Going to Happy

"If they're mixed, a possible psycho alert goes off." -Nas (uh....?)

Go, go, go; it used to be easy.

The humidity followed by the air-conditioning and the motion of the train refollowed by humidity. In my face. Times 7.

I’m not sure why air conditioning makes me sick.

Now it's different. I wonder how I did the multiple all-nighters in college and came out unscathed. Now just one night on the bus and one day of heat in the city makes my head pound. I couldn’t get to all the apartments I planned to visit for this move back. The looks I shot to random strangers just trying to start a conversation was... not nice.

I think it’s because my body has not stopped, and my mind hasn’t reflected.

I don’t think I’m different from anyone my age; we’re all crazy with how hard and fast we go that sometimes we run ourselves into the ground.

Wake-up, work nine to twelve hours, gym, shower, dinner, repeat.

And I don’t even party or socialize much. Sometimes I wonder how we’re so lucky to get to abuse our youth like we do. I love being crazy busy, but I also notice that the days, and the weeks, and the months are starting to blend and fly and I still haven’t learned to take care of myself.

But I haven’t gotten acne and headaches for years, my knees never felt weak and I never had allergies or periods of asthma; and suddenly at 24 God (or whatever) reminds me that I’m human. It’s humbling.

 …

 "When I leave this world, I'll leave no regrets. Leave something to remember, so they won't forget,
I was here." -Beyonce

Every time I move, there is anxiety. D.C. year one was... no good, so I guess there is merit for the apprehension this time too. The reality is if I were to be sexually assaulted or physically abused, there would be no one who could give me the support I need here. No crutch.

Life moves so fast that the monotony of day-to-day living will swallow people up if they live in contentment... and boom, one day you'll be 35. There has to be goals and steps to strive toward them outside of that monotony, there has to be support and little things in relationships that mean much more than the big things. It's funny, I was waiting for that Beyonce video to come out to write this. Because this city is still scary and suppressing when it comes to dreams and wanting to have it all.

But the reality too is that home is just a 1.5 hour flight away, sometimes closer. Even after the first week, it's been like a magnet. Maybe it's because my new running shoes haven't arrived and I haven't had that release. I hope that's what it is. I can be the consummate hypocrite... how do people from countries away do it? And why am I so critical of them. That's after the jump:

"I can say I hope, it will be worth, what I give up... you don't know me I'm an introvert, an excavator." - Santigold.

I remember when Chris Brown beat the living daylight out of Rihanna. She forgave him. I think we empathize with "the plight of the ever shrinking man" in a country where women are gaining some power and some respect. And that makes people fear for their boys, it makes them uneasy.

I've been wondering where that's come from for a long time.
The collective fear of losing male entitlement when, in my opinion, it's as in tact as ever. And I think some of may come from how we, particularly men in the U.S., view how men are revered in many other nations. Whereas in the U.S. we're seemingly always fighting for women's rights.

What makes it even more complicated is that the U.S. is growing as a nation of immigrants. And whereas some immigrants come from nations which are more egalitarian, immigrant who arrived from more difficult circumstances often come from countries which are primarily male dominant. And it becomes the case that not only the men but the women retain these perspectives. I.E. Rihanna. Many women treat their men like kings, which they are, but the women aren't treated like queens. Some are just treated as disposable.

I don't announce to the world that I'm a feminist but I do recognize when I've been disrespected. It's a line that's difficult to walk, not to disrespect cultures and beliefs but to challenge them to accept the equal capacity of women as human beings. Not to disrespect what the Bible or God says about the woman coming from the flesh of a man but to simultaneously be heard as an individual.

Nor do I want to wave the "I'm well educated from an elite college" flag in front of men who are older than me when I've been minimized within the immigrant community, which happens often from their tone to their insinuations, because I'm young and I'm a woman, but sometimes it's necessary to point out the hypocrisy in their thought processes... when men or "culture" implies that I should start thinking about being "owned" by a man and being a vessel to pass on his genetics, then as a culture, dialogue needs to take place.

The way we treat powerful women and collectively want them to make themselves smaller for our comfort, i.e. Hillary Clinton, where does that come from? Who are we modeling that from? Is the American male feeling a war of emasculation against him?

I think it's more comfortable when male opinions are not consistently challenged and critiqued because then a man feels "like a man." Particularly in minority and immigrant communities where their race and ethnicity has done enough to make them feel small in this Eurocentric society. So they want to retain something, some essence of masculinity, but for a lot of young immigrant women, it's been a battle. Sometimes we keep our opinions to ourselves but we don't want to enable the harmful cycle, and to be made to feel small by our men.

The U.S. in many ways is not progressive. The way women are consistently objectified as sex objects or defined as body parts. From our hair, to our shape, to our skin, we're consistently changing to accommodate a society that is not interested in anything but looks. So we're small enough in that regard. But for some reason the same amount of empathy isn't allocated to women as it is to men. Which makes me question: Why?