Lessons on Love, Maine, and Women

In the last few weeks, I've felt honored, inspired, rejuvenated, strengthened, humbled, and gratified, not only by professors and accomplished academics at my new home, but mainly by my colleagues and fellow students who fight so hard for what they believe in.

However, to get anywhere in life is an agglomeration of steps, events, and people. Specifically for me, it was also about place.

Maine.

I wouldn't have gotten here if it wasn't for Maine. I wouldn't be at this prestigious institution if it wasn't for the special kind of resilience and subsequent reward Maine provides a woman of color in a slowly diversifying state, in numbers but, perhaps much less so in privilege and empathy.

I always like to say I lost 'me' in fourth grade when I transitioned from a community school and went into a middle class, all white school. And while the intensely homogeneous Lyseth provided amazing academic and intellectual resources that undoubtedly gave me a leg up, it was the first time in my life I became shy. As my overwhelmingly charismatic father's and awesomely bubbly mother's fun and loud kid I was, as Kenji Yoshino would argue, covering multiple parts of my identity to make the 99 percent comfortable with me for the first time. Implicitly at that age, I understood what I didn't have the language to communicate.

Reintegrating back into my Asian and Black roots was a forcefully deliberate act from teenage years all the way through D.C. So returning to Maine in adulthood to a white academic institution (UNE), an education program that was completely white besides me, white colleagues, white supervisors, it took me a few years to find my footing, to feel like I've made friends, to see that I've met people I can share a laugh with.
And more importantly, my dreams with.

But because I am now a woman in my late 20's and not the timid girl I was in fourth grade or the confused freshman at Colby College, the connections and friendships did come and for the last year, they've been so valuable, so humbling, so grounding.
I will hold that support and love in my heart in this moment in Boston/Cambridge and forever on.

Maine has taught and solidified many valuable lessons:

1. My family is astonishing, there's nothing above them. Any success my brother and I enjoy is entirely theirs.

2. Students are more introspective then people give them credit for. They internalize a lot of the world's messed up messages but they really value learning. Cynical people say young people can't appreciate others, nothing could be more false. They may posture and they may question themselves but young people remind me the importance of showing love and appreciation all the time. They are beautiful souls. They are a breath of fresh air. They are funny as hell. I miss them already.

3. Oldest friends and best friends aren't synonymous, and sometimes it's better to let go.

4. People can come from different walks of life, with different politics, and different religious beliefs but at the same time, be people you love. I've learned how to compartmentalize how to love others who are different than me because I recognize that they've had to do that too. What all of us flawed people have in common is a desire for connection and for creating a loving world.

4a. I enjoy people who are authentically themselves. Nothing is more refreshing. However, I would remind myself and urge others to love hard but to never settle for being with someone who is not working to fight for justice the way you do.

5. Friends can break your heart too.
Eventually it heals, and the love remains.

6. Being strong is overrated. We push that concept on certain people and certain groups. Being human is underrated. No matter if you're a woman of color or a breadwinner, you deserve to let the load down and feel nothing but your head on your shoulders occasionally. Strong people still deserve love and compassion. Strong people still deserve to have their hearts nurtured. Being strong alone is not a thing. We must support our foundations.

7. Passion and intelligence are not mutually exclusive. 

8. Sometimes a girl has to bite the bullet and speak her mind. It was a hard pill to swallow at 24, 25, 26. It engendered setbacks, fears, minor injustices, but eventually there came some folks who saw it, who believed it, and who respected me more as human for having the guts to go there. Along the way there were some bridges I set ablaze. I understood that there are people who won't listen and won't tag along on my journey to bravery and betterment, but I'm going to keep going still. 

The sacrifices are real but more so are the limitations for not speaking up.

9. I like who I am and I like who I'm becoming which is hard for some people. Not because they're not well-intentioned but because people want to feel needed. They want their place, their importance, in other people's lives to be secure. They want to feel seen. They want to be loved but they can't come to terms with the concept that love and need are different.

10. Maybe the most indisputable lesson I've learned is that women have always been my life blood.
They are the raisers, the protectors, the supporters. People ask why I fight for the girls, because for me, it's always been women who rolled up their sleeves and fought for me.
The food on my table: women.
Support system: women.
My letters of recommendation from high school to college were from women.
Keeping my sanity and motivation in college: women.
From college to multiple jobs: more women.
Mentorships at those jobs: women.
L.O.R's for grad school and then, presumably the most prestigious school, women.
They are the ones who stare me in my face and tell me what they expect from me, and how they expect me to feel about myself, and they refused to accept "no" for an answer

I need to raise more girls to feel that way, because many extremely intelligent women, don't. Many glorious women internalize harm as inability and then look to men for the 'ability'. And even most men who tattoo the words progressive/liberal/feminist onto themselves just tend to talk for and over the women who do the work. Again with the conditions and the need to feel validated.

I love everyone, from all religions, races, regions, classes, and genders/sexes. Maine has reminded me of that. And I feel fortunate enough to have love from others. But the unconditional and selfless nature in which women love and fight for each other and for little girls is breathtaking.

Thank you Robin Shafer, Heather Sadlier, Rebecca Dadmun, Kristen McWilliams, Tarja Raag, Lane Clarke, Winifred Tate, Melantha Stith, Kristen Tedesco, Erin Partridge, Tracy McGhie, numerous badass girlfriends, my aunts raising amazing bi and triracial children of color, but above all, my mother and grandmothers who taught me to love despite color/race/background, to always see heart, and to kick ass and take names.

Many folks in Vietnam wanted boys in the 80's but my mom's mom adored and saw so much potential in her grandbaby girl. It takes a village.