raised to break

Loleda raised me to break.

During one of the many lectures I was given, someone remarked that my grandmother, Loleda, was able to "do" as a single mother with 3 children until she met my grandfather. Even after partnering with him, she was able to still do so much on her own. I told them that I wasn't her.

"Clearly" they said.

That was their way of saying that I was weak, broken and unfocused. They always had a way of making me feel completely incompetent.

I looked back on who I am, how I was raised, and wondered how I could turn out so weak. It wasn't until another woman, a lover, pointed out that I'm more like my Grandmother than I thought. "You measure up," she said.

But measure how? Certainly not with the same ruling stick that knights "Strong Black Women" with the ability to never completely break. I've cracked at my core a few times, that stick wouldn't come near me.

I realize that my grandmother raised me to cry the tears that she withheld. I've seen her cry three times at most, she's seen me wash away days with my tears. Whenever I was having an emotional episode she barely told me to stop or to get myself together, she let me go through it. Just watching, comforting, being the one thing that my tears wouldn't swell up and float away. It was cathartic for her too. Not that she enjoyed my crying and carrying on, but she created a space for something that she hadn't seen herself. She let me cry out in the ways that she hadn't been allowed to cry outwardly…