Fallen From Grace

It was about 16 years ago I had a conversation with someone about what Ramadan meant to them. It meant a lot. They said it was something that freed them. Made them complete. And I respected that. I learned about the Quran. It wasn’t until about 7 years later that someone in a shelter had given me a copy of the Quran for myself. A lovely Arabic woman that made Arabic tea and it was a wonderful experience. Throughout the years, I had overcome struggles and gone through things in life that would make me so excited to celebrate Ramadan coming. It was a time for me to refine myself and give myself a chance. As I did.

There were times over the years that I wanted to convert, yes. But it was because of what was in my heart. A desire for peace. Not a desire to wear a head-dress that seemed fashionable to others. Not a desire to be seen as a target. Not a desire to be singled out. I wanted to find something to conform to in where I would feel complete. Comfortable. I wanted to own my peace. And even after getting hit by the car, I went back in my brain reveling in anguish and regret. Looking on lunch break after my 5th 16 hour shift in a row and seeing a Hijab. Saying to myself

“I need peace, Lord.”

It’s about forgiveness. Which is the most that I can give the person that has done this to me. Nothing else. And I hoped and pray they would not ever come looking for more. Because there is nothing more to look for. There is nothing more for me to give them, so don’t look for it. You are lucky to have my forgiveness.

“Why didn’t you convert years ago?” It was never because of a man. It was because I wanted to be seen as a humble human being. A better mother. A better daughter. A better person. A peaceful person despite what I had endured in life. Sometimes people know what you have gone through in life and feel that although you have a multitude of talents, they must play with your life. Test your patience. Test your strength. Test your wit. Test who you are.

“I just want to make sure you’re real.”

Everyone is real. It’s more of a question of how real you are when you meet them. And how they project themselves to you and how you receive them. I wanted people to receive me as someone that was welcoming. Not someone that had been through hurt and pain and wanted to cause more hurt and pain to others.

Intrigued by the peace that they had within themselves, I decided to learn more on my own. And I did. I was single at the time. A working mom of two jobs and needed a sense of peace. I think I had been trying to find that for quite some time. I had no idea how some stayed calm in a storm and admired the strength to stay untethered by the conditions of life itself. I took note. I didn’t want to impose on their safety and security in their religion, but I found it mesmerizing. I found it intriguing. How is it that you stand so peaceful without putting things in the past? Is it God alone? Is it religion alone? Is it conformity? Is it routine? What is the ultimate reason?

I knew my last name meant something special to my mom. I know what she went through to have me. And I know what I mean to my siblings. I know what they mean to me. I know what family means. I know what love means. I know what forgiveness means. I know what it means to look in the eyes of someone that tells you that you are only worth sex and tell them that you’re worth more than that. And to deal with men that treated me like I meant nothing more than that, I was always ready to throw hands to defend my honor. To defend my name. My soul. My heart. My family. My respect. My reputation. You won’t sit in my face and tell me that I mean nothing, when the very females you idolize don’t respect dignity in other females. They never did. But you honor them, right? Not here, not in my face you won’t. So, I will fight.

I respect the fact that my mother always told me “You are nobody’s bitch. You lay down for no man. No woman. You take no shit and hold your own.” And I do. Because 9 times out of 10 you cannot handle shit for me.

But as someone that will consider how to process trauma in your mind, you begin to think to yourself:

You can disrespect me. Lie to me. Cheat on me. Exploit me. Disregard me. Shame me. Hurt me. Kick me. Beat me. Rape me. Try and kill me. Deny me. Lie on me. Disrespect me. What is it that I can do for myself?

I remember standing up for a patient in the nursing home who was being assaulted by another patient almost 5 years ago. And a coworker was making a joke about it. And I remember looking at her and saying “It’s because of what I went through almost 20 years ago and having a solid support system that I stand here today. That’s really messed up to say.”

Some of these things in the last 37 years that I have been through. A compilation of strength. No need to divulge in who the blame belongs to. They will always know who they are. Not everyone deals with seeking justice the same way. With the trauma the same way, etc. Some people never really get that chance to fight for themselves. Just like the lady in the nursing home.

Why do you think people seclude themselves so much? Because there are very very, very few people that will ever understand or empathize with what you have been through.

I personally am not going to sit here and argue with you over what I have been through.

I don’t have patience for this response:

“You haven’t been through that!”

Like I have time to sit and lie to you after I have typed 800,00 words in a blog. (*eyeroll) I would sooner want to be done with the conversation and leave. Seriously. Strength comes from overcoming milestones and experiences. And the best way to resonate with someone is not to call them a liar when they tell you something about themselves. That’s not why they are telling you. They want to connect with you and by you calling them a liar, it makes it a point if mistrust. Now they can’t trust you.

I have had friends I have told things to. Their response?

“That would never happen to me.”

“I would never let that happen to me.”

And that is one of the most selfish, damaging statements you can make to someone. So, I was glad to get rid of them for good.

I knew the man that bore that last name meant something to my mom just as well. And I don’t play as far as giving her full respect for the woman she raised to this day. The man who biologically takes ownership of me having a completely different last name can take ownership and feel just as complete. Both of them can. All three of them can. And I would stand in a room with all three of them and tell them that I understand. And to mitigate the peace, I can hyphenate my last name or remove the non-biological. But it won’t change who I am at the core. But I don’t play about my respect. My mother never asked for a dime to help raise me. I appreciate her strength. She never shamed either of these men. And I never held resentment for either of them. Honor for both for loving my mother. I didn’t like people that had something to say about the men that raised me or where my last name comes from.

It’s truly none of your business. Unless you’re trying to marry, and I highly fucking doubt that you want to marry me.

The woman who gave birth to me. For a short time, my grandmother wanting some help and then realizing it was better to allow my father to get his life in order and be the person he needs to be for his other kids and himself. Growing up, many of us were separated. My father’s children were not around all but once at a Gus Macker tournament in Buffalo as a teenager. It was the desire as a child for us to be millionaires and have a life together. Not of solitude and loneliness. I had always wanted to provide that. And the guilt from not being able to, was something that ate at my heart my entire life. My guilt for not being able to provide that for others. But as much as I try to on a daily basis, I may not succeed in the general sense with strangers. But as long as I bring something positive to your day, I am happy. That loneliness had set in. Ramadan and religion in general (leaning on a higher power) was something that gave me the strength to be ok with the disproportioned life. Not being ashamed of who I am, I sat with the regard that I need to let people know who I am. Not allow them to think they know who I am. That is something I refused to allow them to do.

I had always had respect for who I am. And in school it was the ‘sand-ni**er’ word that made me irate. They would tell me to go home and put a turban on. Go cause a terrorist attack. I would be stunned. Why would you think that this child that grew up without cable in the home, and with Christian music playing all through the house all the time would want to do something like that? Was it your projecting? And I couldn’t believe the audacity. But it wound up being the very karmic hurt in my anger later on in life that made me crumble. I didn’t handle the retribution well. And I should have. But where was there to turn when most of the world is white-owned. Especially the world I lived in. But I grew up knowing that not every white person is bad or hateful. And applied that to everyone. NOT EVERYONE IS BAD OR HATEFUL. And when some the white girlfriends would make sure that you knew they could take your black boyfriend if not your life. And yet I would go to sleep thinking this:

But they won’t take experiences.

You won’t take someone’s strength.

And although technically you can take someone’s intelligence, it’s that my heart has been inoculated against you because of your hate.

Almost as if a zombie would fight back. But it was okay for people to burn crosses in our front yard as a kid and get away with it. I would take it quite personal. Because people never bothered to ask who I was. You just felt like it was more important to exploit me. Now at 37 I tell you to leave me be to figure it out alone. Don’t come to me apologizing for hurting me now that I have had to glue myself back together and you don’t like what’s reconfigured as a result. A mechanical hardness. Get off your knees trying to apologize and propose. Stop asking me to indulge in parties that don’t honor women for who and what they are. I don’t want it. Because you come from that rhetorical atmosphere of judgement that other people derived from. You don’t take my last name and define me. You don’t take my humanity and define me. Ever. I don’t want to be seen as an object. I think everyone wants to be seen as a person. A human with value. With proportion and potential to be greater. To be more graceful. To be better.

More graceful. What does that even mean? In words? Words. Let me tell you something about words. I love words. I was taught as a punishment to go and read the Brittanica. That was revealing to my potential. Won a spelling bee and loved the ideology of being more than just a lover of books. Loved the idea of writing and that’s all you get. Is my words on paper. I don’t have to share my personal heart and mind, soul body and time with you. Unless I choose. Because suffering is a choice and so is personal space. And I am protective of my personal space as a result of what I have been through. The message is boundaries. Respect. Honor. As a child, and growing into an adult that’s what I wanted. Even in personal relationships that’s what I craved more than anything. But when I didn’t get it I didn’t think like others

“Let me flatten your tires.” That’s blessing you with my presence. My actions. My conversation. My argument.

If in fact I just sit and write and say less (and show a side of me that displays a level of aggression alone); you will be at a loss and wonder

“What the fuck just happened?”

Indeed. What happened. You. You are what disturbed my peace. And I need to show you something. Teach you a lesson. Say less. Write more.

It throws you off if you call me a hood-rat and an ignorant negro and the only place that I act like that is in a room alone. Yelling, screaming, throwing and destroying things that I have bought only to replace them. That in itself will throw you for a loop. I want it to. Because I won’t talk to you like that in person on the regular. Even when provoked, it takes A LOT. I equate it to the pressure of the Hoover Dam. And pressure creates diamonds. So even after reading what I have written in truth, what has my entire life been?

PRESSURE.

And you don’t appreciate a diamond is the point. Or the objective.

What the nature of learning from your mistakes does is keep you underground and hopefully you learn enough so that you can rise above when you have regained strength. Your mistakes do keep you low.

Ramadan meant so much to many people that I chose to surround myself with at the time. Wanting to be strategic about my work schedule. Work through things of my past and hurt. Anger not something I would dispel on other people often at all. I have typically been the type of person to run from you and run home versus run to you and confront you for making me hurt. Does it hurt? Yes. But I don’t care to allow you to have a part of me that makes you feel like I am giving you a chance although you already hurt me. I would sit with disgust sometimes and wonder how people did that. Be so forgiving to let someone come back to them so many times after hurting them over and over and over again. They tell you they hate you. They show they hate you. They act like they hate you. And you are so in debt with love, that you feel like you need their love to feel complete. I never felt like that.

I’ll paint it to you like this. I graduated in 2006. The subconscious mind is powerful. And it knows hate. And whatever it was around that time, was not necessarily around me; but I felt like I was hated. I truly did. I didn’t know why I felt that more than anything else. My grandmother had just died. And the only explanation could have come from people who knew more about things that were going on without me being “around” physically. But my being a topic of conversation is something that even in-depth perspective could have affected me succeeding in life. People don’t realize that. Going deeper, if I am sitting in my room talking about how much I dislike you; that can affect you through the universe. Simply put. Although I may not take responsibility, it’s the truth.

A friendship is a mutual choice.

And coming from a childhood where I was traumatized from an accident at a young age, I knew that as I grew up, I would need to keep my circle small. I was always concerned about what people would assume my potential would be. What would you think I could do versus what I could do. I was never part of the popular crowd. Someone that saw the beauty in those that didn’t see beauty in themselves. I understood where they were coming from. I understood what they were going through.

Because people sitting and gossiping about me would affect me subconsciously through the universe. As it does naturally. I didn’t participate in cliques and gossip. It was never something that fulfilled me. Being something that you could manipulate and play with as you wanted. An object.

An object is defined as a material thing that can be seen and touched.

Just because we can be seen and touched doesn’t mean we want to.

Objective is defined as (of a person or their judgement) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.

Subjective is defined as based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.

So much of my childhood was subjective. And I got tired of living a life like that. It was influenced by the fact that someone hated anyone with a last name like mine. Hated people with my skin color. And I don’t hate anyone. I really truly don’t. I just needed to find love for myself despite the hatred people had for me. Become more objective. Represent facts of myself. The facts being that some of the most representative parts of myself included living in my truth.

I think about that a lot from time to time. How that makes you feel when you are a subject of someone’s thoughts, hatred, conversation, or actions and you aren’t there to defend yourself.

Sitting here and there’s a knock at the door, I begin to think “No, the only person I know by that name is a childhood friend and she lives 5 hours away and we haven’t seen each other since I was 18.” But I simply said “You have the wrong person.” Irritated because I was interrupted while I was doing my knotless braids. The object of perfection can be for someone else when it comes to braids. I know societal pressure can make it so you want them to look perfect. But I could care less how they look to someone else. I am looking for something to satisfy me not putting my fingers in my hair. And the braiding is a way to strengthen the injury to my hand from playing soccer on mother’s day and falling when I had a tall boy IPA. Although what I have done in the past was travel. And if I had a car, I would have made stops to visit people and likely go to church or something else. But I decided to make the most of where I was, stationary. Be well.

XOXO,

El’Aundra