At some point in our lives, our parents will fail us. I don't think my parents failed in especially huge or or unique ways, but I also couldn't call my childhood a success except that I am still here and still loving. Into the gaps left by our communities and families, some of us learn to stuff art to help with raising us. There are albums and poems and stories that fostered me when it looked like I had been left to fend for myself. These are now roots as deep and firm as anything else that raised me. In some ways, they are more real because they shaped my inner life and even as I drop off talking to my family to a few times a month, I carry that inner life at all times about to spill over and no living person can take credit for it. 

For example, Bradbury didn't send me his stories to keep my mind safe. He wrote them for his own curiosity. But Bradbury's work found me and saved a part of me that would have surely been lost if not for that meeting. U2 and Thrice didn't compose music for me. Joss Whedon didn't direct for me (and I'm not even sure I'd like him in real life). Emily Dickinson and Zora Neale Hurston wrote in their own time and places and died before my parents were born. None of these artists will ever know my name or the demons that they saved me from, but they saved me none the less. They raised me in the moments when I was left to raise myself. 

And I do mean "raise" in a literal if abstract sense. There are artists who you enjoy and there are works that raise you up. They did more than just educate me. They validated my experiences and my creativity. Bradbury was a shield against the assault of "reality" which was really just a small piece of a whole. Without him, I surely would have suffocated some vital piece of myself. The Beatles were much the same. And ever since then, I have been seeking out shields and props to keep my inner life from getting beaten down and trodden upon. This world is only too ready to do that. 

I've added to their number over the years. Paulo Coelho, Anne Lamott, Nayirrah Waheed, Joy Harjo, Bell Hooks, Asimov, Neil Gaiman, capoeira, Jose Bonino, Oscar Romero, Gregory Porter, Janelle Monae, Laura Mvula and so many others. I don't know who I would be without them. And that's humbling to think about.

Family Responsibility

It starts so young. And I can't remember if this is a memory I actually have or a memory of you that I have fashioned from watching dozens of first born children being taught to hold their newborn sibling while their parents say, "are you going to be a good big sister? are you going to take care of the baby?" You'll probably do it to when your second child is born. And in that small way, you'll participate in the long history of eldest siblings receiving their younger siblings as small, helpless bundles and being ushered to protect, care for, and to take responsibility for them. 

If I have children, I will charge the younger ones to take care of the older ones just as much as the older are tasked with caring for the younger. It may not make the burden equal and may not avoid the mistakes I made, but at least then the younger ones won't be surprised that the eldest feels responsible. 

But like I said, I don't know if this is what our parents did. I do remember more clearly what came after. See, you don't remember our parents being married. You were 3 when they split. I was 7. And I remember the prelude to the divorce -- the shouting, the way you cried and it took a long time for the adults to look your way because they needed to finish shouting whatever they were shouting or wait for you to get louder before they'd comfort you. But I was there and comforting you was the only thing I could distract myself with. 

I was 5 years old the first time I found dad crying. I don't know why he was crying exactly. All I know is that I found him in the garden racked with deep sobs. And when I asked him what was wrong, he told me about his father and the abuse and I comforted him. This is the moment that I know that I was never going to have a childhood like normal children, whatever normal is. I was 5 years old and here is my dad telling me about his abuse, how it still hurts him inside and making me swear that I will always ask for help if someone treats me or you that way. 

 It's only in adulthood that I wonder if he had these conversations with his other daughters or only his firstborn. And maybe this is why I am the protector and the fighter that I am today. This early knowledge of the world being askew. This first look at a trauma that would define so much of our lives. This deep and desperate longing from my dad to be loved but being so afraid that all love is like his father's love. This task of protecting myself and you from people like the grandfather we would never meet. The way he would always after this strive to not be his father even though that would often mean that he was no kind of father at all. 

And then the divorce. I laugh now at how stupendously understated the divorce was. But I can picture where I was standing near the front door of the house near Woodland Park with mom who I think surprised herself by picking this moment to have a conversation that she must have been dreading enough to need to sneak up on. She told me that her and dad would no longer live together, that it wasn't my fault, and that I would need to choose who to live with. And I know that I almost said dad but that I changed my mind at the last second. But more importantly, I would go back to this moment again and again in the years to come and wonder what would have happened if I had made a different choice, what life would have looked like. After years of trying, I cannot imagine living full time with dad. He has never been that consistent, sleeping through the time to pick us up from school, forgetting which day of the week it was, skipping Christmas, and so on. But maybe you would have thrived more at his house than at mom's. No one asked you since you were a toddler. I wore the weight of that decision around my neck every time our stepdad lashed out at you.

So here we are. Me not even 10 years old yet and you just learning to talk and already I am making decisions for the both of us. Already I am dad's caretaker and confidant. Before he started dating again, it was me who comforted him and made sure the gaping vacuum of needing to be loved was filled. This would go badly for us later when I would grow up enough to shy away from such unhealthy boundaries, from giving my approval and unconditional acceptance to someone who would give me so little in return. The guilt from how this hurt me would eat him up long after I had done the work to forgive him and rebuild myself. But that is still 10 or more years in the future. It hasn't happened yet.

As we grew up we would only add to my responsibilities as the oldest. For the most part, I would take these on eagerly because I was so desperate for both encouragement from our parents and for some amount of agency over the chaos that surrounded us. So I became a planner and a forecaster who knew not only both of our schedules but also how to predict and navigate the many volatile moods of both our dad and stepdad. I became versed in how many ways all 4 of our parents could break the English language into dialects so that each was incapable of communicating without me to translate. I learned what information was vital to pass along and what I should leave out. 

And with every twist and turn of our upbringing, I took on whatever responsibility I was asked implicitly or explicitly to take on. I remember feeling at times like I didn’t have a choice and at other times that while I did have choices, they were all garbage. There was no good or perfect option. So I tried to hurt as few people as possible and forge something like stability but I was faking it. Always. And to make it easier I told myself that what I wanted and what I needed didn’t matter. And in a way, they didn’t. Or they couldn’t. If I had let my needs and wants matter, I would have fallen apart. I used to fantasize about getting a terminal illness so that I could have a reason to rest and give up on trying so hard. But I remained healthy so I kept trying long after it was healthy or good.

When our stepdad started picking on you, I found my voice. You might not remember, but I was pretty quiet growing up. I would have liked to remain that way. But our stepdad made silence intolerable. I couldn’t stand his arbitrary rules or watching him tear into you. And then dad started changing before he was diagnosed with diabetes and the mood swings that would come with high blood sugar and alcohol and I needed more words and more bravery for that too. So I learned to fight, to protect, to communicate. Over and over again I learned the price of not speaking up and I began to resent paying it. It's ironic now that our family wishes I was quieter because they made sure that there was never any hope of that.

Do you remember the day our stepmom found out about dad's affair? How I packed the bags so we could escape? And how dad came to me afterwards seeking permission to divorce her? How he stayed and pretended to work things out? And all that time I wondered if I had chosen badly. If I should have let him go. I was 11 or 12 when he asked that. The next 6 years were a brutal unraveling of their marriage. I realize now that dad might not have talked with you about his marriage in the same way. And he probably didn't ask permission to leave our stepmom. Just like he didn't ask you what you thought when he moved away. And I know you wish he had asked at least about that, but I never wanted the responsibility of being his conscience or confidant. Still he asks about you and our younger sister to this day and I know his implicit question is for my approval and validation that he has done something right, anything at all. But my opinion has never mattered or made things better. It's all of the responsibility without any of the power you think might come with it. 

I could go on. All of these memories are tangled up like thick spiderwebs and once I start wandering through them, it's hard to stop and extricate myself. I have years of feeling responsible but powerless stored up in these bones. I was pantomiming adulthood and parenting by imagining what I wished I had. And I didn't want any of that burden. It was so lonely. But I had to try to make things better. Because if I gave up on that, I wasn't sure that life was worth living. And so, in some way, taking care of you and our other sister kept me alive. And I've always been grateful for that. Not that you can't be hurt by my failings. You have been and I accept that. I did the best I could and it's ok that it wasn't enough for you. It's ok that you're angry. But don't ask me to apologize for trying.

Turning 30 has had me more than a little introspective. I've started several journal entries, notes and blogs as I think about my 20s, as I celebrate them closing out. I enjoyed my 20s more than my teenage years. But truthfully, that's not saying very much. Even though I have tried to embrace my growing up, to confront the wounds it left me, and to celebrate the peculiar strength it imbued me with, I breathe a sigh of relief with every year I put between myself and those dark years. I would feel guilty for that if it wasn't such a stark, unchangeable truth. I would apologize if it felt like something I had agency over. But I feel that relief like a breath inhaled in the quiet of a yet undisturbed morning. 

I went through my 20s hoping for answers, for permission, and for validation. I found only the crumbs of those things and I had to learn to make those crumbs enough or go without. 

Answers. I thought I would be taught by some outside force what I was meant to do with this life, what I was good at, and what I wanted. This last decade has been a slow peeling back of layers as I discover that no one, not even God is going to answer those questions. That I have to answer those questions as honestly as I can. That I have to mine the answers from deep inside of myself. I may receive help or encouragement from any number of sources, but I will never receive a meaningful answer from an outside source. 

Permission. I wanted to be interesting. I wanted to make things. I wanted to matter. I wanted to have a career or hobbies that I was deeply passionate about and that made my soul hum with purpose. And I was waiting for permission. It wasn't until I was first working in a job that could have been my dream job had the people not been so miserable and then fired from that job  (and relieved to be fired)...only then did it occur to me that permission wasn't something I was ever going to get. In fact, the whole idea of permission was a little bit of a farce. There are just people who do things and people who don't. There are people who follow their gut, plans, and/or heart and people who wait for someone to tell them what to do. And what happens when what you're told is "no"? What if, over and over again, no one gives you permission to be yourself?

Validation. Again, I wanted to be interesting, to make things, and to contribute in a meaningful way. But 2 out of 3 of those things are highly subjective. And I was waiting for an outside source to accept my contribution. I wasted a decade on judges who don't exist. I wasted a decade waiting for "someone" (anyone) to recognize my skills and contributions as unique and meaningful. And that waiting made the rejection in my career heavier than it would have been if I had chosen more carefully who got to have input on my worth. 

I mourn the way I wasted so much of this decade appealing to people and things that were not qualified to give answers, permission, or validation. But I celebrate with hope the idea of having learned better. And I know that many people in my life will look at who I was in my early 20s and miss her. My insecurity, my eagerness to mold myself into whoever and whatever someone needs me to be, my bone deep need to be useful. And that knowledge gives a small sense of dread to the next decade because I know that I have left those things behind. I do not need everyone to like me anymore. I don't need to be understood. And I'm not so desperate for validation. I've learned how to make do with the questions and answers that I have. And I know myself so much better than I ever used to, my limits, my unkindness, my generosity, and my selfishness. I take comfort from knowing that while I may be less likeable to the passing stranger (or even to family members), I am more at home in my skin than I have ever been. And when people don't understand me, it's their job to ask questions instead of always and only my job to make myself understood.

Austin Channing Brown

I wanted to write something today. I've got words rolling around trying to come together. But then I opened my email and read the newsletter from an author I respect immensely, Austin Channing-Brown. And her words settled my rolling words. I want to include them here, because they talk about me (and a lot of folks that I know). They speak to something I have struggled with for a long, long time. 

"As someone who pursues racial justice as a speaker and writer, I am regularly faced with questions- immediate, emotional questions. Sometimes they are questions folks have been sitting on for awhile- especially when the question is situational. But for the most part, I hear the questions before there is a filter, before they’ve been completely thought through. So if you have heard me live or virtually, you know I do not give short answers to questions. And I dont want to. I give loooong answers because I want to offer folks not just a quick response, but a framework, examples, context, metaphors…. anything I can do to deepen our learning together. But in doing this, I sometimes run the risk of accepting the premise of a question that should be challenged.

For example, before the pandemic I gave a lot of lectures at Christian colleges. And almost without fail, a student would ask, “Can you make the connection for me between the Gospel + race + justice.” Because this is an extraordinarily common question from white evangelicalism, I often responded with examples or a list of authors who have been addressing this topic forever. I mean, the list is long, folks. But there was one day, when a student asked with all the earnestness he could muster (and I am a sucker for students who lean all the way in while Im speaking or who laugh at my jokes), so I was ready to give him a 10 minute master class. And just as I started to move backward to the white board behind me (I mean I was about to lay it out, yall), I paused. I realized there was something about the premise that needed to be challenged. This is what I said instead:

“I get this question a lot, and I want you to know there are many wonderful books written on this topic. You should check out Brenda Salter McNeil, Lisa Sharon Harper, Drew Hart, Jemar Tisby. If you want to go further back you should read James Cone or Howard Thurman. And if you want to talk about the relationship between white evangelicalism and (in)justice there’s another set of books devoted entirely to this topic. But what I want to tell you is that I only get asked this question at predominately white, Christian institutions. The Black church doesn’t ask this question, because by the time we get to the second book of the Bible there is a whole story dedicated to God freeing the enslaved. And this is important. I want you to understand that while you may be “wrestling” with the connections, there are people of color in this room and far beyond who have never known any other kind of Gospel except one that easily and obviously encompasses social justice.”

I needed to challenge the premise that the connections between the Gospel + race + justice are difficult to find, or require “wrestling” at all.

I share all of this because I’ve come to fully realize that there is another question I receive without fail from nice white people in corporations, nonprofits, schools and churches that I need to start addressing differently.

Here is the question: How can I overcome my fear of speaking up?

Of course the question is not always framed this exact way. [See also: How can I start using my voice as an ally? What do I do in xyz situation? In what ways can I be an ally to my coworkers of color?] But regardless of how the specific words change, the premise of the question typically remains the same, which is: I am scared to speak up, and I need to know how to overcome my fear.

I am no longer accepting the premise of the question.

Dear Nice White People, its time for you to honestly answer the question, “What are you afraid of?” because there is a reason you are scared to speak up and its not some vague notion of inability.

Let me get you started.

You are afraid to speak up because you know there will be repercussions for doing so. How do you know this? Because you have been watching it happen. You are not afraid of a ghost in the closet or a monster under your bed. You are not a child afraid of some intangible, imaginary outcome. You are afraid of being on the receiving end of the oppression you have witnessed.

You are afraid they will talk about you, the way they currently talk about your Black, female co-worker.

You are afraid that you will no longer be invited to the secret white people meetings where decisions are being made.

You are afraid that you will fall out of the good graces of those with power.

You are afraid that you will be labeled “the problem,” the person who is “not a team player,” the one who is going to ruin a good time.

You are afraid of not being invited, of not being favored, of not being liked because there are benefits for being liked.

You are afraid of challenging the system, the supervisor, the policy, the conversation because you have participated in the destruction of others and now you are afraid that you, too, will be destroyed.

If you are afraid, then you know there is danger in speaking out. And if you know its dangerous, you have either been complicit or you have been a willing participant in allowing others to face that danger alone.

You see, Nice White People, you have believed your lie longer than anyone else. You have believed that you could maintain the status quo, reap the benefits thereof, and if you are nice to people of color perhaps they wont notice. But we can see you. We can see you better than you can.

We can see how you always manage to fail up. We can see how you use niceness to make yourself feel better about the injustice(s) you’ve witnessed. We can see how you have taken positions, created positions, skipped over qualifications and done all manner of systems changes to get what you want when what you want is whiteness. We have seen how you manage to find your voice when you are asked to praise the system or enforce the system or justify the system.

And your weaponizing of niceness is so complete that you get mad at us, when we reject your niceness. You are mad when you apologize privately for something done publicly and your apology is rejected. You are mad when no one makes you feel better for confusing the only two people of color in your department for the fourth time. You are mad when no one wants to have coffee with you to discuss how your niceness sickens them. You are mad when you don’t get a pat on the back for your niceness. You are mad because we see your niceness for what it is- a desire to believe you are good, even as you uphold a system that oppresses.

And then I come speak at your MLK celebration, and suddenly your niceness takes the form of shyness, frailness, an inability to know how to speak up, a feigned ignorance that allows you to believe that the reason you wont speak up is because you don’t know how… when the core issue is that you don’t want to speak up because you know it will cost you.

If you really want to be in solidarity with Black people, it’s time to answer the question: What are you afraid of? Release all the bullshit answers about your own frailty, and get honest. Your hands are dirty. And they wont ever be clean unless you start being honest about the dirt you’ve been involved in or witness to.

Your niceness serves only you."

If that's not a word, I don't know what is. I feel pressure to be nice. And some days, I want to be nice. But, increasingly, I have found that being "nice" is not the same as being "kind" not to mention honest. The are often at odds. All sorts of dishonesty hides behind niceness. But there are penalties for not being nice. There are penalties for choosing to speak up about injustice, especially to white people who want nothing more than to focus on their small lives and ignore the suffering of black and brown siblings. They'll never say it that way. But that's what they'll communicate with their complaints about how you make "everything so political" or how "angry" you are. Or how obsessed with social justice you are. With the way they have zero curiosity about what their role in helping to address injustice could be. 

The consequences can be especially pronounced if those white people are your family or your supervisor. And it is lonely. I think the loneliest thing I have ever done is choose to not uphold empty "niceness". And that is wild to me. Nearly unfathomable. In all my upbringing, I was never prepared for what happened if you stopped being "nice". Which is another way of saying "quiet about the things that make people uncomfortable". Another way of saying, "don't rock the boat even if the boat next to you is sinking". Another way of saying, "love your neighbor and your enemy, but do not defend or protect them." Another way of saying, "it is normal for some people to suffer more than others." And what kind of love is that? It has taken me at least a decade to fully realize how profoundly unloving "niceness" can be. 

I keep thinking of Cain and Able. God is looking for Cain and Able but Cain is hiding because he killed his brother. When God finds Cain, he finds him defensive and evasive. Am I my brother's keeper? And I can't help but hear so many people close to me responding to the injustice around them in the same way. Am I the keeper of Black lives? Am I the keeper of immigrant health and wellness? Am I the keeper of my brother even if my brother is gay or not a believer? Am I my brother's keeper even if the problem and solution are political? A thousand times yes.  Your brother's blood cries out from the ground. 

When I was 18 or 19, I told my mom that if I ever had a tattoo one of my options would be to get the word "impossible" tattooed between my collar bone and shoulder to help me remember how many things I had already done that shouldn't have been possible. She told me that I was being arrogant. 

And that was probably the first time that I realized that she did not understand as well as either of us thought what a war my growing up was. At 19, it felt like a miracle that I was alive and still happy and hopeful. And I wanted to remember that feeling of having made it to adulthood. Despite the statistics of young girls from broken homes, despite the years casual sexism in my school, despite many long nights strategizing about how to organize and survive my upbringing, I became an adult and achieved a new level of autonomy. Nothing I have done since has ever been as hard as growing up.

Now, at 29, the list of miracles grows. I'm so proud of how I have handled my trauma. I'm proud that I still talk to everyone in my family and that I have become the kind of daughter who will reciprocate whatever kind of relationship my parents are willing to build within the boundaries of what is healthy for me. I'm proud that I know what those boundaries are. I've survived a failed career and the harassment that came with it, but I'm still me and still growing. 

It's still a miracle that I am alive, capable of happiness and hope. I've known anger and disappointment that I thought would consume me, but there has always been a voice inside that knows much more about endurance than I thought possible. Part of me wishes that I had gotten the tattoo. Part of me still might. There are still a lot of "impossible" things to do.

I Took God's Name Out of My Mouth

I took God's name out of my mouth because I wasn't sure that I was using it correctly. I imagined Isaiah with the burning coal that cleansed his lips and I swallowed and, in swallowing, scorched my insides. 

I took God's name out of my mouth because I wasn't sure He wanted to be called. I imagined Deborah and thousands of other women who walked with him in confidence. 

I took God's name out of my mouth because I wasn't sure that there was anything I could say that would help. And I imagined Job's friends whose best advice was their silent patience before they said anything at all. 

My prayer day and night has been that God would be patient with my questions, my doubt, my pain. My promise has been that I would not leave unless he sent me away. I know plenty of people and churches who would have sent me away.  But I remembered Ruth and Hagar whom God kept. So I listened to my questions but did not look for answers yet. And I listened to the doubt, the pain, the fear. I did not send them away. I let my bones rattle and I did not ask them to stop.

All this time, he has not sent me away. Hope has been rising and I have been learning a new way of being with God. I am making peace with my questions even when they don't have answers. And I am learning to live in this body, in this time with a God who blesses me even when I do not speak his name. There's a new intimacy even as I haven't found all of the words yet.

You can repeat, "I am grateful. I am grateful." to yourself like a meditation but if what you're grateful for is hurting you, your "I" will get smaller and smaller. One day, you will be just a vague wisp of gratefulness with barely any person-hood left. 

When you finally stop smothering your heart in drummed up gratitude, the weight of being will likely knock you down and you will wonder if you are strong enough for all of this existence. When the dark corners inside yourself are no longer closed off with fear. When there is no path in your mind that you have not traveled. When all of your emotions sit at the table as equals. When wholeness matters as much as holiness. At that time. In that place. The real work begins. 

It's scary. And it will be made scarier by the fact that people will fear you, fear for you. They will worry about your soul and your sanity. They will miss the person who was just thankful to exist instead of this new person who comes screaming into existence asking for health and wholeness, for boundaries and abundance. They will miss their expectations. They will miss your tranquility. They will miss how they used to understand. You will miss that too. 

There will be grief so great that you cannot imagine edges to it. I don't actually know if there are edges to it yet. But I trust that there are, because I refuse to believe that the only permanent thing is this feeling of loss. 

But the truth is you cannot bring them with you. No matter how much you love them. No matter how much they love you. This is the hardest lesson I've had to learn about my friends and family. I'm someone who used to think that communication and education could solve everything. That ignorance was always overcome by information. That differences could always be reconciled if you explained yourself. But I have spent long enough trying in vain to prove that point. 

You can't make them curious. And you can't answer the questions they're not asking. 

You can't bring them with you. Not on your back and not on your strength of word or will. But if you're on a similar journey, you can walk together. 

I'm reaching a point where I don't have the energy to explain or defend my thoughts and beliefs to folks who aren't curious. Most days, I also don't have the confidence. I'm realizing that explaining and explaining isn't a sustainable mode of living. So I'm looking for folks already on the same journey and for folks invested enough to ask questions and share the burden of vulnerability. But I'm also grieving all of the relationships that didn't turn out how I thought they would. Not just the people I've lost, but also people that I expect to lose. Not just the people who left, but the people who stayed but didn't stay close.