How I Say Goodbye

1985 I am seven years old and obsessed with Prince. I daydreamed about marrying him, Freddie Mercury, Darcel Wynne and moving us all to a castle to live together, raise kids and animals a la Josephine Baker and live happily ever after. Raspberry Beret made me dance and all I wanted for Christmas was a real raspberry beret.

Prince was, to my mind everything boygirl beautiful, glamorous and part of the image of the person I wanted to be when I grew up.

Christmas came and inside one box it was there. A bright Fuschia raspberry beret.

I found out later, that no, in fact, you could not find a raspberry beret in a second hand store at the time but there it was. I remember the label said Liz Claiborn and when I put it on my head, I felt like the most glamorous sophisticated wonderful girlboygirl, everything was okay.

Recently I wrote about my genders, see it here. As I was working on that memories revolving around Prince were in my head. Including the raspberry beret.

After a week of frequent wear, I developed a terrible rash across my forehead. I have always been a human with particularly persnickety skin, random things give me hives, I’ve always been prone to rashy discomfort on one level or another, but that time, the reality of my newly realized allergy to wool brought heartbreak.

Prince has figured in my life at so many moments of discomfort, prurient joy and everything in between. Prince was there when I danced alone in my room as sexy as I could in my underwear. Prince was there when I illicitly dyed my hair the first time, when I figured out what masturbation was, when I wanted to feel both masculine and pretty-he was there.

Prince has been in my ear for so long, I know even though he’s not here, he’s here.

Goodbye my Mother.

My Father.

My sister.

My lover.

I’ll see you when I come home.

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I wrote this last night while at my dayjob. I sat at my desk doing my duties with tears in my eyes all day. I went from inert with brokenness to active and sad.

All night I had snippets of songs in my head, they dragged memory with them. Stripping for under the table cash at a lesbian’s birthday party, laying face down on the floor of my first official apartment sobbing because I wasn’t sure how to break up with someone, being in middle school and watching the high school dance team practice and dreaming of doing it too. The memories are running sweet, bitter and hilarious through my mind.

Hilarious, dancing around my apartment in my underwear only to realize I had an audience of firemen who applauded when I was done.

Today I am still sad, but I’m thankful.

I had Prince’s voice in my ear for so long. Through so much. I was envious of Prince as a kid, in love with Prince, inspired by Prince, I wanted to be Prince.

I was Prince for Halloween a few times and felt like the most beautiful, magical creature on the planet.

Today, I’m thinking about this legacy of beauty, magic and wonder Prince has left behind. Black kids like me who were weird pretty much from birth, we had Prince. Prince showed me a part of Blackness that until this very moment is so deeply important to me.

Today I don’t want to cry.

I want to remember what I learned from the Purple One.

I will say goodbye to one of the people who helped me become the person I am by holding on to my truth and my identity regardless of what other people say or do.

Thank you Prince for everything.