10 years

"Love is not just a verb, it's you looking in the mirror." -Kendrick Lamar

I started this blog about a decade ago, a decade where I'm growing to understand more and more that the majority of people are moments in time that help to connect the puzzle of life. From friends to lovers, that understanding of how life evolves has created a sense of resiliency where there is less vying to be at tables that were not built for me or to be in situations that were never supportive of my growth.

I could have been in rural North Carolina or Africa, making choices about love and marriage that Buddha prevented, but instead I am building and rebuilding as a woman in Boston, learning lessons about love and loss again of course, being also seeing that each one hurts less because of the bigger picture.

As Drake says, "Don't give them no more chances, ooh girl they had their turn
Everything for a reason, there's things you had to learn from them." 

I sense that this is the decade where I lay down some roots, start a new love, have children, get my own dog, and take on leadership at the workplace that would have been previously un-imagined. This is the decade where those things are spoken into reality and I know that I cannot be held back because I've put in the work and the building blocks to love myself despite the closed doors and the difficult conversations.

This is the decade of the two-page resume.

Realizations

I wrote so much about hyper-masculinity and Black masculinity, beginning with the young students who I teach and the men that I love and I saw the growth in slowly and very surely realizing that hurt is not the responsibility and burden of women of color and men, just as any flawed group, need to either ask for help or to do their own work. I realize that there is naturally pain. What is not ok, is for that pain to be passed on to the people who did not cause it, and what is even less ok is for society to enable toxic behavior.

I went to therapy a few times.  That was illuminating and nice... also expensive and socially exclusive. And problematic.

I tackled my fat-phobia that was likely passed down from a combination of being scolded for my curves early on with media, with overcompensating for it in my early 20s in order to gain the acceptance of white people. And along the way, I definitely passed on that judgement and trauma. I want to thank the people in the past 4 or 5 years who called me out for it. I love my body now, when it's thin, when it's curvy, any shape, any size, but I've also grown to love all bodies. It took a long time of being really damn shallow but, I think in my upper 20s and 30s, I see fully that beauty and connection comes within a person. 

I am Black. I'm not kind of Black. I'm not maybe Black. I'm not less than Black because I grew up in a Vietnamese family. I'm biracial and I'm Black. Ooop. My ancestors didn't fight all the battles they did for people to say "nah, you don't get to claim that." Being older also comes with being able to claim and not hide who you are. I have always been Vietnamese but in this decade, I have said in people's faces that I too, am Black. I will go to BSU. I will fight for African American rights. I will acknowledge the numerous privileges that come from being lighter and having different hair texture and having men be kinder because of their yellow fever but I won't belittle myself and erase a part of myself. Black is Black.

Further, it's ok to love people of color and to fight for things that are important in communities of color. It's ok to want to be with your community and to love those within your community. I love Black people. I love Vietnamese culture. I am not colorblind. It's important not to be silent, more now than ever, particularly in the age of Trump and white supremacy. Moderates or those who don't take a stance on things are on the side of oppressors. What I value in my students today that I didn't realize until well into college, grad school, and today is that waiting to claim your dignity in order to make others comfortable is bullshit. Equality shouldn't wait. Seventh and Eighth graders who see their families in fear of deportation know it's shit, and we should too. 

White supremacy must be dismantled.

Women are wonderful. Women are the foundation for all good things. The conversation around women need to include Trans women!

Most importantly, while I have clearer boundaries. I believe I'm also kinder and more loving. I have more joy than I ever had, a greater sense of self than I ever had, and a greater appreciation for all I've been given. I may not have the house on the hills with the cute hubby and the cuter Blasian baby YET (it's happening), BUT I have my joy and my life and and my kickass family and beautiful friends and experiences of love that I have grown from and continue to grow from.

To a new decade.

<3 MyMy