It always makes me feel down when I look so low and sorrowful that a stranger feels obligated to cheer me up. But why was I pouting? I knew, but I confused by it all. See, every time school starts, I fool myself into thinking that I am fixed; I fool myself into thinking that I am in no need of anymore repair, but then something happens to bring my back to reality.
And this year, my reality is that I don't truly know where I am in terms of defining who I am.
This revelation has brought to my attention that I have come a LOOOONNNGGG way from where I was my freshman year. I have been at Howard for almost four years and I feel like I know this place like the back of my hand. I feel like I know the culture like the back of my hand; you have the afrocentrics who walk around campus with locks and nose rings, a lot of whom look down on other students, you have the fashionistas that walk campus with their long weaves and runway outfits like everyday is a black tie affair, you have the athletes who always seem to be wearing shirts that tell you that they play for some kind of Howard sports team, you have the business savvy students that are always dressed up like they are going to some kind of board meeting and there are many more kinds of people than I can describe or count, but my freshman year I knew where I fit in and where I didn't. And even though a part of me was hurt by that, a bigger part of me was ok with it.
Now here I am at age 20. I feel like I'm wandering between two worlds: one in which I am trying to hang on to what I once was and one where I am determining if I am ok with who I am now. I have also been trying to decide if whether or not me being where I am now is a good or bad thing. Yet, I seem to forget that I am a three dimensional person and there is no one word to describe me, just like there is no one word to describe the beauty in this picture. This girl looks to be creative, classy, sexy, smart and she seems to not care what anyone else is doing. I remember seeing this picture in a group of pictures from a Jean-Michel Basquit photoshoot. And when going back and forth on which picture I should use for this post I looked through my collection and was a bit surprised, but humored that my past self loved this picture enough to save in on my computer. Lol
With this, can't I be like that? Can't I be classy, sexy, smart and not care what anyone else thinks at the same time? Can I do all of that, twerk, drink and still be a civil rights activist that goes crazy over learning something new in Black history?
First of all, I need to pose the question as to why I have to ascribe to anyone's esthetic of what a militant, afrocentric, intelligent woman looks like? I can't look like Angela Davis, Kathleen Cleaver and Elaine Brown...I can only look like Me! Yeah, I may wear my hair like them sometimes, but what about the times where I have a weave, or box braids, or a crop top and leggings? Does that make me less of a revolutionary? Why?! I have my own style! I have my own ways of having fun when I'm not on my nerd-flow! I like going to parties every once in a while and I may or may not drink here and there, but I also like going to the library just to read old newspapers and to look at old pictures of the Bison that have come before me, I like to go to museums on weekends and stare at the same old beautiful lace handkerchief that Harriet Tubman wore, I like to sit at my computer for hours and write novels about times I wasn't a live to see, I like to read nonfiction books about historical people and events.
I am growing up so much and so fast that I can't keep up with myself sometimes. There are so many things that I used to tolerate that I can't stand now-a-days and at the same time, there are so many things that I have opened my mind to. Man, this growing up stuff is a trip and I am at the center of it all.
Each morning, I look in the mirror and see a beautiful stranger, someone that I had inexplicably dreamt I would be. I mean, I don't have my dream job yet, that dream husband, and that dream lifestyle I used to find myself daydreaming about in middle school, but I am in essence well on my way. It's funny, when I was a kid I used to think that when you became an adult, you would be this completely different person that had no memory of the desires and wants I did at that time so I prayed that I would be the same person, that I would be nice and that I would remember who I was if I did change. Yet I dreamt I would become this girl that was actually beautiful, talented, in-charge, confident, and a head-turner. Here I am young Blackness!!! I ain't where I need to be, but Lord I ain't where I used to be!
So this question I ask myself everyday, what is defining Blackness? I guess it's just me figuring out who I am on my own terms, so not as a sex object for men, not as one of those girls that do what they can to fit in with other girls, but as Blackness doing shit on her own terms! I'm a work in progress, but the key to it all is to see that I am progressing!
