No Country for a Black Woman [Intro]

I have never really felt like I was from the places I’ve lived in. When I lived in Trinidad, I was a Nigerian-born baby. When I moved to Minnesota, I was a Trinidadian kid with a Caribbean accent. When I moved to Scotland, I was American, and when I moved back to Minnesota, I was a 17 year old black kid with a Scottish accent. Now, years later, I find myself in New York City, from Minnesota, Scottish accent long gone (I know, so sad). The point is, I’ve never felt like I really belonged anywhere.
While it has been an interesting journey, it has also been very difficult to navigate. The idea of home has always been important to me because it feels safe, grounding, and stable, and I guess I’m tired of feeling like a plastic bag blowing in the wind (cue Katy Perry’s “Firework”).
That is why when I moved to NYC, one of my main goals was putting down roots in one of the most exciting cities in the world. However, almost a year and a half in, I have come to realize that I never truly understood what “home” means to me. I’ve come to realize that it’s not about a physical space or even a family or community.
For me, home is myself. Finding and building a home is about looking inward and exploring every inch. It is about unlocking doors and clearing out the things that scare me. It is about spending more time in the rooms that bring me joy and comfort, and throwing out the clutter that doesn’t.
So now, I’ve chosen to unlock one of those doors and let out one of my biggest fears- writing. While I moved to New York to tell stories, I’m actually terrified of writing my own. More specifically, I’m scared of putting my stories and voice out there for internet strangers to hear and judge. However, I have realized (with the help of a really great friend of mine) that that is bullshit. While the internet is scary, being crippled by my fear is scarier. That being said, this is the first installment of a series of posts about me facing my fears (as a woman of color, I have plenty) and then telling the world about it. The series is about me airing out those locked rooms, opening the windows, and shining some light into them. That way, I can really start to build a home that I can be proud of. We’ll see how it goes.
Stay tuned for more articles about me putting myself out there as a black woman in NYC every week on Medium.
