Hello, My Old Friend

Years ago, I set aside this blog. I started new blogs. I left those to lie dormant as well. But therapy is still expensive and blogging is still relatively free and so here I am. It doesn’t surprise me that I’m back. I am a bit surprised I returned to this domain, but I guess I shouldn’t be. It feels more like home that the other newer blogs i spent far less time at.

I’m struggling right now. Struggling like so many others. There’s nothing special about my struggle.  I’m struggling to see children separated from their families at the border but i’m struggling just as much if not more with the “families belong together” hashtags. I’m not the only one.

I’m struggling to get out of bed on a daily basis. So this week I didn’t. Monday through Thursday I stayed in bed. I didn’t shower. I didn’t get dressed. I didn’t do one single thing on my to do list. Last night i finally showered. I meant to go to the farmers market before it closed, but couldn’t so decided the shower was enough of a win. Today (friday) i woke at a few minutes past 6 and was surprisingly alert. So i decided i’d ride into the the city with TeacherMan. I had no concrete plan just to be out of bed. Out of the apartment.

And so here i sit. It took me about an hour to send an email, which immediately set me spinning after i hit send. Another hour to create a realistic to do list. I’m in my third hour and not sure anything *on* the to do list will get done. But: baby steps.

I’m on a new med that may or may not be working. More specifically, it seems to give me the energy to get out of bed but combats none of my anxiety. I’ll give it more time, but for now this might be worse. It might be worse to have the energy to accomplish things but debilitating anxiety.

Sometimes It’s Hard

Sometimes it’s hard being a Black* Chick married to a White Guy.  Being a six hour plane ride from my family and only a 45 minute from his makes it harder.  We spend a lot of time with them which only increases the amount of time I spend in soley white spaces.  White, conservative, Christian spaces. It takes a lot of energy to be the right kind of me for that. I always end the evening drained. I don’t say this to play the martyr. I LOVE my sister-in-law even if she was born in the 90s and I have to exclaim “WHY ARE YOU SO YOUNG” way too often when she doesn’t immediately understand my pop culture references.

But sometimes, just sometimes, I wish I had (more) Black friends.

School is a bit more diverse, but there are no other Black social work doctoral students. Chinese, Korean, Japanese, White, Indian (from India), Mexican, Latino American but I’m the only Black. It’s great to be around such diversity the international components and perspectives are great.

But I wish I had (more) Black friends.

I wish I could talk about white privilege without having to qualify it and jump to intersectionality to quell the “but I’m not as privileged as…” comments. I wish I could talk mention racism without having to immediately apologize.

I’m tired of conversations like the one I had yesterday.

“I’m not saying he’s a racist I’m saying what he said was racist.”

“lets say…condescending…or problematic…”

“uhhh it was racist”

“thats not helpful”

I wish I had Black friends.

I want to go see Dear White People. TeacherMan admits he thinks it may make him uncomfortable**. I know how that feels. I don’t want to be the cause of that so I told him I’d go see it alone. This upsets him.

I wish I had Black friends.

*I used to use the term Black-ish, but now thats a tv show. so yeah.

**Not the word he used but I can’t remember the exact word so close enough.

August 13 2001

In August of 2001 I was pregnant. My sister was out of town leaving her car with me. The morning of the 13th started out pretty unremarkable. I stopped and checked my sister’s mail the headed to the clinic for my check up.

After waiting for the typical forever a nurse took my vitals and showed me to an exam room where I waited to be seen by a random OBGYN. I never saw the same doctor, but it didn’t really matter since they all treated me with the same indifference. Ah the joys of a military hospital.

The doc du jour did a quick exam and left the room speaking only a handful of words if any at all. I took that as my cue to leave.

As I walked away from the clinic the nurse who’d taken my vitals stopped me. Apparently the doctor wanted me to go to report to Labor & Delivery.

Once again the staff barely spoke to me. I had no idea why I was there. They connected me to some machines and drew the curtain around my bed.

On the other side of the curtain was another pregnant 18 year old. Only she was married to a soldier while I was the unmarried daughter of one. Perhaps this is why the staff actually explained their procedures to her, answered her questions, and generally treated her like a human being.

I called my father at some point and he came down for awhile. We were told nothing would be happening for awhile so he went home.

I tried to call the parents I’d chosen for my son but couldn’t from the hospital so I had my mom call from home. (Looking back I’d hashtag this as: Holy no cell phone inconvenience batman)

I also called my boyfriend to let him know where I was.

They hooked me up to pitocin and stripped my membranes (broke my water) at least twice. Sometime after 11 that night more phone calls were made to assemble the troops. It was time to start pushing.

And that is how I ended August 13, 2001. Alone behind a curtain scared, in pain, and waiting for my people to join me…