Once More, With Feeling!
Cogito, Ergo Sum.
Cogito.
I haven’t written here in a long time. In all honesty, I don’t think I needed to. Well, correction, I think I needed not to. I needed to live. To fail. To fly. At least enough to know what parts were me and what parts were far from it; I needed to root out the influence from my effluence. Having done so, having taken the time to irrevocably uproot my life for the sake of triumph, I have found a few great truths. The power, wonder, strength, and awe of the love and fear of Yahweh. The power, wonder, strength, and awe in true love. The fear of wasted mortality. And the fact that no matter what I do, no matter how fixed I become or how distant I am from my “faulty programming,” I still — even now — feel. And a great deal I might add.
See, there is nothing in my life quite like the asks placed upon the Black subject. Things, of course, are asked of me as a man. As a partner. As a son, a brother, a friend. But there is nothing, I repeat nothing, like what people ask of me as a Black man.
Ergo.
Behind closed doors, I’m asked to feel all the time. As a friend, I am asked to feel things out. Give insight or advice; even to encourage or rebuke that which I’m allowed space to speak into. As a son — as a brother — to feel for. To love so much that I’d stand in the gap. To feel for my brother so much I’d lift his arms, that he might have his faith rewarded in seeing the Amalekites fall. As a partner, to feel with. To have and to hold forever. To endure together, intertwined. As a man, to feel through. To find the healthy end behind the sting of emotion. To have the courage to learn from mistakes rather than to shrink. For how can a man with acrophobia reach his zenith?
Yet, as a Black man, I am asked to feel nothing. Well, correction, I am asked not to feel at all. My feelings, the very essence of my human experience, are treated like ghosts and specters in the noonday sun. They don’t call you crazy for having ghosts. They call you crazy for talking about them. My anger is too dangerous. My pain too overplayed. If I feel upset I’m a trigger. If I feel happy I’m untrustworthy. If I feel love I’m a threat. If I feel peace, “he must be up to something.” I’m scrutinized by every glance, but when I speak about what’s happening to me I’m asked to pipe down. To not make a scene. To repent. In the eyes of others, my vulnerability is quite cantankerous. Inherently so.
I used to ask what the harm was in sharing. In explaining the near-death experiences quotidian in the life of the Black subject. Now, I ask the opposite. What’s the harm in hiding? How can one lose themselves in hiding when their sharing is so casually condemned? Perhaps freedom lies hidden for those with a complexion that disallows communication. For trauma can only be shared with the existence of a common enemy and joy can only be shared with the existence of a common vulnerability. What then for those groups whose enemies and vulnerabilities remain untethered?
I’m days away from marrying the woman of my dreams. A White woman with a White family. Yet a woman who is vulnerable with me — who I share in vulnerability with. A woman with whom I share enemies, the same pesky principalities and powers die by her sword. Weeks after having my boss, a White woman with a White family, tell me I was inherently triggering. Months after having my mother, a Black woman with a Black family, tell me how much her life would’ve been what she imagined if I hadn’t existed. Months after becoming the Black History lead for the most prominent history museum in my city. Communicating as a Black man with Black families. Communicating as a Black man with White families. Having folks tell me I’m doing too much right before others explain that I’m doing too little. Years after having my Asian friend, an Asian man with an Asian family, vandalize my things, commit acts of hate against me, and frame someone else for all of it. How then should I feel? How would you?
Sum.
I try to end these with hope. But right now it’s hard. Hard to connect. Hard to connect enough to inspire hope. See, behind the clever genius persona: right now life feels like running a knife over a stab wound. And I’m scarred. I love my fiancée. I love my life. But I am scarred. Scarred from feeling.
