“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.”
~ Khalil Gibran, The Prophet
Humans are wired for story. It’s our way of making sense of the world. We identify patterns, try to articulate a theory that explains what we see, and then we proceed to tuck in all the loose ends that don’t quite fit the narrative. Every so often, the loose ends unravel and stand at attention. In these moments, we can choose to stuff them back in or we can pull at the threads and lay it all bare to see if we can find a new truth.
In my twenties, I fastidiously tucked in the loose ends and cursed myself for living in such a way that allowed the untidiness to exist in the first place. I hated being rattled. I wanted certainty and certainty did not grow out of chaotic curiosity. But by my twenty-ninth birthday, I had taken so many steps off the beaten path that I could not maintain my level of self-control anymore. Trying to navigate the new terrain of my existence was taking all of my energy, so I had no strength left to police the narrative, the image of myself that I had constructed. As a result, the picture started to unravel and for some time now, I’ve been sitting amidst the tattered edges and moth-eaten fabric, aware that I can no longer cloak myself in this identity, but not quite ready to say goodbye to what was and what had been for so long.
The story I tell myself about myself is a tale of unworthiness. Since I was a child, I have always felt that there was something inherently debase in me that rendered me incapable of receiving love. I looked around at other children and saw that to someone, they were a gift, something to be treasured. In my house, I saw myself (and my siblings) to be a burden, a scab, a plague of some sorts. When my younger sister was born, I thought why would you bring another one of us into the world? We are the descendants of Ham. Don’t aggravate the problem by birthing another one of us.
When I had the realization that we were children of the damned, I tried to accept that lot in life. This is who you are and there is nothing you can do about it. Be grateful to be alive at all. But I wasn’t. I always felt like I could change my destiny. I felt I deserved better.
“Wasn’t supposed to get introduced to that. I don’t deserve to get used to that.”
~ Lupe Fiasco, “He Say, She Say”
I tried to figure out how I could trade in my cards for a new hand. Find a better home. Find love. That quest made me very critical of myself. I felt that my siblings and I had inherited a dark cloud over our heads, but beyond that, it also seemed as if there was something particular about me that made me unsuited for the type of kindness and affection I so desired. I thought it was my personality. I was too much; I exhausted those around me. I tried very hard to decrease, take up less space, be more acceptable, but there was always something about me that would not be stuffed down so easily. I’m loud. I talk really fast. I get really excited about things. I have a tremendous amount of energy that is always on the verge of bursting out and I hate it. I wanted to be like the more demure girls around me because maybe then, someone would care about my life and try to save it.
“and you tried to change didn’t you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer
prettier
less volatile, less awake”
~ Warsan Shire, “For Women Who are Difficult to Love”
But no one ever came for me. Time went on, I got older, and a way out revealed itself to me. In middle school, a teacher assigned a project on college and I had one take away: Wait a minute, you’re telling me if I make good grades and do well on these tests, I can get out of here? Got it. Thus, the hustle was born. I did not rest for four years. And it worked out. I left Memphis when I was eighteen and I have not gone back to live for any extended period of time since.
I used to spend a lot of time thinking about the way I got out. I would read books and watch stories about people who were rescued. This teacher, that aunt, those adults saw a person in need and saved that child. What did it say about me that I saved myself?
Privilege is a hot-button term these days. People are all up in arms about advantages conferred to others by virtue of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or socio-economic status. As a poor black woman from the South, I have never been too upset about any of those types of privileges. For me, the most egregious privilege of all is what I refer to as the privilege of the chosen. It applies to those of us who were born into homes that made them feel valued and special simply because they were born.
I devalue the affection I receive as an adult because I see it as a result of my efforts, not my inherent value. I am admired, but not loved. Admiration favors the talented. As long as I am doing something: getting degrees, being interesting or brave, I can always be admired. But love, love, I felt, eluded me. I would look at my peers and wonder what it felt like to be loved unconditionally. There seemed to be so much freedom in love: freedom to be mediocre or even unkind and cruel. I saw myself as a machine, trying my best to present a version of myself that was acceptable to those around me in exchange for the smallest affection whereas others who were adored from the cradle were free to be lazy and entitled, secure in a love that they feel they deserve simply because they have always had it.
This sense of unworthiness was always rearing itself like an iron wall between me and the world. I felt unseen by my friends. They didn’t know what it was like to feel this alone, this unwanted, this unworthy. It was driving me mad. Du Bois’s double consciousness theory was alive in all my social interactions. There was this surface version of me that seemed to be thriving, but on the inside, there was that broken child, awake in the darkness, just praying for daylight. Sometimes, in anguish, I call my little sister and recite snippets of Nzotake Shange when my own words fail to capture the pain I felt.
“Dark phrases of womanhood
of never havin been a girl
half-notes scattered
without rhythm / no tune
distraught laughter fallin
over a black girl’s shoulders
it’s funny / it’s hysterical
the melody-less-ness of her dance
don’t tell nobody don’t tell a soul
she’s dancing on beer cans and shingles”
~ Ntozake Shange, “For Colored Girls who Considered Suicide When the Rainbow was Enuf”
The year I returned to Boston after Guatemala, was a turbulent time for my relationship with my best friend. We were both battling personal demons and those individual struggles came into conflict with each other repeatedly. When we argued, my narrative of unworthiness often rose to the surface and she would always push back on it, paraphrasing Eckhart Tolle. “Andrea, that’s your ego. You’re identifying with your pain-body and that’s not who you are. Those are just experiences.” I was flabbergasted by her criticism. How could I be identifying with my pain? Who would ever do that?
If she had been anyone else, I would have written her off in a myriad of ways. I will probably never practice law, but there is a reason I went to law school. I have been known to argue my point to the death. But this was different. My friend is the only person I trust not to lie to me. People lie all the time and not necessarily because they intend to deceive anyone besides themselves. It’s just that some truths are to unbearable to face. But experience has shown me that my friend is always willing to shoulder the burden of truth. I trusted that she was not lying to me in this moment just for the sake of her own comfort. Therefore, her commentary was worth investigating. And so began the slow unraveling of this narrative that was my life’s work.
Fast forward and unpause the reel to one day this past summer when I was sitting in my car outside of the townhouse where I was subletting a room. I hated the place where I was staying and so, I would come home from work, park on the street, and then recline my seat and just sit there for hours, watching the sky grow darker and darker with only the street lights to accompany me.
One of these evenings, early in the night when the sun was still suspended above, I sat in the silence, almost as if I were waiting for someone to speak. And then I spoke: “Andrea. You’re going to have to let this go.” I do not think at that time, I could say what “this” referred to. Well, at the very least I could not articulate it. But on some level, I knew what that meant and so I said okay. But I wasn’t sure about what that would entail and how long it would take. A few months later, in October, I was living in a nicer sublet, so the self-talks had moved indoors. I was sitting on the couch and I asked myself, “What would it take it let it go? What would be lost if I let it go?” I now understood that the thing I was referring to was this narrative of unworthiness. What did I stand to lose by releasing that narrative?
The answer is myself. In a superficial sense, I would lose myself and all that I had come to value. One side of this painful narrative is a story about a girl who feels unloved and unwanted and had to save herself. The other side of that same coin is a story about a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need anybody because she is self-sufficient, resourceful, and supremely competent. And here we find the problem. I was trying to preserve one side of the coin, but the heads and tails of it are inextricably linked. I can’t have one without the other. If I dispense with the narrative that I am unloved, then I also have to own the fact that I’m not as independent as I want to believe. I have a lot of help.
I could not do it. I could not forsake the Superwoman narrative. I could not humble myself for the sake of my sanity. My friend was right. My ego had me bound, but I could not bring myself to chop away at it considering all that it has done for me. Where would I be if I hadn’t had the ego to say hey, “I don’t want this life that is being handed to me. I think I could do better, so I’m going to try for better”? I would never have gone to Harvard or ended up here in California, trying to chase this Hail Mary dream. The only way people from disenfranchised populations ever rise up is through the ego: a belief that you deserve better than what the world says you are worth. My ego had done me a great service and I could not betray it.
Enter God’s tough love. He has delivered the swift kicks to my ego that I had not the strength to administer.
My life for the past two years has been consistently knocking the stuffing out of me and my ego has been going out the door along with it. I have fallen on my behind an obscene number of times in the last eighteen months. For awhile, I was rolling with the punches. Jumping right back up after I got my second wind. But then, I got tired. And now, I’m just sitting quietly. I’m not unconscious. I’m just sitting calmly. And this close to the ground, looking up, I have a fresh perspective on life.
From this point of view, my world looks less harsh. Grace abounds. And it is a wonder to behold, but terrifying to feel. In the presence of grace, I feel weak.
In my twenties, I felt invincible, strong, confident, unflappable. These days though, I am a child once more, so aware of my own fragility. It’s scary and also, heartbreakingly beautiful.
I have been the recipient of an enormous amount of kindness. The only way I have been allowed to exist in Los Angeles since I arrived Labor Day weekend of 2017 is on the kindness of others: family, friends, and strangers alike. People show up for me in magnificent ways and it’s not because, as I used to tell myself, I am so accomplished or so hardworking. That is not the case. I have been doing the most ridiculous things before and since I arrived. My hustle is quite mediocre.
I have been ridiculously entitled, so much so that I look at myself sometimes and think, goodness gracious, who do you think you are? The sky will be falling and I will be walking around, all serene, certain that it’s going to work out. And it has. Because so many people are standing in the gap with and for me. And they do it ungrudgingly. Never asking for anything in return. The weight of the love has cracked my ego in half.
On my birthday, my best friend texted me a screenshot of two tickets she had purchased to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. My reaction was mild because I wasn’t really knowledgeable about the play. I had read the screenplay and knew that it was showing in London and apparently now in New York, but that was the extent of my knowledge. I hadn’t really thought a lot about how the play figured into the world of books. After the final book was written, I had closed that chapter of my life (save for the constant rereads and audio book listens), thinking that all that needed to be said had been said.
She has purchased tickets for an early January show. My birthday is in November, so that was two months away. I pushed the whole affair to the back of my mind as to not have to hold extended anticipation. Plus, there were enough issues in my regular life to focus on.
The closer we get to January, the issue of travel rises to the surface. I did not have any means by which to get to New York, so I didn’t want to go. I told her that I was tired of the trope of me being the poorer relation, always bouncing around on a wing and a prayer. Since I could not afford the ticket, then I would not go and she should take her husband or someone instead. Her way of dealing with these outbursts of mine was to deny them a forum. We spoke very little in the month of December; she simply emailed me the plane ticket confirmation.
January came. I flew to New Jersey and spent a week with her and her family and at the end of the week, we went into the city for the show. I had no idea that it was a two-part play where we sat through one show, left to get dinner, and then came back for the second show.
I don’t even have words for how much I loved it, so I won’t try, but I will say that I did not know that I was still capable of feeling that kind of joy as an adult and the knowledge that I am warms me on the darkest of days.
As we were leaving the theater to go get dinner, there was a boy walking in front of us with his parents. He had overheard a couple talking about the price of their tickets and the number had floored him. Repeatedly, he whispered loudly to his mother, “That paid that much for a ticket!” It made me laugh and I turned to my friend to tell her what he had said. She raised her eyebrows and said casually, “That’s what I paid.”
I felt like she had impaled me on a stake and left me suspended against the wall in that foyer. What in the world? What made her get these tickets and decide to take me, this vagabond who seems to have taken an oath of poverty for no good reason? This friend had her first child almost two years ago and had only recently started working again. At dinner, she said that she had decided months ago that this was what she wanted to do treat herself to when she got a job. I remember staring at her at one point, speechless.
I’m overwhelmed by the depth of her love for me. How she wanted to celebrate her employment was by sharing this experience with me at such a cost to herself. She could have gone with someone else and not have had to bear the full financial weight of the experience herself. But she chose to go with me.
We’ve been friends since 2011 but it was at that moment that I really understood how much she loved me and the reality is, the awareness had little to with this particular act. For years, she has gone over and beyond for me. When I moved to Guatemala, it was her who came down to help me move back and when she found out I was staying another year, she said okay and came back the next year to help me move and transition back. The love has always been there. I just haven’t always been able to hold it. I’ve been too focused on my narrative of victimhood. A love like that does not fit into my tale of unworthiness. So, I chose instead to focus on the all the things that I do to get love and how I have been rejected, glossing over the times that love has been poured over me unconditionally.
It just so happens that at the time of this particular act of love, I was not in a position to rely on my old ways of being. I have been stripped down. A few days before the show, the first day of the new year, I fell to pieces about a new round of setbacks. I was in serious trouble and didn’t know how to fix it. I had to ask for help. Help came, but it left me feeling naked. I had nothing to offer anyone. I could be of no use to anyone, not even myself. I was just there, raw and vulnerable. And in that rawness, I was able to see clearly her love and all the love I had been blind to in my commitment to past hurts.
A couple of days ago, the rug was pulled out from under me again. Well, not exactly. The problem from the first of the year had resurfaced and I had to ask someone else for help. I’ve known for some time that I was going to have to ask for help from this person and I had been delaying doing so, hoping and praying for a miracle that would allow me to not have to reach out. In lieu of a miracle, I would have accepted some achievement on my part that would have eased the pain of asking. For example, if I had gotten hired on one of the scripts that I was feverishly writing a week ago, I could say, ok hey, I need help, but no worries. It’s just temporary because look, I did something great and soon enough, I will be able to take care of myself. So I need help, but just for a little bit.
That did not happen. Someone reached out to me about a cool opportunity, but then I heard nothing more. In the meantime, the wolf was at my door and I had to ask for help. Before I asked, I took a pillow, smothered my face in the couch, and cried. When the tears eased up, I interrogated myself.
What was the problem? I have had to ask for so much help in the past few months that I should honestly be used to it by now. It makes no sense to keep falling to pieces about this same thing. Also, I knew before I asked that the person would help me and not be a jerk about it. So, indeed what was the problem?
But I had answered the question before I had asked it. I knew the person would help me. And that bothered me. My own certainty at receiving help. That certainty was at odds with my ego narrative. The story I tell myself is that I receive help, but my help is inferior to the help that other people receive. Whereas my peers can go to parents again and again, I cannot. My parents were never able to financially support my dreams. So while I have been able to do wonderful things, the ways and means has always been random. Like really random. Which had led to a great deal of uncertainty. Poor me who has had a million helping hands. How easier life would be if I had one source, one shelter I could always find refuge in when the storms of life blaze? One human source, that is. I cannot afford to be as entitled as my peers. I have to tread through the world much more cautiously because I don’t have a safety net.
That line of reasoning is riddles with holes. I am one of the most entitled people I know. Entitlement is what allowed me to relocate across the country with a few dollars and one suitcase, certain that all would be well. Entitled me is the person who, last September, when my job was wrapping up, refused to find another assistant job because I had decided that I was done being an assistant and wanted to devote the fall to rewriting my pilot scripts so that I could get hired as a staff writer this spring.
I am entitled. And I can stand to be so entitled because deep down, I know that I am loved. People show up for me all the time in the most incredible ways. And I depend on that love. It’s a love that anchors me and allows me to run at the world with arms wide open, confident that even if I get knocked down, someone will always be a port in the storm.
Crying on the couch, I could hear God’s voice so clear. Andrea, you are not alone. You have help. And not because you’re so smart, so talented, so ambitious or whatever it is you tell yourself. Quite simply, you are loved, just as you are, in all your flaws and insecurities. And you are going to keep getting knocked on your behind until I get it through your thick skull that you are loved!
I started laughing so hard and when I was done, I dried my eyes and called for help. And help arrived.
When & Why I Enter 