My last blog post was two years ago. I tend to avoid writing when I'm trying to figure out my life. As life changes, we are forced to adapt and find ways to adjust to our new circumstances, and figure out what those changes mean for us.
Near the very end of 2016, I separated and divorced my partner of almost 10 years. There aren't any ways that make "why?" either a black/white question, nor one that is owed to any outside party. Since then, I have grown leaps and bounds in my forward movement as an individual, and as a mother and community member. I have spent time defining and refining parts of my personal growth as a bi-ethnic woman of color, and studying how life in the past few years has really brought the invisibilized forces of oppression to the forefront for Black communities, as well as Native communities. Voices have grown, newer generations have began their activism using online platforms, hashtags, and language that both challenges and fits the progressing times. I have spent time learning, catching up, engaging in conversations, engaging in movements, and solidifying my own identity and identities, and have even decided to make forward steps to return to obtain more postgrad education. I am humble, happy, and blessed to be able to see myself, my family, and life for myself and the communities I belong to in a more harmonious and compatible way. And for this, my heart is full. Also, dating is just an indescribable phenomenon where I realize we are constantly dancing with attachment complexities, sexism and misogyny/noir, and oversights of privileges in our desires to love people from different ethnic and national backgrounds...white men displaying so much nationalist pride is a huge trigger when I review my "likes" on any dating platform.
There is still a lot of aching and grieving I sit with everyday. I write my most personal challenges in my hard-copy journal, leaving behind honest musings, questions, and acknowledgements that I hope my children will one day draw understanding and inspiration from. I grieve my former losses of different forms, and also lost my biological grandmother near the end of last year. I have continued my personal therapy and invited to therapy another important person in my life to see what lies ahead. I have continued to battle with how far I practice vulnerability and where I still have wounds to tend to with ease and care. I have delved more into my family history, especially looking to find lost connections, or rather overlooked connections to Native identity within my Black family, and to find more of a understanding of where my Black family was rooted in the US. I have already found connnections back to the 1800s, where Black family was marked as having accounts in the US Freedmen's bank. I want to see how close I can get to finding where my family was brought to this country for enslavement, and if I can confirm family stories of where they were from before that. I have reconnected with biological family from perusing ancestry.com, and even decided after months of not trusting the ethics of DNA testing to take one anyways, acknowledging that I can't control a lot of what I don't know nor what I may find out.
I have improved my self-care. I now fall asleep to meditations using my favorite app, Aaptiv, mostly to the voice of the coach Jade, who has a beautiful and lulling Caribbean accent. Her voice is magic. I also work out a lot more, although less than I would like to, seeking out resources to make gym membership affordable and sustainable for me. I think of ways to both not shame myself for my body size and eating choices and to also make the best choices I can from day to day. I now think a lot more about how capitalism affects my life, anxiety that I feel about financial worries, and how the antidote to that has been understanding how economics works in communities of color, and to see that there is a level of accountability generations are now using to challenge all the free labor (antiracism education People of Color have been providing for free for eons) to better respect the emotional and mental and physical taxation these convos and burdens of proofs have on particularly womxn of color. I've learned how to better love and care for inclusively non-cis/hetero/Christian folks particularly of color, and to build solidarity. I will always be learning and working to apply what I'm receiving as I de-condition what doesn't work for my value system anymore.
Moreover, my original interests are still laying underneath the efforts to live everyday life: that I want to always serve as positive and transparent representation for my ethnic groups, challenge harm and violence towards marginalized folks, be more inclusive, and to make healing music and writings. I exist to lend a voice to the needed swell of womxn of color putting feet down all over this world, and making space for identities to be seen and respected and served and represented, as well as to make folks aware of how offensive appropriation and co-opting of cultures is to those erased and invisibilized and stigmatized.
For where I am this year of turning 34, I cannot complain. I continue to give thanks for the forces that saw fit to put me here, in this time period, to do the work of connecting and educating and living that I am blessed to do. In Anishinaabemowin (the Indigenous language spoken by the three nations living in Michigan), that way of good living, mno-bmaadiziwin, is something I feel makes sense to me and that I am accepting as a part of my lifeways. This involves being good to people and seeing good in people, starting with myself and my children (who by the way, are a great deterrent for men in the dating world who stigmatize single women with children!) and are also steadily growing, reminding me that my time actively mothering dependents is moving forward with our without my ability to be present-minded, which I have also worked hard on. They now age 4-11, with this month being a birthday month for the oldest two. So make that 4-12.
I miss that my Cousin Debbie's encouraging comments won't be under my posts anymore. I recently learned teachings for the Cree round dance, shared with myself and others at a family get-together for Native people connecting in my community. I was taught that this dance is meant to honor those ancestors and family members who have walked on, who have passed before us. I use this new cultural dance to carry in my heart those who have shown me their love and care from both family sets (adoptive/biological) and those I never got to meet after my separation from my biological family and don't remember.
May I keep up with this good livin'.
Moni WP
Near the very end of 2016, I separated and divorced my partner of almost 10 years. There aren't any ways that make "why?" either a black/white question, nor one that is owed to any outside party. Since then, I have grown leaps and bounds in my forward movement as an individual, and as a mother and community member. I have spent time defining and refining parts of my personal growth as a bi-ethnic woman of color, and studying how life in the past few years has really brought the invisibilized forces of oppression to the forefront for Black communities, as well as Native communities. Voices have grown, newer generations have began their activism using online platforms, hashtags, and language that both challenges and fits the progressing times. I have spent time learning, catching up, engaging in conversations, engaging in movements, and solidifying my own identity and identities, and have even decided to make forward steps to return to obtain more postgrad education. I am humble, happy, and blessed to be able to see myself, my family, and life for myself and the communities I belong to in a more harmonious and compatible way. And for this, my heart is full. Also, dating is just an indescribable phenomenon where I realize we are constantly dancing with attachment complexities, sexism and misogyny/noir, and oversights of privileges in our desires to love people from different ethnic and national backgrounds...white men displaying so much nationalist pride is a huge trigger when I review my "likes" on any dating platform.
There is still a lot of aching and grieving I sit with everyday. I write my most personal challenges in my hard-copy journal, leaving behind honest musings, questions, and acknowledgements that I hope my children will one day draw understanding and inspiration from. I grieve my former losses of different forms, and also lost my biological grandmother near the end of last year. I have continued my personal therapy and invited to therapy another important person in my life to see what lies ahead. I have continued to battle with how far I practice vulnerability and where I still have wounds to tend to with ease and care. I have delved more into my family history, especially looking to find lost connections, or rather overlooked connections to Native identity within my Black family, and to find more of a understanding of where my Black family was rooted in the US. I have already found connnections back to the 1800s, where Black family was marked as having accounts in the US Freedmen's bank. I want to see how close I can get to finding where my family was brought to this country for enslavement, and if I can confirm family stories of where they were from before that. I have reconnected with biological family from perusing ancestry.com, and even decided after months of not trusting the ethics of DNA testing to take one anyways, acknowledging that I can't control a lot of what I don't know nor what I may find out.
I have improved my self-care. I now fall asleep to meditations using my favorite app, Aaptiv, mostly to the voice of the coach Jade, who has a beautiful and lulling Caribbean accent. Her voice is magic. I also work out a lot more, although less than I would like to, seeking out resources to make gym membership affordable and sustainable for me. I think of ways to both not shame myself for my body size and eating choices and to also make the best choices I can from day to day. I now think a lot more about how capitalism affects my life, anxiety that I feel about financial worries, and how the antidote to that has been understanding how economics works in communities of color, and to see that there is a level of accountability generations are now using to challenge all the free labor (antiracism education People of Color have been providing for free for eons) to better respect the emotional and mental and physical taxation these convos and burdens of proofs have on particularly womxn of color. I've learned how to better love and care for inclusively non-cis/hetero/Christian folks particularly of color, and to build solidarity. I will always be learning and working to apply what I'm receiving as I de-condition what doesn't work for my value system anymore.
Moreover, my original interests are still laying underneath the efforts to live everyday life: that I want to always serve as positive and transparent representation for my ethnic groups, challenge harm and violence towards marginalized folks, be more inclusive, and to make healing music and writings. I exist to lend a voice to the needed swell of womxn of color putting feet down all over this world, and making space for identities to be seen and respected and served and represented, as well as to make folks aware of how offensive appropriation and co-opting of cultures is to those erased and invisibilized and stigmatized.
For where I am this year of turning 34, I cannot complain. I continue to give thanks for the forces that saw fit to put me here, in this time period, to do the work of connecting and educating and living that I am blessed to do. In Anishinaabemowin (the Indigenous language spoken by the three nations living in Michigan), that way of good living, mno-bmaadiziwin, is something I feel makes sense to me and that I am accepting as a part of my lifeways. This involves being good to people and seeing good in people, starting with myself and my children (who by the way, are a great deterrent for men in the dating world who stigmatize single women with children!) and are also steadily growing, reminding me that my time actively mothering dependents is moving forward with our without my ability to be present-minded, which I have also worked hard on. They now age 4-11, with this month being a birthday month for the oldest two. So make that 4-12.
I miss that my Cousin Debbie's encouraging comments won't be under my posts anymore. I recently learned teachings for the Cree round dance, shared with myself and others at a family get-together for Native people connecting in my community. I was taught that this dance is meant to honor those ancestors and family members who have walked on, who have passed before us. I use this new cultural dance to carry in my heart those who have shown me their love and care from both family sets (adoptive/biological) and those I never got to meet after my separation from my biological family and don't remember.
May I keep up with this good livin'.
Moni WP
this is a beautiful reflection, Sis. Thank you for sharing this. It's impactful & inspiring.
ReplyDeleteTwo years later, I am seeing and appreciating your response. Thank you for reading.
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