafeteria or at the dinner table given the uniquely darque subject matter, but I did side-eye my neighbors a lot after that. All this anxiety from a McGraw-Hill social studies textbook and PBS classroom video, can you imagine?
Watching the Capitol riots was quite triggering. It gave me the third act of Gremlins when they jump in the pool, multiply, and take over the town. Those elementary school nightmares came back for a bit, with some tweaks — no white hoods, but the flags were the same; we weren’t sleeping in bunk beds, but I still searched for my sister. It’s tough shit to wake up from, to wake up to. And even though a bloated orange part of our collective nightmare may now be over, white supremacy remains undefeated with a 500-year lead, so!
How “am” I? Well, I am no longer merely holding up or hanging in there. It’s something entirely different now, a restlessness settling in my bones. I am taking my moods by the hour even though I am not sure what day it is. I am anxious. I am afraid I am becoming mediocre. I am enjoying one of those Taylor Swift cabin albums; I get the titles mixed up but it’s the second one, and I pretend she’s still singing about Jake Gyllenhaal (is she?).
At any given moment I am either not okay and trying to be or mostly okay and feeling guilty about it. When I am mostly okay I am also pretty terrible? I am not on board with the Sex and the City reboot but will absolutely be watching it. I am doing my best to harness hope and get to the bottom of why it’s so hard for me to be easy.
Whenever somebody asks me If I Want Kids, I think about that day I accosted my mom and consider explaining my KKK-induced night terrors. Then I remember that they’re probably looking for a quick yes or no and not in the mood to discuss medical racism or the preschool to prison pipeline or if confidently deciding to have children is, like slamming doors, for white people.
Instead, I say I’m still thinking about it.
How “are” you?
Currently keeping me afloat:
Samantha Hunt’s NYT opinion piece on teenage girls and Kamala’s historic win, especially this line:
“I know how to love something that is imperfect. I love teenage girls, and I love America, but I’m done with the word ‘patriot.’ It’s time for America to make room for her matriots, a word my spell-checker tells me doesn’t even exist. We tell schoolchildren that our flag was made by a woman, a matriot. While I’m not there yet, I’m trying to look at it and imagine a motherland.”
Every word of Jazmine Sullivan’s Heaux Tales.
The second season of Drag Race UK — I’m a heaux for Asttina, Tayce, and Ellie Diamond.
Doing hot girl shit on the Marco Polo app. Shoutout to ~*mAh MP giRLieS*~ Candace, Laura M., and Ashley K.!
It's the "All this anxiety from a McGraw-Hill social studies textbook and PBS classroom video " for me!